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Four
     
     
    Lord
Wharton washed his breakfast down with a draught of cider, feeling giddy for
the first time in…well the first time ever. Any day now, the ship should arrive
with Lady Anne, his new bride. He rubbed his fingers in a circular pattern across
his palm, imagining her young flesh. He had worked hard all his life. He
deserved this. Yes, he’d put on a stone or two and his body didn’t respond as
quickly. But Lady Anne would grow to accept him. After all, she had been
cloistered in her father’s estate. Her uncle had assured him that she knew
nothing of men. A welcomed thickness spread across his groin. Having raised a
family himself, he was the perfect man to show the sweet virgin a wife’s place.
    Of
course, he would have preferred to take Lady Anne to his estate in Healaugh,
but momentarily he was engaged with the Earl of Northumberland as warden of the
region. The earl had given him use of the manor on the castle grounds as part
of his service. It had been the earl’s idea to marry by proxy and have Anne
sail to the River Aln. When she arrived, the Lord Percy would host a feast to
honor the Baron of Wharton and his new baroness.
    Though
the manor was nowhere near as grand as Alnwick Castle, it was solidly built—a
fortress in itself, a home in which any baroness would be proud, even the second
daughter of an earl.
    His
manservant, Samuel, leaned down to pick up his tray. “Will that be all, my
lord?”
    “Leave
the ewer.” Thomas looked at him with a twist to his gut. “Any word of the Flying Swan? ”
    “Not
yet, my lord. I could send a messenger.”
    “No.
The lookout will come when she’s spotted.”
    “Very
well, my lord.”
    Thomas
waved the man away with a flick of his wrist and belched. Since he had returned
from London five months ago, he’d been absorbed with negotiating the terms of
his marriage. He would never forget watching Lady Anne from across the aisle at
Westminster Abbey. She stirred a longing deep within, a feeling he’d not
experienced since his years as a young man when he courted his first wife,
Eleanor. God rest her soul .
    Wharton
had patiently waited until the crowd dispersed and then introduced himself. Lady
Anne had looked past him when he kissed her hand. He expected that. After all,
he was nearly three times her age. Young
women always think they want to fall in love with a younger, less experienced
man. What they need is a learned man, aged by war and time, to guide them
through the complexities of life.
    He
poured one more goblet of cider and gazed out the window. Dora skipped into
view carrying a bucket of chicken feed. His tongue shot to the corner of his
mouth when the wind picked up the servant’s golden hair from under her white
coif. It was the color of Lady Anne’s. Wharton rubbed his hand across his
crotch. Dora smelled a bit too strongly of tallow, even when naked, and though
she meandered beyond the glass, he could smell it. Perhaps her scent lingered
from last night’s interlude.
    A
rap on his door brought him back to the moment. “Come.”
    Samuel
stepped inside and presented a missive on a silver platter. “From Captain
Fortescue, my lord.”
    “Fortescue?
It must have been dispatched before the ship sailed. Odd.” He slipped his thumb
under the wax seal and read. A lump formed in his throat. He tried to swallow,
but the thickness stuck there along with the cider, turning to fire his belly.
    He
slammed the missive on the table and glared at the weathered face of his
servant. “Where is the messenger who brought this?”
    “I
sent him to the kitchen, my lord.”
    “Bring
him to me at once, and fetch Master Denton.”
    “Yes,
my lord.”
    The
table upended when Wharton pushed away. He growled and kicked the heavy thing
aside with his heel. Grinding his back molars against the pain, he paced. His
mind raced through the half-dozen people who knew of his marriage. He’d kept it
quiet. Had a missive been intercepted? Where was Lady Anne? He’d