Lady Valiant

Book 4: Ladies

by Suzanne Robinson

Genres: Action & Adventure Romance; Scottish & Highlander; Tudor Romance

Synopsis

Determined to pay back Mary Queen of Scots for her kindness, Thea Hunt journeys to Scotland to warn the queen not to enter into a treacherous marriage but finds herself chased down by a golden-haired highwayman.

Release date: August 17, 2011

Publisher: Fanfare

Print pages: 336

Sample

There is no more trusting in women.
 
—HOMER
 
London,
April 1565
 
HEA HUNT’S TARGET WAS a man. She lifted the crossbow, steadied it against her shoulder, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The bolt shot out of the groove and impaled its mark. The archery butt shuddered, and Thea lowered her weapon.
 
She never aimed at plain targets. She painted the outline of a man on a sheet and attached it to the butt. In her imagination the outline took on the form of a dark-haired Frenchman, slight of build yet arrogant of demeanor, noble yet impoverished of honor.
 
She preferred the crossbow because of the force of the bolt. She could feel the power behind the release of the quarrel, imagine the bolt piercing Henri’s flesh. Each time she shot the weapon, she assuaged the pain, the humiliation of her flight from the French court.
 
At her side, Hobby put her foot in the stirrup of another crossbow and winched the bow back. “Aaow, my bones. God’s truth, mistress, no other lady’s maid has to break her back fiddling with these things.”
 
Thea’s lips pressed together as she took aim again. She wasn’t ready to give up her favorite pastime. “Take comfort. One more bolt in his heart, no, this time in his face, I think.”
 
“Good,” Hobby said. “For it’s time to change your gown. The sun sets, and the banquet begins soon.”
 
Thea grimaced at the mention of the banquet. She would have to consort with men. Luckily, she’d thought of an excuse that would save her from the dancing.
 
She glanced across the lawn and garden to the towers of Bridgestone Abbey. Grandmother would be furious at her refusal to dance, but Thea would rather face the old lady’s wrath than put herself within touching distance of a nobleman. She wasn’t going to be hurt, not ever again.
 
Hours later at the banquet, she was still grumbling to herself of how she despised men. To be in a room with over a dozen of them made her want to jump into the nearest tureen and pull the lid shut. She could feel her own fear, as if verminous rats were crawling over her body. Her fear had yellow, curved teeth and a spiked tail, and it never left her when she was surrounded by young men. Thea cast a resentful glance at Grandmother. It was Grandmother’s fault that she stood there, watching the merriment.
 
Grandmother had insisted upon giving a banquet. Luckily, at the moment most of the men she wished to evade were engaged in dancing a pavane. Thea hated dancing almost as much as she hated men. Her chief comfort was that she’d found a new way to avoid it. Standing near Grandmother’s chair in the high great chamber, she leaned on a walking stick borrowed from her father.
 
That morning she had pretended to turn her ankle. She cast a glance at her grandmother. The old lady was surveying the dancers with the look of a milk-gorged calf. Grandmother loved multitudes of persons, especially the powerful and rich. Grandmother had set her heart upon marrying Thea to one of them. This desire was the reason Thea and Lord Hunt were on this prolonged visit instead of remaining at home in peace. Since she and her father had arrived, Lady Hunt had maneuvered to show her granddaughter to as many wealthy young noblemen as she could trap into coming to Bridgestone. Thea had a near escape when Grandmother’s favorite got himself killed not long ago in some brawl. Leslie Richmond had been one of those men who felt God owed him wealth, pleasing entertainments, and women of easy virtue. Thea had been considering using him for a crossbow target when he died.
 
Suddenly Grandmother turned and caught Thea’s eye.
 
“By the rood, where’s your father, girl?” she asked.
 
Thea surveyed the great chamber from one tapestried wall to the other. As usual, Father had wandered away from the merriment, leaving guests to fend for themselves.
 
“Shall I fetch him, Grandmother?”
 
“And be quick. I know you, child, and you’re as like to vanish as he is.”
 
“Yes, Grandmother.”
 
Thumping her walking stick with ostentation, Thea limped out of the chamber and into the long gallery. Grandmother was especially fond of the gallery. One whole wall consisted of windows while the other was lined with portraits of Hunt ancestors and the kings and queens they had served. Prominent among them was a full-length portrait of Mary Tudor.
 
She was congratulating herself on her escape when she ran into the Earl of Lynford on her way downstairs. He reached the landing with Timothy Eyre and Lord Lawrence Gracechurch as she prepared to descend. Of all her grandmother’s friends, she could abide Lynford best. His soft brown eyes never held scorn, not even for Father at his most bemused.
 
Though not yet five and thirty, Lynford had suffered greatly at the hands of the old king, Henry VIII, and his son Edward VI because of his adherence to the old faith. When he was a boy he’d seen his father beheaded for refusing to acknowledge old King Harry instead of the Pope as head of the church. No doubt the horrors of that day were responsible for the sadness that seldom left the earl’s eyes. His suffering had given him a quality of sympathy that even Thea found admirable. Still, she didn’t want to talk to him for too long, him being a man, and a comely one.
 
Curtsying to the three, she clasped the banister. “Good e’en, my lord.”
 
Lynford took her hand, though he knew she disliked being touched. He bent over it but refrained from kissing it. When he straightened, his gaze held both merriment and exasperation, and she realized he was as impatient with the crowds of place-seekers as she was. At least Lynford had the wit to recognize Grandmother’s true aim in inviting him. He was, after all, one of the few Catholic noblemen Queen Elizabeth tolerated at court.
 
“Mistress Hunt,” Lynford said. “I hope your injury isn’t taking you from us so early.”
 
“No, my lord, I but seek my father.”
 
Timothy Eyre bowed to her. “We haven’t seen Lord Hunt.” Timothy rarely noticed anyone except those wealthy enough to further his own ambitions to rise among the queen’s courtiers.
 
“No doubt he’s cavorting with a draft horse or feeding eels and marchpane to one of his prize cows,” Lord Gracechurch said.
 
Thea stared at Gracechurch without smiling. Father ofttimes acted as if he had the wits of a midge, and his ideas of what was important in the world rarely matched anyone else’s, but she disliked anyone making jests about him. Especially someone like Gracechurch, who, during Bloody Mary’s reign, had accused innocent yeomen of heresy in order to get their land.
 
“Gracechurch,” said Lynford, “you’d do well to keep your thoughts to yourself, such as they are.” Lynford bowed to Thea. “Your pardon, Mistress. I for one shall be desolate at your absence.”
 
It was one of those courtly phrases she’d come to resent when addressed to her, yet when Lynford said it, somehow she knew he was telling her the truth. Looking at him, she took in the downturned mouth, the face devoid of any blemish or lump that would bar his being called handsome. He held her gaze without trying to draw her into a passionate exchange, and for that discretion and the respect that prompted it, she was grateful.
 
She nodded to Lynford, actually smiled at him, then turned her back on Gracechurch and descended the long series of staircases. The high great chamber was on the third floor, and the trip to the kitchen a long one. Grandmother had designed Bridgestone Abbey herself. The long, winding stone stairs impressed the eye, but the distance from the kitchen caused food to arrive in the great chamber cold.
 
Not that Grandmother cared. Grace Hunt had wanted an imposing, modern house, and that was what she’d gotten. Situated on the grounds of a ruined abbey, Bridge-stone was more glass than stone. At sunrise and sunset the house lit with flames of reflected sunlight.
 
Grandmother’s pride had been cast in stone, plaster, marble, and glass at Bridgestone. Her initials topped the eight towers of the house; they and her coat of arms decorated every chimney piece and ceiling, every cushion and tapestry in the place. A rectangular block with two towers on each side, Bridgestone dominated the countryside in which it lay. Grace had chosen a sight midway between Westminster and the Fleet River, north of the Strand. The spires of the minster were just visible from the roof of the house.
 
To Thea, Bridgestone represented Grandmother’s thwarted ambition. Grace had enjoyed high favor with the old queen, Mary Tudor, but now Elizabeth sat on the throne. Elizabeth didn’t like Grandmother, who had once been so foolhardy as to call the young woman a bastard, though not to her face. Thea didn’t like Grandmother either. She hadn’t since the day Grace Hunt shoved her on board a ship and sent her to the French court, a motherless little girl, alone and lost and in need of someone who cared about her.
 
On the ground floor Thea made her way to the kitchen in search of Father because she knew he wouldn’t be there. If she looked for him carefully, she wouldn’t find him until it was almost time for their guests to leave.