LIBERTINE in the Tudor Court: One Night in Paradise / A Most Unseemly Summer

LIBERTINE in the Tudor Court: One Night in Paradise / A Most Unseemly Summer
Juliet Landon

One Night in ParadiseThough Queen Elizabeth I’s court at Richmond was a hotbed of illicit liaisons, beautiful Adorna Pickering remained unscathed. Yet the one man she couldn’t resist had a reputation blacker than sin. And though Adorna didn’t want to be just another easy conquest, she’d willingly forsake everything she held dear for one night in Sir Nicholas Rayne’s arms…A Most Unseemly SummerCapable and determined Lady Felice has had to learn how to take care of herself. So she is shocked when the surveyor of her family’s new home, Sir Leon Gascelin, forces her to accept him as her temporary guardian. Is it to stop tongues wagging because they reside under the same roof? Or has she deliberately been sent to this dangerously attractive gentleman to be well and truly tamed?

Libertine in the Tudor Court

One Night in Paradise

A Most Unseemly Summer

Juliet Landon

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

JULIET LANDON lives in an ancient country village in the north of England with her retired scientist husband. Her keen interest in embroidery, art and history, together with a fertile imagination, make writing historical novels a favourite occupation. She finds the research particularly exciting, especially the early medieval period and the fascinating laws concerning women in particular and their struggle for survival in a man’s world.

One Night in Paradise

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Author’s Note

Chapter One

23 June 1575, Richmond, Surrey

A dorna Pickering’s ability to stay calm in the face of adversity was put severely to the test the day that Queen Elizabeth went hawking. They were in the park at Richmond and Adorna was noticed not so much for her superb horsemanship but for her graceful fall backwards into the River Thames and for her pretence that it was nothing, really. Though Adorna managed to impress the Queen, there was one who refused to be impressed in quite the same sympathetic manner.

It had all begun so well, the midsummer sun promising a windless day perfect for hawking, one of Her Majesty’s favourite sports in which she always indulged when staying at her palace in Richmond. The park was extensive, well stocked with deer and water-birds, and a select gathering of the Queen’s favourite courtiers made a brilliant splash of colour behind her, quietly vying with each other to show off their finery, their horses, and their popularity.

As the daughter of the Queen’s Master of the Revels Office, Adorna’s presence in such company was not only accepted but encouraged. Living at Richmond so close to the royal palace had many compensations, as her newly appointed father had only recently pointed out.

Adorna had already attracted smiles and admiring glances, her striking beauty and pale gold hair reflecting the similar pale gold of her new mare in the blue-patterned harness given to her last week for her twentieth birthday. By her side rode Master Peter Fowler, another member of the royal household, a young man on the upward current who privately believed that his future would be enhanced by his association with someone slightly above his station. Not that he was oblivious to Adorna’s physical attributes, but Peter was more ambitious than moonstruck, and his appearance by her side this morning was no coincidence.

In a sea of jewel colours, tossing plumes and a speckle of spaniels weaving between hooves, the company waited while the Queen and her Master Falconer cast their falcons up into the sky while down below the beaters flushed ducks from the river, putting them to flight. But, being on the edge of the gathering and not far from the river bank, Adorna’s flighty young mare took exception to wings whizzing overhead, squawking loudly. The mare bunched and staggered backwards, quivering with fright, and it was with some difficulty that Adorna controlled her and stopped her barging into nearby horses whose riders were looking skywards. Then, thinking that she was over that semi-crisis, she gave her attention to the falcons, which, in bringing down the ducks, dropped two of them into the river in a flurry of white feathers.

Everyone’s attention was now engaged in seeing who would be first to retrieve the flapping quarry for Her Majesty, none of them noticing how Adorna’s mare, still restive, had decided to join the retrieving party of her own free will against all her rider’s attempts to stop her. Moving backwards instead of forwards despite all that Adorna could do, the mare was beating a determined staccato with her hind hooves into the water around her. Men called, others laughed, including the Queen, some used their swords as fishing hooks, one lad plunged in bodily to earn the Queen’s favour, but no one—not even Peter—noticed how Adorna and her pale golden mare were now wallowing, hock deep, into the current.

She yelled to him, ‘Peter! Help me!’ but his attention was on the ducks like everyone else’s, and Adorna was obliged to use her whip to impel the horse forward as the water covered her feet, the hem of her long gown swirling wetly around one knee. But she had left it too late; the whip hit the water instead of the horse, which still refused to respond to her commands. Help came unexpectedly in the form of a large man and horse who plunged into the water ahead of her, grabbing unceremoniously at the mare’s bridle only seconds before the current swept over the saddle.

Concerned only with getting on to the bank as a team, she paid no attention to the man’s appearance except to note that his horse was very large and that he himself was powerful enough to drag the reins out of her hands and over the mare’s head and to haul the creature almost bodily through the muddy water on to dry firm ground.

Well away from the applauding crowd, Adorna found her voice. ‘Thank you, oh, thank you,’ she said, clutching at the pommel of the saddle as the mare lurched forward. ‘Thank heaven somebody noticed at last.’

Her thanks were misinterpreted. ‘If you think that’s the most effective way to be noticed, mistress, think again,’ the man snapped, devoid of any sympathy. ‘The applause you hear is for Her Majesty, not for your antics. Leave the retrieving to the hounds in future.’

It was not Adorna’s way to be speechless for long, but that piece of calculated rudeness was breathtaking. What was more, the man’s dismounting was far quicker than hers and, well before she could reply, she was being hoisted out of the saddle by two strong arms and set down upon the ground with the hem of her wet skirts and underclothes sticking nastily to her legs. His hands were painfully efficient.

‘I was referring, sir, to my predicament,’ she snapped back, shaking off his supporting hand. ‘If I’d planned on being noticed, as you appear to think, I’d not have chosen to back into the river before the Queen’s entire court, believe me. Nor was I in the race to retrieve a duck. Now, can I rid you of any more delusions before you go?’ Still not looking at him, she shook the full skirt of her pale blue gown, catching a glimpse of Peter out of the corner of her eye. He was dismounting. Kneeling. ‘Peter,’ she said, ‘get up off…oh!’ Her rescuer was doing the same.

The crowd had parted and, as Adorna sank into a deep wet curtsy, the Queen rode forward on a beautiful dapple grey. ‘Geldings make better mounts on these occasions, mistress, so I’m told,’ the Queen said. ‘Your mount is a beauty, but a little unmannerly perhaps?’ The embodiment of graciousness, the Queen exuded a sympathy for Adorna’s plight that came as a welcome change from the rescuer’s brusqueness.

Yet Adorna could not allow the chance to pass. She stayed in her curtsy, sending a haughty glance towards the man before making her reply. ‘Your Majesty is most kind. My mare is still young, though one would have to struggle to find a similarly good excuse for others’ unmannerliness.’ There was no mistaking the butt of her remark, the man in question glowering at her as if she were a troublesome sparrowhawk on his wrist, while the Queen and her Court’s laughter tinkled around them like splinters of breaking ice.

But Adorna’s glance had given her the information that she had already suspected, by his imperious manner and cultured voice—he was a self-opinionated wit-monger, albeit an extremely good-looking one, whose imposing stature was exactly the kind the Queen liked to have around her. Ill-featured people were anathema to her, especially men. He was dark-eyed and boldfaced with a square clean-shaven jaw, his head now bared to show thick dark waves brushed back off his forehead, a dent showing where his blue velvet bonnet had recently sat. His shoulders were broad enough to take her insult and, as the Queen signalled them to rise, Adorna saw that his legs were long and muscular, outlined in tight canions up to the top of his thighs to where his paned trunk-hose fitted. His deep blue velvet complemented her paler version perfectly, but that appeared to be their only point of compatibility.

The Queen was still amused. ‘There now, Sir Nicholas,’ she said. ‘Apparently it is not so much what one does as the manner in which one does it. I shall expect more from you when I have the misfortune to fall into the river.’

Sir Nicholas had the grace to laugh as he bowed to her. ‘Divine Majesty,’ he said, ‘I believe the Lady Moon will fall into the river before you do.’

‘I hope you’re right.’ She accepted the compliment and turned again to Adorna. ‘Mistress Pickering, there are few women who could look as well as you after such a fright. I hope you’ll not leave us.’

Adorna knew a command when she heard one. ‘I thank Your Majesty. I ask nothing more than to stay.’

‘Then stay close, mistress, and let my lord of Leicester’s man teach your pretty mare a thing or two about obedience. Sir Nicholas, tend the lady.’

Sir Nicholas bowed again as the Queen moved away to yet another scattering of applause at her graciousness, but Adorna had no intention of being tended by this uncivil creature, whatever the Queen’s wishes. She turned to Peter Fowler, but the voice at her back held her attention.

‘Mistress Pickering. Sir Thomas’s daughter. Well, well.’

Adorna spoke over her shoulder. ‘And you are one of the Master of Horse’s men, I take it, which would explain why you are more polite to horses than to their riders. What a good thing the same cannot be said of your master.’ It was well known that the handsome earl, Her Majesty’s Master of Horse, was desperately in love with the Queen.

‘My master, lady, has not yet had to drag Her Majesty out of the river in front of her courtiers. It’s not your pretty mare that needs a lesson in manners so much as its rider needing lessons in control.’ By this time the golden mare was eating something sweet from Sir Nicholas’s hand, as docile as a lamb. ‘Believe it or not, that is what Her Grace was telling you.’

Furiously, she rounded on him as Peter and two of her friends came to her aid, wringing the water from the hem of her gown. ‘Rubbish! There is no one in the world who speaks more candidly than the Queen. If that’s what she’d meant she’d have said so. Her Grace commands me to stay close and that is what I must do. I have thanked you for your assistance, Sir Nicholas, but now you are relieved of all further responsibility towards me, despite what Her Grace desires. Go and practise your courtesies on your horses.’

‘Mistress!’ Peter Fowler’s alarm warned her that her own courtesy was fraying around the edges. ‘This gentleman is Sir Nicholas Rayne, Deputy to Her Majesty’s Master of Horse.’