It was over.
Kate leaned back against her pillows and murmured, ‘Thanks be to God,’ although she knew that, for her, the most difficult part of this long day was still to come.
‘Amen,’ said Martin. ‘I must confess that I have enjoyed being one of the guests at a wedding in the past, and it never occurred to me how upsetting it must have been for the bride and groom.’
‘Particularly the bride,’ Kate said with feeling.
‘And for the groom, too. I believe that our forefathers often insisted on waiting until the groom had performed his husbandly duties before they left, something which would have made it hard for me to perform at all!’
‘Well, I’m happy to learn that that particular custom has disappeared,’ Kate told him. ‘What remains was bad enough.’
‘But not what we are about to do,’ said Martin. ‘That, I hope, will not be bad at all. I shall try to make it a pleasure for you, as well as for me.’
It was his often unexpected kindnesses which undid Kate and made her think that he might truly come to love her, as she was beginning to love him, whichever face he showed her—that of the bear or of the courtly gallant. Even so, she shivered a little.
Martin leaned over her. ‘You must not be afraid of me, Kate. I shall try not to hurt you.’
‘I know,’ she faltered, trying to avoid his steady gaze, ‘but there is something I must tell you.’
‘Which is?’
‘That I have no notion of what being a true wife for my husband will mean—other than that you will do more than kiss me. Aunt Jocasta has told me nothing, except that to be married and in bed with a man is a woman’s painful cross which she must bear without complaining.’
Martin snorted. ‘Much she knows about it—but are you telling me the truth, Kate? Are you really so ignorant?’
Miserably, she nodded. ‘Yes. It is stupid, I know. But my mother died long ago. I have had few women friends and no one has seen fit to tell me anything about married life—other than that I must do as my husband bids me.’
Martin stifled an oath addressed at Aunt Jocasta and all those women in poor Kate’s life who had left her unaware of those things which lie between a man and his wife. This was the second unknowing virgin whom he had married, and he would need to be as patient with Kate as he had been with Mary.
He had constantly told himself that he did not love Kate, but he knew that he lusted after her and wished to initiate her into the pleasures of marriage—which, of course, he would enjoy all the more if she were his willing partner.
‘Look at me, wife,’ he said, ‘I shall go as slowly as I am able, which will be difficult for me since I have been longing to make you my true wife ever since our marriage was decided on. I shall have to hurt you somewhat when we, at last, become one, but I hope that the hurt will be a slight one. After it, I trust, we shall enjoy ourselves as man and wife were meant to.’
‘Are you saying,’ Kate asked him gravely, a twinkle in her eye for the first time since they had left the Great Hall, ‘that you are going to be my tutor?’
‘Yes, but if we continue to talk, and not to act, my patience will be sorely tried.’
‘Then, m’lord Hadleigh, you must begin my first lesson at once. I will try to be an apt pupil, but you must forgive me if I make a few mistakes.’
Martin began to laugh. He could tell that Kate was a little fearful of what the next few minutes might bring, but that was the true virgin’s prerogative. ‘Oh,’ he exclaimed, ‘you have made my task the easier. Come nearer to me, sweeting,’ for she had edged away from him once the last guest had reeled from the bedroom.
Kate was suddenly all obedience. She did as she was bid, so he kissed her on the cheek.
‘Is that the beginning?’ she asked. ‘If so, it seems easy enough.’
‘True. Now you must allow me to kiss and stroke you a little, and if you are so inclined you may kiss and stroke me, too.’
So saying he kissed her, not on the lips, but on the cheek, and then the neck, before finding her lips and kissing her there, gently at first and then more passionately. At the same time he stroked her neck above her nightgown. Kate gasped her pleasure. If to touch his hand had been so exciting in its effect on her, his kisses, particularly the last ones on her lips, pleasured her much the more—to say nothing of that which his stroking hands had given her. Her body rose to meet his, for he had manoeuvred her slowly on to her back, and when he pulled away she found herself stroking and kissing him, as he had asked of her.
Martin, his whole body thrumming with desire, to the degree that he was almost in pain, said hoarsely, ‘You liked that—shall we move on to the next lesson?’
Kate managed, ‘Please.’
‘The next one might be a little more difficult for you. If we are to truly enjoy ourselves, we must be transformed as the first man and woman were, naked and unashamed, even if they were thrown out of Eden for their behaviour. If all goes well, I hope that we shall find ourselves in that happy place before we sleep—so allow me to relieve you of your nightgown and then you must help me to remove mine.’
Kate realised that Martin was talking to her at such length and so gently in order to dispel her natural fear. She smiled shyly at him when they were finally naked. It was not so much that she was troubled by him seeing her unclothed, but that the sight of a superb and roused male body was such an unexpected one.
Words burst from her. ‘Does that hurt you?’
Martin knew exactly what she meant. ‘Yes, but not as you might think, my wife. It is you, and you alone, who can now give me relief from pain there.’
‘I can?’
‘Yes, and now we must continue with your lesson, for hard though it might be for me to delay the final act, unless I make you ready to take pleasure in it, then I shall have failed you as a husband.’
He kissed her and stroked her again, touching this time parts of her body which Kate had always thought of as private to her alone. The pleasure which he had promised her was already with her. Her body was an instrument on which he played, and the music which he was creating was her moans and sighs of delight.
Was it possible that her pleasure could be even greater? Indeed, it could, for his right hand had reached her very core, was stroking it, oh, so gently, even though the ecstasy it finally produced was so overwhelming that she cried out at the moment of climax, losing herself in a great wave of pleasure, until she fell, shuddering, back on the bed.
Martin, having given his bride pleasure at the expense of his own, was shuddering himself. When she looked up at him, her eyes wild, he asked her, ‘You liked that?’
‘You know I did. I had not expected—I did not know…But you, is that your only part in this?’
‘No, indeed, for in a moment we shall reach the end of the lesson when we shall try to enjoy our pleasure together. As you accepted my hand, you must now accept me.’ And he began the final stage of Kate’s initiation.
To Martin’s young bride what happened next was so all-consuming and so unexpected that even the pain of his entry could not overcome her willingness to please him as he had pleased her.
At her cry of pain he paused, only to have her exclaim, ‘Oh, do not stop. I wish to share everything with you.’
And so she did, for after pain came pleasure, not quite so great as the first, but since she shared it with him it meant more, so very much more, to her. It was as though they had climbed a steep hill together and at the top had been briefly translated into another world where instead of two they had become truly one.
Martin was the first to awake in the early hours of the following morning. He propped himself on his elbow and looked down at his sleeping wife. He remembered that Mary had been frightened that first night, and that it had taken a little time for him to give her pleasure because her fear of the act of love remained so powerful. It had also taken him some time to enable Mary to experience with him the pleasure which he had enjoyed from the first night he had bedded her.
It had been so very different with Kate. Her frank, if artless, response to his caresses had been manifest as soon as she had understood that she had nothing to fear from him. It had not taken long for her to be ready to accept him and to revel in their joint ecstasy.
He had refused to make love to her again before they slept, lest he cause her further pain. She had demurred a little at that, but he had reassured her with, ‘Let us wait until tomorrow morning. By then you may have healed a little and will be the more ready for me.’
‘I had not thought that you would be so kind,’ she had told him.
‘It is not kind, but right and proper that you should enjoy yourself as much as I do when we make love.’ And then he lowered his head and kissed her tenderly. She gave a little moan and rolled over on to the haven of his broad breast. They were still naked, and the thought of that, and the promise he had given her, caused him to kiss her again, not quite so gently, so that she opened her eyes and asked, ‘Is it morning?’
‘Not yet, and when morning comes and we do awake we must pleasure ourselves immediately, since Aunt Jocasta, your bridesmaids and all who care to accompany them will arrive as early as possible to inspect the bed sheets in order to discover whether you were truly virgin.’
Kate sat up sharply.
‘I had forgotten that. At the only weddings which I have ever attended I was not allowed to take part in the rituals of the bedchamber.’
‘Well, you may be sure that we shall not be spared them. We must remember to put on our nightgowns so that we may appear to be seemly.’
‘What a lot of things we have to remember,’ said Kate sleepily.
‘True.’ And then, holding her gently in his arms they slept the sleep of the truly satisfied until morning at last arrived.
Nor were they, as he had prophesied, spared anything. Before Martin had time to celebrate the new day with her, there came a knock on the door and Aunt Jocasta and a train of eager spectators entered.
Kate was rousted out of bed and wrapped in a long brocaded coat, as was Martin. The covers were thrown back to reveal the stained bottom sheet, which one of Aunt Jocasta’s acolytes seized and held up so that all might witness that Kate had indeed gone virgin to the marriage bed.
A servant came in carrying a tray with mead on it for the bride and groom. Other servants carried in ale for the spectators. More toasts were drunk, so much so that Kate feared that Aunt Jocasta’s acolytes would not be able to walk safely down the stairs to where more food had been prepared so that they might all be able to break their fast.
At last Aunt Jocasta shooed everyone out, excepting Jacko, who insisted on giving her his arm so that she might go downstairs in safety—‘As though,’ she later said to Kate with a laugh, ‘I had been drinking hard with the rest of them. But it was kind of him, all the same.’
Once they were alone, Martin sank back on the bed, and catching Kate to him, announced firmly, ‘Now we may enjoy ourselves again.’
And so they did.
Later Martin walked downstairs to break his fast. He had arranged that Kate should enjoy her first meal as a married woman in their room, so that she would be spared inquisitive eyes and double-edged conversation over her food.
He had barely had time to sit down before his father’s steward entered. ‘M’lord, my master has asked that you attend upon him, and Lord Clifton, in his study so soon as you have finished eating.’
‘So noted,’ Martin said, beginning to devour several slices of cold roast beef. The night’s exertions, followed by the morning’s, had left him hungry, particularly since he had eaten little at the wedding feast. He knew why his father wished to see him and deliberately took his time over his meal. Most of yesterday’s guests had left the night before and only a yawning Rafe sat opposite to him.
‘When do we go home?’ he asked.
‘As soon as possible,’ said Martin briefly. ‘I have no wish to remain here any longer than I need,’ something which he intended to tell his father shortly.
The face his father offered him when he entered his study was a choleric one.
‘So, here you are at last, Hadleigh. I trust that you will be good enough to explain to me—and to Lords Clifton and Padworth—from whence came this sudden affluence which you chose to demonstrate yesterday after presenting me with the aspect of a beggar since you returned home.’
‘This place, whatever else it is, is not my home. That is elsewhere,’ said Martin, his voice as low and deadly as he could make it. ‘For your own ends you strove to find me, and when you did you found me using my birth name, Martin Chancellor, as a jest when I wished to enjoy myself away from the wealth and consequence which I had created for myself by my own exertions.
‘It was not the name which I took when I left home. To avoid being found by you—and punished yet again—I called myself Andrew Martin and went to sea, at first against the Armada. By great good fortune I early found a patron, who admired my seaman’s abilities and my devotion to duty as I endeavoured to better myself in the harsh world in which I had chosen to live when I fled from what was called my home.’
It was Lord Clifton who interrupted him. ‘Andrew Martin, you say? Can it be that you are the Captain Andrew Martin who made himself a fortune by his successful attacks on the galleons carrying treasure back to Spain from the New World, and who then became a merchant? The man who refused a knighthood?’
Martin bowed his head. ‘It is as you say. I am that man. My home is Saxon Hall in Bishopsgate. And yes, I refused a knighthood. I wish to be my own man and not the servant of anyone powerful, even if that person were my Queen. I have seen what hardships befell my friend, Sir Walter, when he failed to please his monarch. I do not wish to share them.’
His father who had been staring at him, speechless, spoke at last.
‘Can this be true?’
‘I do not lie, sir, and never did—whatever you may once have thought of me.’
‘You lied when you came here in the guise of a vagabond.’
‘Nay, I called myself Martin Chancellor, which was no lie, and you never once cared to ask me what I had been doing in the years since you last saw me. Had you done so, I would have told you the truth. You deceived yourself. You saw what you wished to see—and were happy in the seeing.’
It was the other two Lords who nodded at this, not his father, who said, ‘Nevertheless you lied by inference when you chose to confound us by arriving dressed and behaving as one of Captain Andrew Martin’s seamen might have done—without telling us what you had become. You did not tell the truth until the morning of your wedding.’
Martin said coldly, ‘I owed it to my future wife to be married in the appearance of my true self. I regret that I felt unable to tell her the full truth before I had informed you of it.’
Now Martin knew that he was lying. He had kept quiet because he had wished to savour to the full his father’s surprise when he had turned up in the full might of his wealth, and yes, his power, with his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, by his side. He knew that Raleigh’s nickname—given to him by those who feared him—was Lucifer, but Raleigh had always played fair with him as he, in return, had tried to play fair with all those he had met in his life as Andrew Martin. If he had not played fair with his father, it was because his father did not deserve that honour.
He said, bowing to the three Lords, ‘I shall straightway inform my wife of all that you have learned this morning—and before we leave for her new home, I assure you all that, whatever you might believe of me, I shall treat her kindly and be as good a husband to her as a man may be.’
It was Lord Clifton who answered him. ‘I think, Lord Hadleigh, for that is your title by right, that my niece is a lucky young woman, since you bring to her as much, if not more, than she brings to you.’
Lord Bretford said sourly, ‘I shall let time decide that for me. Leopards do not change their spots.’
‘What a very true remark, sir,’ said Martin sweetly, ‘seeing that I have not changed my spots. I am still the same man that I was when your mistreatment of me caused me to flee Bretford House. And now I must leave to inform my wife that we shall be returning to Saxon Hall, which will become her home as well as mine.’
With that he bowed low, and left them. From what had been said Lords Clifton and Padworth—although the latter had said little—were prepared to accept him for what he now was. His father, though, remained implacable.
Kate, fully dressed after a hearty breakfast, was pondering on the married state. What surprised her was how much she had enjoyed herself in Martin’s arms. True, she was a little sore, but she could not regret the pleasure which had brought that about.
One thing puzzled her a little, and that was the state of Martin’s back, which was covered in long-healed scars, as well as what was evidently a branded T on his left shoulder. Elsewhere his body was flawless. She knew little of life, but she was fully aware that at some time he had been cruelly beaten, perhaps more than once—she could not imagine why he had been branded.
Curious though she was, Kate had said nothing about any of this to him, for she knew, without being told, that he would not wish her to question him about it. Especially when some instinct which she had not known that she possessed, informed her that the beatings had almost certainly been inflicted on him during his early life at Bretford House. It could not have been at sea, for he must have behaved well enough there for him to have risen so rapidly towards fame and fortune. No sailor who deserved a flogging would ever have been allowed advancement. It was yet another of the mysteries which surrounded him—and not a pleasant one.
Jennie had just finished fastening her sleeves to her dress when Martin came in. She knew at once, before he spoke, that something had troubled him, had made him angry, even though he was perfectly polite to her. Perhaps it was his very studied politeness which gave him away.
Another instinct told her not to press him on what had disturbed him.
‘M’lord,’ she said, somewhat tentatively.
‘Husband,’ he said, a brief smile appearing as he spoke, ‘not m’lord—or Martin, if you would prefer that. I think of Lord Hadleigh as my brother.’
Kate smiled, ‘But I think of him as my husband.’
That brought her another smile. They had been standing while they spoke, and Jennie had slipped discreetly out of the room.
‘Pray sit, my logic-chopping wife. I shall have to set Webster on to you. He has a talent for it, too,’ he told her, and added, when the smile had faded, ‘I have something to tell you.’
Kate did as she was bid, spreading her ample skirts around her. She had wished to wear something simple, but Jennie had said, ‘Lord, no, m’lady, your dress must be fine now in order to do honour to your husband,’ and had immediately fetched out one of the more splendid gowns in her trousseau.
Kate thought, naughtily, that Martin probably preferred her with nothing on at all, but she did not tell Jennie so, nor did she now tell Martin.
Once they were comfortably settled, he at last told her the truth of his past, but gently, and not after the manner in which he had spoken to his father and the two lords.
‘I am sorry to have deceived you, but you must understand that I do not regret that I deceived him. If you feel that you wish to reproach me, then do so—it is no more than I deserve from you.’
What Kate understood was that he had run away from home with nothing more than the clothes he was wearing, and that, by dint of hard work and his own enterprise, he had made himself a rich man, respected by those who knew him only as Captain Andrew Martin, and not as Lord Bretford’s black sheep of a son.
‘Any desire which I may have had to reprove you for deceiving me flies away in the face of what you achieved after you left Bretford House. Of your behaviour to your father I cannot speak, since I do not know why he treated you in such a fashion that you fled the comfortable home into which you were born to make your own way in the world.
‘I can only speak of the man I know and whom I have come to respect. I trust in your judgement, husband, as I hope that you will trust in mine now that we are married.’
The expression which Martin offered her was one of relief. He had been prepared for anything except the measured words which Kate had just used to him. His wife was a woman of many surprises and he could only hope they would always be pleasant ones.
‘That being so,’ he said, ‘I hope you will not oppose my decision to leave Bretford House at once. The sooner we are in our own home the happier we shall both be.’
‘Rafe, Webster and Jacko will be pleased, too,’ returned Kate, teasing him a little to make his smile return.
It did.
‘And will you be pleased, wife?’
‘Of course, Bretford House is a most unhappy place. I trust that Saxon Hall will be different.’
‘You think that, you truly believe that?’
His urgency surprised her. ‘Yes. You see, I believe that houses have their own characters as we do. My home was a happy one until first my mother and then my father died. Clifton Hall, my uncle’s place, was not unhappy, but it was cold and severe. Bretford House…’ and Kate shuddered before saying, ‘Bretford House almost frightens me. Jennie does not like it, either, but cannot tell me why.’
Kate thought that she knew one of the reasons for its scent of unhappiness. She believed that an unloved and ill-treated boy still haunted its rooms and corridors, even though he was now a grown man and his youthful pain was long over—or was it? She feared that Martin might dismiss her explanation as feminine nonsense, but he did not.
Instead he nodded his head slowly, saying, ‘You must tell me if Saxon Hall seems to be an unhappy house, and, if so, we must all try to make it happier.’
‘You do not think me fanciful then?’
‘No, for I have never felt happy here—and sometimes I have wondered whether it was my fault.’
Impulsively Kate rose and walked over to kiss him on his warm shaven cheek. ‘I think not.’
His answer was to pull her on to his knee and begin to kiss her passionately, so passionately that for a moment Kate thought that she was about to faint with divine pleasure. She was restored to earth again by Martin saying crossly, ‘Why do women have to wear such damned elaborate clothing? It will take forever to undress you and by then Webster is sure to come in to bother me about some detail connected with our move.’
Kate leaned away from him and murmured wickedly, ‘You would prefer me in a peasant woman’s smock perhaps?’
‘Well, at least I could get at the woman underneath it more easily. Does it hurt to wear all that whalebone and canvas?’
‘Not exactly hurt, but I admit that it’s most uncomfortable. Does it trouble you to wear those padded breeches?’
‘Yes,’ said Martin irately, ‘and particularly at the present moment when my body has such a strong desire to pleasure my wife, and can’t, because of all that brocade and embroidery wrapped around you.’
In her wildest imagination Kate could never have foreseen that she would be having such an improper conversation with her husband. She wanted to tell him that she felt as frustrated as he was by their fashionable clothing, but thought that it might be a mistake.
She was just about to change her mind and tell him exactly that, when there came a knock at the door.
‘Webster,’ Martin groaned. ‘I knew it. Come in,’ he bawled, pushing Kate off his knee and towards her vacant chair.
Yes, it was Webster, looking smug.
‘I have informed the driver and the footmen that we shall be leaving for Saxon Hall as soon as m’lady’s luggage is ready to be packed on to the coach. I trust that that is satisfactory?’
Martin was about to howl at him, in his best quarter-deck voice, something to the effect that, of course, it’s satisfactory, you nodcock, so why trouble me with it? But the sight of Kate’s amused face told him it might not be wise, for if he did she would be sure to lecture him in the appropriate fashion in which to speak to a person of Webster’s standing.
‘Yes,’ he ground out at last.
Webster still did not move away. ‘Have you any further instructions for me, m’lord, before we leave?’
‘Martin!’ This time, and never mind what Kate thought, he bellowed the word at Webster. ‘For sweet pity’s sake, you are not to call me m’lord. How many times do I have to tell you that?’
‘Begging your pardon, Martin, most people hearing me speak to you in such a disrespectful fashion would think me grossly impertinent.’
‘Then let them. Their thoughts are of no consequence to me, nor should they be to you. I lost all respect for titles and ceremonial when I was virtually a beggar. That I am styled Lord Hadleigh grieves me. I was once Captain Martin and that was a title I earned and did not hesitate to use. Lord Hadleigh had merely to be born in the right bedroom.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Webster, greatly daring after his employer had come out with this astonishing tirade, ‘I could call you Captain Martin.’
Martin closed his eyes. ‘Since I no longer ply the trade of seaman, no.’
‘Begging your pardon, Martin, if all men thought as you did and there was neither station nor degree, then anarchy would be sure to follow.’
‘You hear him,’ said Martin turning to the still amused Kate. ‘Now you have discovered why I told you he was a logic-chopper. God knows why I should have two of you inflicted on me. Note that I have said nothing about abolishing station and degree. If I were to pursue this with you, Webster—which damme, for my sins I seem to be doing—then I would tell you that I have no objection to those titles and orders which are earned by merit. Now go away and practise your wit on others. Try Jacko for a change—he probably wouldn’t understand you, but he’d look properly respectful.’
‘Oh, I doubt that, Martin,’ said Webster with a grin, bowing his way out of the room, ‘since, so far as I can judge, Jacko respects nobody.’
‘Which is as it should be,’ said Martin to the closed door. ‘What are you laughing at, wife?’
‘You, him,’ choked Kate. ‘And Jacko, for some odd reason, does respect Aunt Jocasta, so Webster was a little awry there.’
Martin put his head in his hands before lifting it again and kissing her fiercely on the lips. ‘Go to, wife, this is a fine start to our married life. Be off with you and see that your chests and bags are ready to be transported to Saxon Hall as soon as possible. The day wears on and I am minded to be away from this place as soon as may be—or sooner if it comes to that.’
He strode to the door, where he turned and blew her a kiss. ‘I will see you downstairs anon. Pay your adieux to your assembled kinfolk and then we must be away. The air of this place stifles me.’
Now that was a gross exaggeration, thought Kate. There was not much evidence of Martin being stifled when he dealt with both Webster and her, but wisely, she did not tell him so.
Kate had no notion of what she would find at Saxon Hall. She was well aware that Martin had not gone to Forge Street when he had left the Strand a week ago. In any case, common sense told her that there was no room in that small cottage for the butler and all the servants who had visited Bretford House to provide the amazing feast which had greeted the wedding guests when they had arrived there after the ceremony.
What she found when the coach came to a stop on a gravel sweep was an imposing mansion built of mellow red brick with many windows. A low flight of steps led up to a large oak door. It reminded her a little of Hampton Court, which she had once seen as a child.
As was usual, there were a number of servants waiting to greet them, as well as several footmen and the inevitable steward, who showed them in with somewhat less fuss than that which was common at Bretford House.
Martin’s dislike of ceremonial was shown the moment he walked into his home. Regardless of the convention and ritual which demanded that the great men of Her Grace’s world would always retain their hats indoors and take them off rarely, he threw his at one of the footmen, as did Rafe and Webster. Jacko had already exiled himself to the kitchens, entering the Hall by its back door. He hadn’t been wearing a hat, but a kind of turban fashioned from a piece of coloured cloth.
By the standards of Bretford House and the other places in which Kate had lived, Saxon Hall was sparsely furnished, but what there was, was beautiful. The largest room—after the Great Hall—on the ground floor was a library cum study, but she was not to discover that until later.
Although their journey had been short, Kate, after being introduced to the housekeeper, was taken upstairs by her to her private sitting-room, which was reached through the bedroom which she was to share with Martin. Both of them had little in the way of furniture, but once her own luggage had been unpacked and the splendid Italian chest which held her clothes had been brought upstairs, it would, she hoped, look more homely.
Martin’s room, when she inspected it, was furnished with only three chests, a mirror, an armchair and a four-poster bed which Kate thought was large enough to allow at least four persons to sleep in it in comfort. Beside the bed was a closet with a key in the door, but when Kate, curious, pushed at it, it proved to be unlocked. Inside a small table stood before its back wall; on it lay a locket containing a curl of blonde hair. Above the table hung a small wood panel on which had been painted the face of a very young woman. The artist had plainly been, unlike the one who had painted John and Martin as boys, a novice, but he had somehow managed to give her pretty face a wistful and longing look.
Kate wondered who she could be, and why her portrait was hidden away. Some feeling that she had been prying into Martin’s private affairs made her lock the closet door: she was sure that it was meant to be kept locked, and only by mischance had it been left open.
What she had just discovered, and Saxon Hall itself, were proof that Martin had led a life the details of which she knew nothing, other than the bare bones of what he had earlier told her. She had hidden nothing from him, for there was nothing to hide. Her own past was that of a sheltered young girl: there was neither scandal nor untoward incident in it—but that was almost certainly not true of her husband’s.
When she finally went downstairs she found that there were no portraits on any of the walls, but some fine Flemish tapestries showing imaginary landscapes where nymphs, shepherds and satyrs were enjoying themselves. The withdrawing-room off the Great Hall possessed a singularly beautiful one depicting Hercules’ first labour, in which he was killing the lion.
Kate found it strange to be alone. Always before she had been surrounded by attendants, with her Aunt Jocasta nearby. But her aunt would not be arriving at Saxon Hall until the newlyweds’ honeymoon was considered to be over—perhaps in a sennight.
To pass the time until he reappeared, she wandered round the room, inspecting its contents. Among them were relics of Martin’s life as a seaman, including many objects which she later learned had come from the Americas. She was particularly fascinated by a collection of tiny wooden statues of strange animals and men. Martin was later to tell her that they had been part of the cargo of a Spanish treasure ship which he had captured. Most of the gold in it had, of course, gone to the Queen.
In the middle of her examination of a cross-legged little man who appeared to be wearing a bucket on his head, the door opened and Martin came in.
‘You must forgive me for leaving you alone,’ he said, after kissing her on the cheek, ‘although I thought that, after yesterday’s excitements, you might prefer to rest once we had arrived here—but I had urgent business to attend to in the stables. If you would like to inspect them yourself, I would be only too happy to escort you there. By the by, I have never asked you whether you can ride—I have rather taken it for granted that you do.’
‘Only a little,’ Kate confessed. ‘My father’s first wife died from a fall from her horse not long after they were married. The consequence of that was that I was not allowed to mount a horse at all. I escaped once to the stables and persuaded one of the lads to let me ride on a tame and elderly mare. After that I rode in secret for a time until my father, by chance, saw me one day. I thought him to be away from home, but he had returned early—and that was the end of that. He dismissed the poor stable boy and I only escaped a thrashing for disobeying him because my mother interceded for me—and since she was then slowly dying of a wasting illness, he could deny her nothing. My father died not long after she did—of grief, everyone said.’
‘What a sad life you must have had,’ Martin said, once Kate’s story was over.
She shook her head. ‘At first, perhaps, but when my uncle became my guardian I met Alison for the first time, and Avis. Avis came to live with us when her Papa became part of the embassy in Paris. He didn’t want her learning bad ways there, he said.’
‘I can’t imagine Avis learning bad ways anywhere,’ Martin offered. ‘I have never met a quieter and more well-behaved young woman.’
‘Unlike me?’ quipped Kate.
‘Oh, you are quite different. I think that you will always be true to yourself and will travel along your own road—and now that you are married to me I will have to try to persuade you that it must be the same road as mine.’
For some reason his reply surprised Kate. Looking at him, at his size and his brute strength, she would have thought that he would have no hesitation in insisting that his wife would always do what he demanded and commanded of her. But he was speaking of persuasion, not of force.
‘If we continue our debate much longer,’ she told him merrily, ‘then night will have come before we visit the stables. I am longing to see them.’
‘Now that I truly doubt,’ he said, ‘but no matter. Take my arm, wife, and let us make our first promenade in our own home.’
Kate immediately did as she was bid, thinking that she had never had a real home of her own before: she had always lived in someone else’s. First it was her father’s and then Lord Clifton’s and, for a few weeks, it had been Bretford House.
My home, she thought, and my husband. How strange it seems. I had dreamed once of having my own home as a spinster, without a man to control me, and now that I have my own home, it is because I have a husband whom custom tells me is my master in all things. I never wanted that, but here I am, and I must make the best of it—and him.
I never thought that I would marry a bear, either, except that now Martin is clean-shaven and wearing courtiers’ clothing he does not look very much like a bear, nor does he speak to me as a bully might…yet.
Kate added this proviso because she had little knowledge of what the future might bring. In the meantime she walked along beside him, out of the Hall and into the stable-yard where a groom was exercising a pretty, cream-coloured mare.
‘Oh, how beautiful!’ she exclaimed.
Martin’s face glowed. ‘You like her?’
‘Who could not?’
‘Bravo. Sim, put the mare through her paces so that my lady may see what a talented and obedient creature she is.’
‘At once, master.’ Sim eased himself into the saddle and trotted the mare around the yard.
‘Her name is Swallow,’ Martin told Kate, watching his bride’s entranced face. ‘She is yours—I bought her for you and she is my wedding gift to you. Sim will teach you how to control her if you need some help after being so many years out of the saddle.’
‘Oh!’ Impulsively Kate threw her arms around Martin and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thank you, thank you, you could not have given me anything better. Once I can manage her properly we may ride together, may we not?’
‘Certainly, which is why I bought her for you—and then when you told me your sad story I knew that, quite by chance, I had hit upon the one thing most sure to please you.’
He had wanted to please her! Not only that, he had arranged for the mare to be present on the day on which he took her to her new home—which was surely a good start to their married life. When Sim, on his master’s orders, dismounted, Martin introduced the mare to Kate. Or should it more properly have been phrased that he introduced her to the mare? Kate thought with some amusement. He encouraged her to stroke and pet her present, although she really needed no encouraging: she was only too delighted to show her pleasure in being able to do what she had long wanted, but had so long been denied.
Martin, watching her pleasure, found it difficult not to take her in his arms, to make love to her there, in the stable yard, but with some difficulty, he controlled himself. Later, when he was dressing before retiring to bed, he was to remember that Mary had been a timid little thing, who had been so frightened of horses that she would never go near them, let alone ride one. Candid and lively Kate, on the contrary, told him when they finally left the yard that she could not wait to be properly dressed so that she could take Swallow for her first ride.
The other thing which surprised Martin, although it shouldn’t have done, was that the more he was with Kate, the more his memories of Mary began to fade. For years he had been able to imagine the pretty little woman Mary had been before she began to carry his child. Once she had begun to breed, however, she had changed. She grew ill, found eating difficult, and lost her zest for life—which was one of the reasons, the physician had told her distraught husband, why she and her child had died during its birth.
Pray God Kate will not be afflicted so, was Martin’s sudden thought, and then: but she is not a delicate thing like Mary—and it was that delicacy which attracted me to her. How strange that my second wife should be the exact opposite of my first one—but then I did not choose her, she was chosen for me—which makes it all the more strange that I am coming to lust after her so greatly.
Before that, however, they had arrived back in the Hall, a happy Kate clinging to his arm, to find Webster waiting for him with the news that he had a visitor.
‘A surprising one,’ Webster said, ‘in view of everything. It is Master Bevis Frampton.’
‘Frampton!’ exclaimed Martin. ‘I thought that I had seen the last of him at Essex House.’
‘Apparently not. I had him escorted to the withdrawing-room and was about to send a footman to inform you of his arrival when you and your lady returned.’
‘I don’t suppose that my lady will wish to meet Master Frampton, eh, Kate?’
Kate shook her head. ‘Lord Clifton thought little of Frampton. I only met him once, and I could see why. I will retire to the library, if I may, until he leaves.’
‘Well said.’
‘Do you wish the steward to escort you to the withdrawing-room, Martin?’ Webster asked.
‘Certainly not! I’m sure that I can manage the few yards from here to there on my own.’
‘Protocol might demand that the steward escorts you to a visitor of Master Frampton’s station,’ Webster offered with a grin.
‘So it might, but I shall not heed any of its demands,’ said Martin, before striding off to the withdrawing-room, thinking: now why do I think that Webster is baiting me? He knows my wishes about informality—but I suppose he is playing a game in which he scores points with his nonsense and I score mine with my sense.
He pushed open the door to find Frampton busy examining the tapestry of Hercules. If he was surprised that Lord Hadleigh did not enter the room after a bellowing steward, he did not show it.
‘A very fine piece,’ he said, waving a hand at the tapestry.
‘Indeed it is, which is why I bought it,’ Martin replied, without any polite overtures such as, I trust that you have not being waiting long, or, what important errand brings you to my home, Master Frampton? Instead he waited for Frampton to speak again, which he did when he realised that Martin had finished without indulging in any of the flowery rhetoric usual on such occasions as these.
‘I have come, m’lord, to try to persuade you to change your mind over the matter of Lord Essex and his quarrel with the fashion in which our beloved country is run.’
‘Then I fear that you have wasted your time, Master Frampton. My mind is quite made up. It has not changed since I last spoke with you.’
‘That is a great pity, m’lord. I hope you will not think me impertinent if I suggest that you ought to give more consideration to the powerful arguments which Lord Essex and I employed on that occasion.’
‘Oh, but I do think you impertinent. To arrive here without an invitation and suggest that I have made an important decision without due and proper thought is impertinent.’
If he had thought to silence Frampton with that brusque answer then he had been mistaken. Frampton gave him a slightly pitying smile, before saying, ‘But then, m’lord, think. You must have been somewhat distracted by your sudden rise in rank, due to the unfortunate death of your brother, and then of course, to your marriage with the beauteous Lady Kate, and therefore unable to give your full attention to those matters occurring in the great wide world outside.’
Martin stared at him.
‘Your impudence, Master Frampton, is unparalleled. I am now prepared to give my full attention to your presence here and to the arguments you have been presenting to me. I shall immediately act on it.’
He walked to the door, looking out to where Webster sat, working at a table in the Great Hall, doubtless waiting to be sent for in the unlikely event of Martin needing his advice during his interview with Frampton.
‘Webster!’ Martin bellowed in his best ship’s captain’s voice.
‘Coming,’ exclaimed Webster jumping up.
‘Excellent,’ said Martin when Webster stood before him. ‘You have been reproaching me for the lack of protocol in the affairs of Saxon Hall. I will remedy that immediately. Pray send for the steward and ask him, with all due ceremony, to escort Master Frampton from the premises with instructions that he is not to trouble me here again.’
‘Is this wise?’ asked Webster, trying to stifle a grin.
‘Wise? You ask me that after your constant complaints to me that matters at Saxon Hall are too informal, and then, when I am trying to comply with your wishes you question me? Pray do as I ask, at once.’
‘Yes, m’lord, certainly, m’lord,’ bowed Webster thinking, here is a fine tale to amuse Rafe and Jacko. Something told him that this was all a pantomime, that Martin Chancellor was a great deal more cunning than men thought him to be. What game was he playing now?
He carried out his instructions. The steward did as he was bid, his master having disappeared upstairs to visit his bride of a day. Master Frampton did not protest and left as quietly as he could, vowing, once again, even more vengeance on Lord Hadleigh—and, if possible, soon.
His master was—as Webster suspected—playing a deep and dangerous game. He was deliberately provoking Frampton so that if he truly were the unknown assassin he might, in his anger, act so unwisely that Martin could trap either him, or his agent.