do not bite,” Sera said, and offered her hand.
Henri stepped forward, bowed to one bony knee, and kissed the back of her hand. A sweet gesture. One that startled Sera. Amidst the stir of music and dance and drink, this man had just promised something to her. His faith, his trust, his acceptance. Such a simple victory. But hardly a triumph over one so…malleable.
“Forgive me if I stare, my lady.” Henri’s voice no longer stuttered, but he had to shout to be heard above the din of revelry. “You are quite remarkable.”
“My father claims the d’Anges come from hearty Amazonian stock.”
“No doubt. Er, but it is your beauty I remark upon.” He hastily removed his cap, exposing stick-straight blond hair cut in a fashionable circle that rimmed just above each ear. “I feel quite a shrew next to your bright shining star. I hope I can be everything you expect in a husband.”
She smiled at his humble confession. “You already are, Henri.”
Her father had chosen well.
Sera, deciding to walk alongside Henri, allowed him to take the first step up to the dais and lead her to the seat next to her father. For the evening she allowed the romance of marriage and gaining a man to claim her land to overtake reality. When it neared the midnight hour she was drunk, tired, and quite pleased with the circumstances of her life.
“If you’ll excuse me, my lord Henri,” she whispered in his ear. “I must retire.”
“You’ll not stay and ring in the New Year?”
“I was up before dawn, and have been busy in the stables and the garden and the larder all the day. The festivities have brought me to the peak of exhaustion. I wish to sleep, repair for the new day, which will find me a blushing bride at your side.”
Henri afforded an embarrassed smile. Sera couldn’t be sure if it was that, or perhaps excessive drink that colored his cheeks. Sweet man. He would be easy enough to ignore. Or perhaps, grow to love.
She pressed a palm to his cheek. “Good eve, Henri. May the First Foot bring happiness to our lives.”
“The First Foot?” Dominique asked. A blaze of sparks burst skyward at the poke of his stick. Somewhere above the encampment an owl hooted.
“The first man who crosses the threshold after the midnight hour,” Baldwin explained, his gaze fixed to the flickering flames, “holds the futures of all the family members within.”
“It is said a man with dark hair and a dark complexion is most favorable,” Sera offered, as blandly as the squire had. “He did have dark hair.”
Dominique looked to Baldwin for explanation. The squire muttered the name, “De Morte.”
“Did not the wardcorne announce his arrival from the battlements?” Dominique wondered.
“I found him with an arrow to the brain,” Baldwin said. “Lucifer’s entire army appeared as if bats rising up from hell. There were so many of them…”
A chill silence held the threesome. Had the flames voice they would have cackled wicked taunts at Sera’s tale.
Had her family been punished for the sanguine choosing of Henri de Lisieux as her proxy? No. Maybe? No. Father had been to arms against Lucifer de Morte for weeks. Lucifer demanded payment for the surplus wheat d’Ange lands had produced over the past three years. The new methods of agriculture her father had been testing had proven fruitful beyond imagination. Father had given the surplus to the needy villagers.
She could still hear the deafening roar of her father’s voice as he’d set Lucifer’s messenger to right. “You tell de Morte I’ll see him in hell before I bow to an English king. And the surplus has been given away!”
“Ah! But what of you, San Juste?” Sera chased away the haunting echoes by averting attention from herself. “Have you family? Tell us about them and lift this sudden darkness that has fallen over our heads.”
“My family.” Dominique stirred a branch in the snow at his feet, designing a circle. “My parents are both dead. ’Twas the plague brought over by the English a few years back.”
“I’m sorry.” She remembered that horrible summer. The plague had reduced the numbers in France by a quarter. Elizabeth, the young girl who had tended the d’Ange sheep, had been stricken. She had suffered two weeks of agony before finally surrendering to death. “Have you a wife? Children?”
“Neither a wife nor child.”
“That you know of,” Sera said with a hint of mirth. Anything to lift the spirits of this dismal trio.
Dominique rose. His expression showed no clue that he’d caught the mirthful mood. “I have no children, my lady. And believe me, I would have a care to know if I did.”
“Honorable words, uttered by many a man,” she said lightly.
“I know women believe men lust after any wench who should cross their paths, but that is not the case with me. My lady—” he gazed down upon her with fire-glinting eyes “—when I love, I love deeply. And I do not take the act of carnal relations lightly. Yes, there may be occasion when a wench will serve, but she will be treated with respect and dignity, as one should only expect. Unlike some people I have come to know, who bully others about with commands and choose the most amiable of matches to lord over in their marital bliss.”
He then turned and marched off into the forest, destination unknown. His exit left the encampment a cold hollow shivering amongst the cage of winter-raped trees.
Snapping out of the icy hold of Dominique’s words, Sera looked to Baldwin, who nodded effusively in response to her unspoken question. “He was speaking directly to you.”
“Hmph. I had no intention of lording over Lisieux.” She toed a stray piece of bark into the fire. “Why do you always side with San Juste?”
He shrugged. “He is different from most. Not your normal boisterous, demanding male.”
She lifted a brow at Baldwin’s stunning insight.
“And he has an eye for you.”
“Ridiculous.”
“As you wish,” came Baldwin’s reply, smothered by the wrap of his cape as he settled himself back into a cocoon. “He is good for the both of us, Sera. I pray you grant him the chance to prove it.”
“I have denied him nothing,” she said, and allowed her body to fall back against the elm trunk. A heavy sigh spumed a thick puff of frost before her face.
When I love, I love deeply. I do not take the act of carnal relations lightly.
“Indeed,” Sera whispered. “What fortune a woman should reap, to be loved by Dominique San Juste.”
SIX
So it had arrived. Dawn.
Dominique stood alone at the edge of the forest, his face turned to absorb the amber rays of sun as they widened and stretched the horizon in a dance
