Page 78 of Love, Remember Me

"I won't stop, Cat," he growled quite distinctly. "I am not that sick old fool you're married to, my hot little bitch. I'll fuck you well this day, as I have before and will again!" He ground himself into her, and the queen groaned lustily.

Nyssa let the curtain fall, finally able to move. Then she fled the queen's pavilion.

She could not believe what she had just seen. Surely her eyes had deceived her. But she knew they had not deceived her. They had seen what they had seen, and now she was in a quandary as to what to do. She stopped in her flight, closing her eyes, and drew a deep breath to clear her head. The memory filled her brain, and her eyes flew open again. She needed time to think; to compose herself; to decide what she must do, or if she should or could do anything.

Reaching her pavilion, she called to the groomsman, Bob, to fetch her the gelding she liked to ride.

"Will ye be joining the hunt then, m'lady?" Bob said.

"Nay." Nyssa shook her head. "I simply wish to ride off this headache. I will not go far, Bob. You need not come with me."

Entering the pavilion, she called to Tillie to help her change her clothing. "Bring me the heather-colored riding skirt, and my boots."

"Yer as white as a ghost, m'lady. Are you all right?" Tillie's tone was one of great concern. "Perhaps you should lie down."

"Nay," Nyssa told her. "I need to get away from here, and be by myself for a little time. Ohhh, Tillie! I hate the court!"

Tillie helped her mistress out of her clothes and into a riding outfit consisting of the velvet skirt and a purple velvet bodice edged in gold braid. Kneeling, she fit Nyssa's boots onto her slender feet. "Are you joining the hunt then, m'lady?"

Nyssa shook her head. "I want to ride. Alone."

"Bob should ride with you, m'lady. His lordship won't like it that you've gone off alone. 'Tis dangerous," Tillie fretted.

"Living among the court is far more dangerous, Tillie," Nyssa told her tiring woman. "I will take my chances in the hills hereabouts. Besides, I will not go far, and his lordship will never know if you do not tell him, will he?" She patted the maidservant's shoulder and hurried from the pavilion, mounting the horse that Bob had saddled.

She cantered from the encampment, not really even heeding where she was going. The countryside about her was bleak. Outside the walls of York there seemed to be nothing but sky and hills. Here and there bits of autumn color were showing. She rode on and on until finally, as she topped a hill, she drew her horse to a halt, gazing out over the landscape below. Nyssa sighed deeply. She had caught the queen in adultery.What was she to do?

The king adored his young wife. He was unlikely to hear any ill about her from anyone. Particularly not from me, Nyssa thought. I cannot accuse the queen of light behavior without proof, and the mere evidence of my own eyes will not be enough. They will say that I am jealous that the king married Cat instead of marrying me. That I seek to turn the king away from her, and back to me. The question of my marriage to Varian will come up all over again, and my own behavior will be questioned. I can say nothing. I am forced to be silent in the face of this adultery and treason. I dare not even tell Varian, for he will go to his grandfather, and then Duke Thomas will go to the queen. Cat will not like it, and she will surely find a way to get even with me. I am no match for a reigning queen. I must remain silent to protect my family.

"I have never before seen such a serious look in any woman's eyes," a familiar voice said, amused. "What weighty matters do you ponder, my dear Countess of March? You are too beautiful to be so gloomy."

Nyssa looked up, startled to see Sir Cynric Vaughn beside her, mounted upon a fine black stallion. "I am thinking of my babies, and how I wish I were home at Winterhaven," she lied to him. "Surely, my lord, you know that I prefer the country life to that at court."

"When I saw you leave the encampment, I thought perhaps that you were going to meet a lover," he told her boldly.

"My husband is my only lover," Nyssa replied, irritated.

"How quaint," he drawled, "but surely dull."

It would be useless to bandy words with him, Nyssa quickly realized. He would not understand the love that she and Varian shared. "You do not hunt today, my lord?"

"Nor do you," he countered. "I am bored with this constant pursuit of game, which seems to amuse the king so greatly. Tell me, madame, what would you be doing if you were at home instead of here?"

"Harvesting apples and preparing to make cider," she said. "And then in a few weeks the October ale would need to be brewed."

He laughed, and his horse danced nervously at the sound. "Do you not have servants to do these things, madame?"

"The servants do the labor, of course, sir, but they must be overseen. Without direction, servants falter, my mother taught me."

"What about a steward, or a housekeeper?" he wondered.

"They can help, and in some cases take over for a master, or a mistress," Nyssa told him, "but they cannot substitute for them. Estates possessed by absentee lords are frequently poor ones. Their people lose heart when they do not have the direction of their true master."

"Hummmm," he considered. "Perhaps that is why my estate is not a profitable one, but I need a rich wife to restore it, and I cannot find a rich wife without a profitable estate." He laughed. "It is a serious conundrum, madame. So I remain at court."

"Where is your home?" she asked him, beginning to gently nudge her horse back in the direction from which she had come.

"In Oxfordshire," he said. "You would like it since all that is bucolic seems to appeal to you. I possess a tumbling-down old hall, a deer park, and a few hundred acres of overgrown fields." He moved his horse along with hers as they spoke.

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