Chapter Twenty-Five
The monkey had saved the day.
Piers waved Ira on with the rest of the crowd, signaling that he would join his grandfather as soon as he was able.
In the last instant, Ira came back and took charge of Layla, who went willingly enough.
Piers vowed silently that the monkey would have all the pomegranates that Gillwick could afford to buy her.
Alys blew Ira and Layla each a kiss from her fingertips.
Piers squeezed her hand as they turned in the emptying chamber to face the dais.
She had come back for him. She had survived Judith Angwedd and Bevan, grasped her freedom, and turned it away in favor of him.
Piers did not know what her plans were, or in truth how she would feel about him once they were out of sight of the king, but he knew he loved her, more than he’d ever thought possible.
And now he would stand with her before Edward, as she had stood with him.
Her lovely face was milk-pale, and he could feel her trembling. But other than those signs which only he, at such close proximity, was privy to, she appeared calm, confident. She was the Alys that Piers knew.
Edward fell back onto his chair and took a chalice from a tray offered by a serving boy. The king took a long drink, and then appraised Alys over the rim.
“Where is your sister, Lady Alys, and why has she ignored my repeated summons?” he demanded straight away.
Piers felt rather than heard Alys’s deep intake of breath. “Fallstowe keeps her very engaged, your majesty. The death of my mother was a sharp blow. She and Sybilla were very close.”
“People die, Lady Alys. That is no reason to dismiss a direct command from the king.”
Alys nodded. But all she said was, “I understand.”
Edward stared at her. “Do you have her blessing to be here, with this man?”
Then Alys smiled. “No, Sire. In fact, I have done naught but disobey my sister’s orders. I am in direct defiance of her at this very moment.”
Edward returned the smile. “Then mayhap you are not the enemy I mistook you for, if you would go against one who defies me at every turn.” He paused, as if thinking. “Is she taking up arms against me?”
Alys shook her head. “No, your majesty.”
Edward’s eyes narrowed.
“I swear it to you,” Alys insisted.
Edward tapped the base of his chalice against the carved marble armrest for a moment. “I know things about your family, Lady Alys. About your mother, in particular. Things that perhaps you yourself have no idea about. Sybilla would deny me further investigation.”
“I can assure you that what little I know is of no consequence, my lord,” Alys said, without a trace of mockery.
“I agree, else you would not be risking your life by appearing in my court.”
Alys’s eyes widened and Edward nodded. “Oh, yes— ‘tis indeed that serious.” He took another drink. “You said you were Lord Piers’s wife, and yet I cannot fathom how that is possible.”
Now it was Piers’s turn to speak for her. “We met at the Foxe Ring, my liege. ‘Tis a stone ring at the old—”
“I know the legend, Piers,” Edward interrupted mildly. “You both acknowledge the tradition?”
Piers looked to Alys, and she only stared at him.
“I do,” he said, never breaking eye contact with her.
“I do,” she replied faintly. “Of course, I do.”
“And you also know,” Edward said musingly, a touch of humor in his voice, “that Lady Sybilla will likely be much put-out at the thought of you, a Foxe, marrying a humble farmer, no matter that he is now titled.”
Alys chuckled sweetly. “Oh, my liege, I indeed am aware of how displeased she would be. She had arranged a betrothal between myself and Lord Clement Cobb of Blodshire.”
Edward winced. “That so? His mother is a beastly woman.” Then the king shrugged, drained his chalice, and then set it aside, rising leisurely.
“Regardless of your sister’s notions, it is still I who rules this kingdom, and it is I who decides if a marriage shall be constituted binding or otherwise.
You may tell your sister to pay the Cobbs your dowry for her arrogance. ”
Piers’s heart dropped into his stomach.
Edward waved his hand at them nonchalantly. “Alys Foxe, Lady Mallory.” He pointed to his agent. “Witnessed.” And to the scribe behind him. “Witnessed. So be it, and my blessing on you both. It is my most sincere wish that your sister suffers a fit of apoplexy.”
Piers heard Alys gasp and then she sank into a deep curtsey. Piers followed her lead with a bow of his own.
Behind the king, the scribe continued to scratch frantically at his parchments.
The king gestured to the court agent again, spoke low to him and then began to turn away, adding to the pair still below the dais, “Stay on for a fortnight if you wish, as my guests. But Lady Mallory,” Edward said interjecting a heavy pause, and oh, but Piers thought that title was the sweetest pair of words he’d ever heard.
“Yes, my lord?” Alys said, sounding breathless.
“I am coming for Fallstowe. I am coming, and I will not be denied.”
“I will give Sybilla the message, your majesty.”
Edward nodded. “You are dismissed.” He turned away and disappeared through a nondescript panel, his scribe scrambling to gather up the sheafs and sheafs of parchment scattered over the small table. On the floor before the dais, servants were already at work erasing the blood of Bevan Mallory.
The king’s agent approached them and handed Piers the key belonging to Julian Griffin. “His majesty has granted you use of Lord Griffin’s rooms. He shan’t be needing them.”
Piers smiled at the dour faced man, and wondered if his job was always so harsh that his face was permanently scowling. “Spending time with his new son, I’d wager.”
The agent paused, looked up at Piers. “‘Twas a daughter. Lady Griffin did not survive.”
Alys gasped and whispered, “Oh, no!”
Piers felt an odd, heavy sense of loss for this man, Julian Griffin, who was little more than a kind stranger to him.
“I am most saddened by that news. Please give him my—”
“Our,” Alys interjected.
“Yes, our regrets,” Piers amended. Was it ‘our’ now? Piers had never been an ‘our’ before.
The agent looked to Alys briefly and his eyes narrowed. “Likely you will be able to make your regrets personally.” He bowed slightly. “Good day, my lord. My lady.” He turned and was off on swift, clicking feet.
“A damned shame,” Piers murmured.
“Heartbreaking,” Alys agreed. “But I wonder what he meant when he said we’d be able to make our own regrets? He was looking at me when he said it.”
“I suspect Lord Griffin carries a heavy responsibility for Edward,” Piers guessed. “My thought is that ‘twill be none other than Julian Griffin whom he sends after Fallstowe.”
“Surely it won’t be soon—the man’s just lost his wife.”
Piers shrugged because he had no answer for her. Then turned to look down at Alys. In that instant, Julian Griffin and his misfortune were forgotten, as was the fate of Alys’s childhood home. He was faced with a woman he had nearly lost himself. His own wife now, was she? Was she, truly?
She looked up at him. And then she smiled.
“I told you we were married.”
Piers didn’t know what to do, how to react. He wanted to grab her, kiss her, beg her to come home to Gillwick with him and Ira. But although her smile was sweet and relieved, he didn’t know how she felt about their hasty and very legal marriage that had just taken place.
“I’m certain there is still time to have it retracted if you wish,” Piers said, more gruffly than he’d intended.
Alys’s brows lowered and she drew her head back. Then her fist. She dealt him a blow in the soft spot between his left breast and shoulder, and although it barely rocked Piers, he knew she’d intended for it to hurt him.
“I can’t believe you would even suggest that!” she said. And then she burst into tears, her hands flying up to cover her face.
Piers cursed softly and gathered Alys into his arms, as he’d wanted to do from the moment she’d stormed the king’s court for him.
“Alys, Alys—forgive me. I am a fool, true,” he murmured into her hair. Piers took a deep breath and, for the first time in his life, spoke unabashedly from his heart. “I love you so, my little wife. Please, please say that you will come home with me to Gillwick, and live with me forever.”
She slowed her sobs with sniffling breaths and after several moments, looked up at him, wiping at her cheeks. Piers raised a hand and brushed at a rogue tear she’d missed near her chin.
“Will you?” he asked, pressed. He cared not that she might refuse him now. He was laying himself open to her, his heart, his home, everything he was and everything he owned. He would never be as wealthy as her family. Gillwick would never be as grand as Fallstowe.
But she was no child, and so she already knew this. Perhaps she had realized it long before Piers had ever thought to.
“I told you once that I would go with you to the ends of the earth,” Alys said solemnly. “That was my vow, and I meant it. I am so proud to be Lady Mallory, Piers. Your wife. So much prouder than I ever was to be just Alys Foxe.”
Piers huffed a laugh. She was remarkable. “You were never ‘just’ Alys Foxe,” he said, smoothing back her hair from her face with his palm.
He released her suddenly from his embrace and grasped her left hand.
He brought out the carnelian signet ring once more, and slid it onto Alys’s longest finger.
It fit perfectly. He heard her soft cry, and Piers raised her hand to his lips and placed a kiss atop the carved M, much as he had done with the king’s royal crest.
“Thank you,” Alys said softly, her eyes shining. She squeezed his fingers. “But Piers—”
“Shh,” he said with a smile, and then produced the little string of wooden beads and tied them once more onto Alys’s right wrist.
“Now I truly feel that we are married … again.” She smiled up at him as he took her into his arms and kissed her mouth lightly.