My Lady Midnight. Laurie Grant
themselves, I think we can assume they were a party of Stephen’s mercenaries. We killed three of them when they tried to run, but this pair surrendered. They’ll cool their heels in that locked room below the cellar until I’m satisfied about what they were doing on my lands.”
He turned back to Claire, and his voice was coldly dismissive as he switched back to English. “Begone, woman, and be thankful I do not jail you with yon brigands.”
Claire’s heart sank. Was she to come this close, only to fail? “But my lord,” she began.
There was a rumble of thunder, and suddenly the rain, which had been imminent all day, started falling in sheets.
“Papa, you must let her in now, you must!” Peronelle cried. “’Tis raining, and she’ll catch her death of lung fever, just as Mama did!”
Alain of Hawkswell’s face went white at the mention of his dead wife, but Guerin seemed not to notice, adding his pleas and surprising Claire. “Please, Father, just for the night! ’Tis our Christian duty! You cannot turn her out in the storm like an animal!”
Alain de Hawkswell scowled again as the rain streaked down his cheeks. “Very well, I’ll not debate it further out here in the rain. She may sup in the hall and bed down there, but on the morrow she goes, do I make myself clear? I cannot take into my household every beggar that shows up at the gates. Take her in with you and get dry by the fire before you go up, and beg Ivy’s pardon for being such a wicked girl, Peronelle.”
Claire longed to fling his stingy hospitality back in his face, but too much depended on her getting into his household. At least she had gained entry for the night—and perhaps she would find a way to stay if fortune smiled on her.
“Thank ye, my lord,” she said, and hoped she appeared the picture of gratitude. “…She has a certain…comeliness, in a common sort of way,” indeed. I’ll teach you the folly of judging by appearances, Alain of Hawkswell.
Alain of Hawkswell’s eyes followed his children and the young woman as they headed for the spiral stone staircase at the far end of the great hall after warming themselves at the fire. The woman his children had called Haesel followed as Peronelle and Guerin led the way. Peronelle was chattering excitedly, turning back as she said something to Haesel. Guerin was quieter, as usual, but even he had a look of pride on his face as he looked around, obviously urging Haesel onward.
Alain could not see her face, but he studied the erect back and the grace with which her long legs took her up the stairs. She lifted the edge of her threadbare skirt to more easily climb, and he caught a glimpse of a slender, well-turned ankle. As she ascended, the end of her golden braid caressed the small of her back, swaying to her motion.
Conscious of a stirring in his loins, he turned away from the sight, disgusted with himself. But even after he could no longer see her, his mind repeated the vision of Haesel warming herself at his fire. Unaware of his continued scrutiny, the peasant woman had stretched and flexed her arms as she stood before the roaring fire to dry herself, the wet homespun of her bodice clearly revealing the outline of her breasts. Unbidden and unwelcome, a vision came to him of Haesel stretched out in his bed, all that golden hair unbraided and fanned out over his pillow as she opened her arms to receive him. Julia had been blond too, but her hair had been pale and lifeless next to this woman’s golden tresses.
Peste, but why was he thinking of her in that way? It wasn’t as if he had not had a woman since Julia’s untimely death…Gylda, who dwelled in the village, made him welcome whenever he came to her. He was not a man who could be led around by his loins. Now that he had been widowed, he satisfied his carnal needs only when the clamoring of his body forced him to seek Gylda out. Once he had spent himself upon the accommodating peasant woman—on rare occasions even staying the night in her rude cottage, coupling with her more than once—he could return to his life as the baron of Hawkswell, lord of a strategic castle on the road to London.
One day, when the empress was secure on her throne, he supposed he would be given another heiress as a reward for his loyalty. It was the way of royalty to want to cement fealty with marriage alliances. It was for the same reason he had been given Julia’s hand, and they could have been as happy as most noble couples, if only…But it was no use thinking that way.
He had visited Gylda only two days ago…Then why was he so disturbed by a pair of blue eyes, a wealth of golden hair and a lush mouth that lured him to gaze lower, at the breasts that strained her bodice and the narrow waist he could span with his hands?
Perhaps he was merely bothered by the fact that she obviously didn’t like him, he mused as he sipped the wine his steward had brought him. He had sensed that fact even before he had forbidden his children to bring her into the castle, and he wondered why it was so. Perhaps she just didn’t like the Normans, either because they had been the masters of England for more than seventy years, or because she had suffered some personal loss at their hands—her virginity? Was she fleeing the very man who had stolen her innocence?
For she was no virgin, he had sensed. There was something about the bold way she had looked him in the eye, before dropping her gaze, that told him she had known at least one man intimately. And hadn’t liked what she had known.
All the more reason to make sure she was sent on her way on the morrow. She didn’t like him, and that being true, there was no need for her to remain within the walls of his castle after tonight. It was likely she had not even wished to stay. It was probably one of Peronelle’s impulsive ideas, and the woman had seen the chance of shelter from the coming storm that now sent rain drumming against the lead roof high overhead.
That Guerin had chimed in in support of Haesel’s visit had surprised Alain, but only momentarily. The serious young lad had a tender side, always bringing in strays and wounded birds and expecting Alain to help him succor them. Alain was proud of what he had taught the boy, and he knew he was going to miss him next year when he was old enough to be sent to another noble household for fostering—if the unrest that had threatened the realm ever since the empress had claimed the throne died down enough to permit him to send Guerin anywhere. Alain had resolved he would not send the boy into danger—he owed Guerin’s mother that much.
All at once Alain heard a shriek overhead, a shriek that could only have been Peronelle’s, and then the sound of weeping. His hand went to his hip, where the hilt of his sword had rested only minutes ago until Verel, his squire, had divested him of his mail. But it was not there, for he had changed into a long, comfortable tunic with a plain leather belt. He dropped the half-empty wine cup in the rushes and ran for the stairs. Good Lord, had the serf woman he had let into his hall turned vicious the moment she was out of his sight?
But before he could reach the curving stone steps, a white-faced Peronelle appeared around the corner of the stairs, followed by Guerin and Haesel, who were equally pale.
Peronelle ran down the steps and catapulted herself against him, throwing her arms around his legs as if all the demons of hell chased her.
“Perry, what is it? What’s she done to you?” he asked, even as his eyes met Haesel’s. “What did you do to her, woman?” he accused in English.
The Englishwoman blanched still further. “N-nothing, my lord!” she stammered. “It be the old woman, the nurse! We…we found her…dead, my lord!”
At first he stared at her, unable to make sense of her halting English words. But then, as their meaning sank into his brain, he ran past her and Guerin, who stood as if paralyzed halfway down the steps, and into the chamber in which the children and their nurse slept.
The old woman sagged on a padded chair near the unshuttered window, some mending project in her lap. Her head lolled against the high back of the chair, and her eyes were open, but she saw nothing. Even before he reached her side and took hold of her wrist, it was obvious from her dusky blue coloring that Ivy was dead. Her flesh