He pushed himself to his feet, deposited his cloak on the bench where he’d been sitting, then fetched his sword. He walked farther out into the garden, as far away from the house as he could manage while there was still a path. If his private lists sported a bit of a hedge that shielded him from most prying eyes, could he help that?
Unfortunately, what he was faced with was not a pleasant afternoon spent sharpening his sword skill, it was a miserable few minutes wondering why he’d even bothered to get out of bed that morning. He had prided himself on being able to fight with either hand, but now all that holding his sword in his left did was throw him off balance. Holding his sword in his right was agony. He could only grasp his sword hilt, not heft the sword itself, and even closing his hand around the hilt cramped his palm and fingers so badly, he could scarce shake the hilt free. He stabbed the sword into the dirt at his feet, coming perilously close to skewering his toes, and looked heavenward and suppressed the urge to swear.
Weeping was simply beyond him. He’d wept enough already.
He supposed things wouldn’t improve with his standing out in what was promising to be a good bit of rain in a quarter hour. He took his sword, tried to resheath it half a dozen times before he gave up, unbuckled his sword belt, then resheathed his sword with his left hand. He turned, then froze.
Isabelle de Piaget was standing twenty paces away, watching him.
The grief on her face was almost enough to do him in.
He put his shoulders back and glared at her. So he was no longer her brother’s equal. At the moment, he expected that he wasn’t her grandmère’s equal, which stung so badly that he stalked over to her, fueled by a fury that a little voice in the back of his head warned him to temper.
He didn’t listen.
“What are you doing out here?” he snarled.
She looked rather unimpressed. “Gathering herbs.”
“What the hell for?”
“I thought you might try a soak in a tub of very hot water,” she said evenly. She held out the basket. “Put these in the water with you.”
“I am not bathing with weeds!”
She looked at him narrowly. “You are excessively rude.”
He growled at her. He couldn’t help himself.
Obviously the wench was accustomed to the ways of impossible men. He supposed that didn’t bode well for him, for it spoke eloquently of her father’s potentially mercurial temper. He wondered absently if it were even possible to get his sorry arse under his bed or if he might have to fold himself in two and squeeze into his trunk—
“I’ll leave these healing herbs near the hall,” Isabelle said evenly. “Use them or not, as it pleases you.”
Gervase watched her go, cursing her thoroughly. A man did that, he told himself, when he’d just made a complete arse of himself by insulting a woman who was simply trying to aid him.
He would have stomped back to the hall but he could scarce walk, much less stomp. Worse still, he only made it around the edge of the hedge before he almost walked into Isabelle. She looked at him as he came to a stumbling halt in front of her, then she reached out and took his sword away from him.
He opened his mouth to protest, then shut it at the look on her face.
By the saints, she was angry.
“You do not deserve this,” she said distinctly, “but since I see you have no squire to attend to your gear, I will do it for you.”
“I can carry—”
“So can I. I’ve done it often enough for my father.”
After her father had spent a full day of doing in men foolish enough to mistake his beloved youngest daughter for a servant, no doubt.
She put her basket over her arm, propped up his sword against her shoulder as she’d done with the wooden sword she’d been using to fight with Yves—and if nothing should have alerted him to the fact that she was not what he’d thought, it should have been that—then looked up at him.
“Put your arm around my shoulders.”
“Woman, you . . . you . . . ”
“You talk too much.”
“And you have absolutely no sense of your peril.”
She looked up at him, again apparently completely unimpressed with his snarling. “I’m trusting in your chivalry. Let’s go back to the house.”
He put his arm around her shoulders, but he didn’t dare lean on her. He was simply humoring her. He might have managed to humor her all the way back to the house if he hadn’t caught his toe on a flat bit of stone that wasn’t as flat as it should have been.
“I’ll have that seen to,” she said.
She said that, he had to concede, after she’d gasped at having to bear most of his weight. He wanted to snap at her, or shout at her, or somehow save his pride, but the truth was he had no pride left. All he could do was lean as gingerly as possible on a woman who was far stronger than she looked and wish he didn’t require the aid.
And damn his brother Guy if he didn’t simply stand in the doorway to the hall and watch their progress.
His brother took his sword from Isabelle, then took her place at Gervase’s side. Gervase leaned on him more heavily than he would have liked, but there was nothing else to be done.
“I’ll put my weeds in the kitchens, Your Grace,” Isabelle said seriously. “Should you at some point think them useful.”
Gervase watched her go until he couldn’t bear to watch her any longer. Then he stood there and fought with himself. It would have been simple to draw his sword, wedge it in a useful spot, then fall upon it.
Simple, but cowardly.
He stood at the crossroads of what he could see was now his life. In one direction was what he had been for the past four months: broken, surly, hopeless.
In the other direction was a woman who had paused at the far end of his hall and was looking back at him. She had found things to aid him if he was willing to leave his pride behind and attempt to use them.
Fortunately for him, he wasn’t going to have to decide on a direction, nor was he going to have to fall upon his own sword. His life that remained him was already counted in days, not years, because when Nicholas de Piaget found out Gervase had been forcing his beloved youngest sister to work as a scullery maid, Nicholas was going to murder him.
He patted Guy on the shoulder. “Send Cyon to me—oh, there he is. Lad, go fetch me clean clothing. I think I’m having a bath.”
“As you say, my lord,” his page said, looking horrified.
“Are you unwell?” Guy asked doubtfully.
“I’m fine,” Gervase said. “Remarkably fine.”
Guy looked at him as if he’d lost all his wits, but Gervase ignored him. He tossed his sword to Aubert, refused to speculate on how much of the spectacle in the garden his captain had witnessed, and whistled as he limped across his great hall. If he was going to die soon, there was no reason not to enjoy the time that remained him.
Even if that meant bathing with weeds.
Chapter 9
Isabelle sat at the table under a window in the great hall and tried to concentrate on the lads’ lessons. She had been happily attending to that labor for the past hour, but the passage of time chafed. What she needed to do was find a way to have her message carried to her grandmother before her family became convinced she was dead.
She’d had a very interesting conversation the afternoon before with Joscelin as Gervase had been soaking in a bath with her weeds. Apparently Gervase was convinced she had been shipwrecked and thereafter washed up ashore. There had been a terrible tempest and he had found her wandering along a road, missing one of her boots, and sporting an enormous bump on her head.
She supposed that was why she had lost her memory. It was rather inconvenient, that. She closed her eyes, stretching her mind back into shadows that seemed to fade in and out of a mist she couldn’t sweep away. She sighed and opened her eyes to look up at Gervase’s ceiling above her. She didn’t even remember cutting her hair, much less getting on any ship. The last th
ing she remembered was standing at the edge of her father’s great hall, watching her family. How she had gone from that to sitting on the edge of Gervase’s great hall, watching nothing at all, was a mystery she had no way to solve.
What she needed to do was talk to Miles. She couldn’t imagine she would have left Artane without having at least discussed her plans with him.
She jumped a little at the sight of Guy striding across the great hall. She patted Pierre on the shoulder.
“Please take your brothers and go find herbs suitable for use on the battlefield,” she said. “Before it rains.”
“But the sun is shining—”
She shot him a look that had him biting back whatever protest he’d been planning on offering. He rose and motioned for his brothers to come with him.
“Let’s go, lads. The master has spoken and we must obey.”
“Do we have to look for herbs?” Yves complained. “I’d rather train with the sword.”
Fabien snorted. “A sword won’t do you any good if you bleed to death, will it? Let’s go look for herbs as she says. Then we’ll train with the sword.”
Isabelle waited impatiently until they had tumbled out of the hall, trying not to look as if she were waiting impatiently for them to leave so she could be about some sort of nefarious business. Guy had already disappeared outside before she managed to bolt across the floor and wrench the door open.
“Lord Guy!”
He turned and looked at her. “Aye, lady?”
“Might I ask a favor?”
“Name it, especially if it includes teaching my older brother manners.”
She walked out down the stairs and out into the courtyard, making certain that her guardsmen were a discreet distance behind her. She smiled. “Your brother is in pain and I’ve found that men in pain can be quite spirited in their conversation. But nay, this is for myself.” She slipped her missive down from her sleeve. She had managed to find wax to use to seal it and had done her best imitation of a mark she hoped her grandmother would recognize, poorly done as it was. “Would it be too much to ask you to find someone trustworthy to carry something for me to Caours Abbey?”
“Caours Abbey,” he echoed in surprise. “For you?”
She had spent the whole of the previous day working out what she would say to any possible question even though the subterfuge didn’t set well with her. She put on her best smile.
“I felt moved to pen a note to the abbess there,” she said, which was actually quite true. She felt moved because she had no idea whether or not her parents were expecting to hear from her and she feared that if she didn’t get word to them, they would be sick with worry. She held the sheaf of parchment out to him, trying to keep it hidden from prying eyes. “Nothing important, of course.”
“Are you thinking to become a nun?” Guy asked in surprise.
She shook her head. “Nothing so dire. I thought perhaps she might know my family and have a way for me to, ah, regain my, um, memories.”
He took the missive and tucked it down the side of his boot. “Consider it done.” He made her a slight bow, then continued on his way to the stables.
She let out a shaky breath. That much was done. Now all she had to do was decide what to do with the time she had remaining before her father descended on Monsaert in a fury. She wasn’t sure who he would be angrier with: Gervase for putting her to work in his kitchen or she herself for daring to leave England without half his guard in tow.
Assuming she had left England on her own.
She went back inside the hall, nodded to her guardsmen, then walked over to a bench set in an alcove. She sank down onto it with a sigh. Whatever else could be said about Gervase and his terrible reputation, the man’s hall was spectacular. Beauvois was luxurious, to be sure, but she was forced to admit that it paled in comparison to Monsaert. Then again, her brother was not a duke, so perhaps with money and power came finer furnishings, painted motifs on the ceilings, and hearths and fireplaces that were more elegant than anything she had ever seen in England. She leaned her head back against the stone and turned to look out over the countryside below her. The soil was rich and the forest in the distance lush. Gervase was fortunate to call such a place his own.
Perhaps whoever had tried to kill him had thought the same thing.
She pushed aside that mystery as one she couldn’t possibly solve. Her most pressing problem was trying to determine what her future should hold. She suspected that her grandmother would insist that she present herself at the abbey, which meant she would have to tell Gervase who she was. Better that, she supposed, than having her father discover that she was loitering in a keep not full of her brothers or cousins. Perhaps it said more about her character than she wanted it to that it was so refreshing to be alone for a bit.
Or, rather, not so much alone, but in a place where no one knew who she was and there wasn’t a clutch of brothers hanging about to tell her what to do.
She certainly wasn’t remaining at Monsaert because of Gervase de Seger. Not only was he thoroughly incapable of dredging up a consistent amount of courtesy, he was French. She wanted the rough and tumble of her brothers, not mincing steps and noses turned up at hearty English fare. She didn’t want to be in a household of lads who were scarcely civilized, she wanted to be . . . well, she wasn’t sure where she wanted to be.
She supposed thinking on what she could do was the easier task. She would stay where she was until she had heard back from her grandmother and until she had helped the lads a bit longer with their studies. It was the charitable thing to do. Her mother would approve. Even, she suspected, her father might approve. After all, of what use were all those years of study and contemplation if she couldn’t apply them somewhere? Where better than with a collection of lads who’d lost their mother?
Besides, now that her grandmother would know she was safe, no one would worry about her. She was free to see to tidying up Monsaert. Once that was done, she would go on to Beauvois where she would—
Where she would return to a life of being the nameless, less- desirable daughter of Rhys de Piaget.
She could hardly bear the thought of it.
She realized she was no longer sitting, but instead pacing through the great hall. When that no longer provided her any comfort, she found herself continuing on to the kitchens. She came to the edge of the chamber and watched the quiet there. The men of the keep had broken their fast long ago and a midday supper was already prepared and simmering over the fire. Cook looked up from her chopping of vegetables and actually smiled.
“Mistress,” she said, waving her in with her spoon. “Come and sit. Adele, fetch her a stool for the worktable!”
The appropriate seat was fetched and Isabelle sat. Cook pushed aside her veg and joined her there, barking for a pair of mugs to be filled with ale and brought immediately. Isabelle couldn’t help but admit that she far preferred being on the less taxing side of the mug.
“The herbs did the master good yestereve.”
Isabelle smiled. “Did they? I’m actually still a little surprised he used them.”
“Aye, well, he can be a bit stubborn, that one.”
Now, here were details she could listen to without argument. “Have you known him his whole life?”
Cook had a hearty swig of her ale. “Nay. I came with the second duchess as part of her household, so he was almost three, perhaps four winters. His mother had been dead but a month or so by then. He missed her terribly, I daresay.”
“Poor lad,” Isabelle murmured.
“Aye, and worse still, his stepmother wasn’t a particularly maternal sort,” Cook said, her lip curling. She shook her head. “And then six more to come from her, of all people. But in spite of that, Lord Gervase was a cheerful, pleasing lad.”
“Lord Gervase?” Isabelle echoed in surprise. “Truly?”
Cook looked at her shrewdly. “Know you nothing of him?”
My brothers complained about the annoyance of tourneying again
st the oldest lad from Monsaert was almost out of her mouth before she managed to bite her tongue. She hadn’t thought about that before, but it was the truth. She wasn’t entirely sure that that particular lad—and she had to assume that was Gervase—hadn’t been the subject of more than one evening’s discussion. Evidently she’d been lost in thought through most of those discussions for she remembered little about them save her brothers’ grumbles.
“I’m afraid I don’t know much at all,” Isabelle admitted.
“You were a sheltered miss, then.”
“You could say that,” Isabelle agreed. “I would be happy to be enlightened.”
And apparently Cook was more than happy to enlighten her.
“He was sent off to foster at court when a lad, as is custom,” Cook said. “I think it did him good to be away from—” She paused, then took a deep breath. “I’ll just say that it was good for him to be away from here.”
“You don’t need to explain.”
Cook nodded. “I imagine I don’t. Being away is, I daresay, what saved him. The other lads—” She shrugged. “It was harder on them, of course, until they were sent away as well. Master Gervase returned as he was able, because he was the heir and took his responsibilities seriously, though I don’t think it was done gladly. He felt some responsibility toward his brothers, true, but there was little he could do to improve their lots. His father was a good master, but he preferred to sit inside by the fire and hold grand councils rather than . . . ” She shook her head. “He was a good master. I’ll leave it at that, as well. But once Lord Gervase had his spurs, he fetched Lord Joscelin from court and took him under his wing. A pity he couldn’t have taken the other lads, but they were too young. Lord Guy was content to come back home and be petted by his dam.”
“Interesting,” Isabelle murmured. She supposed it was a terrible thing to be gossiping with servants, but given that Gervase thought her nothing more than a servant, perhaps there was no shame in it. “Lord Guy seems happy to sit in the lord’s chair.”
“He is his father’s son,” Cook conceded, “and has more patience for that sort of thing than my lord. To each his own.”