The Rose Of Lorraine Part 11

"Heaven," Bella said.

"Truly?" he asked. "Show me." He put the bun next to her lips. Bella's eyes narrowed, wondering if he thought she'd stoop to a Borgia trick and try to poison him. Thinking back to what all she'd learned in the confessional, maybe he did. She took a bite of the sweet bun and felt guilty because she'd already eaten three.

"Oh," Bella sighed, licking the sweet cream from the corner of her mouth.

Sir John put the other half in his mouth and then the most wonderful thing happened. His eyes smiled.

"By the Rood, woman, that is definitely a mortal sin,"

he said gravely. "We shall both be doing penance for a week for tasting such earthy delight."

That, Bella decided, was high praise indeed for her culinary skill. She couldn't help smiling back.

"Father?" A voice asked from above. "What is that you and Maman are eating?"

"Don't look." Chandos caught Bella's arm, keeping her from turning around. "'Tis a sweet that your

mother has brought to us poor watchers on the wall."

"A sweet, Papa?" Geoffrey shouted. "What kind? Custard?"

"Better. Would you like one?"

"Oh, aye, 'tis hungry man's work watching for a king."

"Then come and get one. There's plenty left for you."

"You could toss me one and I could catch it," Geoffrey suggested amiably.

"Nay, I think not," his father answered. "'Twould be a sinful waste were it to fall onto the dirt. Who would enjoy the treat then?"

Bella heard Geoffrey's deep sigh. "All right. I'll come down, but I had better not miss the king."

"Is he all right?" Bella asked, afraid to look.

"Oh, aye." John Chandos never took his eyes from the boy s.h.i.+nnying down the stones. "I'm going to

blister his skinny a.r.s.e till it s.h.i.+nes when he gets down here."

"Is that your solution for everything? Can't you talk to him?" The words blurted out before Bella could stop them. "Papa!" Geoffrey screamed.

UNDER HOUSE ARREST.

-10.

The great lord of the manor bolted past Bella, leaping over the allure onto the rim of the gatehouse. Bella spun and gripped the upthrusting merlon. "The king! The king! I see the standard! It is the king!"

Bella leaned as far out over the crenel as she could to see where Sir John was. He circled the drum tower ridge, balanced with his arms out like a high wire aerialist. Geoffrey spun from a knotted rope out of the murder-hole, one arm pointing dizzily at the horizon.

Sir John dropped onto his knees and extended his arm trying to catch the knotted tail of the spinning rope. He made three tries before he had the rope in hand. Bella's heart lurched with every try and miss.

"Do you see the king, Papa?" Geoffrey wanted to know.

"Oh, aye," Sir John hadn't once looked away from the boy dangling so dangerously above his head. "Come down, son. You've done your job. Come to me."

Nimble as a squirrel up a pecan tree, Geoffrey slithered down the knotted rope until his father's hands set him back on the wall.

Heart in her throat, Bella watched as they both turned and waved at the h.o.a.rd of riders emerging from the distant forest. A trumpeter in one of the towers sounded the alarm. Across the barren glacis, a signal from the king's trumpeter answered in return.

The allure was alive with men. Men that Bella had not realized were there. They extended a long wide plank across the top of the drum tower, so that neither their lord or his son had to transverse the dangerous rim again.

Geoffrey walked across that plank as easily as any agile child of Bella's experience crossed the top of the monkey bars on the playground against their mother's cautions. She did not withdraw from the crenel until Sir John had dropped out of her sight to safety.

Her heart was still pounding like mad as the boy ran across the allure to her, grinning like a loon. "May I have my treat now, Maman?"

Bella dropped to her knees, putting her arms around Geoffrey, touching his so familiar-to-her face, scolding, "Do you know what a fright you gave me, Geoffrey Chandos?"

"Fright? You weren't frightened, Maman. How could you be? I was safe as could be. I didn't fall or even slip."

"You had no business going up that high. Don't you ever do that again! You scared your father and me half to death."

"Papa is never scared. He's a warrior, Maman. May I have my sweet now?"

"What do you mean he is never scared? What does being a stupid warrior have to do with killing yourself? You could have fallen and broken your neck, Geoffrey Chandos!" Bella opened the napkin that was now full of sticky, mushed goo.

"You frightened me so badly I ruined the buns. Merde!" Bella swore as she stood up. "Oh, I could spank you myself for being so foolish."

That scold apparently got through Geoffrey's thick head. He looked sheepishly down at his feet as his father's shadow came over the both Bella and him.

"Geoffrey." Sir John knelt beside the boy, getting on eye level with him. "Your mother is correct. You frightened all of us. Even the men on the watch came to tell me where you were. We have been waiting for the last hour to see what would happen to you."

Geoffrey's huge brown eyes filled with tears. "I only wanted to be the first to see the king."

"Aye, and what joy would we have had welcoming the king, if we'd had our own son dead in our arms? What think you of that?"

"I am sorry, Papa."

"Yes, I can see that you are. And you have caused your mother's heart to be crushed just as badly as those sweets in her napkin. You'll not get one, Geoffrey. The only reward you shall have of this is that you were the first to see the king. Now, go down and get yourself cleaned up."

Geoffrey cast a longing glance at the napkin in Bella's hands. He said, "Yes, Papa", and departed with much of the jubilation taken out of him.

That, Bella knew, was the cost of his foolishness. But it brought her too close to the horror of Iain's death and try as she might, Bella could not staunch the flow of tears in her eyes.

Straightening onto his feet, Sir John scowled even darker when he saw that she was crying. He started to embrace her but Bella pushed his hands away. "Don't touch me. I don't need your consolation."

"What is this?" Sir John demanded. "If the boy frightened you that much why did you demand I not punish him as should have been done?"

Bella dashed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. "You wouldn't understand."

"'Haps not, but you will not pull away from me when I touch you in public, Bella. Henceforth, you will give me the respect I am due, else you will taste my ire."

"Oh, and we all really want to make doubly certain you don't have anything to get angry about, don't we? Never mind the fact that that little boy could have gotten himself killed."

Chandos again took hold of Bella's arms, this time turning her squarely around to face him. "Aye, Bella, that is true. Geoffrey could have injured himself very badly even to the point of killing himself. But he did not harm so much as a hair on his happy little head. Now, what is the source of your discontent, lady?"

Bella shook her head, having already said too much for her own good. How could she possibly explain to this man what had happened to her son? Or that his son was the very image of Iain?

"Geoffrey frightened me, is all," she managed to say.

Sir John again took her elbow lightly in hand, leading her down from the high curtain wall into the ward. Bella noticed once more that although Sir John's step was brisk, he measured his pace to hers. She tightened her fingers on his arm, realizing she needed distracting and rea.s.surance after Geoffrey's close call. And it occurred to her maybe he did too.

Chewing on the corner of her lip, she chanced a glance at his profile. Grim, was the first word that came to mind and p.i.s.sed off followed that.

Bella s.n.a.t.c.hed the kerchief from her head and shook out her hair. She looked directly at Sir John and asked, "How long before the king will arrive in the ward? Do I have time to change and freshen up?"

Sir John came to a full halt, looking down at her.

"Nay, you do not. The gates are being raised now." Chandos seemed to be fighting some kind of inner struggle. Bella willed him to say what was on his mind. She had no other way to know his thoughts or feelings since he kept such deliberate rein on his expressions. "I doubt that His Majesty looks forward to your attendance upon him."

"Because of what happened last week?" Bella asked, glad now that Father Kerwin had been so ruthless. At least she knew what she was up against.

"Aye," John said succinctly. Bella asked, "Can the damage be undone?"

Sir John looked down at her, his expression grave. "That will depend upon what further harm you cause. Go up to your solar and do what you may with your clothes and such. I am certain the king will overlook your attendance at the gate."

"Are you sure?"

He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his thick hair, looking rattled and unsure himself. His answer was delivered like an after thought to a child. "Oh, aye. Best let me sound him out and see how deep Edward's ire has festered. He was still in a rage, last eve, when I spoke with him at Camber. 'Tis a fine mess you stepped us both in last week, but to gloss it over is another matter. Go, Bella. Remain in your solar until I send for you. That would be best."

He left on a march to the north gate. Bella s.n.a.t.c.hed up her skirt and hurried the opposite direction to the manor. She remembered what Father Kerwin had said. That it was only the grace of G.o.d and Sir John's true loyalty to his king that kept every soul at Chandos Enceinte with a roof over their heads.

Had Edward the Third been of a vindictive mien, all those a.s.sociated with Isabel de Chandos could have been banished from his realm.

Bella was only just now realizing that to insult a king was no little sin.

Isabel de Chandos had done more than slight a king. She had insulted him to his face, spat on the ground

at his feet and vowed to cut him to ribbons if he dared step foot in the land of her birth, claiming the crown that she said was not his to wear.

Regicide was no trifling matter.

Putting aside the king's intrusion, Bella slipped into the kitchen to replenish her supply of poppy seed

buns. Then she hurried upstairs and across the solar to the bedrooms opposite from her own.

She tapped softly on the door of Geoffrey and Henri's room, and peeked in to find Geoffrey sprawled on his back across his bed. He sat up at once when he saw her. "Maman, what are you doing here?"

Bella held up her napkin of goodies as she put her finger to her mouth in a signal for secrecy. "May I come in, Geoffrey?"

"Oh, aye." He bounded to his feet with a tight expression on his face. Bella closed the door softly and came to stand before him. She could not resist the urge to touch the s.h.a.ggy curls wreathing his head. The boy stood very, very still, warily watching her hand move toward him.

"I am sorry both your father and I had to scold you, Geoffrey." Bella touched a soft curl and smoothed it away from his brow. "I was very afraid for you. I think Sir John was too. If I said anything that hurt your feelings, I apologize for that. And to show you that I meant you no harm, I've brought you the treat you were promised."

Bella opened the napkin and showed the boy the two perfect poppy seed buns she had brought him. "Those are for me?" Geoffrey asked. "Yes, they are."

"Papa said I was not to have them."

"I know." Bella nodded. "I think your father wanted you to realize that going up so high on the battlements is very dangerous."

"Oh, but I do know that, Maman. A soldier has to be very brave and skilled to work up there, especially during a battle. I was only practicing."

"I understand," Bella smiled. "You won't go up there alone again, will you?"

"Oh, no. I will ask permission the next time."

"That is exactly what I wanted to hear." Bella put the napkin and its contents into Geoffrey's hand. She

bent and kissed his soft cheek and whispered in his ear. "Enjoy this, my darling. You did earn it."

She slipped out of the boy's room as quietly as she'd entered, with no one in the castle wiser for what she'd done...except Geoffrey.

As it provided her some solace, Bella spent her time waiting to be summoned to meet the king, bent over the escritoire with a quill in her hand. She was prepared to evacuate her room for the king's use at a moment's notice. She wasn't going to let Lady Isabel's pride stand in the way of her husband's career, not this Isabel, at least.