LITMIR.BIZ

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raised. To stay beside Nicholas for a few more days, living in hope and fear that he might want to...

      ‘Sir Nicholas does not need to be burdened with me when he must resolve the Pope’s request about your wedding.’

      Nicholas, he had made clear, did not want to be burdened with anyone. Even a wife.

      Then Joan looked at her again, directly, smiling, the horn comb keeping a steady rhythm against her palm. ‘You will be no burden to him. And you will be a great help to me.’

      And then, she knew. She would not be travelling to Canterbury in hopes of a cure. She would be travelling as a spy for Lady Joan.

      * * *

      Nicholas was still thinking of Anne that evening as he prepared to leave, despite all efforts to put her out of his mind. He had done his duty. Been kind. He had no further obligation. The kiss? A mistake she had been gracious enough to ignore.

      So would he.

      Tomorrow he would ride to Canterbury, free, without needing to look back in fear she had fallen off the horse.

      And when a page came to summon him to her side, he told himself it was not so strange. She must only want to thank him again and bid him farewell.

      But when he saw her, sitting on the garden bench in the fading light, squinting over her stitching, the set of her lips and her chin did not bode well.

      ‘Are you recovered from the hunt?’

      She nodded and lifted her head. Her fingers stilled. ‘What time do you leave tomorrow?’

      ‘At daybreak. The trip is long and the time short.’

      ‘Send a page when you are ready. I shall be going with you.’

      He could not have heard right. ‘What?’

      ‘I travel with you.’

      ‘Why?’ His words lacked grace, but his tongue had learned to be blunt in her presence.

      She looked away, briefly. ‘It is not...I do not expect...’

      There. Both of them tongue-tied. The kiss, the fact of it lay between them.

      She lifted her chin again, the weak moment gone. ‘We will not be alone.’

      Of course, there would be a retinue, small, but one that dignified the importance of the journey.

      ‘No. We will not.’ But temptation was not his only objection. He remembered her struggle to mount and dismount. He had no time for that now. ‘I know you wanted to travel, but I must—’

      ‘Move quickly. I know. We have already lost time waiting for the messenger.’

      She was a sensible woman and she knew she would weigh him down. Then why? Suspicion stirred. Had the kiss misled her? A smile exchanged, some pleasant words, but surely she did not think it meant more than that.

      Or did she?

      Her loyalty was to her lady. That would be his appeal. ‘I’m sure Lady Joan cannot spare you at this time with all the preparations to be made. For the wedding.’ An argument certain to sway.

      ‘It was her idea that I go. She thought, perhaps, a pilgrimage...’ She would not meet his eyes.

      A pilgrimage. Hope once more for a cure.

      Guilt wrestled with duty. How could he refuse this woman, or anyone so afflicted, the hope of a visit to the shrine of a saint? Yet the journey to Canterbury would take at least seven days, though he had hoped to push the horses faster. That would be impossible if she rode with him.

      He swallowed a sharp retort and searched for careful words. ‘So you have not gone before? On pilgrimage?’

      She shook her head. ‘No. My mother did. More than once when I was small and then...’ she shrugged. ‘We did not go again.’

      And still she limped. ‘Why do you think this time will be different?’

      She flinched, his blunt words a blow. ‘I do not. But Lady Joan always believes that all will be...

      ‘...as it must.’ He spoke the words with her.

      She smiled. He didn’t.

      ‘Yes, exactly.’

      So now, Lady Joan, with a woman’s disregard for any needs but her own, had tossed the burden of Anne’s hope to him, expecting him to catch and juggle it without dropping responsibility for her own happiness.

      And if he did not walk away this minute, he would say something he’d regret. ‘I must see to the horses and supplies.’ He had no time to waste arguing. He would lay the matter before Edward, tell him it was impossible to take Anne, and let the man handle his own wife. ‘And find the Prince.’

      He turned on his heel without another word.

      ‘I think,’ she said, words floating over his shoulder, ‘that the Prince may surprise you.’

      He did not look back. It was Anne of Stamford who would be surprised.

      * * *

      Nicholas found the Prince at dice, collecting from a winning throw, in a better mood than he had feared.

      The Prince and his lady were sleeping separately now, as the Pope had ordered, and Edward was counting the days until they could be wed again. He would brook no delay in getting official approval, even if Anne believed otherwise.

      ‘My lord, we leave at dawn.’

      Smiling, Edward clasped Nicholas on the shoulder. ‘Godspeed, my friend. Safe and speedy travels.’

      ‘But you are joining me.’

      He shook his head. ‘You need no help from me. Joan and I will look forward to seeing you back again soon.’

      A trip well planned unravelling before it had begun. Was it faith in Nicholas or fear of the pestilence that held him back? No, the explanation was probably simpler. What had Anne called it? Want. The undoing of many men, including his father.

      ‘My travels will not be as swift as I had planned. One of Lady Joan’s ladies thinks to travel with me.’

      He was gratified to see the Prince look surprised. ‘Who? Why?’

      ‘Anne.’ He put an upward lilt at the end of her name, as if he were unsure of it. ‘Hoping for a cure for her leg. She said Lady Joan suggested it.’

      Edward met Nicholas’s frown with a smile. ‘How kind my wife is. Always thinking of others.’

      This was not going as he had hoped. Did love make all men such fools? ‘Do you want her to go to the shrine or do you want your answer quickly?’

      Edward’s frown was brief. ‘If Joan wants her to go, then go she shall. I have every faith that you can handle one lame woman as well as the Archbishop. It can be no more difficult than the four hogsheads of Gascon wine you had to smuggle out of the priests’ quarters in St Thierry.’

      He wished, for a moment, that the Prince had less faith in him. Here was where Nicholas’s pride had led. He made it look so easy, so Edward did not understand the difficulties.

      Or did not admit that he did.

      While he was still marshalling arguments for the Prince, he found himself, by force of habit, revising travel plans, recalculating the number of days on the road.

      ‘I can take her there and bring her back,’ he said, ‘but whether she limps or runs afterwards is in God’s hands, not mine.’

      Edward shook his head. ‘Poor maid. Joan took her on when others would not and keeps her ever close. What a treasure is my wife. How kind and gentle...’

      Nicholas let the Prince ramble. Kind to this lame woman beyond what he would expect of any mortal. Well, everyone seemed to love the Lady Joan.

      Joan

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