The Rose of Blacksword (Loveswept)

by Becnel, Rexanne

  Rosalynde was suddenly wary. What was this change in him? Why was he offering her compromise? For an endless moment she did not answer him for she sensed a trap. He was up to something. Yet with no other options available, she had no choice but to agree. After all, it was the very agreement she’d come here to get.

  “You’ll wait a few days? Or even a week or more?” She stared at him suspiciously. “You’ll keep your silence and go about your duties as any good servant might?”

  “Slave, Rose. Not servant. I am slave here now, but only because I choose to be.” He picked up his shirt, all the while watching her. “There are all sorts of enslavement, however. Some better than others.” He grinned then. “Some much better than others.”

  Her heart was pounding as he turned to leave, and she was sorely perplexed by his odd choice of words. There was something prophetic in them, she was certain of that. But as much as she wished to believe that it only meant he had changed his mind about his new role at Stanwood, she was nonetheless filled with a foreboding that he meant something else entirely. Something that had to do with her.

  It was only the sight of him donning his shirt that pressed her to shake off her strange feelings.

  “Wait. I’ve a fresh chainse for you. And a tunic. Yours are not clean,” she finished lamely when he gave her a searching look.

  He took the clean shirt without comment, relinquishing his other to her. Once it and the dark-green tunic were settled over his wide shoulders, he favored her with a faint smile. “Thank you, Lady Rosalynde,” he said in a most courtly manner. Yet there was a taunt in his words nevertheless. His gray eyes held with hers for a breathtaking moment before he turned and sought out the stable marshal.

  Once her breathing had slowed to a more normal pace, Rosalynde tried to find something positive in this the most recent of their confrontations. He had agreed to keep silent and that was good, she thought as she stood there in the empty work space. He also appeared to be settling into his role as a stableman. Certainly he had pleased the old stable marshal with his first task. Things might work out well after all, she speculated. Yet as her hands gripped his ragged shirt and she felt the remnants of his lingering warmth, as his scent of skin and sweat and her own ointment drifted up to her, she trembled. He was cooperating for the moment, she realized, but he was still the same man as ever. Strong-willed. Single-minded. Possessed of an appeal that was surely the mark of the devil. He outraged her with every word he uttered and every glance from his flinty gray eyes. Yet he made her blood sing.

  She wanted to fling the grimy tunic away. But instead she balled it up and tucked it under her arm. Then with her pale face set in a frown, she hurried away to the many other tasks that awaited her.

  It was almost midday before Aric saw Rosalynde again, crossing the dusty castle yard. He held tightly to the rope in his hand and murmured a soothing word to the tall destrier that tried to prance away from him.

  “Easy, my fine fellow. Easy.” He patted the steed’s velvety muzzle even as he determinedly held the great creature’s head down. But his eyes never strayed from Rosalynde until she disappeared into the kitchen sheds.

  “Hand me that mallet,” the marshal said with a grunt as he muscled the high-spirited animal’s hind leg up. The horse started forward and would have dumped the man on his back but Aric anticipated the move, and with a swift downward pull on the rope, he stilled the beast. It took only another few minutes for the marshal to complete his farrier’s duties. As he backed away from the heavy horse, he mopped his brow with the sleeve of his stained tunic. “That ’un’s the worst of the lot. T’others will be easier.” Then he squinted at Aric. “I’m thinking you’ve been around horses.”

  Aric ran one hand down the tall bay’s neck. “Some,” he replied noncommittally, his mind still on Rosalynde.

  As the day progressed and he worked beside the stable marshal, first with the horses and later handling the heavy metal bars that would be worked into hinges, spear points, and wheel rims, his mind veered constantly to the woman who had brought him to this new low point in his life.

  No, he admitted honestly. This was not the lowest point in his life. That had come when he’d stood on the gallows at Dunmow waiting to die. He might be a slave now—her slave, even—but at least he was alive. And he intended to stay that way. The skin on his back burned like fire every time he stretched too far or bent over. But that only served to strengthen his resolve. He would stay alive and he would ultimately wreak vengeance on his enemies. And all through the innocent aid of one slender, dark-haired maiden. She’d saved his life; now through their marriage he would gain the power needed to find those who had sought to murder him.

  He lifted another iron bar and grimaced at the shooting pain across his back. He would continue to work as a slave, but only for so long. Sir Edward’s pretty little daughter had bought his silence for a while, or so she thought. But time would work to his advantage, he realized, not hers. She was too squeamish to see him hurt or killed. Her instincts for healing were too strong for that. She would much prefer to buy him off and have him simply disappear from Stanwood. But he had decided to stay. She was his wife both in the eyes of the law as well as through their joining. If her inheritance hadn’t been enough to entice him to claim his husbandly rights, her warmth and passion surely were.

  He had a year to convince her that he was the only man for her. Considering her fiery response to his lovemaking, he was certain it would not take nearly that long. As for her father’s objections, once it was clear he had bedded her and possibly gotten her with child, her father would come around. He would be so relieved to find that Aric was a knight that he would agree to their marriage in the Church at once.

  In the meantime it would be his pleasure to bring the sweet Lady Rosalynde to heel. She turned her pretty little nose up at him because she thought him beneath her. But he knew well enough—and so did she now—that the pleasure they’d found in one another had been mutual. It would not be long before she came to him again. It would not be long before she admitted her feelings of desire and longing for him.

  He wanted her to wife; he had revealed as much to her already. But he would not have her until she admitted as much to him.

  15

  Rosalynde left the kitchen sheds in a foul mood. She had taken inventory of the food stores, inspected the buttery, and visited the alehouse. She had seen the linen storage rooms earlier and the stillroom. Now she meant to take stock of the herb gardens, but she was quite certain already what she would find. Anything to do with the male pleasures, such as hawking, hunting, and drinking, was more than adequately maintained—although the cleanliness of the alehouse and the buttery left much to be desired. But the food storerooms were abysmally stocked and in horrendous disorder, as had been the stillroom and linen closets. She did not doubt that the herb garden was completely overrun with weeds.

  She rubbed her throbbing temple but her stride was no less determined as she made her way down the bailey to the flat sunny spot where her mother had cultivated her herbs. Stanwood Castle was in hopeless disarray and she had a huge project on her hands, Rosalynde realized, even larger than she had expected. For a moment it seemed far too complex for her to handle at all—who was she to think she could set to rights what her father clearly considered of no importance? But at the same time, something in her rose to the challenge. This was her true home. It always had been, and now, since she was her father’s sole heir, it appeared it would be even after she was wed.

  At the thought of being someday wed, Rosalynde could not repress a shiver of dismay. Even though it was her duty eventually to wed and produce heirs, the very thought frightened her. She already had a husband—albeit temporarily. But how would she ever explain that she was not a virgin? She frowned as she hurried across the yard. Maybe her future husband would not be able to tell, she thought hopefully. Yet she knew that hope was not enough to ease her fears, for the fact remained that she could not imagine lying with another man
as she had lain with Blacksword. Except that she could no longer pretend he was only Blacksword the outlaw. Now he was Aric of Wycliffe, a man she hardly knew but who had laid a claim to her which she was hard pressed to deny.

  With a forlorn sigh Rosalynde shooed a rambunctious pair of overgrown puppies from her path as she neared the garden. The question of a husband was beyond her control, she told herself firmly. For the time being she might as well just tackle each and every one of the castle’s shortcomings. She was going to be here a very long time.

  Yet when she passed a group of unpruned pear trees and the herb garden came into view, she almost changed her mind. She remembered a well laid out garden with stone paths, green lawns, and deep borders of herbs interspersed with flowers. What presented itself before her now was a wild jungle of untended shrubs. Paths snaked through in completely unintended locations, and even as she stared at it hopelessly, three more dogs came racing from within the tangle of weeds, nearly bowling her over in their canine delight.

  “Out. Out!” she cried, stamping her feet and flapping the ends of her overtunic at them. What had they done to the peaceful little garden she remembered from her childhood? But the dogs only romped past her, yelping foolishly and following the path of the two mongrels she’d spied previously.

  Rosalynde was nearly undone. Everything that was wrong with Stanwood—the crudeness of the fare, the absence of court manners, the lack of a woman’s touch at all—was summed up by the condition of her mother’s herb garden. Even the abandoned garden at the adulterine castle had not been as bad as this one! Her shoulders slumped in defeat as she stared at the remnants of the herbarium. This garden alone would take all of her efforts. But there was everything else to attend as well. She would never manage it all. Never.

  “ ’Tis a sorry sight, isn’t it?”

  Rosalynde turned at the unexpected voice to find her father standing several paces behind her. Had his expression not been so forlorn and his eyes so sad she would have vented her frustration on him at once. After all, it was he who had allowed her home to sink so low. But she could not heap further guilt on him, not when he so clearly felt the effects of it already.

  “It can be repaired,” she said, although the enthusiasm in her voice was sadly lacking.

  “Can it?” he asked as he slowly advanced toward her. “Sometimes I think not.”

  As she heard the loneliness in his voice and recognized the true meaning of his words, Rosalynde’s natural inclination to nurture came to the fore. “It can be put to rights. I’m sure of it.” She hesitated. “But I shall need your help.”

  He looked up at her and she saw how he fought to bury any trace of his sorrow. “I’m no gardener,” he stated gruffly.

  “Yes, I know. But I am. You need but give me a man to use as I see fit. Perhaps two.”

  Her father stared at her a long time before answering. “Two days you are here. I give you the keys. Now you would take two of my servants to make a garden.”

  “I brought two with me. Plus myself,” she countered. His ill-humored words did not worry her at all. Then she smiled and crossed the rest of the way to stand before him. “You will be pleased with the results, I daresay.”

  His eyes held with hers for another long moment before he nodded his head. “I daresay I will,” he admitted. Then he took his leave of her.

  Rosalynde watched him go, and her heart filled with a mixture of love and sorrow. She had been referring to far more than his just being pleased with the garden, of course. But then, she was fairly certain he had known that.

  She made her plans that night after a dissatisfying meal of stringy boar haunch, oversalted fish, and porridge. In the privacy of her own chamber, by the light of one flickering candle, she brushed her hair and decided how best to proceed. Cleve would start in the garden along with someone else whom she would find in the morning. As it was spring, they must make haste to prepare the garden now. Cedric would be given strict orders to have the kitchen, the alehouse, and the storerooms cleaned first and then reorganized. She would handle the linen stores and the stillroom herself.

  As for the great hall, she would enlist that group of ill-mannered boys to clean out all the old rushes, scrub down the stone floors with lye leached through the ash pots, then cut and spread new rushes. The great fireplace would have to be scrubbed as well. And when they finished that she would have them scrape all the torch bases and candleholders too.

  Of course she would have to supervise each group herself. She trusted none of them to see the tasks completed to her satisfaction. But if she had to labor from before dawn until after dusk, she would see it done. The sewing and spinning, the cleaning of the lesser chambers and the making of soaps and candles, she would address at a later date. For now she would satisfy herself with the necessaries.

  At first light she rousted Cedric from his pallet near her father’s chamber. She was already dressed in a plain gray smock with her hair bound up in linen. The keys to the castle jangled gaily from the end of her girdle.

  “Good morrow, Cedric. I trust you slept well, for we’re to begin a considerable task today.”

  “Mi-milady?” he stammered out, still bleary from sleep.

  “Please assemble a goodly group of servants in the great hall. Four or five of those shiftless lads and the two serving women. Instruct the cook to relinquish at least two of his assistants. He won’t need them as we shall feast on dried fish, bread, and cheese until this task is done. Oh, and I’ll need Cleve and … and … and anyone else you can find.” She gave him a satisfied smile. “And do make haste, Cedric. The day is wasting even as we speak.”

  He stared at her a moment longer, as if he did not quite understand what she had said. Then he bobbed his sandy head and gave her a faint smile. “Aye, milady. I’ll see to it at once.” He grabbed up his shoes and sat down to put them on as his smile broadened. “I ’spect there’s to be some changes around here.”

  “I expect there will,” she concurred.

  The others proved to be far less accommodating than Cedric, yet Rosalynde was not dismayed. Old habits were hard to break, but she was determined that the dreadful habits and routines that the servants of Stanwood had fallen into would be broken once and for all. The serving women were sent to clean the kitchens, top to bottom, floor to ceiling and everything in between. The two kitchen helpers she sent to purge the storerooms. The five clumsy boys she turned to with especial vengeance.

  “Every crumb,” she told them sternly. “Every sliver of bone and glob of fat is to be swept and scrubbed away.” As she left the great hall she turned a deaf ear to their groans of dismay. They would soon learn their places, she vowed, and soon know that the orders of a lady were as inviolate as that of a lord.

  But it was from Cleve that she received the loudest complaints.

  “This, a garden?” he said in disbelief when faced with the disaster that was the herb garden. He watched as one of the dogs began to bark at them, then turned to her with a pained expression. “ ’Twould be best to leave it to the dogs and start elsewhere anew, Lady Rosalynde.”

  “I think not,” she replied, giving him a firm look. “First locate the old stone paths beneath all those weeds, and clear them. Then we’ll mark the shrubs that must go and those that must stay.”

  “ ’Twill take a year and more!” he exclaimed when he saw she would not be swayed from her purpose.

  “You have two weeks.” But at his stunned expression she relented a little. “Cedric will send someone to help you.”

  “Best he send someone with the strength of an ox,” he grumbled, eyeing several sturdy willows that had sprung up unwelcome amid the ruined garden.

  At his disgruntled words, a picture of Blacksword sprang to her mind, for he was indeed as strong as an ox. But she determinedly beat back that image and concentrated on the many tasks at hand. When she left Cleve he was scratching his head and muttering to himself.

  It took all of Rosalynde’s willpower to stay away from her
small crew of laborers during the morning. But she knew they must learn to be responsible without her constant overview. It was time for the midday meal before she completed her cleaning and inventory of the stillroom. The faces that greeted her as they partook of the meal in unusual silence were somber indeed. And dirty as well. Her father cast her a curious glance when he was presented with the meager fare. But he did not raise a comment and only set to the spare offerings with a great display of gusto. Rosalynde was enormously gratified for his show of support, for if he accepted her unpopular methods, no one else could dare complain. As she left the great hall to attend her other tasks, she gave the much-subdued cadre of young men further and more explicit instructions for the continuation of their work.

  In the kitchen the cook gave her a disgruntled stare that spoke volumes. But Rosalynde refused to be baited and addressed the two serving women who were already scraping years of greasy dirt from the rafters above the cutting and preparation tables.

  “Save your scrapings in a tub, Edith,” she directed the older of the pair. “I’ll be forming a garden pile, and any waste from the kitchen should be brought there.”

  “Aye, milady.” The maid nodded. “ ’Tis shameful to say how much of it there’ll be.” She slid a huge brown blob of mingled dirt and grease off the knife blade for effect. “To think we’ve been eatin’ such.” She raised her eyebrows dramatically.

  Rosalynde looked at her for a long moment, then also at the younger, stouter Maud. “Can either of you cook?” she asked on impulse.

  Maud was the first to reply. “I’m a fair hand, particular to soups and stews.” She glanced at Edith as if weighing the wisdom of her next words. Then she plunged on. “Edith here makes a pear tart to weep over.”

  “Pear tart?” Rosalynde stared at Edith in astonishment. But as her mind whirled with new possibilities, the two women mistook her expression.

  Edith’s face paled with fear. “Please don’t hold it again’ me, milady. It was only that the pears were fallin’ to rot. And the flour, well, ’twould have gone rancid before too long. I’m not a thief, milady. Truly, I’m not!”