The Rose Of Lorraine Part 17

"There is much here you are not telling me, daughter. You must temper your judgment of your eldest son. You owe Robin more respect than you show him. Does the good Lord grant you the years, Robin will be the one to care for you in your old age."

"Well, fortunately, I haven't tottered into my dotage yet, Papa. Neither have you. So how is business?"

"What interest have you ever had in that?" St. Pierre neatly deflected Bella's question. "I am more concerned for what is happening further up the coast. There are rumors of ships being readied for war. Do you know of that, Bella?"

"Not much," Bella said in all honesty. She suddenly wanted this father of Lady Isabel to look at her and realize she was not his daughter. The stern old French gentleman did look at her, very hard and sharply, but he saw nothing amiss.

That told her what she had come to Winchelsea to discover. Lady Isabel had not gone home to France. Sadly, she realized all hope that the other woman lived in this dimension with her diminished daily. The simple truth was, Bella didn't want her intuition about Isabel's demise to be correct.

"I have learned much in just this crossing," St. Pierre continued on the subject of war preparations. "And I certainly expect more information from my own daughter than what you have given me so far. You will send word to me, daughter, as soon as you have learned what day the king will set sail. The French must be prepared. Our lives and those of many of your friends and relatives may depend upon that information, Bella. You cannot betray your blood."

Silent, Bella sipped the wine in her cup and twisted the trailing ribbons of her girdle between her fingers. What say to Comte Eustace's last remark eluded her for a moment. "Well," she hedged. "I haven't actually had any opportunity to learn many facts. I don't think I am trusted."

St. Pierre snorted over her last comment. "Hmph," the old Frenchman grunted. "Chandos is a d.a.m.ned Englishman to the bone, now. He has forgotten his roots. I have yet to cease regretting the day I married you to him. Had I waited two years you could have been the d.u.c.h.ess of Lorraine."

That was an impressive missing piece of the puzzle, Bella thought. To his in-laws Sir John failed to measure up. That could certainly contribute to making a marriage fail. She knew firsthand what it was like to have a husband who had never been trusted any farther than her own father could have thrown him. But there was a world of difference between the characters of John Chandos and Ari Wynford.

"Oh, well, que sera sera." Bella finished the wine and put the chased gold goblet on the minute table. Her throat and belly was nicely warmed. The wine was potent, she realized. It spiraled into her brain as she rose to her feet. "I should go back to the beach before Queen Phillipa misses me."

"How you can put up with that grasping Hainault woman I'll never know. Bella, wait here, I'll fetch Robin to escort you back."

"No, Papa." Bella laid her hand on the old man's arm.

"I'll go back the way I came, thank you. The less time I spend around Robin the better for both our tempers. We both disapprove of what the other does. Besides, he accompanied Prince Edward here, not me."

"The Prince of Wales is in Winchelsea? Robin said nothing about that," Saint Pierre said sharply. "Do you tell me my grandson is ingratiating himself with the royal family just as his father has?"

"Robin seems to have his head well on his shoulders when it comes to royalty." Bella poked her head out from behind the screen. She didn't dare stick around long enough to drink a second gla.s.s of wine. She had no stomach for wine, one gla.s.s always went straight to her head.

The auction outdoors must have ended because now every stall in the guildhall crowded with last-minute buyers. Her newly found younger brother left his customers to give Bella an exhuberant hug. His name was James and after meeting him, Bella realized she should have recognized him immediately. Geoffrey was James Saint Pierre's spitting image, but then...so had been her own dear Iain.

She lingered a while longer reluctant to separate herself from these so physically familiar men. The comte's a.s.sistants packed the balance of his unsold wares on their boat. To Bella's eye, their ship had the look of a lake craft, too small to risk on open sea waters. Comte Saint Pierre didn't seem to know that.

They said good-byes and Bella stood up on tiptoes to kiss Comte Eustace's cheeks. "Promise me you will take care. I will come and see you soon. Au revoir, mon pere."

SUSPICIONS -17.

Bella remained on the wharf, watching the small craft sail out of the harbor. The sun was hotter than it had been in the morning. Bella sighed. It was time she returned to Smuggler's Cove. Thankfully, Lorette was where Bella had left her, tied to a hitching post with several other horses.

Mounted and turned to the long stretch of sandy beach that angled toward the west, Bella squinted at the well worn trail along the sh.o.r.e. Queen Phillipa was a good judge of distance and time. It was no more than a quarter hour gallop from Smugglers Cove to Winchelsea.

Something bothered Bella enough to make her hesitate to send Lorette cantering down the trail. Call it a case of not being able to make things add up the way they should, or just call it a premonition. Something was telling her not to travel down that path alone.

Bella immediately turned Lorette and galloped back up the sloping dunes to Winchelsea.

The little town was as crowded as it had been earlier, if not more so. Bella paced Lorette through the jammed streets, looking for the black gelding Robin had ridden this morning. She hadn't paid much attention to any of the other squires' horses, but Henri had enviously pointed out how fine a horse his brother rode.

Bella was glad the little boy had done so when she spied the destrier hobbled to a vertical post alongside of several other prime horses. The tavern-inn looked no more appealing to her now than it had the first time Bella had pa.s.sed it.

Judging from the clientele at the benches and crude tables under the chestnut trees, it wasn't the sort of place a woman should ever enter alone. Some things just never changed, Bella deducted, for sailors looked like sailors the world over regardless of century of birth. The collection of men drinking under the trees between the inn and its stables certainly looked like her idea of sailors...maybe even pirates.

They stood out for a number of good, highly visible reasons. First, they were dirty. One had a black scarf tied over his head in such a fashion that it obscured his left eye. Second, it was obvious they had been drinking heavily, possibly the whole afternoon. Four of them stared rudely at her and make offensive remarks as Bella looked once more at Robin's horse, making double certain the black gelding was the one she sought. It was.

She crossed the common yard and dismounted, tying Lorette beside the gelding, then carefully holding her skirts clear of the muck under foot, moved briskly to the wide open doors of the inn.

Inside, the vast common room was cast in stygian darkness. The smell of fish, sweat, smoke and ale rolled pungently out the door. It would be some time, Bella felt certain, before her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. She searched the cavernous interior for Prince Edward's blond head. She'd have better luck finding that bright crop of hair before she spied Robin in the dark.

"Hallo," Bella called out, "Robin, are you here?" Bella never sensed the man behind her until it was too late.

An arm clamped around her waist and she was whipped out of the lighted doorway, twisted into the darkness of an interior corner.

"And to what great G.o.d do I give thanks for dropping the Rose of Lorraine into my hands, hmm?" An accented voice purred a breathless inch above Bella's ear. "No, don't scream, sweetling. One sound out of you and the Prince of Wales is dead."

The warning issued forth in voluble French as the tip of a sharp blade nicked Bella's throat. Her outraged shout died unspoken. Instead, she gathered her wits and said, testily, "Am I supposed to know who you are and what this is about?"

"Well, of course, sweetling, but I will be the first to admit that your timing is deplorable. I have been waiting four days for you to return."

"You have?" Bella raised her hands, bracing them against the plaster coated inner wall. She felt the size and strength of the man that held her pinned. He was small and wiry, but very strong.

At last her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the interior came into clear focus. The public room's trestles and benches were devoid of customers and with good reason. The inn was hotter than a Dutch oven from the ma.s.sive fire laid in its hearth. The day's generous haunch sizzled untended.

An open staircase flush against the adjacent wall was all Bella could really see of her surroundings. Three men with long knives clutched in their hands crept up the steps.

"What are you doing?" Bella gulped out a question in shaky French. "You've made a mistake."

"Be quiet." Her captor ordered hoa.r.s.ely. "Don't worry, ma Belle, your son won't be harmed. It's the prince who has turned into the prize de jour, outshining even you, I am sad to say."

"Whatever for?" Bella gasped. "He's just a boy."

"Ah, yes, but such a prized son, hmm? Just think of the ransom he'll bring."

"You'll never take him," Bella said with perfect confidence. The fates had other plans for this particular Prince of Wales. "You're wasting your time. Take me instead."

"Hush, sweetling. Does all go well, I'll see that your needs are well accommodated once my ship is at sea. Until then, darling..." His lips skittered across the back of Bella's neck. Worse, his foul hand groped at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s causing pain. "Mon Dieu, but you are so distracting."

"So I'm told." Bella made a face at the rough wall in front of her eyes. Men were the same, predictable lot as always. She mentally measured the dolt pawing so rudely at her and came up with a not so towering height of five foot six. If she could incapacitate him for a moment or so, she knew she could have the advantage.

After all, she was a modern woman and a devoted jogger. She had taken every week's karate lessons seriously. Considering the crime rate of her day, it didn't pay not to.

She took the time to take several cleansing breaths, while her a.s.sailant's fondling literally got out of hand. He'd brought his other hand into play, lifting her skirts.

"Isn't there a more private place for this?" Bella suggested huskily, her eyes on the men posed at the top of the steps. Her a.s.sailant's breathing was anything but steady. h.e.l.l, Bella thought, this week alone I've been through worse than this!

She closed her eyes, found her center and moved so sharply, the man didn't know what hit him as Bella's elbow delivered a stunning blow to his solar plexus. His blade clattered to the dirty floor. He went flying next, over Bella's head. The sound of bones crunching when he landed made Bella cringe. How many times had she practiced that maneuver on the mats to escape the grips of a mythical mugger? But practice had made perfect and all it took was knowing how to use an opponent's weight against him. It sure sounded different in reality. The man was so incapacitate he couldn't even scream.

But Bella could. She whirled around, s.n.a.t.c.hing the long-bladed knife off the floor, screaming, "Help! Robin, Edward, Knollys, en garde a Lady Chandos!"

As a battle cry, screaming for a batch of teenage boys to come to her aid was ludicrous. The men posed on the steps to charge the loft, stared at her as if she'd gone mad.

Bella screamed again and to her relief, the loft door burst open and young Hugh Caverly charged the attackers on the stairs with his battle sword drawn.

"They're trying to kidnap the prince!" Bella screamed again. "I'll get the horses!"

She bolted out the door, repeating her warnings for the youths. She ran to the horses, ripped the reins loose and bounded onto Lorette. Some of the drunken rascals at the outdoor tables lurched to their feet.

The Prince of Wales appeared in the window of the loft, his sword drawn and his britches dangling. Robert Knollys was guarding his back. The clash of steel rang in the air. Bella found her stirrups and propelled her heels into Lorette's sides, galloping the horses under the wide open window.

"Jump!" she ordered Edward. He was taking his time tying up his trews. "Jump, d.a.m.n you! They want to take you hostage, Edward."

"The devil, they will!" He swore as he stepped out the window, a d.a.m.ned broadsword in his hand and dropped into the herd of milling, agitated horses.

Bella heard his grunt of pain on landing. She ducked out of the range of his unsheathed blade.

"Oh, holy b.a.l.l.s," Edward swore in a voice ten decibels higher than normal. Robert Knollys made a more graceful leap from the window onto a saddled horse.

Bella slapped Prince's gelding on the rump as hard as she could. "Get out of here, now!"

"Lady, you too," Knollys ordered. "Go with the prince."

"Thank you, young man, if it's all the same to you, I'll make certain Robin gets out of there in one piece. Robin, come on!" "Nay, Lady Chandos." Prince Edward recovered enough of his breath to speak. "Knollys, guard my back. I'll see that the lady is safe."

Bella's hand stung from the force of blow she'd delivered to his horse. That hadn't moved the trained animal, but when Edward smacked his palm against Lorette's flank, the Arabian took off like the favored two year old bolting out of the starting gate at Bandera Downs.

More trouble erupted in the town. The clang of the church bells and shouts of fire took the attention of the drunks away from the commotion in the inn's yard. There was some sort of an exploding sound and a pillar of smoke rising from the guildhall.

Concentrating on keeping her seat, Bella looked back over her shoulder, even as Prince Edward continued to drive Lorette and his own horse at a breakneck pace.

"'Tis pirates, lady. I thought I recognized O'Donnell when we first entered the inn. Blast me, I should have gone immediately to the garrison and informed de Burgh he'd have trouble on his hands today."

Prince Edward acquitted himself well enough on horseback, drawing his horse to a stop atop of a sandy promontory. Bella circled him, looking back to the town. She exhaled in deep relief as five recognizable riders pounded up the dunes to join them.

Hugh Caveley and Robin brought up the rear. They slowed the horses ten minutes later when it became apparent no one was pursuing them.

"There will be h.e.l.l to pay over this," Edward grumbled, still out of sorts over the way he'd landed on his saddle.

"We hadn't paid the innkeeper or the abbess."

Bella bit her tongue to keep from making any comment to that. After all, it had been her suggestion to the queen that had sent this pack of boys to town. Who was she to lecture the prince about his single-minded determination to get laid at this point? Maybe he was still a virgin and wanted to put an end to that state.

In a way, it was funny. This was now the second time she'd thwarted these boys from their intended purpose. Bella wasn't so amused she could laugh. She hadn't the foggiest idea who that man with the groping hands was...but he'd certainly known the Rose of Lorraine. A cold shudder chased down her back. By his testimony, he may very well have been the last person to see Lady Isabel alive.

If it wasn't for the sobering fact that she felt the Saint Pierres had something to do with the attack, she might have said something to Robin. She knew from historical accounts that the main occupation of knight-errants of this era was taking hostages captive and holding them for ransom. A youth of Prince Edward's importance would fetch one h.e.l.l of a ransom. He might even be used to compromise a king's war plans. This was tricky business.

Bella scowled at the sky, trying ineffectively to judge the time while mentally grappling with the Prime Directive every trekkie knew by heart. Just how much interfering with the course of history was one actually allowed to do when caught in the circ.u.mstances Bella found herself caught in?

According to late Twentieth Century lore, none.

That was the reason Bella had denied having any knowledge of the king's plans and dates for sailing even though she knew perfectly well, Edward and his undefeatable army would land in Normandy on July 12th.

Had Prince Edward been taken captive just now, would history have changed? The burden of that kind of thought was much too heavy for her mind. She wanted to be safely back in the protected clutch of royal ladies and children. A shiver worked down her back at the close call. Who was that man? Who was this O'Donnell, Edward mentioned?

Deliberately, Bella pushed Lorette ahead of the boys, using distance to isolate herself from their animated conversation. At their age, this adventure was fun and games. At Bella's, it was terrifying.

To her great relief, none of the nappers had woken yet. Needing to cool down and soothe her nerves, Bella shed her bliault, shoes and stockings and returned to the water.

She swam as far as the headland of the cove, then floated on her back with the surf, allowing the current to gently push her back to the sh.o.r.e.

She closed her eyes, awash in the swell and push of the sea. The waves worked wonders in soothing her tense limbs. Before long Bella was nicely relaxed and feeling more contented than she'd felt in years. She could float for hours, letting the current tug and pull her which ever way it ran. The trailing length of her hair was the only rudder she needed.

The sun was hot against her skin, her eyelids. She was positive she'd be a ma.s.s of freckles on the morrow, but didn't care. Ozone and ultraviolet light was now a thing of her past. Maybe this once she'd turn a nice golden brown.

Dreaming and content, she allowed only one worry to enter her mind. That was--when should she spout out a mouthful of water--if a strong wave washed over her face.

"My lady, did I not know better, I'd say you were a speckled whale."

Bella's eyes shot open and she blinked in the bright sunlight at a man on horseback looming G.o.dlike above her. She squealed, crouched in the water and felt her bottom impact on the sand.

"Sir John!" she exclaimed, shocked to find him mounted over her, blocking the sun. "What are you doing here?"

"The better question is, what are you doing there?"

Bella smoothed her hands across her head, sweeping back piles and tangles of sopping hair. "I was floating."

"Oh, aye." He nodded then offered her his hand. "Madame, do you realize you are parading about half-naked before boys of tender years?"

Bella stubbornly ignored the hand he extended to her.

"They are only children and do not have sinful thoughts. It is very natural to swim on a day such as this. You should unkink enough to try it."

A brow arched on his dark face. With the sun high at his shoulder it was hard for Bella to keep staring at him. He had some sort of hat on his head shading his eyes.

"Madame, I would dearly love to spend a pleasant afternoon idling at such a place as this. I promise you, my thoughts would not be the thoughts of innocent boys. Now, give me your hand. You will ride with me back to the castle. I don't believe I care for the Prince and the rest of the lads to see you come out of the water in all your glory. Your cotte is as transparent as Venetian silk."

Bella looked about to see where she'd come to land.

She was nicely up the cove, near the headland across the water from where she'd started floating. In the center of the beach the queen's cortege gathered up towels, blankets and baskets and repacked the lot

onto the horses. Prince Edward and his father, King Edward, were sorting out the boys, tugging shirts over blond heads and dark heads.

"My bliault is over there." Bella pointed to the distant scene.

"So it is." Sir John nodded. "Bella, give me your hand."

"Wait." She stood up, gathering hair and twisting it to wring out water. "You're going to get sopping