Gervase considered. “Brief?”
“Very brief,” Miles said. “You would miss it completely, I imagine, if you weren’t listening intently for it.”
“Well, let’s not cause her any undue distress, however brief that distress might be.”
Miles smiled. “I think my brother might actually like you if he weren’t so determined to slay you.” He nodded toward the bare patch of garden Gervase had already trampled. “Let’s go, shall we?”
Gervase supposed when the invitation was extended so politely, he couldn’t in good conscience refuse. He pushed himself to his feet and followed Miles to his makeshift training ground.
He hoped that excessive show of politeness wouldn’t leave him unable to walk off the field.
• • •
An hour later, he was ready for a bath and a hasty trip to his bed. He limped back to the house with Miles, but didn’t see either his brothers or their lovely keeper. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised by that. The lads were no doubt wallowing in the sheer delightfulness of her presence and she had no doubt been more than happy to leave him to her brother’s foul ministrations.
“Isabelle said you were paying her a gold sovereign per se’nnight for teaching your brothers their Latin,” Miles remarked.
“She will beggar me,” Gervase said wearily. “She’s a ferocious bargainer.”
“She intends to collect, I believe.”
Gervase resheathed his sword, grateful that his hand only set up a brief protest, not an outright mutiny. “Are you here long enough for her to do that, do you suppose?”
There. That was just the right amount of disinterest in his tone. He didn’t give a damn how long they stayed, of course, but if Isabelle was going to have her hand so fully in his purse, she might as well do something in return for the privilege. He supposed it didn’t serve him to even entertain the thought that if gold was what it took to keep her in his hall, he was willing to part with a great amount of it.
“Just until the storm passes, I believe.”
Gervase squinted up at the blue sky, then at his sparring partner. “That might take a day or two.”
Miles didn’t smile. “If you hurt her, I’ll kill you and rob my brother of his sport.”
Gervase closed his eyes briefly. “She deserves better than I can give her.”
“Nick has already said as much.”
“I’m unsurprised.” He looked at Miles. “And you?”
“I’m withholding judgment. She seems to find you not completely without redeeming qualities. She also doesn’t believe the tales of your conquests in the bedchamber.”
“I think I should be offended,” Gervase managed. “What of my conquests on the field?”
Miles clapped him on the shoulder. “Those, I believe, were never in dispute. If it gives you pleasure, know that my elder brother snarls about both.” He smiled. “He doesn’t like you at all.”
“I called him names while he was on his knees in the mud in front of me,” Gervase said. He paused. “Not very nice names, if memory serves.”
Miles laughed a little. “I should hope not. He would have been terribly disappointed otherwise.”
Gervase walked back to the hall with Isabelle’s twin brother—unwholesome demon spawn that he was—and wondered where he might find that gel who had no doubt come to wring a bit of gold out of him while she was on her way to see her grandmère.
He had scarce gained the great hall before he was assaulted by several catastrophes all in an orderly line.
First was his steward telling him that despite their best efforts, the oats would not be as plentiful as hoped because some of their seed was missing. Gervase took a deep breath, prayed his horses would survive, and tried to get across the hall only to be intercepted by Sir Aubert with tidings about the garrison Gervase didn’t want. He left his captain to sort things out, was momentarily placated by learning that Isabelle’s guardsmen were back at their previous posts, then turned to servants who seemed to be making a bit of a commotion near the hearth. That, added to the collection of most of his brothers making an equal ruckus, left him leaving his patience behind him as he strode across the stone with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
He realized Isabelle was in the midst of the chaos, obviously trying to keep his brothers at bay while about the task of ordering his servants about.
“His Grace will need a tub of hot water,” she said to one of the kitchen lads, “as quick as may be. Aye, Yves, I will come and see to your sums in a moment. Cook, are there any healing herbs remaining, or shall I gather more?”
Gervase folded his arms over his chest and waited for someone to notice him. He knew he shouldn’t have cared. ’Twas for damned sure he could not possibly have cared less about the running of his hall as long as he had food on the table and a marginally clean place to sleep. He had happily left all that rot to Guy. Who was this slip of a girl who thought to come into his hall and take over?
And why the hell wouldn’t she look at him?
He cleared his throat but had exactly the reaction he’d been having all along, which was none at all. He had the feeling that opening his mouth was a very bad idea indeed, but apparently there was nothing left in his half-empty head but bad ideas because he couldn’t seem to keep his thoughts to himself.
“I don’t want a bath,” he said curtly.
“But, Your Grace,” Cook began slowly, “the lady Isabelle—”
“Isn’t here to tell me when to bathe,” he said.
It was possible he might have shouted it. He suspected that he had used a tone akin to what Yves favored when asked to do something his six-year-old self didn’t particularly care to do. Very mature and reasonable. Gervase nodded to himself over that. Just the sort of way a man of a score and eight should speak when trying to impress a woman who was simply trying to care for him.
Silence descended. Well, silence save for the buzzing in his ears and what he was quite certain had been the whisper of Miles de Piaget’s sword coming from its sheath. He glanced over his shoulder and found that that last bit at least had been nothing more than his imagination. Miles was simply watching him with the look a man wears when he’s watching another man make a colossal ass of himself. Gervase felt fingers tangle in the neck of his tunic before he looked to see to whom those fingers might belong.
Isabelle tugged until he was leaning down where she could put her mouth against his ear.
It would have served him right, he supposed, if she’d bellowed at him loudly enough to deafen him. Instead, she merely whispered.
“If you have any sense at all,” she murmured, “you will not make me look weak in front of your servants.”
Make her look weak? It was all he could do not to leave her looking thoroughly kissed. He took a careful breath, then reached up and put his hand over hers.
By the saints, he was not at all himself.
“Of course,” he said, just as quietly. “I apologize.”
“Perhaps you should say that again,” she said, her voice sending shivers down his spine. “More loudly this time.”
She stepped back and waited. He cleared his throat and looked at the company gathered there, all watching him with assessing gazes. Well, save Cook who was watching him with a smirk.
“I spoke out of turn,” he announced. “It shall of course be as the lady Isabelle wishes. The household is hers for as long as she graces us with her incomparable self.”
Isabelle nodded regally to him, then proceeded to ignore him again.
He found a chair, found himself joined by her brother in the seat adjacent, and decided that perhaps the best way to pass the rest of the day was to simply sit and enjoy the sight of Rhys de Piaget’s youngest daughter. Silently.
“She can’t wield a sword, you know.”
He looked at Miles. “Do you think not?”
“I’m not saying she wouldn’t try,” Miles said. “On you, as the case might be. But if she does, you might want to st
ay out of her way.”
“Oh, I’ve already seen her try,” Gervase said, then realized that perhaps the most dangerous thing about Miles de Piaget wasn’t his swordplay, it was his ability to put a body at ease. He sighed. There was obviously no point in not being honest. Miles would find out the truth eventually anyway, no doubt through the same sort of nefarious means he was using at present. “She was defending herself against a man belonging to the Duke of Coucy. And before you ask, aye, she was laboring as a scullery maid because I was too stupid to realize who she was.”
“Have you never seen my older sister or mother?”
“Neither, nor Isabelle. And I thought she was a lad.”
“Any other confessions?”
“None that are fit for your ears.”
Miles only lifted an eyebrow. “Then they obviously involve your poor heart, for which I pity you. My father will do serious damage to you, you know.”
“Before or after your brother has a go?”
“Oh, I imagine both Robin and Nicholas will want a turn,” Miles said with a lazy smile. “How much you have to look forward to. Ready to flee?”
Gervase would have answered, but he found himself distracted by the prize who was deep in discussion with Cook over what he supposed would be a perfectly edible supper. It would be a welcome change from the slop he’d been eating for the past three days.
Nay, he wasn’t ready to flee.
Not at all.
• • •
Several hours later, he sat in his solar and for the first time in years—or ever, truth be told—enjoyed the sensation of being amongst family. Guy wasn’t there, which for some reason left him feeling slightly guilty over enjoying his absence, but there it was. Too much perfection could be trying, to be sure.
Joscelin was there, as were all his other younger brothers. Miles de Piaget sat to his right, engaged in a spirited conversation with Fabien about whether it was more desirable to humiliate an opponent in chess quickly or with painful slowness.
Gervase couldn’t bring himself to join any of the conversations. He was far too busy ignoring the woman sitting across from him who was just as busy ignoring him.
Yves, however, seemed not to have that problem. He was sitting in Isabelle’s lap, wrapped in her arms that he’d pulled around himself. She was resting her cheek against his dark hair, a look of such peace on her face that Gervase felt his eyes begin to burn.
And then she opened her eyes and looked at him.
He wished he could have smiled. He was far too busy trying not to weep.
What his brothers had missed in not having a woman in the house. What they had missed by not having that woman in the hall, gracing it with her beauty, her smiles, her complete disregard for men with swords who could do her harm.
Though who would have ever considered such a thing, he couldn’t imagine.
Miles had spent an hour during the afternoon entertaining him with tales of his sister and her brushes with would-be suitors who had come looking for Amanda. Gervase couldn’t imagine it, but what did he know of Englishmen save he took particular satisfaction in humiliating those cheeky enough to challenge him at tourney? He’d been tempted to ask Miles for a list of those who had vexed Isabelle, but he supposed that list wouldn’t have served him. It wasn’t as if he could have seen to them properly at present.
Though for the first time in months, he felt some small bit of hope that he might manage it in the future. Perhaps it was the cumulative effects of Isabelle’s weeds or perhaps the knowledge that winning her favor was the least of the thorns lying before him—the others being her father and brothers who would no doubt be salivating at the thought of taking a bit out of him. No man with any sense at all would give a beloved daughter to a man who couldn’t protect her.
He thought he might have to double her guard and perhaps that with lads who were slightly less clean-scrubbed than the two who trailed after her at present.
“Isabelle?”
“Aye, Yves?”
“You’re staying, aren’t you?”
The chamber fell silent. Gervase didn’t dare look at Isabelle to see her expression, so he made a serious study of the flames in the hearth.
“Well, I must go see my grandmother,” Isabelle said slowly.
“But after that,” Yves pressed. “You’ll come home, won’t you?”
It took her a ridiculously long time to answer, damn her anyway. And when she did, Gervase wanted to swear.
“I don’t know, Yves,” she said, as easily as if stabbing the lord of the hall directly in the heart was something she did half a dozen times each morning before she broke her fast. “I suppose someone has to teach you your sums, aye?”
“If I refuse to learn them, will you stay longer?”
Isabelle laughed, the heartless shrew. “We’ll see, love.”
Love. Gervase glanced at her because he was a bloody fool. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised to find she was not looking at him but rather at his damned youngest brother who couldn’t possibly realize what a treasure he was being embraced by. It was wicked to loathe a lad who was simply soaking up the love of an angel. Gervase was fairly convinced of that.
“You should be abed,” Isabelle said, kissing Yves on the cheek. “As should I, which means I’ll need to find somewhere to sleep.”
Gervase cleared his throat. “She’s right, lads. Off to bed.” He looked at her and was appalled to find that actually meeting her eyes left him feeling as nervous as a cat in a stable of restless horses. “You’ll take my chamber.”
She considered, looking as if she were fully prepared to protest. Perhaps she thought she had pushed him as far as she dared that day. Perhaps she was simply weary from a long journey and too tired to argue. Whatever the reason, she simply nodded, put Yves off her lap, and then rose.
“We’ll see you safely there,” Lucien said. “Let’s be off, lads.”
Gervase caught Isabelle’s hand as she passed him. He supposed it was the height of foolishness, but he had touched her before he thought better of it. He looked up at her.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“For what?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.
“The list is long.”
She squeezed his hand gently, then pulled away from him and herded his brothers out the door.
Silence fell. He resumed his study of the fire in the hearth until he thought he could look at the men who had remained in the chamber with him. He looked first at his brother Joscelin, then at Isabelle’s brother Miles. They were both watching him with slight smiles. He glared at them both.
“What?” he demanded.
Joscelin looked at Miles. “Pitiful.”
“Hopeless,” Miles offered.
Gervase pushed himself to his feet. “I don’t need the opinions of two lads without the wit to offer anything useful.”
“Where are you off to?” Joscelin asked politely.
“To combine mischief of one sort or another,” Gervase muttered. “I would suggest the both of you not be here when I return.”
He walked to the door more steadily than he would have dared hope a month earlier. Perhaps those herbs had done him some good.
“Will your father allow him to have her, Miles, do you think?”
“You know, Joscelin, it won’t matter. Your brother will be too dead to wed her after he’s met my sire in the lists—”
Gervase pulled the door shut with a fair amount of enthusiasm so he didn’t have to listen to their speculation any longer. It was likely less speculation than it was prediction, but he didn’t care for that, either, so he tromped off down the passageway, looking for mischief to make.
Perhaps if he looked hard enough, he might find something to distract himself from the feel of Isabelle de Piaget’s hand in his.
Poor fool that he was.
Chapter 17
Isabelle rose and wrapped a dressing gown around herself to ward off the bone-chilling cold in Gervase’s
chamber. She went to bring her fire back to life, but found there was no more wood to throw on it. She supposed if she’d had any sense, she would have gone back to bed, but she was cold. She also supposed it wouldn’t hurt to admit that she was restless as well.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected at Monsaert when she’d arrived unannounced and uninvited. Watching Gervase train by himself in the garden had been heartbreaking. Surely he could have found someone to face him if he’d cared to. His former glory had been readily apparent and she couldn’t help but grieve a bit for that. Not for herself, of course, but for him.
His brothers and convincing Cook to prepare something edible had taken up a good part of her afternoon, but during the evening she’d had nothing to do but hold his youngest brother and attempt to keep her heart from breaking over his unwillingness to let her go. She hadn’t asked any of them about their mother, but it was obvious to her that she should be on her knees every day in gratitude for her own mother who had loved her so deeply.
She rubbed her arms and wished for something more substantial to wear. Even something more to toss on the fire would have been very welcome. Well, she could perhaps retreat safely to Gervase’s solar and warm herself against his fire. Miles had delivered her gear to her and informed her that he would be bedding down in the solar that night so it wasn’t as if she would be disturbing anyone important. No doubt her ever-present guardsmen would be standing outside her door, waiting to escort her wherever she wanted to go.
She opened the door, then froze. Well, there was someone there standing guard, but it wasn’t one of her usual lads. The man standing against the opposite wall, his arms folded over his chest, happened to be the lord of the castle.
She would have popped right back in his bedchamber, but she’d already been spotted. She could have attempted to ignore him—she had, after all, done a damned fine job of it the day before—but that seemed a little silly given that they were the only ones in the passageway. Besides, she didn’t suppose she wanted to ignore him. He was, after all, the reason she’d come to Monsaert. Even she couldn’t lie to herself well enough to believe that she’d only come to conjugate Latin verbs.