Ermengarde blushed.
The sight of it was, in a word, terrifying.
“She’s smitten,” Aliénore whispered.
“The saints preserve us,” Colin whispered back.
“It had to happen sometime.”
“I pity your brother.”
“I pity your sister.”
Colin found his father staring at Ermengarde and François as if they’d both sprouted horns and conjured up flames to lick at their backsides. Then Reginald seemed to remember that he was in the midst of being stricken with a fatal bit of grief.
“Agnes!” he cried, flailing his hands about desperately. “Come to me! Your sister has deserted me and there is no one left to see to the small comforts that an old man deserves.”
“He should have been a player,” Colin said with a snort. “Listen to him spout lies as if someone had written them down for him to repeat.”
“Listen?” Aliénore said, with a laugh. “Rather you should look, my lord. It would seem that not even Agnes is immune to my family’s charm.”
It was true. Agnes had come stumbling farther into the guest hall, then come to a dead stop, her gaze fixed to none other than poor Pierre of Solonge.
Colin waited for her hand to flutter up to her throat.
It did.
He then expected the rapturous sigh, the blinking of her eyes, and the rosy blush plastering itself to her cheeks.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“Who,” Agnes said breathlessly, her finger pointing in its usual fashion, “is that?”
“Pierre of Solonge,” Pierre squeaked. “Your servant, my lady.”
“Nay, yours, my lord.”
“Oh, by the saints,” Colin said in disgust, “go help Ermengarde with the food, both of you, and see if you can get your sorry arses back here before we perish from hunger. Moon over each other all you like, but do it after I’ve eaten!”
Pierre and Agnes moved like souls who walked in their sleep toward the back of the hall that led to the kitchens.
“You have my brother’s name,” Agnes said with a reverent tone.
“And you have the face of an angel,” Pierre said with another squeak.
“As if he’s ever seen one,” Aliénore said, sounding quite nauseated over what she’d just seen.
“Well,” Colin said, “my father can count himself beggared in truth now. Dowries for his girls and the rest of his gold to me.”
“I’ll need something for my bride as well,” Peter said. “Don’t forget me.”
“Forget you?” Reginald shouted. “How can I forget any of you? Ungrateful, grasping, selfish—taking an old man’s last crumb of bread from his very lips? How is it possible that you sprang from my loins?”
“It is hard to believe,” Colin grumbled.
Reginald leaped to his feet, swept the entire table with a heated glare, and sniffed mightily.
“I’ll be lying down,” he said. “Trying to regain my strength.”
“Find a comfortable bed and lay claim to it,” Colin advised. “I assumed you’d want to take your vows here now that I’ve taken mine elsewhere.”
His father threw him a murderous look, then stomped from the hall. Colin sighed and went to fetch what his father hadn’t eaten. He set it down in front of him, then invited Aliénore and her father, who flanked him, to help themselves.
“What of me?” Jason asked pointedly.
“Use your charm with the monks,” Colin said, reaching for cheese.
“It doesn’t work with men,” Jason groused.
“Works with Cook at Blackmour,” Colin countered.
“We have a bargain, he and I.”
“What?” Colin asked. “He feeds you and you don’t heap curses upon his head?”
“Nay,” Jason said reluctantly. “I’m helping him woo someone.”
“The saints pity the wench,” Colin said, then thought better of it. “At least she’ll eat well.” He looked around Aliénore at Jason. “Who’s the woman?”
“A certain healer we both know.”
“Berengaria?” Colin asked in surprise.
“Nay, not her.”
“Wise woman. Magda, then.”
“She can’t cook to suit him.”
Colin felt himself pale. “Not Nemain.”
“Impossible,” Aliénore said in disbelief. “I saw them fighting over stew spices.”
“I haven’t yet convinced him that he’d have more success if he bit his tongue,” Jason said.
Colin shivered. He could scarce believe the romantic battles that were being waged around him and he found himself quite relieved that his war was waged and won already. He looked at Aliénore.
“We’ve apparently begun something.”
“I’d say so,” she said with a smile.
By the saints, would that smile never cease to render him unfit for anything useful? He found that he could scarce grope for food and get it to his mouth with any success because all he wanted to do was cast about for something else to say that would bring her smile forth again.
“Colin?”
He blinked, then realized she was talking to him. “What?”
“Does the fare not suit you?”
“I’m having trouble concentrating on it,” he admitted.
Jason, predictably, laughed.
“But,” Colin added, with a glare thrown the lad’s way, “I’m certainly not having trouble concentrating on whom I might destroy in the lists later.”
“They don’t have lists here,” Jason pointed out.
“They have farmers who aren’t opposed to lining their purses for my pleasure.”
“I have a wound,” Jason said, covering his shoulder protectively with his hand.
“You’ll have more if you don’t keep your mirth to yourself.”
Jason only smiled, as if the thought of an afternoon in the lists facing the arguably fiercest warrior in England and France weren’t the most terrifying thing he’d ever contemplated.
“It is merely a pleasure to see you so besotted,” he said.
I’m not besotted was on the tip of his tongue, but Colin realized that he couldn’t lie. So he merely clamped his lips shut and gave Jason his most formidable glare.
“And with such good reason,” Jason added with a charming smile thrown Aliénore’s way. “I only wonder why it took you so long to see through her ruse. Surely no lad could be so beautiful.”
“My thoughts as well,” Colin agreed, trying to muster up enthusiasm for the roast fowl before him.
“You know,” Aliénore said, leaning toward him and speaking quietly, “you should eat.”
He looked at her. “Why?”
“To keep up your strength. For whatever battle you’re waging at present.”
Colin was quite certain that no one would mistake the sudden flush of his face for anything but what it was.
Aye, that sudden and excessively warm breeze blowing through the hall from the kitchens. That was it.
“You have it aright,” he said, hiding behind a leg of fowl. “Shouldn’t neglect my meals.”
Jason had to excuse himself. Colin watched him walk off and felt his eyes narrow at the shaking of Jason’s shoulders. Well, the lad could enjoy his laughter at Colin’s expense now. He would certainly pay for it later.
“I think he enjoys teasing you,” Aliénore remarked, picking at the monks’ offerings.
“Far too much,” Colin said, scowling at his supper. “He didn’t use to attempt it as much in his youth. Either he’s grown bold, or I’ve grown soft.” He slid her a glance. “I think I used to be more intimidating.”
She laughed, but the sound of it only made him want to do something Jason would tease him further for, such as smile in return.
“I find you still quite intimidating, my lord, so never fear that your reputation hangs about you in tatters.”
“Too intimidating to have a go in the lists?” he asked. “Trample a few cabbages for the sheer sport of it??
??
“Is it safe, do you think?”
“I can protect us well enough, Aliénore.”
“I never thought otherwise, my lord. I just wonder about Sir Etienne and Marie. If they had the courage to follow us.”
He wondered the same thing, though he’d taken every precaution he could. He’d kept careful watch during their journeyings across France and seen nothing. He’d made certain their ship was free of Sir Etienne or any of his cohorts. And he’d scrutinized every clump of grass and grouping of trees all the way from the shore to Harrowden. He was certain he hadn’t missed anything.
Besides, Sir Etienne likely didn’t have the stamina to follow them so far. Knowing him, he was boasting of having chased Colin and his bride from French soil.
Colin didn’t care for the lie, but he wasn’t about to sail the stormy seas again to put it to rights.
He sat back with a sigh. “There’s no way to tell,” he said. “All we can do is set our sights on home and get there without incident.”
She looked more worried than he would have liked. “Will they follow us, do you think?”
“If they are fools.”
Her hand closed over his and she smiled gravely. “I am very glad, my lord, that you are for me.”
“And you for me,” he said, with feeling.
“Home, then?”
“Aye. As soon as possible.”
Which likely wouldn’t be as soon as he would have liked, given the four besotted fools who could scarce carry in their burdens of foodstuffs and gaze rapturously into each other’s eyes at the same time. Colin scowled at them in disgust, but they paid him no heed.
“I don’t know if I can watch this,” he muttered under his breath.
“Perhaps that farmer’s field is the place for us,” Aliénore whispered.
“It might be the only privacy we find,” he agreed.
He thought to say more, to reassure her that he could protect her, but let the moment pass. She knew he could, so there was little reason to remind her of the like.
Besides, Sir Etienne had no doubt remained safely and comfortably ensconced on yonder far shore and would not trouble them again, and Marie had likely already found herself another foolish lord to mistreat.
He and Aliénore were perfectly safe trampling cabbages.
Chapter 40
Sir Etienne stood with his back against a tree and stared at the monastery before him. He wasn’t overly fond of such places, and not just because there was so much religion going on inside. What he couldn’t understand was why a man would trade wenching for prayer. And prayers all day long and through the night. Daft, it was, and he pitied the lads who were forced into it.
Being one of the lads who had escaped such forcing, of course.
Not that his sire hadn’t tried. He had, with both words and fists. His mother had pleaded with tears. Being the third son of a broken-down, unskilled knight who’d been given his spurs out of some misguided sense of pity by an obscure lord in an unimportant part of France, Sir Etienne had known from the very start that any greatness he obtained, he would obtain on his own.
And the path to that greatness would never come by means of a monk’s tonsure.
A pity his parents were dead, else he could have returned with Berkhamshire’s gold and shown them what he’d become. His brothers wouldn’t care. One was rotting in his grave thanks to an axe wound in his side and the other was rotting in a tiny monastery in that same unimportant part of France he’d never left.
Sir Etienne paused and considered. Perhaps a gift to that place wouldn’t be such a poor idea. After all, even men of great stature had the occasional need of a prayer for their souls.
But first, to obtain his wealth.
Which was why he stood where he was, listening to the restive movements of the handful of lads he had left to him who waited in the trees for his instructions. Fewer lads than he would have liked, of course, but a man made do.
It had been a difficult journey.
The pillaging in France had gone well, for the most part, with only a pair of casualties in his own little army. The goods and coin had easily been enough to secure them all passage to England, but damn most of the lads if they hadn’t scampered in the night, leaving him with just three. Fortunately, those three had been lads ready for adventure and dazzled with the idea of vast riches to come their way.
Not that Sir Etienne ever would have shared those riches, but he’d seen no point in telling them that.
The crossing had been uneventful. The true entertainment had only begun several days into the journey to Harrowden.
He’d been riding along, dreaming of what he would do with his gold, when he’d stumbled upon a small band of ruffians about their usual work of taking advantage of an apparently solitary traveler.
Who turned out to be none other than Marie of Solonge.
Sir Etienne had watched with great interest as she’d killed three of the ten men who faced her. He’d finally gotten down off his horse, wondering if he should end the skirmish—just so he could have her himself, of course; not for any other reason—when one of the men had shoved her. Sir Etienne had seen her recover from worse things, but apparently her journeyings hadn’t been easy. She had tripped and fallen.
Face first into their rather large fire.
The results had been, in a word, revolting.
She’d screamed and screamed until Sir Etienne honestly couldn’t bear it anymore. He’d put her out of her misery by catching her under the chin—or what was left of it—and rendering her senseless. And he’d gone so far as to kick dirt on her clothing to put out the fire. The woman was going to die anyway, what with those wounds, but there was no sense in setting the entire countryside on fire whilst she was about her business of it.
He’d turned to face the ruffians, dispatched a pair of them when they looked to him for sport, and then bargained with the other eight.
The lure of riches worked like a wonder, every time.
The additions to his little band had also provided him with reliable directions to Harrowden. He could have found the place himself, naturally, but he had other pressing items vying for his attention and had little energy to spare on trivial details. So he’d saved his strength, firmed up his plans, and ridden quite cheerfully halfway across England to where his future lay.
Or at least the means to his future.
The front gates were open, but still he waited where he was.
Then he saw motion there. He faded instantly back into the shadows and held up his hand for silence.
Who should walk out of that gate but Colin of Berkhamshire himself and his manly, though certainly very beautiful, bride, Aliénore of Solonge.
Sir Etienne could scarce believe his luck.
He waited for a guard to follow, but there was none. Could this be possible? Were they truly that foolish, that they trusted the adequate but uninspired sword skills of the Butcher?
Apparently so.
Sir Etienne smiled. This was going to be much easier than he’d dared hope.
Chapter 41
Ali walked along the little path, holding hands with her husband and smiling in pleasure at the beauty of the day. She supposed she wouldn’t think it so beautiful in an hour when she was roasting in her mail, but for now, it was lovely and the afternoon full of goodly smells. And given the fact that the only privacy she might have with her lord was out stomping about in the mud, she was willing to endure a bit of exercise to have it.
Colin squeezed her hand. “You’re smiling. Thinking on the romances blossoming behind us that we’re not being forced to witness at present?”
She shook her head and smiled up at him. “I’m just enjoying the day.”
“And the prospect of a little swordplay?” he prodded.
One thing she could say for the man: He was consistent in his habits. “I have acquired a taste for it, you know,” she said. “There is a certain peace about the discipline of practicing your skills.”
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He stopped her, put his free hand on her shoulder, and kissed her quite vigorously on the mouth.
“You, my lady,” he said, beaming his approval on her, “are a wench without peer.”
There was no higher praise from him. “My lord, your compliments leave me breathless.”
“They likely should. Never given so many to anyone in my life.” He slung his arm around her and continued on. “Who would have thought I would wed a woman who was handy with a blade? Not my sire, surely.” Then he looked at her sideways. “But this is the question that begs an answer. Are you coming with me here because you want to, or because you’re humoring me?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does.”
She walked with him in silence for a bit, then smiled. “I’d say, then, that ’Tis a bit of both. I also can’t argue that skill with a blade might serve me. Who knows that I may be left behind to defend the hall some day.”
“True enough.”
“Perhaps ’Tis best, then, that I don’t burn these hose. Unless you would prefer me in a gown?”
He looked so startled that she laughed.
“Colin, I can’t go about forever looking like a boy. What will people think?”
“Well, they’ll never believe I married a lad, what with your beauty.” He scratched his head. “I suppose you’ll have to garb yourself like a woman eventually. A damned nuisance, those skirts. Always dragging about in things they shouldn’t.”
“Be grateful you aren’t required to wear them.”
“I am, believe me,” he said, with feeling. “Ah, here we are. And look you, the industrious man has replanted.”
“This will cost you,” she warned.
“Well worth the expense. Come, lady, and let us see if so many hours spent pursuing our other passion has left you with no recollection of how to pursue this one.”
She followed him into the field, winced at the thought of trampling such fine-looking and tender plants, then forced herself to focus her energies on the task at hand. The cabbages would grow back. Her head wouldn’t, if Colin mistakenly took it off because she wasn’t paying attention.
And given the way the man was swinging his blade at her, he certainly didn’t seem to be holding the fact that she was his wife against her.