Wings of the Storm Page 6

  "And who is your liege?" she asked.

  He hesitated dramatically before saying, "You would have heard of him, even in Jerusalem. Guillaume le Marechal." He preened, giving her a proud, expectant look.

  She didn't disappoint him. "The Guillaume le Marechal! The man who trained King Richard? The perfect knight? The crusader? The man who was with King Henry when he died?" William the Marshal himself. The man whose contemporary biography she had done the newest and most definitive translation of. Her jaw dropped.

  She forced herself to calm down and say, "Really?" though the word came out high-pitched and none too steady.

  He nodded and went back to his tale. "I've had better training than to be tricked by the likes of Lilydrake. He's a dull-witted, greedy fool with more ambition than sense. There was a small fight with very little blood. Hugh showed us his backside fast enough. I brought the lass home. She's mine," he added as they entered the hall. "I suppose I really must keep her. But she'll have no joy of it," he declared miserably. His long, handsome face took on a determinedly stubborn expression, the wide, mobile lips pressed together in a thin line.

  "Now, Sir Stephan," Jane coaxed gently. "That's not a chivalrous way to treat a lady."

  His black eyes sparked with defiance. "She'll come to no harm," he promised. "But she must understand our arrangement from the first. It's a pity one can't expect more from marriage than just an arrangement," he added wistfully.

  The poor boy was trapped by his own culture, she thought. It bothered her to see the charming young man unhappy. She reached up to pat his cheek sympathetically as they walked through the screen into the freshly cleaned main hall. The scent of dried herbs was stirred up as they trod across the layer of fresh straw. She noted the cleaned tapestry had been rehung on the back wall during her afternoon in the woods.

  The room was empty but for three women clustered around the warmly glowing central hearth. All three were plump and frumpy-looking. All three turned disapproving faces on Stephan and Jane as they approached.

  As they neared the fire Jane saw the one in the middle was young, her heavily padded form swathed in layers of saffron wool, deeply bordered in red-and-gold embroidery. The color went horribly with her pink complexion; the decoration was overdone. The wide purple belt around what passed for a waist cut her too round form in half. Her head and several chins were blanketed in gray-and-black barbette and veils. The inappropriate combination of finery and heavy veiling gave the impression the girl was half nun and half— What? Heiress to a barony?

  Jane didn't need any introduction to know she was being stared at with pure loathing by the Lady Sibelle LeGauche. Quickly she took a decorous step away from Stephan. She wondered disloyally if the lad had planned their cozy entrance to inform his betrothed he wasn't completely hers.

  Well, he's not mine, Jane wanted to shout. Actually she wanted to kick the young strategist on his tiny behind.

  Stephan grabbed her hand and led her to the girl. "Lady Sibelle," he announced. "Lady Jehane FitzRose, my chatelaine." He put a lot of emphasis on the last two words. It seemed he wanted to make it perfectly clear who was in charge here.

  The girl refused to look at her. She merely gave a cold, wobbly nod in Jane's direction. Her women, on the other hand, glared in open hatred. Jane responded with an edged smile and a rattling of the official keys dangling from her belt. It made her feel like the warden, but imperious behavior seemed to be expected from her. The women sniffed disdainfully in unison but judiciously went back to warming their hands around the fire. While everyone stood in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, Bertram led in the servants, who efficiently went about setting up the hall for the evening meal.

  Sibelle had eyes only for Stephan as he grudgingly offered his arm to lead her to the high table. The girl wiped her hand furtively on her skirt before placing two fingers on the edge of Stephan's black sleeve. Keeping as far away from him as she could without letting go, she tripped her way up the dais step.

  Jane winced as she watched Sibelle lurch to her chair. It really would help if she watched where she was going, she thought. And what fashion guerrilla had put together that outfit? She shook her head and caught sight of Bertram watching the young couple from the pantry door. She and the old man exchanged one pained, understanding look. His assessment was easily read. Things were not going to be easy around here for a while. Jane agreed. Bertram waved the scullery servants forward to serve the first course. Jane squared her shoulders and went to take a place at the main table.

  She ended up seated on Sibelle's left. The girl turned out to be left-handed, fane's bruised face hurt when she chewed, and she still hadn't worked up much appetite for the local cuisine. She made a meal by dipping coarse bread in greasy goose broth flavored with old onions and played a mental game of considering the origins of Sibelle's name to keep her mind off the taste of her dinner.

  Perhaps they were a left-handed family; therefore they were of the left—Ie gauche. Or the first baron was born on the wrong side of the blanket and was

  rather proud of the fact. It could be, she considered as she watched Sibelle first spill soup on her bosom, then knock the salt cellar across the table, that she was called LeGauche because she came from a long line of klutzes. The poor kid was quivering from terror. Too bad there was so much of her to shake.

  As the meal proceeded in ever more strained silence, fane began to be annoyed with Stephan. He was drinking sour wine and petting Melisande. The girl beside him might as well not exist. Sibelle did nothing but chew and throw furtive, adoring glances his way. Jane oversaw the servants with her good eye and tapped a foot under the table in annoyance until Nikki and Vince decided this was the signal for them to start chewing on her toes.

  The conversation from the tables below the salt was far quieter than usual. The members of the household were eating their meal with most of their attention focused on the strained movements of their betters. The tension in the air could be sliced with a dagger. Jane especially didn't like the disdainful looks the household women were aiming at Sibelle more and more openly as the evening went on.

  It wouldn't hurt Stephan to say something to the kid, she fumed as he accepted another cup of wine from Bertram. Okay, she decided finally. If he wouldn't do it, she would.

  She cleared her throat, opening her mouth to speak. Her mind went blank. "Uh ..." She hadn't talked to a fifteen-year-old in a long time. She had never talked to a fifteen-year-old ex-nun heiress to a barony who'd already labeled her as an enemy. She supposed they didn't really have conversational ground in common, since it wouldn't be politic to discuss Stephan's acting like jerk. Still, something had to be done.

  She opened her mouth and tried again. "I'll show you around Passfair tomorrow, my lady," she offered politely.

  Sibelle didn't answer. Sibelle didn't look at her. Sibelle did stiffen with disapproval and lift her chins haughtily. Stephan did not rush in to fill the conversational gap. Wherever had the charming boy who'd brought her home gotten to?

  Jane resigned herself to silence and studied the profile Lady Sibelle turned to her. The girl would never succeed in looking down her nose, Jane decided, since she hardly had one at all. It was kind of a cute little button, actually. Not like her own long beak. Sibelle's skin was really not too bad, just blotched from crying. Or maybe the pink cheeks were from a bit of windburn. There seemed to be a cleft down there somewhere on her original chin. Weren't nuns supposed to be ascetic and sacrificing? Where was it Stephan said Sibelle had been? Davington Priory? Maybe she should apply there herself after the interdict was lifted. It couldn't be too hard of a life if the graduates turned out like Her Ladyship here.

  Jane went back to slowly finishing her bread and broth while the dinner dragged to its conclusion. She was grateful to rise from her deep wooden chair when the last of the dishes were finally cleared away. She wanted nothing more than to escape to her cubbyhole behind the storeroom. Only she couldn't just run up the stairs and hide. As chatela
ine she had duties yet to perform.

  As the servants settled down by the fire, Stephan grabbed his cloak and waded in among them, taking the choicest spot for himself, in the fresh straw laid down near the hearth. He didn't even bother with wishing his betrothed the most cursory of good-nights.

  Jane decided to put his churlish behavior down to the influence of too much wine. Much to her surprise, Melisande and the pups stayed at her side rather than settle down with Stephan. She fervently wished him an enormous hangover and steeled herself to deal with the girl. She turned to find the two dragons had come up from the servants' table to flank their mistress once more.

  Their presence made communicating with the now crying Sibelle a bit easier. "The bower's this way," she said, and pointed the servants toward the tower stairs. The first floor of the tower held the storage room. The second held two connected rooms: the bower, where the household women were meant to spend their days with weaving and needlework, and the castle's only bedchamber.

  She led the dragons up the stairs, and they led the wailing Sibelle. It wasn't long before they reached the upper pair of rooms set aside for the lord and his lady. Since the lord was snoring peacefully on the floor downstairs, Sibelle was installed alone in the large, curtained bed. She was sitting in the center of it, snuffling disconsolately, when Jane made her hurried exit back down to her own quarters.

  Poor kid, she thought, not for the first and probably not for the last time. She tried to put the sad image of the lonely Sibelle out of her mind as she threw herself onto her own straw mattress.

  Melisande and the puppies gathered around her. "Right," she said, rubbing the deerhound's ears. "Us womenfolk have to stay together, don't we?"

  She fell asleep soon after winning the nightly argument with the dogs over who got the most bed space. Sometime in the middle of the night, Melisande woke her briefly with a low growl. The bed creaked as the dog got up to investigate some minor noise. She came back soon enough. Jane went immediately back to sleep.

  She dreamed once again of Sir Daffyd. In her dream they lay down together in a sun-warmed field of lavender, crushing a bed of tiny purple flowers to cushion their ardent embrace.

  His mouth claimed hers, making her giddy with desire. Without a word she told him he reminded her of chocolate. He asked her what chocolate was. His mouth covered hers. Does it taste like this?

  She undid his sword belt and told him how no man of her own time was like him.

  The thought woke her. Sitting up, she scrubbed her palms over her face. The dogs were warm lumps around her feet, the fur blanket was soft and warm, yet she was cold. Cold with dread? She shook her still somewhat sleep-fogged head. Why did she dream about the man? she wondered. She'd met him twice, but her subconscious seemed to have latched on to him as an object of desire.

  All right, she conceded, he was gorgeous. Perhaps she had a weird subconscious. Or maybe it was her conscious mind that had always been weird. She'd always looked to the past, hadn't she? She'd made the past her hobby and her profession. Maybe she'd been secretly longing for a knight in

  shining armor. Knights didn't wear shining armor in 1209, she reminded herself, and chivalry had been invented by women while the menfolk were out pillaging and crusading. Knights wore rusting chain mail and chased down peasants who had to steal to survive.

  But Daffyd wore chain mail better than anyone she'd ever seen, she told herself. He'd been worried about her safety this afternoon. That was almost chivalrous. This afternoon . . . She settled back on the bed and closed her eyes. She could see him clearly, gold hair flaming in the shaft of sunlight, the hard, handsome-lines of his face. She remembered the feel of his hands on her waist, of her hands on his, the softness of his hair, the scent of lavender and leather.

  He was very real, she warned herself. He was not any idealized, sanitized, twenty-first-century version of a medieval man. He was himself, and being attracted to him would be very dangerous indeed. He was a landless knight, and she was masquerading as a rich widow. He might be interested in a rich widow for her dowry. She didn't let herself encourage his attention in any way. He might get ideas. She had to remember marriage was a business arrangement. It was an arrangement with only one side benefiting: the man. She was not from this time, she couldn't be an obedient chattel. She didn't dare let herself be attracted to any man from this time. A convent was safe, a marriage to a man from this time was not.

  "Not that he'd necessarily be interested in marriage," she mumbled as she rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. "That would be even worse. Can't ruin my reputation if I want a convent to accept me. Can't think about Daffyd ap Bleddyn anymore."

  She fell asleep, and immediately back into the dream.

  7

  "Not Not on the floor!"

  Jane cracked the squatting dog hard on the backside. "Outside!"

  Melisande yelped and skittered away. She whimpered impatiently by the alcove curtain while Jane hurriedly finished struggling into her shift and underdress. Jane slipped her feet into shoes and fastened a veil over her uncombed brown curls.

  The first light of dawn was creeping in through her narrow window, and Melisande had been trying once again to use the far corner of the storeroom. "Another morning at Passfair has begun," Jane said around a yawn.

  The barest hint of dream memory teased at the back of her conscious mind, but she ignored it purposefully. She knew there was no use dwelling on erotic nonsense. She vowed not to think of the Welshman at all. Or chocolate. She had more than enough to fill her attention with a full day's worth of duties before her. She had promised Bertram she'd finally inspect the main storerooms in the deep cellar today.

  Actually, Jane reflected, grabbing Melisande by the scruff of the neck, the housebreaking wasn't going too bad considering she was a grown dog. The puppies jumped down from the bed to follow after them. Their training was going very well. The deerhounds really were intelligent animals. Probably because they weren't too distant relatives of their smarter wolf cousins.

  "In my time," she told them, "your species has descended to little more than mindless toys."

  She threw open the curtain blocking her alcove from the rest of the storeroom and pulled the dog with her through the opening, only to trip over the lump lying across the doorway. She fell flat on her face with a startled shout. She hit her nose on the hard stone this time. She came up clutching her painfully throbbing nose to find a young red-haired woman staring at her in horrified surprise.

  "My lady, I'm so sorry!"

  "Who are you? What are you doing here?" Jane noticed Melisande sitting calmly on her haunches, watching the two of them with a happy doggy expression. "And why didn't you at least bark?" she demanded irritably of the hound. She looked at her fingers. They were sticky with blood from the tip of her nose. It felt like a pavement burn. Nothing broken; just another bruise.

  "I could use some aspirin," she muttered in English.

  The woman had backed toward the alcove, staring at Jane in wide-eyed expectation. She was a tiny thing, with carrot-red hair and freckle-dotted milk-white skin. Very pretty, really. "My lady?" she questioned,

  stepping forward eagerly when Jane spoke.

  Jane climbed to her feet, glad she hadn't hit her already bruised hip when she fell. She noticed the soreness in her backside was much improved this morning. She looked down at the little woman and repeated, "Who are you?"

  "Berthild," the redhead answered promptly. "Switha sent me to serve you."

  Berthild? Right, she recalled. Switha's sister. The one with the soldier boyfriend. "What were you doing on my floor? You are what I fell over, aren't you?"

  "I was sleeping by your door, my lady," was the swift explanation. "It is my duty."

  Jane looked down at the bare wood. Duty? That sort of duty could lead to arthritis and who knew what else in the drafty air. "I see."

  It seemed she now had a personal servant to be responsible for. The thought left her kind of unnerved. It was one thing t
o supervise the large group of people needed to keep Passfair running. It was definitely a challenge—an enjoyable challenge. But she had an uncomfortable feeling about having a peasant girl to call her own. Berthild here didn't have any rights. She was totally dependent on her mistress's goodwill. Jane knew it would be pleasant to have someone to take care of all her little needs. She didn't like the responsibility that went with it.

  "Owning people is icky," she mumbled behind her hand as she touched her nose again. The bleeding had stopped, at least. The entertainment over, Melisande rose and rushed out the open storeroom door with her pups. The dogs' hasty exit reminded Jane of her original purpose. She was also reminded that the key to the room was missing. If she could lock the door, she wouldn't have ended up with a sore nose to go with the black eye.

  Oh, well, Berthild was there. She undoubtedly expected to be put to work. Jane smiled at her. "First you can clean up the mess in the alcove. And I need some laundry done. The yellow underdress is silk. The washing instructions for the material has got to be cold-water wa— Never mind, the river is cold. And I've been thinking maybe I could get one of the smaller tubs from the wash house moved up here so I could take a bath. Maybe you could see to that?"

  Berthild gave a quick curtsy. "Yes, my lady."

  "And if you must sleep by the door, tell Bertram I said you need a pallet and some blankets."

  The servant's freckled face lit with delight. "Yes, my lady."

  Jane hurried down to the hall, where the usual morning activity was well under way. Breakfast porridge was being served. Neither Sibelle nor her women were anywhere to be seen. Jane didn't know if this was good or bad. The kid probably had to be really upset to miss a meal. On the other hand, missing a few meals certainly wouldn't hurt her.

  She didn't see Stephan anywhere in the hall, either. She took the time to shovel in a few bites of porridge with a wooden spoon before going to look for him. She finished quickly, then rinsed her mouth with a cup of new ale. She grimaced at the raw taste, but at least it helped wash the sleep out of her mouth. She'd wiped her teeth on a square of linen when she first woke up, but the combination of cloth and ale was no substitute for a tube of toothpaste. She sent a prayer of thanks for the dentist who'd talked her mother into having her teeth coated with sealant when she was a