The cart bumped along the path to the town, and the farmer driving it whistled “Tam Lin” loudly. Undine could feel Father Kent’s annoyance with her, and she adjusted the cloak over his shoulders as a means of appeasement.
“A hunchback?” he said. “Really?” He made an exasperated growl as the cart hit a particularly large rut.
“’Tis the only way to move what needs to be moved without being seen.”
One of the bishop’s hands flopped out, and Undine shoved it back under the fabric.
Kent wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “There’s nothing like wearing a wool cloak over a sweaty bishop on the most humid day in eternity while getting one’s teeth rattled out of one’s head to make one really long for the pleasures of Bankside.”
“We shall have you home soon enough.”
“Oh, we are miles past soon enough.”
After she’d explained her plan, Kent had lifted the bishop from the fountain onto his back like a summer pig and directed her to fetch rope to secure him and a cloak to hide him. She thought of the ease with which Kent had managed the effort. For a man of the church, he had the forearms of a blacksmith and the dexterity of an acrobat—not to mention the high-handedness of a sultan.
“Where did you get your training?” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your ecclesiastical studies. Where did you do them?”
He shrugged. “You know. Here and there. One picks up what one can.”
There was something about the way the corner of his mouth curved when he spoke that made everything he said feel like the start of an improper joke. She found herself wanting to smile even in the silences, which was very unlike her.
“But you studied under a rector or bishop, did you not?”
“Oh, that.” He waved a hand. “Yes, of course.”
“Where?”
“In, er, Basingstoke.”
“Basingstoke? The miller here is from Basingstoke. Perhaps the two of you—”
“Though I was only there for a short while,” he added hurriedly. “Bit of a kerfuffle with the chief patroness. Had to move on.”
She gave him an interested smile. “Does kerfuffle mean what I think it does?”
“Bite your tongue,” he said, horrified, and she laughed. “If you knew the patroness, you would apologize at once. She’s eighty if she’s a day—though in reality, I think she’s been dipped in amber. She’s been haunting young clerics for the last several centuries at least.”
And the wit of a courtier.
“Please accept my apology.” She bent in a makeshift curtsy.
The farmer slowed enough to make it over a squat stone in the path without tipping his passengers onto the ground, though she slid rather indelicately into Kent’s side.
“How long do we have until your fiancé raises the alarm over your absence?” he asked, helping her regain her former position.
“I can only guess.” The warmth of Kent’s hand lingered on her arm. “He wouldn’t want to be seen as a man whose lover had fled, that is certain. He’d take matters into his own hands rather than enlist help.”
“And are you his lover?”
The curve of his mouth was gone, replaced by curiosity and something closer to concern. “I can’t stand the man.”
“It’s none of my business, of course, but that’s not quite what I asked.”
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”
Did she imagine his shoulders relaxing?
“Yet you accepted his proposal of marriage?” he said.
The farmer, peeved by a flock of passing sheep, stopped his whistling and began to wave his stick. A necessary silence fell over the cart’s occupants. Undine adjusted her skirts, feeling Kent’s probing gaze. After a beat or two, the cart started up again, and so did “Tam Lin.”
“It has nothing to do with desire,” she said under her breath.
“Money then? Or position? You’d be Lady Bridgewater, after all.”
He said it without judgment, just interest.
“Believe when I tell you that receiving the wifely honorific of an English title—that English title in particular—would offer me no pleasure.”
“So not for love, lust, wealth, or title. What then?”
What could Kent know of the struggles for peace? Of men who wish that the bows and pistols in their hands would never rest? Of sons cut down at twenty or sixteen or twelve? Of the noblemen on both sides of the border who treated the centuries-old struggle like a game of cards, a pastime only for those who could afford the stakes? Nothing.
Or could he?
She saw compassion in those eyes as well as a desire to help, and she found herself tempted to tell him the truth.
In a farmer’s cart? To a man you hardly know? Fool.
“For satisfaction,” she said. “Mine.”
He turned, full face, to appraise her. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, and Undine wondered if she’d offended him.
“Revenge can be a powerful motivator,” he said at last, adding more wistfully, “I doubt you’ll find it very satisfying, though.”
She nearly laughed. Kent thought Bridgewater was a former lover who’d slighted her. She wished to tell him it wasn’t true, that Bridgewater would be the last man in the universe she’d ever choose as a lover, but her training would not allow it. Besides, the less Kent knew, the more secure she could be in his safety.
The wagon bumped to a halt at the corner of the town’s square, and Undine hopped down. Kent scooted to the edge, an exercise that should have been made ungainly by his deadweight companion, but he unfolded himself with surprising grace.
In any case, more grace than one would expect from a hunchback.
Undine gave the farmer a wave of thanks, and when she turned back, she started. Bent and twisted now, Kent had transformed from a man in his prime to a weary, limping cripple who looked ten years older and half a dozen inches shorter.
“Father,” she said, speechless.
“Hunchback you said, and hunchback it is. Are you familiar with the play Richard III?”
His voice too had changed, sounding flatter with a faint rasp, and his cadence had slowed. When he stepped from the roadbed to the footway, she nearly offered him her arm.
She smiled. “The play and the king, both. Aye, I am.”
“‘And thus I clothe my naked villainy, with odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil.’”
Now the voice had turned a rich, fluid baritone, and the restrained malevolence in the words made her hairs stand on end.
“You’re very good,” she said.
He made a small bow. “One can hardly be a priest without a bit of the actor in one’s blood.” He attempted to hike the bishop’s limp body higher and managed only to move the center of the mass to the level of his armpit. “Carrying a ten-stone hump certainly adds to the realism.”
She leaned in to help but, being rather scrupulous when it came to naked bishops, used a shoulder rather than her hands to shove the man’s arse high enough to get his head back over Kent’s shoulder.
“Where are we going with him?” Kent said. “Please don’t say far.”
“Do you see the building with the black shutters?”
He cocked his head. “Yes.”
“I have a friend there—a woman. She knows Rothwell’s coming. I sent a note earlier. There’s a door around the back, and you should—”
“Undine,” called a man from across the road.
She recognized the voice and groaned.
“Who is it?” Kent asked.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”