Not to be taken from his purpose, Sir John shook off her hands, catching her wrists and drawing them down to the mattress beside her head, imprisoned by his hands. "Robin is nearly a man grown and can take care of himself."

Bella's heart skipped a beat, escalating to a quicker rhythm. Her mouth went completely dry as his mouth closed over her breast.

G.o.d in heaven, I'm doing it again! she thought mindlessly. Surely, she could not deal with more stimulation than she'd already received. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were over-sensitive and tender as much from his devotion to them that afternoon and the night before as from that same agonizingly delicious attention this moment.

Sir John raised his head and considered the other breast.

"I need to go to Winchelsea, tomorrow. Jean-Pierre and Monique would accompany me." There, she'd said it.

"Winchelsea, eh? And your chef and his harridan wife are capable of providing escort, are they? You will stay close to hearth and home on the morrow, lady. I will see to it."

"No, I think otherwise...." Bella began a protest that was interrupted by the sudden and unexpected intrusion of Sir John's thickened rod into her sheath.

"I a.s.sure you, lady, the prospect of riding a horse anywhere on the morrow will not appeal at all when I am finished with you."

Bella ceased trying to make headway with her agenda, preferring to enjoy the adjustments her body had to make to accommodate him. Then she brought her hands back up to his chorded neck and clasped her fingers behind his head. She c.o.c.ked a brow and said huskily, "You are a very arrogant and possessive man, John de Chandos."

"And you are a wife who conveniently forgets every lesson she is given."

WINCHEL BY THE SEA.

-15.

"Mother, is it true that red is the most magical color of all?" Prince Lionel battered his pony's sides with his stubby legs and cantered along side of Queen Phillipa's stately grey palfrey.

"Why, of course, Lionel. 'Tis the color of blood and life itself. Why do you ask?"

"Then why is Geoffrey's cloak scarlet and mine this ugly blue? I want to be magical, too."

"Ah, I see." Queen Phillipa nodded, casting a smile toward Bella. She craned her neck from the other side of England's queen to keep track of this conversation. "Well, I don't think Geoffrey's scarlet cloak makes him more magical than you, Lion. Magic is something beyond the skills of little boys." "But Mother, I am not little. John is little and Edmund is nothing but a baby." Prince Lionel spoke with the blunt authority of ten years of age.

"Still, you would have to do something very brave to become invested with magic," said his mother. She ignored his c.o.c.ky banter designed to rile the feisty little brother riding in his mother's lap. "Then red would become your color, too."

"I am not a baby." Prince Edmund took his thumb out of his mouth long enough to declare imperiously from the bow of his mother's saddle, "You're a p.i.s.s-ant, Lionel."

His elder brother stuck out his tongue, drove his heels into the pony and galloped ahead in the beautiful sunshine to catch up with Geoffrey and John.

Bella rubbed the head of the small disappointed boy sitting on her own saddle in the same lowly position as Prince Edmund. Edmund was only three and thus very much a baby in Henri's eyes. Henri had yet to say a word to anyone, too great was his sorrow that his father had not presented him with a pony just like Geoffrey's at breakfast.

"Shall I tell you a story about a merrow, Henri?" Bella asked.

"What's a merrow?" he asked.

"Oh, that's what the Irish call a mermaid."

"No." He ducked his chin lower, sulking. Bella sighed because little boy's pouts were so much like the sulks of grown men. She herself was exceedingly happy to be beyond the walls of Chandos Castle. Never mind the fact that his lordship, Sir John, had given her the darkest glower when the queen had announced to all concerned at the breakfast table that the ladies were treating the children to a day of surf and sand and summer play. Bella supposed the blame for the queen's brilliant idea would fall on her shoulders no matter what. The king and his knights were too busy for such dallying, but they made certain the ladies sallied forth with plenty of escort.

At the back of this outlandish royal train rode seven not quite sober youths. Their manly pride had been well stung when they'd been routed out of bed bright and early and informed what duties they were heir to early this day. In between rode an a.s.sortment of Bella's and the queen's household guard. That was not even mentioning the flock of nannies, servants, ladies and maids-in-waiting who accompanied the queen where ever she went.

So there was no lack of protection if the ladies needed a strong arm or two at the beach. Wryly, Bella told herself there was no lack of guardians to keep her under close watch as well. So this outing wouldn't result in her getting to the Well of Souls long enough to have a private look around to satisfy her questions.

"I would listen to a story," Edmund chirped. Phillipa smiled.

"Well, let me see." Bella gathered her thoughts.

"Is it true?" the little prince asked.

"Oh, yes, I expect so. It was told by a priest with a brogue so thick the words nearly fell like b.u.t.ter from his lips. But never you mind, I'll do my best to tell it the way I heard it."

"Go on, then." Edmund wagged a magnanimous hand. Bella chuckled over the gesture that had obviously been learned at his father's knee. Henri lifted his chin the tiniest bit and c.o.c.ked one ear toward Bella.

She smiled for having gained his attention and went on to tell one of Iain's all time favorite stories. When she had finished, Henri tilted his little face up to ask, "Did Father Kerwin tell you that story? It sounds like one of his."

"No." Bella ruffled his dark curls, glad to see the length of his lower lip decrease. "I am sad to say I have forgotten the story teller's name."

"Do we have merrows in England?" he asked.

"I don't know." Bella ignored Queen Phillipa's conspiratorial wink. "We shall have to look when we get to Winchelsea."

"Speaking of which, we are almost there," Phillipa leaned forward shouting a warning to Geoffrey, Lionel and John. They were riding pell mell for the bluffs, the smell of the sea thick in their noses. "We've picked the perfect morning for this, Lady Chandos."

"I think you are right, Your Majesty," Bella agreed, privately regretting the loss of rubber bands to hold her hair firmly at the back of her head. A braid was fine so long as it stayed in place, but with the strong southerly breeze, that was becoming more impossible by the moment.

Henri yawned, a product of enforced stillness.

"There." Phillipa pointed over the edge of the bluff to a lovely chalk beach in a perfect cove. "It's been years since I picnicked here at Smuggler's Cove. Edward and I had the most marvelous time here once, completely alone we were for about two hours one evening. Then all h.e.l.l broke lose when we were surprised by a small band of Calais pirates. What a coil that was."

"So this really is a smuggler's cove?" Bella chuckled.

"Well, to us...at the time...it was a lover's cove,"

the queen admitted. "However at the first sign of trouble, I learned the lesson that Edward's private guard can be very discreet in the way they shadow him. After the troubles with poor Edward the second, the English are a little more careful with my Edward. There have been times when I was glad for the a.s.sistance of captains like Walter Manny, James Graham and John Chandos."

"They are good men?"

"Aye, the best," Phillipa said gravely.

"I had a.s.sumed we would be going into Winchelsea." Bella tried to keep her a.s.sumption light to deflect any suspicion from the queen.

"No, too crowded, too much commerce. High market days make it a dreadful bore. No, no, this cove is perfect for the children and us to enjoy. Now, let's see. Which path do you think is the easiest down?"

"That one, Maman." Edmund pointed to the steep incline down which Geoffrey, Lionel and John recklessly skidded their ponies.

"No, I think this way." Phillipa chose a more sedate path through the salt gra.s.s and bracken to the beach.

Hiding her disappointment that they were not going all the way to the coastal town, Bella followed. She took care where she let her mare step. Behind her the rest of the picnickers made their choices about which descents to the beach they favored. Soon enough, everyone had dismounted, the horses were hobbled and the bounty of pavilions, blankets, toweling and baskets were unpacked.

Now that the beach was at their feet, Geoffrey, Lionel and John left a trail of discarded clothes in their wake, so great was their hurry to jump into the water. Edmund also couldn't get his clothes off fast enough, so his mother bent down to help him. But Henri plopped on the sand with his arms folded stubbornly over his chest.

Bella just shook her head because she had seen that same stubborn pose and expression more times now than she cared to count. Like father, like son, so the saying goes.

"Don't you want to swim?" Bella asked him.

"No. I want a pony. You promised me a pony."

"And you will have one all in good time. But I cannot whip one up out of thin air. It is your father's decision when you are tall enough as well as strong enough to manage a pony of your own. If you want to sit and sulk, fine. So be it, but I am going to enjoy my day, little man."

With that said, Bella left him sitting on the wet sand.

The queen had settled on a blanket and was happily waving to the naked youngsters in the water, calling out warnings about going too deep or too far.

Bella stood beside a laden wicker basket for a long minute, staring at the water, wishing for her neat lycra

malliot. She wondered how scandalized these folk would be if she stripped off her clothes and tumbled

into the water with the boys.

"Makes me wish Edward hadn't insisted we bring the older lads," Phillipa voiced her similar wishes out loud, casting a glance at the clutch of sullen squires. Each had dismounted and now stared at the surf as if it was some foreign monstrosity liable to gobble them up body and soul.

Bella swung around and looked at Robin. She dropped to her knees beside Phillipa, both of them

swamped by yards of skirting and underskirts.

"Well, my Queen, we could always suggest they take a sample of the hair of the dog that bit them and send them on to Winchelsea. Surely there is an alehouse in that town that will brighten their spirits."

Phillipa's blue eyes sparkled at that suggestion.

"You might just have something there." She looked up at the sky, judging the time by the sun. "Suppose I

gave them till mid-afternoon to return and fetch us safely back to Chandos.

Would that would keep you in your lord's good graces?"

"Nothing on earth will accomplish that, my lady," Bella answered honestly.

"Nonsense." Phillipa raised her hand and called a servant to fetch Prince Edward to her.

The Prince of Wales sauntered forth from the clutch of bosom-buddy scallywags Robin had elected to

spend his sixteenth birthday with. He stopped at the edge of the blanket his mother sat on, folded his arm across his lean belly and bowed.

"Ah, Edward, a moment with you, my lord."

Bella noted that the queen addressed Prince Edward as my lord, not my son. The young prince did not look nearly so rakish in the light of day as he had in the torchlight below the gatehouse last night. He was a tall, strapping lad, handsome as both his parents and a bit too solemn to Bella's frame of mind.

"Mother, my Lady Chandos, how may I serve you?"

"Do you care to swim with the boys, Edward dear?"

Bella watched his face with great curiosity. He looked affronted. "Mother, I am no longer a child."

To Bella's way of thinking he wasn't a man yet, either. She thought she preferred her own world where young men of his age remained school boys, sheltered and protected from the world at large. This young man seemed all too conscious of who he was and what his obligations to his country were.

Like Robin Chandos, he viewed himself a man grown already.

"Ah we-ell," the queen complained. "Lady Chandos, your sisters and I had hoped to enjoy the pleasure of the water ourselves, and the boys of course, as when you were a mite younger. Do you remember, Edward?"

He glanced at the five young boys, four cavorting in the water naked as the days they were born, the other building a castle and moat in the sand. Bella watched a smile crinkle Edward's eyes and turn up the corner of his lovely mouth. "Oh, yes. I remember."

"I see." Phillipa reached down to her feet, unlacing embroidered slippers. "We ladies can't really enjoy ourselves with all you frisky young men about, now can we?

Think you what your father would say."

At that Edward snorted. He dropped to his knee before his mother and put his own fingers to good use untying the knots in the ribbons that held her shoes fastened about her ankles. While his hands were so engaged, he cast a telling look up at Bella. "I doubt if what my father would say would hold a candle to the lecture my G.o.dfather would belabor me with. Lady Chandos, do you also require I take my companions elsewhere?"

"Well," Bella stalled. She glanced at Robin who could be so toweringly cold and disdainful. She couldn't swim if he was about. He made her much too self-conscious. "Yes," she answered the prince. "But I wouldn't want you or your companions to get yourself in any trouble."

"You have my word, Madame, we will be the soul of discretion, every one."

"Then I bid you good morning, my lord."

"Edward," his mother cautioned. "Be back for us well before mid-afternoon. We will have had plenty of sun and our fill of sand by then. And no trouble, understand me?"

"Yes, Maman." The prince tossed her shoes onto the blanket then leaned forward and kissed his mother's brow.