Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ frowned, the lines in his brow as deep as furrows cut by a plough. ‘Let us hope, for all our sakes, that there was not.’

      An odd comment. Nicholas shrugged off the worry. Nothing could be wrong. Lady Joan had been raised under the protection of the King and Queen. The stakes had been too high then.

      They were even higher now.

      ‘So if there is nothing irregular,’ he began, ‘how long will all this take?’

      ‘How long before they can wed in truth, you mean?’

      How long before I can leave this island? was what he actually meant, but Nicholas nodded. ‘The official word from Avignon is expected soon after Michaelmas.’ In less than two months.

      ‘We will be done by then. I will send word directly to the King.’ His face relaxed then. ‘I look forward to celebrating the Prince’s wedding ceremony.’ As Primate of All England, the duty would fall to him. ‘Will they marry at Windsor?’

      ‘I believe so.’ He shrugged, not caring. His work was done. He could return Anne to court and be free of all the responsibilities and complications of these last few weeks. The unwelcome feelings he had for her would fade, he was certain, as soon as he set foot on a ship.

      He bowed respectful thanks and turned to go, but as he did, the Archbishop’s summation of the document echoed in his head. The words had slipped by then, but thinking back, they clanged loud as a church bell.

      ...Holland and Joan plighted their troth before a witness...

      He turned back to the Archbishop. ‘It said vows were exchanged before a witness.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Who? What is the name?’

      Islip raised his brows. ‘Do you think to question them?’

      He had thought nothing of this at all until it became so difficult. ‘That’s not necessary, is it?’

      ‘Let us hope not. It does not list a name.’

      ‘Wouldn’t it be customary? For the witness to be named?’

      ‘It is not customary,’ Islip said, his temper short again, ‘for a clandestine wedding to be witnessed at all!’

      Not customary at all. Yet in the midst of a foreign city and a war, a twelve-year-old maiden and a twenty-six-year-old man had been careful enough to find a witness who conveniently appeared and then disappeared. Who?

      And why?

      * * *

      Anne sat in the inn’s common room all morning, stitching another new emblem for the Prince’s bed hangings, lifting her eyes occasionally to see today’s hopeful pilgrims passing by on their way to the Cathedral.

      Agatha had begged leave to go with Eustace and buy her own token of her visit to Canterbury and Anne had let her go. She suspected the maid’s sudden desire for a pilgrim’s badge had more to do with Nicholas’s squire than with piety, but their absence relieved her of the need to talk.

      Soon, Nicholas would return from his visit with the Archbishop. She could only pray he had received what he needed and that they could return to the court, where she knew what her life must be and what was expected of her and she could be invisible Anne again.

      He had seen her and did not shame her or revile her or look at her with pity. He saw her and accepted, even respected what he saw. He saw Anne and not Anne’s limp. When had anyone done that?

      Her father had seen nothing but the limp, so he wanted not to see her at all.

      Even her mother had seen her lameness first and arranged Anne’s life around it, particularly after her father had died and left them with little. When she searched her memories of her mother, all she found were worries. Was Anne safe? Was Anne in pain? How would Anne live? The entire, elaborate web of secrets, all because she did not think Anne could make a life. Not because she was Anne.

      Because she limped.

      Anne was fortunate, she supposed, that she had not been drowned like a kitten or that people had not cursed her and her mother both for God’s punishment, for there were those who still believed that such ills were retribution from God. Yet the pestilence had taken bishops and children, the evil and the good.

      But until she met Nicholas, how long had it been since anyone had touched her? All these years, alone, since her mother’s death. Years in which no one but Lady Joan would come close enough to risk brushing her skirt or her skin. She had donned invisible armour, strong enough to ward off any approach. Strong enough to make Anne herself disappear.

      While Lady Joan, the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, floated through life on a sea of admiring glances, no one saw Anne. No lingering looks lifted her gracefully through the day. No knight, no page, not even the man who emptied the night waste had ever looked at her and smiled in delight at what he saw.

      Until now.

      Yes, people had averted their eyes. So had she. She did not want to look, to know the thing.

      But this man, rife with his own buried pain, had seen that which was hidden, touched the untouchable, acknowledged what no one else would.

      Dangerous. So dangerous to be so close to a man who really saw her, beyond the obvious, beyond her limp. There were things he must not see. Things that must be as hidden as her twisted foot.

      Things that made Nicholas the most dangerous of all men.

      Late in the afternoon, sun rays slanted in the window. She looked around to check the room was empty, then raised her skirt to look at her foot, safely hidden beneath red hose.

      As Nicholas had said, sometimes the healing did not happen immediately. Sometimes, people waited near the healing shrine until they recovered. Or died.

      Maybe—

      At the sound of the door, she dropped her skirt, picked up her needle, and looked up to see Nicholas, scowling, at the inn’s door.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, not waiting for a greeting. ‘Didn’t the Archbishop find the document?’

      ‘He found it.’

      ‘Did he find something wrong?’ A question she should never have asked. Nothing could be wrong. Not after all these years.

      ‘He did not. It will be summarily blessed by a gathering of bishops, purely for the sake of spectacle.’

      ‘So all is well.’

      He growled. ‘For them, yes.’

      ‘And for you?’

      ‘There was a witness to that wedding.’

      Her heart started pounding, as if a ghost had finally escaped the dungeon she had hoped would hold him for ever. ‘How do you know that?’ Her words were as shaky as her leg.

      ‘It said so. In the petition.’

      ‘Did СКАЧАТЬ