A Midsummer Knight's Kiss

It was intended to be soothing, but made Robbie’s chest tighten. He was becoming uncomfortably aware how even the glimpse of one of the village girls’ legs could make his body do all manner of alarming things. Before today Rowenna had never had such an effect on him and he was unsure he was comfortable with it.

He concentrated on examining her hand, unwrapping the wide blue ribbon she was using as a makeshift bandage. The skin on her palm had broken in three places and was dotted with raised weals across the mounds below her fingers where she had previously scuffed them. They would scab over in time, but were now weeping a little. The fury that had boiled inside him began to rise once more.

‘I’m not sorry,’ he said. ‘But why did you have to be rude to her and earn yourself a second strike?’

‘Why should I keep quiet when she is being unjust?’ She gazed at him, eyes full of rebellion and outrage.

‘Is s-speaking out worth the pain of a whipping?’ he asked gently.

‘Sometimes it is. Lady Stick didn’t have to punish either of us. She just doesn’t like us.’

Rowenna wrapped the ribbon round her hand once more and bunched her fist. Her expression grew fierce. ‘She never tells Anne and Lisbet off the way she does us or John. She dotes on them! Mother says its because my father isn’t her true son so I’m not really her kin. I don’t know why she dislikes you, though. She loves your father and one day you’ll be Lord Danby.’

Robbie’s heart filled with pity. Uncle Hal was a bastard: the illegitimate son of Robbie’s grandfather. He would never hold rank or title and nor would any of his children.

‘She thinks I’m stupid because I s-speak poorly,’ he muttered.

‘But you aren’t at all!’ Rowenna exclaimed. She twisted round to face him. ‘You’re clever and kind and brave. That’s twice today you have defended me. Thank you, Sir Robert.’

Robbie couldn’t contain his excitement any longer.

‘I will be Sir Robert,’ he said, facing Rowenna. ‘Father has secured me a place as a squire. I shall have to serve two years as a page so I’ll be fifteen rather than fourteen before I become squire.’

‘Are you going to go?’ Rowenna asked quietly.

‘Of course,’ Robbie exclaimed. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

Rowenna pouted. ‘You’ll become Lord Danby anyway one day. You could just stay here.’

‘I can’t just wait here until I inherit my title. I need to earn it. I want to serve in another household.’

‘Then I’m very pleased for you. It’s what you’ve wanted for as long as I can remember!’ Rowenna was beaming, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Where will you be going?’

‘Wentbrig. To Sir John Wallingdon, who owes fealty to De Lacy of Pontefract.’

‘That’s so far,’ Rowenna breathed with excitement. ‘The same distance again as from here to York.’

Robbie looked towards the beck, even though it was too dark to see the moor or stream. His whole life had been spent in Wharram Danby or Ravenscrag. The furthest he had been was to York, when Uncle Hal stayed in his town house and invited Roger’s family to visit. When he had to leave, a part of his heart would be torn from his chest, remaining in the home he loved.

Rowenna’s eyes shone with dreams. ‘I wish I could go with you. You’ll get to see the whole country while I have to stay here.’

He took her hand and was surprised by the strength in hers when she gave his a squeeze in response. He cared a lot for her, for all the trouble she caused.

‘I’ll miss you most of all,’ Robbie said. ‘I’ll write to Father and get him to tell you everything I say.’

‘Perhaps I’ll work harder at learning my letters so I can read them myself,’ she replied. ‘Father wants me to read and write as much as Mother nags me to learn to sew and sing. I’ll have to if I’m to ever become a lady and satisfy Lady Stick. “A bastard’s daughter who can’t behave might as well be a dairymaid”,’ she said, mimicking Lady Danby’s cold tones. ‘I’ll have to catch a husband somehow.’

Robbie couldn’t imagine his best friend as a grown woman. She would for ever remain a wild, unruly girl who joined in with the village children kicking a blown-up bladder through the beck, or dirtying her skirts playing Blind Beggar Catch. For that matter he could barely see himself as the knight he hoped to become. He pulled Rowenna to her feet to stand opposite him. She smiled and her hand tightened on his, causing the hairs on his arms to rise. She was quite pretty, really.

‘I would marry you,’ he declared nobly.

She burst into peals of laughter. ‘Yes, we should get married! Can you imagine what fun we’d have?’

Robbie blinked. He didn’t think marriage was supposed to be fun. It should be passionate to the point of mortifying onlookers like his parents’, or serious and prickly like his grandparents’. He couldn’t marry Rowenna. Once more it struck him how unfair it was that she was a bastard’s child. She couldn’t help who her father was.

‘Perhaps I’ll meet a lord who will marry you and you will be Lady Rowenna after all. Lady Dumpling.’

Robbie ducked his head to avoid the playful swipe of her hand and they stared at the sky in silence. The stars pricked the blackness like gems on a velvet cloak. He plucked a rosebud and held it out to her.

‘We’ll always be friends, even if I become a noble knight and you’re still hurling yourself out of trees,’ he said.

She unwound the ribbon from her hand and held it out to him. ‘Here. You asked for a favour earlier. Take this. I hope it brings you more luck than the pear did.’

Robbie coiled it around two fingers, then slipped it inside the pouch at his belt.

‘I’ll be returning to Ravenscrag tomorrow morning with Mother,’ Rowenna said. ‘Will you come visit us before you leave?’

‘Of course.’

Father had said he could leave as soon as he liked, but he might delay for a few weeks. He lifted Rowenna’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles lightly in the manner he had been taught, bowing low with a flourish. Her face grew uncharacteristically serious.

‘Promise you won’t forget me.’

Robbie put his sore hand to hers, palm to palm. They linked fingers and another rush of fondness for Rowenna filled him.

‘I promise. We’ll always be friends.’

She smiled widely, then unexpectedly leaned close and kissed his cheek. The sensation lingered long after she had darted back inside the house.

Roger was sitting in the kitchen when Robbie returned home. He looked up when Robbie entered.

‘We need to talk.’

He gestured to a chair. Robbie sat, unnerved by the serious tone. Roger had poured two cups of wine and was turning one between his fingers. His hands were mismatched: one pink, smooth and hairless. Robbie had never asked why.

‘Is something wrong with Mother?’

‘Lucy is well. She’s sleeping. This concerns you. What I am about to say must never be spoken of to another,’ Roger continued. He stood and paced around the room. Robbie’s heart began to pound a slow drumbeat.

‘I have considered how to tell you and there is no easy way of doing it.’

‘Tell me what?’ Robbie urged.

Roger poured himself another cup of wine and drained it in one gulp.

‘Robbie, I am not your father.’

The world folded in. Robbie lifted his cup to his lips, but it was as if someone else was drinking the wine because he tasted nothing. He thought about protesting that his father was jesting, or there was a mistake, but the look in Roger’s eyes told him it was futile.

‘We always wondered if you would remember the time before I met your mother, but you never did.’ Roger twisted his cup between his hands and bowed his head.

‘And now you have told me, you are s-s-sending me away?’

‘You are not an exile,’ Roger said. ‘You want to go.’

Robbie stared around. He could remember nothing before this stone house full of laughter and affection, but now the walls trapped him.

Robbie’s throat seized with an unspeakable pain. It was not in his nature to shout or rant, and experience told him that he stuttered worse when he did.

‘Why are you telling m-me now?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘You have a right to know.’

‘It’s something I should have always known!’

Roger reached out a hand, which Robbie ignored, his heart tearing. The father who had soothed Robbie when he fell, played with him and taught him did nothing to ease the grief and confusion beyond offer a hand.

‘You were too young to understand before and we couldn’t risk you revealing it. There were reputations to consider. But you are almost a man and should know the truth about yourself.’

Robbie balled his hands. Roger’s reputation was the least of his considerations when his world had been shattered. He flung himself from the stool, sending it crashing to the floor. He winced at the noise. The wine made his head spin, adding to the fug of emotions that surged inside him.

‘Sit down and be sensible,’ Roger said.

Robbie glared, bristling at the command in Roger’s voice, and stood his ground.

‘Is Sir John my father?’

Roger shook his head.

‘Who is?’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters to me!’

‘It is not my place to tell you.’ Roger looked away. ‘This changes nothing. I have no son of my own.’

Robbie glanced at the closed door to his mother’s room. Acid filled his throat. If the new baby had been a son, Robbie would have been an outcast by now.

‘You’re my only heir. Titles can pass to adopted sons if there is no legitimate heir.’

Roger smiled, as if this negated years of deceit. Robbie had often marvelled at the way his father—no, his stepfather—swept through life with a carefree manner as if nothing had consequence. Did Roger not understand how completely he had destroyed everything Robbie had believed to be true?

‘But you haven’t adopted me. You’ve kept it secret.’ Robbie began to shake.

‘William of Pickering believes only true bloodlines matter. His son, Horace, might see differently when he becomes the Earl, but it is too much of a risk to reveal the truth. Secrecy is better. For now, at least,’ Roger said.

‘Lies are better, you mean?’ Robbie exclaimed. ‘What if I reject your plan and refuse to be your heir?’

‘Then Wharram could pass to a stranger when I die. Everything my family has created will be lost.’ Roger eyed him sharply. ‘Would you do that?’

The portion of land owned by the Danbys, including Rowenna’s village of Ravenscrag, was held in fief from the tenant-in-chief, William of Pickering. Whether or not Robbie cared if the manor passed to another of William’s vassals—and at this point he was not sure he did—there were tenants who relied on the Danbys. Another nobleman who was unfamiliar with the area might be less generous and fair with the serfs and peasants. Robbie couldn’t be responsible for jeopardising so many lives. He shook his head.

‘Does anyone else know?’ he asked.

‘Hal and Joanna, and my parents.’

Which was why Lady Stick had no liking for Robbie. He was not her blood any more than Rowenna was.

‘Your reputation is safe,’ he said stiffly. ‘I shall tell no one and I shall be your heir. I’ll leave for Wentbrig at first light.’

‘There’s no need for that.’

Roger looked distraught. He raked his fingers through his hair, a gesture that Robbie had unconsciously adopted. Robbie stared at the man, who he resembled so closely in manner and looks. No wonder the deception had been so easy.

‘There’s every need. You’ve done your duty and found me a position. I shall take it.’

He had promised to see Rowenna. Though he would break his word, how could he face her knowing what he did now, but unable to share his burden? He did not know what the future held, but it was not in Wharram.

He bowed curtly. ‘Please tell my mother I am sorry not to see her. Farewell, Sir Roger.’

He left the room before he cried.

Chapter Two

June 1381

Her name was Mary Scarbrick and he loved her more than life itself. Robbie Danby knew with absolute certainty she was the woman he wanted to marry. She had hair so blond it was almost white and eyes the colour of his mother’s sapphire rings. True, he had only known her a month, but it had been a month filled with the greatest passions and despair he had ever experienced.

Riding towards York in the retinue of his master, Sir John Wallingdon, Robbie passed the time in two ways: he searched as he always did for a hint of the father whose unknown identity plagued him whenever he was in the presence of noblemen and knights, and he dreamed of Mary. There was plenty of time to do both as the procession of entourages all converging on the road to the city stretched seemingly for miles and was making slow progress.

Mary was among them somewhere, though Robbie had lost track of which covered litter she was travelling in. The ladies seemed to move from one to another as they kept each other company. As lady-in-waiting to Lady Isobel, Sir John Wallingdon’s wife, Mary would follow her mistress wherever that woman desired her to go.

Robbie sighed, thinking of the curve of Mary’s lips, the tilt of her nose, the smooth whiteness of her cheeks. No woman in the country could come close to her perfection. He would do great deeds in her honour. He would write poetry that would cause the hardest heart to weep. He would dedicate his life to her happiness if she would let him.

All he had to do was be able to speak to her without his throat seizing and his tongue becoming lead.

As a squire in the service of an elderly knight of middling wealth he had little to recommend him, but one day Robbie would be a knight, Sir Robert. With the expectation of one day inheriting the title of Lord Danby, Baron of Danby and Westerdale, he would be a much more attractive prospect to a young woman.

His stomach squirmed as it always did whenever the matter of inheritance occurred to him. He had kept The Great Secret buried within him, but never a day went by that he was not conscious of the deception he was party to, simply by living under the name he bore. His conscience would not permit him to deceive a wife over his origins.

With the prospect of Mary in his future, he was more determined to win his knighthood on his own merit. Robbie pictured himself taking Mary back to Wharram Danby, his childhood home. His mother would naturally love her as much as Robbie did himself. Even old Lady Stick would have to unbend when introduced to someone of such elegance, despite her dislike of Robbie. His twin sisters would fall over themselves to gain her notice while his cousins would look on in envy at the woman Robbie had won.

Most of his cousins, at least. Robbie slowed his horse a little, dropping back to the middle of the cavalcade as he pondered what his cousin Rowenna would make of his intended bride. He couldn’t imagine the meeting between the elegant Mary and spirited Rowenna, though they were similar in age. He would have to make time to travel to Ravenscrag and visit his cousin now he was home in Yorkshire. It had been abundantly clear in each of the notes she sent along with letters from Robbie’s family that she was desperate to visit the city more frequently than her father allowed.

‘What’s wrong, Danby? Forgetting how to ride? Are you going to travel to York at walking pace?’

A mocking voice pulled Robbie back from his reverie. He ground his teeth and looked into the eyes of the squire who had come alongside him. Cecil Hugone had been Robbie’s rival and friend—he was never sure which—since they had joined the same household within six months of each other as untrained pages and become squires together. Hours of work under the hard eye of their master had gradually changed both boys from scrawny youths into well-built young men, but while Robbie was tall and leaner than he would have liked to be, Cecil was thickset and squat.

Robbie took a deep breath to steady his voice. ‘Just thought I’d l-let you have a chance to ride in front without having to half kill L-Lightning to keep up with me.’

Cecil pursed his lips and Robbie knew his well-aimed arrow had found the intended target. Cecil never liked reminding he was not the best at everything.

‘We both know my Lightning could beat your Beyard without you needing to draw back. You were thinking of a woman, weren’t you, and I’ll wager I know which one.’

Robbie couldn’t prevent the blush rising to his cheeks. He wished he had grown a fuller beard to conceal it rather than the close-trimmed dusting he wore.

‘You aim high for a poor Yorkshire squire,’ Cecil said with a lift of his eyebrows.

Of course Cecil knew which woman Robbie had given his heart to. High indeed. Sir John was childless and his niece was rumoured to be the beneficiary of his fortune. Whoever caught the heart of Mary Scarbrick would find himself set for life and every man in Sir John’s household, old or young, had been admiring the nobleman’s niece when she had left her convent a month ago to serve as attendant to Lady Isobel. Cecil was included in that number and Robbie was certain he was equally determined to win Mary’s hand. The thought that Cecil might win the woman Robbie loved drove him to despair at night.

With a full beard and corn-blond hair, Cecil drew admiring glances from every quarter. He was the third son of a family who had first come to England from France with Edward Longshanks’s second wife. He was charming, handsome, good-humoured—and Robbie didn’t trust him not to put his own interests first any more than he would trust a fox in a henhouse.

Roger, now Lord Danby, could trace his line back for three generations of nobility, but as for Robbie himself…

He furrowed his brow. The deception he was party to was a weight on his mind, as was the fact he had no idea who his true father was. Despite the letters Robbie had written requesting, demanding and cajoling, his parents had refused to name the man beyond saying he was of noble birth. By hoping to win Mary as a wife, Robbie aimed considerably higher than even Cecil suspected.

Cecil laughed, mistaking Robbie’s discomfiture to do with their conversation. He threw his head back in a careless manner that Robbie knew for certain he practised when he thought no one as watching.

‘That’s it! You can’t sit straight in the saddle because you’re worried you’ll snap your swollen prick in half!’

Robbie winced inwardly at Cecil’s crudity. His intentions towards Mary were pure and Robbie himself was chaste. He yearned to marry her, not dally with her, then move on to another conquest as Cecil frequently did, if what he boasted about was true. Having said that, the affliction Cecil described did cause him trouble at times. That was only natural. There were nights when it felt like a knife was plunging into his groin and he was sorely tempted to seek out one of the maidservants of the household who had hinted that his particular attention would be received gladly. Sir John was elderly and presumably unaware of the behaviour of some of his household. For all Robbie knew, he was the only person not slipping from one bed to another after dark.

He loosened his cloak a little at the neck to allow the breeze to play about his throat. The weather in early June was warm and he could attribute some of the heat that flushed his body to that.

Robbie had learned over the years to speak through gestures to save his voice catching—a nod or wink, a shrug or a smile could make his meaning understood without having to endure the expression on the face of a listener who was no doubt branding him as feeble-minded. He had also discovered that enduring Cecil’s taunting with good humour was the quickest way of putting an end to it and that replying in kind was even better.

‘It’s true,’ he said with mock regret. ‘I am considering having a s-special s-saddle made that is much longer at the front in order to accommodate my inhumanly large member. How fortunate you are, that you have never had to fret over such matters!’

Cecil laughed coldly and punched Robbie on the arm. ‘A sting and a good one! So, tell me—what were you thinking about the fair Mary?’ He leaned closer in his saddle and lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘How she’d be to kiss? What it would be like to bury your head between those tender breasts—or those supple thighs?’

‘None of those!’ Robbie said.

Cecil smirked. ‘Something more dissolute than that, even! Between her rounded—’

‘Guard your tongue if you w-wish to keep my friendship!’ Robbie growled. He sat upright in the saddle and let his hand drop to the sword at his belt.

Cecil eyed the sword and the hand tightening on the grip.

‘My apologies.’

Robbie took hold of the reins again, his temper, which was always slow to flare, subsiding.

‘If you really m-must know, I was w-wondering how M-Mary would greet my cousin Rowenna.’

‘A cousin! Is she fair?’

Robbie had last met Rowenna on a brief visit to York two years after he had left Wharram Danby to join Sir John’s household. His memory was of a thirteen-year-old, still far too ungainly and unladylike in her mannerisms and interests, but who was showing signs of becoming a comely woman. Dark, unruly curls came to mind, along with a plump form and a determined expression.

He enjoyed a private moment of humour as he considered the likely outcome if he introduced Cecil to Rowenna, remembering the many times she had trounced him at games and scorched him with her tongue, but this ended abruptly as he thought of the games Cecil might introduce her to. He felt a curious prickle at the base of his neck, as though someone had blown on his neck with ice-cold breath. The idea of Cecil showing interest in Rowenna was not something he wanted to encourage. He shrugged in an offhand manner.

‘She may be fair. I have not seen her for five years. She writes to me from time to time and tells me of home.’

Cecil wrinkled his nose. ‘A writer. I suppose she reads also and is grey-complexioned and furrowed of brow from the effect of concentrating.’

‘Possibly. I don’t think she is too serious. She used to get us both into trouble. There was one time she made me drive the sow into the beck and…’

He tailed off. Cecil was losing interest already, Robbie noted with some relief. Women were made for dancing and wit and seduction in Cecil’s world. A woman of a scholarly nature would bore him, though Rowenna’s descriptions of life in Yorkshire had always been a source of pleasure to Robbie and a link with home.

Now he thought of it, a studious woman of letters did not seem like the Rowenna he recalled from their youth, and little like the author of the letters, which were witty and exciting, painting a vivid picture of home and of a vibrant girl who seemed to delight in living, for all she grumbled about how quiet the village was. She had always seemed more alive than anyone Robbie knew and he loved her for it. Loved her for the way she could draw him out of his inclination to solitude—though more often than not into mischief and trouble—in a way no one else managed.

He’d sought her out eagerly on that last meeting, hoping to share his tales with his closest friend, but she’d been too busy drubbing some sense into her youngest brother to properly listen to Robbie’s tales of life in the nobleman’s house and his duties as a squire. Once he had done with his business in York he would make a point of visiting Ravenscrag and seeing Rowenna in person.

‘Come on, Rob, let’s not idle here in the middle of the party,’ Cecil urged. ‘It’s hard enough we are journeying north when there is fighting to be done in the south without having to travel at the pace of a grandmother walking to market. Let’s work up some sweat on these beasts.’

Robbie glanced back over his shoulder, as if he would see evidence of the unrest that had recently arisen in response to the newly introduced Poll Tax. Thanks to Sir John’s age and preference for dwelling at home, they had missed most of the riots that had supposedly taken place in the south of England.