David ran toward Bert, and the thump of her small body against his brought tears of joy to his eyes. He lifted her high, then brought her close, absorbing love and warmth, feeling her squirm and knowing the ecstasy of holding his healthy, active, stubborn daughter once more.
“Daddy.” She used her hand to push his head away. “I wanna see you.”
He leaned back so she could see him, and he could see her, and for the first time he absorbed her amazing transformation. The gold he had sent had obviously gone to feed the child, for she looked healthy and far from starvation. But her brown hair had been cut to a stubble all around her skinny face. She had a scab above her eyebrow and one on her chin. “What have you done to yourself?” he demanded.
“I’m going to be a warrior like you.”
Lifting her away from him again, he stared at her while her feet kicked uselessly. “What are you wearing?”
“A page’s uniform.” Her brown eyes sparkled. “I can practice my swordwork in it.”
“That’s your sword?” He nodded at the wooden stick hung from a belt at her waist.
“I made it myself.” She whipped her head around and glared at Guy, who stood off to the side. “Uncle Guy wouldn’t do it. He said I had no business being a warrior, but I’m going to be a mercenary like my Daddy.”
Guy met David’s gaze with a rueful shake of the head. “I beg your pardon, David. She cut her hair with a kitchen knife. I heard the cook squalling and—”
“’Tis I who am sorry, Guy.” David brought Bert close once more. She wrapped her skinny arms around his neck and her skinny legs around his waist, and beheld the rest of the world with the air of a princess. “I should have known better than to think anyone could control this terror.”
“I’m not a terror!” Bert exclaimed.
“You’re no warrior, either,” Guy said.
“Am too!”
Before David had to interfere, Alisoun brought her horse closer and distracted the child. “Who is that?” Bert demanded.
“Let me introduce you.” Proud of them both, foreseeing trouble yet facing it head-on, David walked up to Alisoun’s stirrup and said to Bert, “This is Alisoun, countess of George’s Cross and the lady who graciously became my wife four days ago.” To Alisoun, he said, “This is Bert.”
“So I see.” Alisoun nodded gracefully in acknowledgment of the introduction. “You never told me you had a son.”
David could have groaned, and his pugnacious child stuck her chin forward and her lip out. “I’m a girl.”
“Her name is Bertrade,” David told Alisoun.
If she had been a lesser woman, she would have gasped and exclaimed. As it was, her eyes narrowed as she inspected the child. “A girl. You’re a girl?”
Bert wiggled out of David’s arms and stood close to him. Sticking out her skinny chest, she placed her scabbed fists on her hips and spread her feet in an imitation of manly confidence. She examined her new stepmother as critically as Alisoun examined her. “A countess? You’re a countess?”
Alisoun said nothing, but to David her still expression expressed much. She was shocked by such blatant impudence, shocked by Bert’s appearance, shocked that he hadn’t informed her of her role as stepmother earlier. And he really should have. But Alisoun had been so stunned by her own pregnancy that he had feared to give her more reason to doubt their union. In his mind, he’d imagined Alisoun meeting a clean, well-behaved Bert and being charmed out of her distress.
Instead, Bert couldn’t look worse or sound more sassy. When had she grown so spoiled?
Stepping firmly into the breach, Guy suggested, “Perhaps this would be better continued inside.” With a gallantry he had learned on the tournament circle, he introduced himself to Alisoun, took her bridle, and led her across the drawbridge.
She went easily, chatting with him, putting him at ease as she had been trained to do. David watched, torn between jealousy that Guy performed the duty he should perform and discomfiture that his child had so embarrassed him.
He had wanted to show Alisoun the castle himself. He had wanted to point out to her how the smaller perimeter of his walls made defense easier, that his men were constantly on alert and every weapon always at the ready. He wanted to show her that although he’d spent most of his time and his insignificant income on fortification, the castle still boasted a few amenities. Although his stable could use whitewashing, the roof structure remained sound and her horses would be well housed. A stone wall surrounded his herb garden, and the woman who tended it mixed ointments and elixirs, and when necessary she worked a bit of healing magic.
His keep…David squinted as he considered the difference between her keep and his. The chapel in his keep was small and dark. The great hall, the undercroft, and the gallery in his keep were equally dismal. Only the solar came close to Alisoun’s standards, and there, he hoped, he would charm her out of the consternation he feared she must be experiencing.
As he gazed after Alisoun, a small, repentant voice spoke from below. “Daddy?”
He waited.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Shouldn’t I be?”
Bert scuffled her feet in the dirt. “She thought I was a boy.”
“I don’t blame her. You’ve got no hair, you’re dressed all wrong.” Pinching the edge of her short tunic between two fingers, he shook it and dust flew. “By Saint Michael’s arms, you’re unclean.”
“So?”
Smothering a sudden smile, he realized how like Alisoun he had become. Before, he would not even have noticed Bert’s filth. “So you can’t become a warrior!”
“I want to. I want to.” Tears hovered close now, and she flung her arms around his leg. “I want to go with you next time you go away.”
“Ahh.” Now he understood. Peeling her off his leg, he knelt before her. “You don’t want me to go away anymore?”
“Nay.” She sniffed.
“Didn’t Guy take good care of you?”
“Aye. I like Guy.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Most of the time. But he’s not you.”
“That’s why you must be polite to Lady Alisoun,” David said. “I’ve married her so I won’t ever have to go away.”
The tears that swam in Bert’s eyes dried at once. “Why not?”
“She’s rich and no one in Radcliffe will ever go hungry again.”
“You married an heiress.” A gaminlike grin spread across his daughter’s face as she immediately grasped his unspoken reason. “You married her for her money!”
“Not just for her money, dear. Alisoun is warm, kind, giving—”
Bert snorted and punched his shoulder. “I saw her, and you’re not supposed to lie.”
“I’m not lying.” He stood and held out his hand. “You’ll see. You’ll like her a lot.”
“I hate you.” Bert faced off with Alisoun over a steaming tub of water while David’s serving folk watched with avid interest. “I’m sorry my Daddy married you!”
“And I’m sorry to hear that.” Alisoun rolled up her sleeves while Philippa and her other maids set up screens around the open fire in Radcliffe’s great hall. “But you still have to have a bath.”
Torn between explaining his daughter and supporting his wife, David took a step off the dais, then back up again, then back down.
Seated on a bench at the trestle table where they had eaten their afternoon meal, Guy warned, “Leave them alone.”
“But I’ve got to intervene before they come to blows.”
“I’d say your Lady Alisoun has the matter well in hand,” Guy said.
Bert shrieked at Alisoun, as if in defiance of Guy’s assurance. “My daddy doesn’t want you here.”
“Well in hand,” David muttered. He stepped down again and walked toward the fire. In the stern voice he so seldom used on his daughter, he said, “Bert, Lady Alisoun is correct. I told you—”
“David.” Without looking at him, Alisoun spoke in a clear, cold voice. “You’ll not interfere with me.”
David’s mouth dropped and he halted.
“Bertrade and I will deal with each other well when we have taken each other’s measure, I am sure.” This time her gray eyes flicked in his direction. “For that, you should leave us alone. Set the last shield, Philippa. We don’t want a draft to chill young Bertrade.”
David was left staring at a tall screen. Retreating, he sat once more at the trestle table on the dais. Guy poured him a mug of ale and pushed it in his direction, and he sipped it in what he hoped was a casual manner—but he kept himself free of any entanglements in case he had reason to rise.
His servants moved closer to the screens, raking the rushes off the floor, and in a desultory manner swabbing it with a mixture of urine and vinegar, all the while listening to the quarrel.
The keep had not been the disaster of filth David feared—after all, he’d been gone less than three months—but Alisoun had set to work at once to destroy the fleas that hopped everywhere. She’d given the orders and when David’s servants proved slow in responding, she’d set her own people over them.
Lady Edlyn had proved herself capable as she harried his servants and ordered the cooks, all at the same time. Philippa acted as an enforcer, making sure her lady’s orders, once given, were followed.
Now it irritated David to see his staff awaiting the results of this altercation as if it would have any effect on whether they would have to obey their new mistress. He wanted to say something, to order them on their way, but Lady Edlyn put her finger to her lips and nodded with a smile. She seemed certain her mistress would triumph. He just wished he were as certain.
From behind the screen, he heard a splashing, then a bawl of what sounded like agony. “You got me wet!” Bert cried.
“It works so much better that way.” Alisoun sounded as calm as ever, and that seemed to infuriate Bert once more.
“You’re ugly!” she yelled. “You’re stupid!”
“Damn.” Once more, David started to his feet and moved toward the screens.
Guy followed and grabbed his arm. “Alisoun said not to interfere.”
David wavered.
Then Bertrade’s voice rose to a high-pitched scream. “My daddy only married you for your money.”
Tearing himself away from Guy, David bounded forward. “I never said that.” He didn’t know to whom he spoke, but he clearly heard Alisoun’s answer.
“I know that. I married him for protection. You needn’t worry that I’ll entice your daddy away from you. I don’t even care to try.”
David skidded on a wet place on the floor and went down heavily. Bruised in body and spirit, he scarcely noticed when Guy helped him up from the floor.
“Did you bring some new horses?” Guy asked. When David nodded morosely, Guy said, “You can show them to me.”
Guy led him outside into the small bailey, now bustling with activity. David’s servants greeted him with varying levels of enthusiasm, and as they neared the stable, Guy broke the silence. “The reaction to Lady Alisoun amazes me.”
Instantly hostile, David asked, “What do you mean?”
“Yesterday everyone of these villeins moaned about the hunger in their bellies and how they would do anything to ease it. Now Lady Edlyn and Lady Philippa have distributed meals from Lady Alisoun’s stores—”
“She’s not a lady,” David said.
“Lady Edlyn?” Guy stared in wonder.
“Philippa.”
“Isn’t she? I would have said she was, and a very attractive lady, too.” David shook his head, but Guy seemed unconvinced. “Lady Alisoun has made it clear the duties everyone will perform if they expect to continue to eat so well. Reasonable expectations, I might add, yet your servants seem to be struggling between relief and resentment.”
“They’ll do as she says, or I’ll tack their ears to a stock.”
Guy eyed the open stable door, then looked at the indignant David. “Let’s walk around one time before we go in to see the horses.”
David nodded, knowing his restless vigor wouldn’t sit well with the animals, who even now were adjusting to their new stalls.
As they started around the saggy wooden building, Guy returned to the subject. “Tacking their ears won’t work. She has to win them over herself, and I don’t know whether this lazy bunch of knaves and sluts will respond to the woman when they know you married her for her wealth.”
Grabbing Guy by the throat, David snapped, “I didn’t!”
Guy jabbed David’s unprotected stomach with his fist, and when David released him and reeled backward, he asked, “Why did you tell the child that, then?”
“I didn’t. She just assumed…and where did she even get the idea, I’d like to know?” David glared insinuatingly at the man who’d raised his daughter these months.
“She was lost when you left, and she ran from one person to another, trying to garner suggestions of how you could come home soon. A couple of the men told her you’d be wise to marry an heiress. A couple of the women suggested you’d be better off to have a squire at your side. She couldn’t do anything about the heiress, so she decided to become a lad and be your squire.” Guy rubbed his head as if it ached. “She’s a very smart little lass.”
David found himself fighting a headache. “How am I going to explain?”
“Bert’s not going to believe you wed Lady Alisoun for any reason other than greed.”
“I meant to explain to Alisoun.” Narrowing his eyes, David asked, “Why won’t Bert believe?”
They had reached the stable door once more, and Guy looked at it, then at David. “Let’s go around again.”
It never occurred to David to disagree.
As they began the wide circle again, Guy said, “Because she’s had you all to herself these years, and she won’t easily give you up to another woman. She adores you, you know that.”
“I adore her, and I’ll not adore her any less because I’m wed.”
“Bert and Alisoun will fight—are already fighting—and you’ll have to make your choices. Who will you side with? The woman you’ve wed who, by all appearances, is stiff-necked and conventional, or your wild child, who needs to be taught proper behavior without breaking her spirit?”
“Alisoun, of course.”
“Of course.” Guy mocked him. “You’ve raised Bert, but not like any other child I’ve seen. Most especially, not like any girl I’ve seen. You’ve given her her head more often than not.”
“Why not?” David asked indignantly. “She’s learned by trying and failing, or trying and succeeding. I’ve made sure she didn’t hurt herself, and it’s worked well.”
“Aye, it’s worked. She’s tried anything she chose, and you and I, we’re old warriors. We just watched and made sure she didn’t get hurt. What do you think Lady Alisoun will think of such a way of raising a child?”
David remembered his early impressions of Alisoun. He’d thought her humorless, unemotional, frigid. That was how Guy now saw her, but it wasn’t the truth, and David clapped his friend on the shoulder. “You’ll see. She’ll defer to my greater knowledge.”
“Will she?” It never occurred to either one of them to enter the open stable door this time. They just passed it and kept walking. “So when Bert tells Lady Alisoun she wants to train as a squire, she’s going to encourage Bert?”
David didn’t answer.
“Because you know Bert. Once she decides to learn something, nothing will stop her until she’s mastered it. She’s going to be after you every day to teach her swordplay and jousting and every other manly pursuit. It’s your contention that Lady Alisoun will allow such behavior without saying a word?”
“Damn!” David smacked his hand into the stable wall, then wished he hadn’t. The horses needed serenity to settle, and even the stablemaster would be moving as quietly as possible. He listened, but heard nothing but a few startled neighs. Softly, he spoke again. “Alisoun has a strong sense of duty, and she’ll consider training Bert to be a lady her duty, and nothing will keep her from it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But what’s the harm in Bert learning a squire’s duty if she wishes?”
Guy pounced. “So you are going to support Bert against Lady Alisoun?”
“Nay, I…” David took a breath. “Why does it have to be so complicated? When I met Lady Alisoun, I thought she was mean-spirited and bloodless. Then I saw her demesne and thought, ‘Ooh, all this beautiful wealth waiting for me.’ So I courted her and talked to her, and she’s…she’s…” Turning to Guy, he grasped his shoulders. “You know how it is when you look in one of those clear, polished crystals and it just looks like a hard, cold stone? Then as you stare, you notice the rainbows that dance on the surface, and when you hold it up to your eye and look through it, it makes all the colors brighter and all the hard, horrible things look like they’re touched by an angel’s wing?”
Bewildered, Guy stared at his old friend. “Nay.”
David swept on. “That’s what she’s like. You think she’s hard and cold and easily seen through, and then she transforms your whole world.”
Guy laid his hand on David’s forehead. “Are you ill?”
Laughing, David knocked him away and entered the dim stable, hushed except for the restlessness of the old horses and the uneasy snuffling of the new. “Did I ever tell you about my granny?”
Trailing after him, Guy said cautiously, “Your granny?”
“She used to talk about how some couples share a great love.”
“You and Lady Alisoun share a great love?”
Guy could have sounded less incredulous, but David ignored that. “Well, she doesn’t know yet.”
“You share a great love, but she doesn’t know yet?”
David stopped to pet one of the horses from George’s Cross. “She didn’t want to marry me.”
“So why did she?” Guy asked suspiciously.
“For the same reason she hired me. For protection.” David frowned. “In fact, we need to spread the word that if anyone sees a stranger lurking about, I should be informed at once.”
“What does she need protection from?”
“I don’t know.” David could see little in the fading light, but he did catch sight of Guy’s blatant stupefaction and said, “That is, I have a good idea, but I don’t know everything yet. She’ll tell me soon.”
“Probably when she realizes you share a great love.”
“Probably.” Entering one of the stalls, David checked the gelding’s hooves and hocks. “This one stepped into a hole on that wretched road and has limped ever since. I’ll get the stablemaster to heat a poultice and put it on him.”
Guy watched with intense interest. “May I ask a question?”
“As you wish.”
“Why did Lady Alisoun marry you for protection when she had hired you for protection?”
David didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to talk about that. But Guy wanted an answer, and they’d been friends too long for David to evade or lie. “I rather forced her to wed me.”
Guy straightened so quickly David wondered if he’d gotten a sliver. “Forced her? You mean at swordpoint, or by kidnapping? One of the king’s heiresses? Are you mad?”
Irked that Guy would think such a thing, David snapped, “I didn’t force her with any violent means. I simply came into some knowledge that she would prefer remain hidden. And there is the babe, of course.”
Guy staggered backward and sat down on a stack of hay. “She’s with child?”
David grinned proudly. “Aye.”
“With your child?”
His grin disappeared. “Aye!”
Guy seemed overwhelmed, unable to speak another word.
David waited, and when Guy did nothing but shake his head, David stepped out of the stall, closed the gate behind him, and hefted Guy to his feet. “So you see we have to blend these families and these estates.”
“It’s going to be a difficult task,” Guy warned.
“With your help, my friend, we’ll do it. My granny always used to say that with a great love, it casts a glow of warmth all around it and makes everyone content.” David moved toward Louis’s stall. “You’ll see.”
Ahead of them, something flew over the door of one of the stalls and landed in the aisle. Something else followed and landed on top of it, and in an awesome silence the two things tumbled and rolled. Unable to make out details in the dim light, David hurried toward the creatures.
Lads, fighting just outside Louis’s stall. The great horse watched stoically, but David grabbed one and Guy grabbed the other, and they dragged them along the aisle and out the door.
“Eudo!” David shook the boy in his grip, then looked at the one Guy held and recognized his own Radcliffe page. “And Marlow! What are you two doing?”
Eudo extended a shaking finger. “He started it!”
“He tried to tend Louis.” Marlow kicked dust at Eudo. “It’s my task to tend Louis. Tell him, Sir David.”
“Aye, tell him, Sir David.” Eudo pointed his thumb at his chest. “It’s me you want to tend Louis.”
Dumbfounded, David stared at the two boys until Guy said sarcastically, “Oh, aye. A great love. Warmth of glow. Everyone content.” David met Guy’s gaze, and Guy wagged his great head. “Better sooner than later.”
That night at the meal, no one spoke much. Worn out by the fight which she had lost, the child Bertrade had fallen asleep on her bench and been carried away. David’s servants maintained a watchful vigil, and Edlyn and the maids showed obvious signs of fatigue.
Alisoun was grateful. She hated to acknowledge her own lack of courtesy, but she would have been hard pressed to carry on a civil conversation.
The trip had been tiring, settling into a new castle proved difficult, the child Bertrade expressed a defiant spirit, and Alisoun had finally been forced to face facts. The one thing she’d always feared had happened.
She’d been married for her wealth.
“Could I cut you a slice of bread?” David scooted as close to her as he could get. The bench they shared allowed him to press against her, knee, hip and arm, and his knife hovered over the loaf placed before them on the long table.
Alisoun nodded graciously. “I would be beholden.”
The blade began sawing back and forth, back and forth, and Alisoun realized how hard the bread would be. But Edlyn had taken one look into the baker’s ovens and demanded he clean them before he bake another thing, so they’d dine on stale bread and be grateful this night.
She had been stupid to hope that David had married her for any other reason than her money. She could dream he did it out of affection for his unborn babe, or because of the pleasure she’d offered him in bed. She could pray that he valued her for herself.
But the truth was always and forever that he wanted her twelve sacks of wool, and all the assets that went with them.
Oh, she couldn’t even blame him. He had a child he adored. She’d helped give Bertrade that bath, and the child, while healthy, was far from plump. She could comprehend his decision to wed and provide for his daughter.
“The bread is stale, so I had your maid warm it.” Pushing the heated slice into her hand, David said, “I’ve had an egg yolk whipped in white wine for you to dip it in. ’Twill be good for our child, also.”
“My thanks again.” She touched her still flat belly. “You are ever thoughtful.”
If she were a less honest woman, she could claim she’d married David to give her child a name. Instead, she’d wed an inappropriate man for no better reasons than companionship and desire. She was no less a fool than another woman she knew who had wed her dream of love and found nothing but a belt to blister her skin and a rod to break her bones.
“My cook took dried strawberries from this very spring and steamed them to plumpness and made a compote.” David waved the fragrant bowl slowly before her nose. “For you, my lady. Won’t you eat?”
If it weren’t for the danger which threatened, she’d go back to George’s Cross and take her chances, but that open grave proved that her enemy knew the truth, and she feared he would do anything now to take his revenge.
So she had a choice. She could fret and complain and be like David’s first wife, a weight to drag him down. Or she could do as she had always done. She could do her duty.
Armed with a new resolve, she looked at David. He, too, seemed tired, and lines of concern marked his dark tanned skin. She smiled at him graciously and picked up her spoon. “This all smells quite delicious. I look forward to the end of our first day at Radcliffe.”
David sat back with a sigh that sounded like relief. From his hungry expression, she expected that he would gobble his food in the manner of a barbarian. But he ate politely and drank his fill, always attentive to her needs and chatting like a host making his new guest at home. When at last he pressed the goblet to her lips and let her drink, then turned it to the same spot and drank while gazing at her, she realized the reason for his desirous aspect—and all her pretense of serenity almost went for naught. She rose so quickly he knocked their bench over trying to get to his feet, and she moved toward the solar with a firm stride. She heard him scrambling to catch up, but she refused to look back or in any way acknowledge his presence. But when he trod on her skirt, it jerked her to a halt, and when he took her arm, it brought her around to face him at the very door of the solar.
“I wish to sleep now,” she said.
“So we will,” he answered.
“Alone.”
“We’re married.”
“I am aware.”
“So I’ll be in the marriage bed with you.”
He looked so firm, so calm, so determined. She wanted to retort, but she couldn’t breathe. She felt as if bands were tightening around her throat. Only now did she realize what a facade she’d erected around her emotions. She wasn’t tranquil. She wasn’t serene. She was absolutely livid.
She meant only to lay her hand on his chest. She really did.
But she hit him so hard she knocked him backward. She didn’t yell, but only because she couldn’t. In a low tone, she said, “I will be the mother to your child. I will be the mistress of your people. I will be the money chest which provides prosperity, and I will give it gladly.” She slapped her hand on his chest again and this time she heard his grunt of pain. “But I will not be an expedient body in your bed. Go and find yourself a mistress.”
David’s people couldn’t hear, but they watched the scene avidly and the humiliation struck at his pride, just as she knew it would. Exploding in a display of exasperation, he said, “Fine! I know where ten mistresses are, and willing ones too.”
With a tight smile, she shut the door in his face.
Ruefully, he looked at his hands, especially noting the one missing a finger. “Well, nine mistresses anyway.”