Chapter 7

The Cherry Fair

Rows of tables, spread with linen tablecloths and topped with silver salt cellars, covered dishes, and serving trays heaped with food, had been placed in a u-shape in the center of Fordwich's orchard. Though some diners had already left the banquet to dance or roll a game of bowls beneath the trees, most remained to finish off the last course of pastries and sweetmeats. Piers the Cook had placed his triumph at the dais, an enormous soltelte of two mounted knights facing each other with lances at ready. Behind the soltelte diners were partially hidden from view, though Maria could clearly view Edmund Leybourne. And the empty place beside him.

Where she had been seated moments before. Yet here she was, curtsying before Phillip Rendell. Upon seeing him—and Maria had been looking for nothing else these past two days—she'd tossed an excuse to her fiancé and rushed from the dais, past the lower tables to greet him.

"I am very pleased to see you, my lord." She was lightheaded, more from her heart's racing than her hurried pace. "I feared you would not come."

"I am so glad, damoiselle, that I did."

Phillip was enchanted by his first view of the Cherry Fair. The brilliance of the costumed lords and ladies heightened the beauty of the surrounding trees. Clouds of white blossoms bowed the limbs to earth, their petals shimmering in the afternoon heat. The air, redolent with their fragrance, was intoxicating in its intensity.

Near as intoxicating as the girl before me, he thought, returning Maria's smile. She was truly lovely: slender yet curvaceous, with skin free from blemish and hair the color he had always loved, that special shading that existed right before sunset darkened into night.

"Last even I asked Lord Leybourne's troubadour to sing to us about Bannockburn and all the magnificent things you did afterward." Maria knew she was blushing, that her words were awkward, but she wanted him to know. She rushed on. "I felt as if, after meeting you, that I was in possession of a special secret. As if you were a legend sprung to life just for me."

"Indeed." Phillip was touched and amused in equal measure.

Their eyes held. Maria wanted to say something more, to keep him gazing at her in such a way that she felt her entire body tingle.

"Daughter!"

Henrietta hurried toward them. Vaguely, Maria noted that she was actually lifting her skirts in order to move more quickly, a breach of etiquette that had earned Maria many a reprimand.

"Your mother?" Phillip asked, though the resemblance was unmistakable. But the woman looked ill and was thin as a rack of ribs.

Spell broken, Maria murmured, "I am in a great deal of trouble."

Henrietta puffed to a halt in front of them. "You are remiss to leave your affianced without so much as a by-your-leave." Aware that they would were being watched, she tried for a smile that ended in a grimace.

Turning to Phillip, she asked. "And who might you be, sir?"

He bowed. "Lord Phillip Rendell, m'lady."

"The Herefordshire knight," Maria interjected. "The one who saved our Lord Sussex at Bannockburn."

Henrietta's eyes narrowed. She remembered Maria's request at last night's banquet, and gazed sharply from one to the other.

"Well. We have all heard the tale of how you refused the earl's gift of a demesne near the size of Wales to indulge your wanderlust. 'Twould appear what you enjoy in chivalry, Lord Rendell, you lack in common sense."

Ignoring propriety, she grabbed Maria's arm and pulled her back toward the dais.

"By the rood, my lord," Phillip's squire, Gilbert, swore after they were gone. "I pity that poor girl. Her mother is a veritable dragon."

Phillip watched Maria obediently take her place once again beside her fiancé. "I haven't yet slain a dragon," he said softly. "Mayhap 'tis time I did."

* * *

Lord Leybourne, earl of Dorset, had indulged in too much cherry wine. But he had much to celebrate, had he not? In forty days, following their pending betrothal ceremony, he would be taking his sweet new wife to bed.

God has been good to this old warrior, he thought complacently. Mayhap the recent endowment he'd bestowed upon the Benedictines at Sherborne Abbey had enhanced his fortunes.

The earl's rheumy gaze fell happily upon the swell between his fiancée's young breasts. The damoiselle's dowry was minimal and his dower would someday make her a wealthy widow, but he did not plan on dying any time soon. Which made their arrangement most satisfactory.

"All the wedding contracts have been signed," he said to Maria, who had been quieter upon her return from wherever. Ah, well. He was not marrying the lass for her conversational skills. "And the betrothal ceremony will be in six days, following the jousting."

Maria nodded. Phillip Rendell had taken a seat at a lower table. She hid her perusal of him by pretending an interest in the various jugglers, tumblers and minstrels strolling in his vicinity.

Edmund leaned toward Maria. "Now that I've had a bit too much to eat," he suppressed a belch, "let us take a stroll." His arm brushed her breast. She felt that chill again, as if a winter wind had suddenly blown in from the River Stour. "We have much to discuss, dear heart. Now that all the legal negotiations are behind us, we will make plans for our future."

I will kill myself, Maria thought suddenly. "Aye, my lord. As you please."

"We've had so little time to converse, just we two," he said. Her hand rested atop his in the accepted fashion as they walked through the orchard, among the guests.

"'Tis a chaotic time, my lord," she responded vaguely. I will drown myself in the River Stour.

"I was touched when your mother explained the reason you did not greet me upon my arrival."

"And what did she say?"

"You had gone to Canterbury Cathedral to see our wedding notice upon the door. You could not wait. I find that charming, as I find everything about you charming."

What a liar you are, Mother. "Let us hope no one now comes forward with a reason to forbid our marriage."

Leybourne laughed, a not unpleasant sound. "What a delightful sense of humor you have!"

If only I had enough money to buy my way free of the betrothal contact.

They'd emerged upon a meadow where a group of bare-chested young men were hurling lances, throwing stones, and wrestling, all for the enjoyment of several giggling maidens.

"An earl's wife you'll be, with a fine manor house in Dorset and all the clothes and horses and jewelry you desire. I have a grand townhouse in London and when our family returns to court we can spend all our time there."

She had never wanted to go to court. Maria felt an overwhelming urge to cry. She slid Leybourne a glance. He looked all too healthy, too distressingly... virile for a man of such ancient years.

"I have outlived three wives, damoiselle," the earl said, as if reading her thoughts. "I have sired sons off the lot of them, as well as a mistress or two." He chuckled. "But in all my years I've not had a creature so lovely as you. Oh, we will make fine sons together. I could use some new blood with that brood of vipers who surround me."

Maria jerked her hand away. "I... vipers seems an odd word for one's children."

With Leybourne chatting away about what she could not say for she was still in shock at his boldness, they approached a group of dancers caroling to the music of viols and harps. Though Maria loved to dance, she thanked the saints for her suitor's gouty leg.

"Might I have the pleasure of this dance?" Seemingly out of nowhere, Phillip Rendell bowed before them.

Maria looked around, as if Henrietta might miraculously appear to thump her on the head and tut, "Manners!"

"Aye, my lord." Before Lord Leybourne could protest, she allowed him to lead her away.

"The Leybourne name is fine and old," Phillip commented. By unspoken agreement they drifted away from the dancers who were dipping and swaying in a sedate circle. "Your mother has reached high."

"Everyone must marry," she said noncommittally.

"Aye, and Leybourne will soon die. Then you will be a rich widow who can do as you please." They moved to the rhythm of the music, holding each other at arm's length in their own version of dance. "You might even tell your mother to leave you be."

Maria gasped at his impertinence but he was not looking at her. Rather his gaze was fastened on the orchard beyond the meadow, where cherry blossoms shimmered like angels' wings.

They continued their steps in silence until he said, "I've seen many sights in my time but never have I seen anything lovelier."

Maria closed her eyes. Already petals would be dropping from overladen branches, soon to litter the ground. She whispered, "Life though pleasant is transitory, even as is the Cherry Fair."

"Pardon, damoiselle?" Phillip's attention returned to her.

"'Tis something our priest says. Now whenever I smell their fragrance I find myself thinking of time's passing." Not true. Only since this knight's arrival.

"And of duty and obligation, of things we should have done and things we never will." Phillip's expression was touched by sadness.

"Duty means marriage to Edmund Leybourne. I had always known I must marry but I had thought my husband would be... different." Like you, Maria amended silently. Why could I not have met you before it was too late?

"'Tis not up to us to choose, at least this part of our fates." Phillip's fingers tightened ever so slightly in hers. She responded to their pressure, as well as the intoxicating nearness of his body.

"I understand duty, I do. I inhale it with every breath. So why do I feel as if I am Piers Gaveston being led to the chopping block or the hangman or wherever it was he was murdered?"

Phillip suppressed a smile. Maria obviously had a charming flair for the dramatic.

"Shall we return to the festivities, sweeting?"

Edmund Leybourne had come upon them without notice. He removed Maria's hand from Phillip's shoulder and placed it in his own.

"Of course, my lord," she said automatically, dipping her head.

Without a word, Phillip bowed to them both and took his leave.

Maria forced herself not to mark his departure, but rather allowed her fiancé to lead her back to the Cherry Fair.

"Six more days," said Leybourne, his famous temper only faintly pricked by Maria's impropriety. He knew what young Phillip Rendell was all about. But valorous deeds and a handsome face could not compete with wealth and titles.

Or legally binding contracts.

* * *

Maria tried to cry quietly into her pillow rather than awaken her sister. The betrothal ring Edmund Leybourne had earlier presented her, with both their names engraved in its band, felt impossibly heavy on her finger.

A rustling of mattresses, a hand upon her shoulder. "Do not be sad," Eleanora whispered.

Her twin's sympathy only caused Maria to weep all the harder. "I do not want to marry Edmund Leybourne!"

"'I know. But 'tis necessary."

Maria twisted Edmund's cumbersome betrothal ring. "I cannot do this. I cannot!"

Eleanora was silent, considering. While wholeheartedly embracing the concept of duty, she hated being unable to ease her twin's misery. "Do not fret so. I do not believe you'll EVER marry Lord Leybourne."

Maria sat up. Due to the warm spring night their window had not been shuttered; in the moonlight she tried to decipher her sister's expression. "You've seen something?"

"Mayhap," Eleanora said reluctantly. Of all the trials God had given her, her sight ranked near the top. If only because Maria was always pestering her about it.

"Who will it be? Who will I marry?" She thought of her black-haired, blue-eyed knight. "Someone I've already met?"

Eleanora shook her head. "'Tis always the same face I see, the face of the golden knight."

"But I do not want a stranger." Disappointed, Maria slumped back upon the pillows. "I want... someone else."

* * *

Maria only saw Phillip once more, the day before the tourney, at Chilham Castle's fair. While Edmund was haggling with a dog seller over the cost of a pair of greyhounds for Henrietta, Maria had slipped away. She'd seen Phillip, who was close by, ostensibly watching a bear baiting.

Maria strode purposefully to him. She took this as a sign. God had granted her another meeting; the rest was up to her.

"A word, my lord?" Phillip went with her willingly, only stopping at a peddler who had spread his wares upon the green in order to purchase a blue ribbon.

"I will wear it tomorrow in the tourney in your honor," he said, raising it in front of her for her perusal. "'Twill bring me luck."

Maria was flattered. A knight wearing her favor! But, undeterred from her mission, she guided him away from the press of merchants and customers to a more secluded spot. Though her legs felt unsteady, she faced him boldly.

"Marry me, my lord."

Phillip blinked in surprise. "Damoiselle—"

"Please do. I will be a good wife, diligent and obedient and I will never raise my voice, that I promise," she said, her plea tumbling forth in a rush. "But please, please do not make me marry Lord Leybourne. Please, please marry me."

Phillip reached out to touch her cheek in a most improper gesture. "You are so lovely. My heart is truly touched by your... suggestion." He paused, struggling to choose the proper response. "But I did not come to the tourney for my own amusement. Rather in the hope of gain. So that when I return to Herefordshire I will be a more worthy suitor."

Maria stepped back, uncertain what he was saying. And yet knowing...

"I am betrothed to a lady whose lands adjoin my family demesne. After I leave Fordwich, I will be returning to my own wedding."

Maria felt as if she'd been slapped. "Of course." Oh, my dear, my dear, she thought, barely refraining from wringing her hands. She felt like a trapped bird.

Phillip raised Maria's chin so that she looked him square in the eye. "If circumstances were different. If we had met at another time or place—"

"But we did not." Something within her hardened. This had been her one opportunity... and it had failed. So be it.

She turned from him, back straight, head high to return to Leybourne and her mother. But as she walked, an image came unbidden–of this dark knight, this knight forever forbidden to her, entwined with his wife.

While she... she would sire sons with Edmund Leybourne.