by Lynn Kurland
She only lifted an eyebrow in challenge.
He shook his head, suppressing the urge to laugh. He attempted to frown fiercely at her, but the best he could manage was an anemic sort of something that he was certain was not anywhere as intimidating as he might have wished it to be.
“Every fortnight,” he said, “if they can prove some proficiency at anything but eating through my larder.”
“Every se’nnight, and they will be proficient in whatever you demand.”
He wondered, absently, if he would have the chance to tell Lord Rhys what a delightful daughter he had raised before the man ran him through.
She waved him on. He frowned.
“What?”
“Make your list of demands. I’ll begin tomorrow.”
He walked over to his table and sat down, then looked up at her thoughtfully. “’Tis miraculous, is it not,” he said slowly, “that you can remember your Latin but not your name?”
“It is,” she agreed.
He leaned his elbows on the wood and looked at her seriously. “Did you run from your home?” he asked. “Did your father use you ill?”
She looked as shocked as he would have expected her to. “Of course not.”
Sit down, Isabelle was almost out of his mouth before he managed to bite the words back. He rose, fetched a chair from before the fire, then set it down around the corner from him and waved her down into it. “Take your ease, lady, while I attempt to make a reasonable list of demands.”
She looked primed to balk, but perhaps she’d had enough of scrubbing and riding and attempting to breed insurrections in his keep that weariness had finally caught her up. She sank down onto the edge of the chair, but she didn’t relax. She was still scowling at him slightly, but, again, he had no idea why. He resumed his seat and attempted to look as harmless as possible.
“Why did you run from your home?” he asked, because it was the first thing that came to mind.
“Why do you assume I ran?”
He made chopping motions near his ears.
She ran her hand self-consciously over her hair. “I don’t remember how this happened.”
“Lying is still a sin, you know.”
“I’m hedging.”
“Is that what you call it?” he said with a snort. “I daresay I had best see you down on your knees in chapel tomorrow morning, determining the difference between the two.” He declined to add that he should likely be right next to her there praying for his own poor soul that would no doubt find itself on its journey in one direction or other sooner than he would like courtesy of one of her kinsmen.
“One does what one must when circumstances demand it,” she said seriously.
He studied her for a moment or two. “Those sound like the words of a body on a quest.”
Her mouth fell open. “How did you know?”
“I recognize the symptoms,” he said dryly.
“If you tell me you’ve garbed yourself as a woman, I will not believe it.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Nothing so dire, I assure you. I understand what it is, though, to feel called to do something beyond the norm.” He shrugged. “I’m just curious what it was in your case.”
“Honestly, I’m not entirely sure,” she said.
“Ah, honesty,” he said with a nod. “Care to enlighten me about other things while you’re wallowing in truth?”
She shifted. “Aren’t you making a list of things you want me to see to with your brothers?”
“I’d rather discuss your quest and leave off for a bit facing things that will beggar me.”
She froze. “Will I beggar you?”
He snorted. “Of course not, but I can’t allow you to think anything else, can I?”
“I suppose not,” she said. Then she smiled.
He was profoundly glad he was sitting down. Actually, he would have been happier if he’d had some sort of shield to hide behind. All he could do was sit there and wonder how it was that she hadn’t been wed years ago.
“How old are you?” he asked, before he thought better of it.
“A gentleman wouldn’t ask.”
“Why do you think I’m a gentleman?”
She only smiled again. “I recognize the symptoms.” She nodded toward his inkwell. “Your list, if you please. I’ll need to plan my lessons for the morrow.”
He reached for a quill, but winced at the pull of his hand. Before he could stop her, she had reached for his hand and taken it in both her own. She might have been gentle with his brothers, but she was absolutely ruthless when it came to tormenting his poor flesh. He supposed he might have uttered an impolite word or two.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Was that gentlemanly?”
“Considering what I wanted to say, I thought so.”
She laughed softly, then bent again to her work.
The saints pity his poor miserable self, he thought that he might just throw himself at Rhys de Piaget’s feet and ask him for mercy so he might . . . well, he had no idea what he wanted to do with the man’s daughter, but he was fairly sure there might be polite words involved.
She put his hand back on his table and patted it. “I’ll return for your list.”
“Where are you off to, you heartless wench?”
“I’m going to go find more weeds for your bath.”
He didn’t bother to comment. He was too busy trying to catch his breath not only from the pain in his hand but the thought of potentially having anything at all to do with that astonishing woman pulling his door shut behind her.
He shuffled sheaves of paper about uselessly in an effort to feel as if he were accomplishing anything at all useful—
He froze.
He pulled a small piece of parchment out from the stack Isabelle had been using a pair of days before for—ah, in truth, he couldn’t remember why she’d wanted anything to write with or write on. He looked at what he held in his hands, read the words there, and felt something sweep through him that wasn’t at all pleasurable.
If you think this is over, Monsaert, think again.
He dropped the sheaf on his table as if it had been a live thing. He stared at the words in horror, cursing himself for the feeling but unable to initially master it. He drew his hand over his eyes, swore viciously, then took a deep breath and got hold of himself. He stood, put his hands on the table—curling his right hand into a fist to spare himself any undue discomfort—and looked down at the scrap of parchment with as much disinterest as he could manage.
That was a woman’s hand. There was no doubt about it.
He could scarce believe it, but he couldn’t reasonably believe anything else. He considered the words for several minutes, allowing his emotions to retreat back to where they belonged. The first thing to decide was who had written the damned thing. It could have been anyone, anyone with access to his solar, anyone with a mind to cause him grief—
But not Isabelle. He couldn’t imagine it of her.
What he did know, however, was that it wasn’t written in jest and that perhaps his troubles were indeed not over. And if that were the case, he was still in a fair bit of peril.
Which meant Isabelle might be exposed to that peril.
He shoved the sheaf back under the stack lying there, then walked quickly to the door and wrenched it open. Aubert wasn’t there, but three other guardsmen were. Fortunately for everyone involved, none of those three belonged to Isabelle. He motioned to one of them.
“Go find the lady—er, I mean, go find the woman who just left my solar.”
“I know the one, Your Grace.”
“Good,” Gervase said shortly. “Find her, then guard her with your life. Ignore her protests.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
Gervase shut the door, then stood there with his left hand on the wood, bowing his head. He was going to have to send her home, obviously. It was one thing to humor her when he thought he was in no danger. That someone could have gained his solar without his
knowledge was something he simply couldn’t ignore.
Perhaps not on the morrow, though. The sky had been threatening some species of weather all day. Nay, the day after was soon enough. And until that time, he could surround Rhys’s youngest daughter with half a dozen of his fiercest lads with unquestionable loyalty. He would perhaps even sit in on her lessons with his brothers on the pretext of wanting to make sure she did them aright. She didn’t have to know that he wanted a few more hours of looking at her before he sent her away.
Because he couldn’t involve her in the hell that was his life.
Especially given that his hell was apparently not over yet.
Chapter 11
Isabelle sat at Gervase’s table in his solar, surrounded by his brothers in various states of Latin verbal conjugations. Gervase hadn’t given her his list yet, and she hadn’t pressed him for it. He’d been terribly grave the evening before which had led her to believe he was contemplating things she perhaps didn’t want to hear about. All the reasons why he could wait to be rid of her, no doubt. Well, no matter. She was in his hall still because she had no means of getting anywhere else. The price of her journey was the education of his brothers and she could see well enough for herself what needed to be done.
She had nothing to say to Joscelin or Lucien. Joscelin was obviously as educated as she was, though he seemed to have less interest in helping his brothers with their sums as he did sharpening his wits with Lucien over the chessboard. That left her with Pierre, who had told her earlier he preferred swords to sums, and the little lads, Fabien and Yves. They were all three in truly dreadful shape. Their experience with logic was less than she would have expected and they all three struggled with their sums. Obviously no one had yet taken the time to light any fires of scholarly enthusiasm in them.
They were willing students, though, which she supposed was a boon. She could have been saddled with lads such as her own brothers who had been too intelligent by half, learning what they needed rapidly enough to spend more of their time combining ways to escape their lessons than actually sitting through them.
“You should have a name.”
Isabelle looked up from her stitching to find Yves watching her closely. She smiled. “Should I?”
“We cannot go about forever calling you nothing,” he said reasonably. “Can we?”
“I’ll remember my name in time, I’m sure.”
“And you’re not going anywhere, are you?” he asked.
She found herself with not one, but five pairs of eyes on her. She swept all the lads with the best smile she could manage, was very grateful that neither Guy nor Gervase was there to accuse her of lying, and shook her head.
“Not that I know of,” she said. “Where would I go?”
“Let’s go read,” Yves said, bounding up from his brother’s table. “Ger has a trunk full of things, you know.”
“Why don’t you read to me?” Isabelle suggested.
Yves skidded to a halt. “Perhaps we should go to Mass first.”
“I’ve already been this morning,” she said, and she had, suffering under pointed looks from not only the priest but the lord of the manor himself. “You could go, though, if you can talk your brother’s priest into humoring you.”
Lads piled out of the solar. Joscelin was the last to leave, lingering by the door and looking at her with a smile.
“You’ll be safe enough here, I suppose,” he said. “What with your ever-increasing number of guardsmen outside.”
“They are very fierce,” she agreed.
“They don’t dare not be,” Joscelin said. “I think Gervase has threatened all of them with death should they fail to protect you.”
She took a deep breath. “He is kind.”
“I’m not sure that’s the word I would use to describe him,” Joscelin said with a bit of a laugh, “but you can credit him with all sorts of altruistic qualities, if you like.”
She smiled. “You love him well enough, I daresay.”
“I suppose I do,” he agreed. He smiled, then left the solar, pulling the door shut quietly behind him.
Isabelle stood in the middle of the chamber and let silence descend. It was comfortingly difficult to have peace for thinking with a collection of lads making a ruckus around her, but now that they were gone, she found she had more peace than she cared to have.
She walked over to stand in front of Gervase’s fire, then rubbed her arms to ward off a chill she likely shouldn’t have been feeling. There was no reason for it, of course. She was as safe at Monsaert as she had been at Artane, what with the guards Gervase seemed to think she needed. No one had been unkind to her save the Duke of Coucy’s lad who she could only assume was either still loitering in the dungeon or had been sent back on his way, accompanied by a reminder or two of Gervase’s displeasure.
Yet still she was unsettled.
She supposed the blame for some of it could have been laid at the lord of the hall’s feet. He’d given her flowers, then not a quarter hour later insisted that he wanted nothing to do with her. The following day, he had agreed to pay her a ridiculous sum to tutor his brothers, then spent the rest of the day being gravely polite to her. He couldn’t seem to decide if he liked her or loathed her, but perhaps she couldn’t have expected anything else.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t simply the changeable nature of the lord of Monsaert that troubled her. The very fact that she was in France and not at home was baffling. She couldn’t imagine that she had simply decided on an adventure and trotted off without telling anyone. It was possible that she had discussed her plans with Miles, but her plans to do what? She had surely planned to come to France eventually with her mother to be there for the birth of Nicholas and Jennifer’s second child, but if that were the case, why had she cut her hair?
She couldn’t bring herself to think that perhaps her mother had been on the ship that had obviously gone down in the storm.
The door opened suddenly and she reached for the first thing that came to hand. Gervase froze, looked at the fire iron she held, then slowly held up his hands.
“I am unarmed.”
“Is that reassuring?” she asked briskly.
He moved inside, then closed the door behind him. “I daresay it should be.”
“You still have a sword.”
“And you look as if you might do a terrible bit of business with that weapon you have there.”
She turned away to put the fire iron down because she didn’t want to look at him. It was obvious that the man couldn’t decide what to do with her past paying her to school his brothers—something she’d forced him to agree to—which was all good and fine with her. If she had been desirous of a husband, she certainly wouldn’t have picked the man standing near his doorway, watching her gravely.
Certainly not.
“Where are the lads?” he asked.
She nodded to herself over that. He was interested in what she could do for his brothers, no more.
“In the chapel,” she said. “It doesn’t serve them to keep them longer at their tasks than they can bear.”
“Of course,” he said. “As you say.”
She busied herself tidying up the table the boys had been using for their lessons, then sat down in front of the fire and tried to do a bit of stitching. It was difficult to ignore the man who had come to sit across from her, but she was made of very stern stuff, indeed. She also reminded herself with every stitch that he had said he didn’t want to have anything to do with her.
Which was no doubt why he was simply sitting there, watching her.
She finally put her stitching aside and frowned at him. “What do you want?”
He looked at her gravely. “I was thinking perhaps you might enjoy a game of chess. Do you play?”
Why did he care what she might enjoy? “Occasionally,” she said shortly.
Actually, that was a terrible understatement. The only one of her family who didn’t look at the board with the same level of commit
ment they might have a pitched battle with was her mother—well, and Anne, too. Their mother spent too much time trying to keep them from killing each other whilst about their sport and Anne was too tenderhearted for that sort of ruthlessness. At least when it came to the game, Isabelle had never suffered from either of those impediments.
“Would you indulge me, then?”
She had the feeling her look was one of suspicion, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Why?”
“I’m trying to distract you from inventing any more schemes to rid me of my gold.”
She wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not, and she was actually rather alarmed at his faint, wry smile, so she nodded quickly before he found some other way to baffle her.
He rose and walked over to fetch the little table sporting his pieces. Isabelle put away her stitching to go stop him before he could. She had the feeling dropping those finely made pieces wouldn’t do anything to encourage him to have a good afternoon. Considering what she planned to do to him over the board, she supposed it would be best that he cling to whatever happiness he might have at his disposal.
“I daresay we’ll be more comfortable over here,” she said quickly. “Lest the fire prove to be too much for our humors.”
“As you will, of course.”
He waited for her to sit, then took his own chair. He began to sort pieces on the board, carefully, as if he weren’t quite sure how much aid to offer her. She didn’t stop him. She hadn’t learned to play at Rhys de Piaget’s mighty knee without learning a few less savoury tactics, one of which was always to be underestimated. She frowned over a couple of pieces, blinking owlishly until Gervase sighed lightly and reached over to help her. She waited until he had set up almost the entire board before she looked at him.
“Does black go first?” she asked.
He frowned. “Don’t you know?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“No matter,” he said quickly, as if he were truly determined to save her pride. “I’ll aid you as you require, of course. And white goes first, if my memory hasn’t failed me.”
“How lovely.” She made a great production of studying her side of the board until he sighed lightly, then she looked at him. “Should we play for something?”