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“These enemies we face are determined men,” Sir Bayard said to her, “and unless you’d put your pride above your people’s welfare, you should welcome any aid I can provide.”
What if this letter was true? she asked herself. What if these enemies Adelaide and Sir Bayard spoke of were dangerous and ruthless and coming to Averette? She had complete confidence in Iain’s abilities, but she would be a fool to refuse the help of an experienced knight. “Very well, my lord, you may stay.”
She held up her hand to silence Iain and Dunstan’s protests and continued to address Sir Bayard. “Although I’m quite confident Iain and my men can defend the people of Averette against any enemy force, you and your soldiers may stay. However, I’m writing to my sister to confirm that you are who you claim to be and that what this letter says is true. Now, having delivered this message, my lord, you may go to the hall and avail yourself of refreshment.”
The slight lowering of Sir Bayard’s dark brows told her he realized he was being dismissed. Nevertheless, his voice betrayed no hint of anger when he said “Until later, then, my lady.” Then he gave her an excuse of a bow and strolled out of the door.
“Hospitality or no, we should send that arrogant ass back out the gates right now,” Iain declared the moment the door closed.
“That man should leave Averette today,” Dunstan agreed. “Such impertinence!”
Gillian looked from one man to the other, appreciating their loyalty and concern, yet aware that Averette and its people were her responsibility. “What if he is related to me by marriage? Until we know for certain, we must treat him as a guest. If he is an enemy, it might be wiser to keep him here, where we can watch him.”
“Aye, there is that,” Iain conceded.
“What if he’s a spy, trying to find out our garrison’s strengths and weakness?” Dunstan demanded.
Gillian hadn’t thought of that, and the notion sickened her. “Surely Averette has no weaknesses.”
“There’s always a weakness, my lady,” Iain said, “no matter how hard we train the men or reinforce the walls.”
Gillian knew he was right, but Adelaide’s letter and her duty as chatelaine stopped her from ordering Sir Bayard to leave. There was a chance the letter was genuine and this knight had been sent by her sister to help them. She wasn’t willing to run the risk of either offending a nobleman who was related to her by marriage or refusing his aid if Averette was in danger.
But she wasn’t willing to allow a possible spy to wander at will about the estate, either.
“He and his men may stay,” she decided, “apparently as honored guests. Tell the servants and soldiers to treat Sir Bayard, his squire, and his men with every courtesy until they hear otherwise. However, our guests aren’t to leave the confines of the castle. If Sir Bayard or his men protest, they should be sent to me.
“Iain, have half the garrison billeted in the village to hide our true strength, and move the training and practices to the far meadows.
“I also want every soldier and servant told that if they see any suspicious behavior, we are to be informed at once.”
She went to the tall cupboard and searched for an unused piece of parchment. “I shall write to Adelaide, ask her to confirm this letter we received, and put in some questions for her to answer that only she can. That way, we’ll know if the letters are false or are being intercepted.”
“A wise idea, my lady,” Dunstan agreed.
She found a parchment and threw it onto the table, then turned back for a clay vessel holding ink, and a quill. “Until we know for certain that what this letter claims is true, we’ll keep a careful watch on Sir Bayard de Boisbaston and his men.”
“Aye, my lady,” Dunstan said.
“Aye,” Iain grimly seconded.
“SO, WHAT’S YOUR name, then?” Peg coyly asked the merchant whose cartful of barrels and casks of wine stood outside the Stag’s Head later that same day.
Not only was the merchant obviously well-to-do, to judge by his clothes, he was slender, young, and attractive—all qualities to make a girl eager to offer her company and her skills. He was clearly attempting to grow a beard and she didn’t like beards, but she was willing to make an exception, if the price was right.
Also inside the tavern were several farmers and villagers drinking at the end of a busy day harvesting crops and tending livestock. The men liked to discuss the weather, the potential yield of grain and produce, and sometimes John and his laws. Most had their own accustomed places, like Geoffrey, the miller, who sat by the casks, his enemy, Felton the baker, who reclined on a bench on the opposite side of the low-ceilinged room, and Old Davy and his cronies by the hearth.
“I’m Charles de Fenelon,” the wine merchant replied with a friendly smile. “From London.”
“Really?” Peg replied, bending over to give him a good look at her breasts. “Are you coming or going?”
“I’m heading back to London on my way from Bristol,” he replied. “First I hope to sell some of my wine at the castle yonder. How easy is it to meet with the steward?”
A jug of ale on her hip, the serving wench swayed from side to side and bit the end of a lock of hair. “Dun-stan de Corley comes to the village all the time. I could introduce you, if you like.”
“I’d make it worth your while,” Charles said, patting the purse attached to his belt. “What’s your name, lass?”
In view of that purse, she gave him an even broader smile. “Peg.”
“Peg,” he repeated, drawing out the name so that it seemed a promise in itself as he pulled her down onto his lap.
She glanced over her shoulder at the big beefy fellow manning the huge tapped cask.
“Your husband?” Charles asked, thinking that however much he might wish to assuage his cravings, he didn’t want a fight on his hands.
“Not yet, he’s not,” she replied with a giggle, winding her arms around his neck. “Besides, Sam won’t mind. The more I earn, the sooner we can marry.”
“Ah,” Charles murmured, nuzzling her neck, then returning to more important business. “Does the castle steward drive a hard bargain?”
She giggled again. “He can get pretty hard.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She pouted a little when he didn’t appreciate her jest. “He’s a clever fellow, but it ain’t him who finally decides. It’ll be the lady.”
“Lady Adelaide?”
“No, not her. She’s with the king. Her sister, Lady Gillian—and she’s even sharper than Dunstan, I can tell you! But they’ll be needing more wine these days. A knight’s just come and I’ve heard he’s staying awhile.”
The wine merchant’s brows rose with interest. “A knight?”
“Aye, and his squire and a bunch of soldiers.”
“A suitor for the lady? Perhaps they’ll need wine for a wedding.”
“Good luck to him, then, if that’s his plan,” Peg replied with a toss of her nut-brown hair. “Lady Gillian’ll send him packin’, I’ve no doubt—same way her sister did before her. Don’t much like men, those ladies. Unnatural, I calls it.”
Peg licked her lips, her tongue darting out in a very enticing manner. “Don’t that seem unnatural to you, too?”
“Indeed,” Charles replied. “I’ve heard Lady Adelaide is very beautiful. Is her sister, as well?”
“Lord love you, no!” Peg retorted with a snort of laughter. “She’s pretty enough, I suppose, but compared to her sisters? Ugly as a hedgehog.”
Peg gave a little wriggle that seemed very promising. “Are you going to have some of what we’ve got to offer, sir?” she asked, making it clear she wasn’t thinking of ale.
“I certainly will.” Charles moved again, letting her feel the effect she was having on him, while his hand traveled toward her breast. “I’ll have some ale first, though.”
Peg made absolutely no move to stop his wandering hand, or to pour his drink. “Not wine?”
“Ale is cheaper.”
“Ale now, something else later…for two silver pennies,” Peg replied as she leaned across his arm and refilled his mug, pressing her breasts against him while he boldly caressed her some more.
God’s blood, he could have anything he liked in London for half that. “That’s expensive.”
Her smile grew, exposing fine white teeth, and she squirmed a little more. “I’m worth it.”
He slipped a hand into her loose bodice while simultaneously giving the big fellow by the cask a surreptitious look. Sure enough, the oaf grinned and looked as pleased as if his wife-to-be had given him a bag of gold. “All right. So, who’s this knight come visiting, then?”
“A handsome fellow, although he’s got a scar on his face. Bayard something.”
“Bayard de Boisbaston?” Charles asked sharply.
“Why? What if he is this Bayard Boise—batton? What’s he done?”
Charles shook his head and his expression grew grim. “Your lady had best have a care, if what I’ve heard of him is true. The women at court call him the ’Gyptian lover, saying he travels from bed to bed stealing hearts, just like those vagabonds who claim to be able to tell fortunes. They say he’s had at least fifty lovers and that’s just among the wives and daughters of the men at court.”
“Fifty?” Peg breathed, her eyes wide. “How come he ain’t been killed by some husband or father?”
“Because nobody dares to challenge him. He’s won every tournament that he’s ever been in, and they say he’s so fierce when he fights, even the devil himself would flee his blade—if he chooses to use it. He doesn’t always. Last year, he had charge of a castle in Normandy and surrendered after only three days. He was captured by the Duc d’Ormonde, whose wife was reputed to be a great beauty. Some at court say he surrendered just to have the chance to seduce her—and he did.”
Peg drew in her breath. “He surrendered a castle just to be able to seduce a woman?”
The wine merchant nodded. “That’s what they say, and now he’s come here.”
“If he’s got any foul intentions toward Lady Gillian, she’ll set him straight,” Young Davy staunchly declared, interrupting their conversation as he handed his grandfather a piece of thick brown bread to go with his ale and cheese. “She’s as fierce as the devil, too.”
“Blasphemy!” the chandler muttered in the corner where he nursed his ale.
“You women are always thinking about marriage,” Young Davy continued, ignoring him. “You had her married off to James d’Ardenay after the poor lad’d only been here a week.”
“Well, he died,” Peg said defensively.
“We wouldn’t have to worry if she’d take a husband,” Felton, the baker, noted from his place near the door.
“Would you have her take the first man who asked her?” the miller countered from across the room, as far from his enemy as he could get. “Would you want any of those fools who’ve come courting her to become the new lord? I wouldn’t. God save us from arrogant idiots!”
“She probably don’t want to marry ’cause o’ that father o’ hers,” Old Davy piped up from beside the hearth. “Cruel, vicious villain. He’d make any woman think death might be better than marriage.”
The wine merchant shifted again, this time with impatience. “Perhaps if all you want to do is talk about the lady, I should retire alone.”
Peg jumped to her feet and took his hand to lead him up to the second level of the tavern, where travelers slept and she plied her other trade. “Don’t be angry, Charlie. We have to care about what goes on up at the castle, same as you have to worry about the king’s taxes. Lady Gillian’s a good woman, even if she is a lady, so nobody wants any harm to come to her.”
Old Davy looked anxiously at the others after the merchant and Peg had disappeared up the stairs. “D’you suppose there’s any truth in what that fellow said?”
“Not a bit,” Young Davy said confidently. “Lady Gillian’s too honorable and too clever to be fooled by any smooth-talking knight, no matter how good-looking he is. Why, remember that one knight that come, Sir Wa-tersticks or whatever his name was? Didn’t she send him packing quick enough?”
The men in the tap room chuckled and nodded.
“Set his hair on fire,” Old Davy said between wheezes as he laughed. “She had to say it was an accident o’course, but it probably took a year for it to grow back. And oh, didn’t he curse?”
“Ah, love! It’s a grand thing,” the miller said with a smirk in the baker’s direction. Then he started to sing a ballad about a long-lost love, while the baker slammed down his mug and stormed out of the tavern.
Chapter Three
TRYING TO CONTAIN HIS frustration, Bayard tossed his helmet onto the large, canopied and curtained bed in the extremely tidy chamber to which a male servant had brought him after he’d left the solar. Linen shutters covered the window, and a chest painted green and blue stood in the corner opposite the bed. There was a cot for his squire and another table with an ewer and basin, and plenty of clean linen. The floor had been recently swept and everything looked remarkably free of dust.
It was certainly an improvement over their accommodations on the road, which had tended to be cramped—except that here, instead of being welcomed, he’d been met with distrust, disrespect, and disdain.
Although his rational mind told him that Lady Gillian was right to be suspicious, for these were dangerous times and John the most untrustworthy of kings, he couldn’t subdue his annoyance over his reception. You’d think he was the traitor, the way she’d treated him.
The garrison commander couldn’t be more suspicious if he were Philip of France himself. And as for that steward…
He wondered if the lady had any idea that her steward was in love with her. She was a lady, a ward of the king, and he was an untitled commoner, but a marriage between then was not completely impossible. John needed money to mount another campaign to win back his lost lands in France—a lot of money. He would eagerly accept bribes and payments that would enable him to do so, even from untitled commoners and in exchange for the hand of a noblewoman.
Yet, he’d seen no little looks of intimacy exchanged, no apparent desire on the lady’s part. Any tender concern had been in Dunstan’s eyes alone, not hers.
No doubt she was too selfish and too determined to rule this estate on her own to fall in love, for it was now abundantly clear that she, and she alone, was in command of Averette.
The only other women he’d ever heard controlling an estate had been widows and even then, not many and not for long. Then again, he’d never heard of a young woman like Lady Gillian, who might dress like a peasant, but was as arrogantly confident as any man he’d ever met. And stubborn.
Shaking his head, Bayard strode over to the table beside the bed and ran his finger along the top, skirting the beeswax candle in a bronze holder. No dust there, either.
The door crashed against the wall, heralding his squire’s entrance. Frederic carried the leather pouch containing their clothing over his shoulder and, with a weary sigh, heaved it onto the bed beside Bayard’s helmet.
Bayard was used to Frederic’s theatrics by now. “I didn’t realize a few items of wool and linen would be so taxing. Perhaps you should lie down.”
Grinning, for he was likewise getting used to his master’s sense of humor, Frederic pushed on the cot, making the ropes creak. “I would, if you think this’ll hold me.”
“If it doesn’t, try not to wake me when you land on the floor. But before you take a nap or unpack our clothes, get me out of my hauberk.”
It took a few moments to remove Bayard’s surcoat and to get the heavy mail hauberk over his head.
After Frederic helped him remove them, Bayard rotated his neck and stretched his arms over his head. He untied his mail hosen that protected his legs and gave them to Frederic to put away, then removed his padded gambeson and likewise handed it to his squire.
Clad in his loose shirt, breeches, and boots, he went to wash. There was a lump of soap that smelled of lavender beside the linen, as well as plenty of water in the ewer. He poured some into the basin until it was half full and felt his face, deciding he need not scrape the whiskers away until tomorrow.
“Did you see that pretty serving wench?” Frederic asked as he started to close the lid of the chest. “The one with red hair and freckles?”
“Yes,” Bayard replied, recalling the one female servant who’d been bold enough to show herself while he was on the way to the keep with Lady Gillian. She was pretty, he supposed, and slender, and about fifteen years old.
His squire got a look on his face that Bayard easily recognized. He’d encountered many jealous or envious men in his life, starting when he was younger even than Frederic, and including the Duc d’Ormonde—although that had actually proven to be a beneficial thing, or he might be in Normandy yet. The duke had feared that his captive was far too attractive to his wife and so had let him go on the payment of a very small ransom.
He’d seen it earlier today, too, on the steward’s face.
Unfortunately, he inspired jealousy wherever there were women, and whether there was cause or not.
In this instance, definitely not, and aside from the fact that Lady Gillian was Armand’s sister-in-law. She might be spirited—and a woman without spirit was like food without spice—but otherwise? Not at all appealing.
