Chapter Seventeen
The nooning meal commenced two hours after its normally scheduled time.
Toby had pouted and raged in her chamber about the fact that she did not want to attend but she knew that she must. Even the candied pumpkin Kenneth had managed to locate did not improve her mood.
So the knight was forced to give her a very stern talk about her behavior and the necessity for cooperation.
Toby had thrown pumpkin at him. Kenneth had calmly picked it up off the floor and ate it.
Pushing the limits, Toby waited until the last minute to dress for the meal in another Joan Mortimer gown.
Toby had fleetingly wondered about a woman who would allow her husband to so openly cavort with another woman, even if it was the queen.
She didn’t imagine the woman had a lot of self-respect or, more likely, a lot of choice in the matter.
Not that she particularly cared, but it was a curious situation.
Toby dressed in a cream-colored lamb’s wool with white ermine lining.
It was an exquisite gown that was both very soft and very warm.
The sleeves were long and belled, the neckline rounded and flattering.
A gold belt draped around her waist, giving her a very angelic appearance.
She brushed her golden brown hair vigorously, securing it at the nape of her neck in a delicately wrapped bun pattern.
Mortimer’s wife had left a variety of hair ornaments and she secured her bun with an ornate golden butterfly comb. It was extremely flattering.
Gazing back at her reflection in the polished bronze mirror, she found herself thinking on the whirlwind that had been her life for the past month.
At the turn of the New Year, she had been Toby Cartingdon, the same as she had always been.
Her days had been filled with managing her father’s estate, tending to her invalid mother, and tending to her younger sister.
While she had not been particularly happy, she had been moderately content.
She had been resigned to her existence. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined the life she now led.
To have married Tate de Lara had given her more joy than she could have imagined, but everything else that had happened during those few weeks still had her disoriented.
She still expected to wake up and realize that it had all been a dream.
She smoothed the skirt of the surcoat, fingering the neckline and noticing how the cut emphasized her round breasts.
They had filled out quite a bit over the past two weeks.
Her waist was still slim but her breasts were lusciously full.
It didn’t look like her usual figure; she was delicious and round.
But Timothy told her that the filling out of the body was normal in early pregnancy.
Toby grinned as she ran her hand across her belly, slightly rounded beneath the belt.
A baby. She remembered when her mother had been pregnant with Ailsa and how ill the woman had been.
Other than being ravenously hungry constantly, Toby felt fine.
And, of course, the mood swings, but she wasn’t particularly concerned about that.
At the moment, her most predominant thought was the baby and somehow reuniting with Tate.
She missed him so much that her heart literally ached and with each passing day that he did not appear, her anxiety was growing.
Kenneth had told her to have faith but it was becoming increasingly difficult.
A knock on her chamber door roused her from her thoughts. She stepped away from the mirror, inviting the knocker to enter.
Kenneth entered the chamber, closing the door softly behind him.
Mortimer had forbidden him to wear his armor inside the keep so he was dressed in a dark tunic and leather breeches.
He stood politely by the door, his big hands clasped behind his back.
He was actually shaved and combed and looked rather gentlemanly.
Toby had seen him that way many a time since their arrival to Wigmore and Kenneth always looked extremely uncomfortable.
The man missed his armor as one would miss a lover.
“Are you ready, Lady de Lara?” he asked. “Mortimer has sent me to retrieve you.”
She pursed her lips irritably, keeping her retort to herself when he lifted a rebuking eyebrow at her.
Turning away from him, she went over to the vanity table with its vast array of powders and perfumes.
Sitting down, she picked up a delicate cotton powder puff and began to powder her shoulders and décolletage with a very fine talc powder fragranced with rose oil.
“Why do you suppose Tate has not come yet?” she asked him quietly.
He watched her dust off her lovely shoulders. “He will be here, my lady.”
She stopped dusting and looked at him. “As you have said many times, yet he has not appeared.” She stared at him a long moment. “You… you do not suppose that de Roche was being truthful and he drowned in the frozen river?”
Kenneth shook his head. “If he had, we would be hearing it from other sources by now. Yet de Roche is the only one who has mentioned it. Not even Mortimer has mentioned it.” He watched her absorb the information, ripples of doubt and hope spreading across her face. “Are you ready to go?”
She put the puff down, giving a little sigh as she did so. “I do not suppose we could tell Mortimer that I am ill, could we?”
“Not a chance.”
She made a face. “Who is his visitor, then?”
Kenneth shifted on his big legs. “The Earl of Suffolk, Robert de Ufford. He is a major supporter to Mortimer’s cause.”
“Why is he here?”
“I would like to know that myself.”
Toby stared at herself in the mirror, seeing Kenneth’s reflection also as he looked at her. Feelings of helplessness and restlessness swept her. She closed her eyes tightly and clenched her fists.
“I do not want to be here any longer,” she hissed. “I want to go back to Harbottle or Forestburn or wherever Tate wants to live.” She suddenly looked up, gazing at him in the reflection of the mirror. Her hazel eyes welled. “I just want to go home.”
Kenneth nodded. “I know,” he said gently. “But we cannot at the moment.”
She turned to look at him beseeching. “When, Kenneth? When will he come for me?”
“I do not know, Toby. You must be patient. He will come.”
Toby opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by Timothy blowing into the room. He hadn’t even knocked. Both Kenneth and Toby watched him as he went straight for Toby with a pewter chalice in his hand.
“Here, my lady,” he thrust the cup at her. “Drink this. It will be very good for the baby.”
Toby’s eyes widened. So did perpetually stone-faced Kenneth’s; his expression gradually morphed until he looked as if he was about to explode.
“What baby?” he demanded in an uncharacteristic burst.
Timothy looked at him with surprise. “She did not tell you?” he clucked softly. “Our lovely lady is pregnant, knight. You do not think that her outbursts and tantrums have been the mark of her normal disposition, do you? Lady de Lara is expecting. We must take great care of her now.”
Kenneth looked at Toby, who gazed back at him somewhat fearfully. He just stared at her, a million thoughts rolling through his head. He began to look unsteady.
“Does Mortimer know?” he asked, his tone oddly tight.
Toby shook her head, wary of his reaction. “Of course not.”
Kenneth did a very strange thing then; he exhaled loudly and sought the nearest chair as if all of his strength had suddenly left him. As he sat heavily, his ice-blue eyes fixed on her in shock.
“Toby, you have no idea…,” he trailed off, regrouping his thoughts. He was, frankly, reeling. “God’s Blood, are you sure?”
She sensed that he wasn’t entirely happy to hear her news. If he wasn’t happy, then perhaps Tate would not be happy. She suddenly felt awful about it and began to blink rapidly as her eyes started to well again.
“Fairly sure,” she was beginning to sniffle, a prelude to bursting into tears. “Why? What’s wrong? Why do you look so?”
Kenneth didn’t want to frighten her but he was, in fact, frightened himself.
Tate’s legacy. Of course, he was thrilled for Tate but he was also terrified.
If Mortimer knew of Lady de Lara’s pregnancy, then he feared the dynamics of the situation would change dramatically.
Not only would de Lara’s wife be captive, but she could quite possibly have the child in captivity.
Then Mortimer would have Tate’s entire family to bargain with.
Tate had already lost one wife and child; Kenneth knew, as he lived and breathed, that Tate would not lose another.
“I am sorry,” he struggled to compose himself. “I did not mean to frighten you. But you must understand the seriousness of this situation. Mortimer must not know that you carry Tate’s child.”
She sniffled. “I did not plan to tell him.”
He was glad she had not asked for more of an explanation; it would have frightened her further and he was trying very hard not to upset her. “Good,” he sighed. “You must adhere to that vow. It is important.”
“I will,” she was giving him a pouting face. “But why?”
So much for not having to explain his reasons to her. “Because Mortimer will use the child against Tate just as he is using you,” he tried not to sound too intense. “What man would not risk everything for his wife and child?”
Her face darkened, somewhere between guilt and anger. “He would not harm the baby, would he?”
“Nay. But Tate would risk his life for you both. The harm, if any, would come to Tate.”
She looked as if she was about to cry again but steeled herself. Na?ve as she was about war and politics, she was getting a very quick lesson on the brutality of warfare. Fortunately, she was a good student. She understood the seriousness of the situation.
“We must keep this secret very safe, then,” she looked at Timothy, the earl’s physic. “You will not tell him, of course.”