style="font-size:15px;"> With a sigh, he climbed onto the bundles of fleece and stretched out, sinking down with a sigh. He would to stay here a little longer. After all, he’d wanted to save her from her troubles, not add to them.
* * *
Still holding the empty basket, Tamsin hurried to the small chamber she shared with Mavis. She didn’t go back to the kitchen where a host of servants would be, nor to the hall, where all the lords and ladies were still gathered. She ran like a frightened deer or a mouse that sees a cat to the servants’ stairs leading to the family chambers. Mercifully she met no one as she dashed up the steps, or in the corridor. Panting, she opened the door—to find her cousin already there, her hands clasped anxiously before her and a worried expression on her lovely face.
Mavis’s expression grew even more concerned as she looked from Tamsin’s startled visage to the empty basket in her hands.
“I was so busy thinking about all the guests leaving tomorrow, I forgot to return this,” Tamsin said, her excuse sounding weak even to herself.
“I was right—you are ill!” Mavis cried, taking the basket from Tamsin and setting it down on the nearby dressing table. “You’re flushed and out of breath and you were so quiet during the feast.”
“I’m not usually a font of merriment,” Tamsin noted with a smile only slightly forced as she picked up a taper and stuck it in the brazier warming the small chamber. “I was thinking about the cook. Armond may have to go. He struck the spit boy, and if he does it again—”
“I’ve seen you worried about household matters many times before, and this is different,” Mavis interrupted, blocking Tamsin’s way as she went to light the rushlight beside Mavis’s curtained bed. Tamsin’s smaller cot was on the other side of the room, along with the small chest that held her few gowns. Mavis’s clothes were in a much larger chest at the foot of her bed.
Mavis put her hand on Tamsin’s forehead before she could move away. “No fever, thank God, but you must go to bed and rest before you fall seriously ill. I’ll do what must be done tomorrow while you rest—and I won’t allow you to refuse!” she added, looking as stern as it was possible for cheerful, pretty Mavis to look.
Which was not nearly so stern as Sir Rheged. But Tamsin would not, must not, think of him. And it would be better if she kept busy tomorrow, away from the guests.
“I’m quite all right,” she replied, moving farther into the room.
“No, you’re not,” her cousin insisted. “Something is wrong.” She went to Tamsin and put her hands on her shoulders, turning her to face her, her anxious gaze searching Tamsin’s face. “Please, Tamsin, won’t you tell me? I come to you with all my troubles, as if you were my sister. Won’t you treat me like a sister and tell me yours?”
If she had demanded the truth, Tamsin would have resisted. But this tender, heartfelt plea, from the cousin who had been the only one to welcome her with kindness when she first came to Castle DeLac, and from whom she would soon be parted, proved irresistible. “Your father was going to wait until tomorrow to make the announcement.”
Mavis’s blond eyebrows drew together in a query as Tamsin forced another smile onto her face. Mavis must never know what her father had threatened if Tamsin refused the betrothal. Mavis was a loving, loyal soul and Tamsin didn’t doubt that she would insist on taking Tamsin’s place if she knew the truth. “I am to be married.”
“Married?” Mavis repeated, as shocked as Tamsin had been. Or Sir Rheged. And no doubt as everyone else in Castle DeLac would be, too, when the news got out. “When? To whom? Is it one of the visiting knights? Sir Jocelyn?”
“No, it’s—”
“Not young Sir Robert. He’s barely twenty.”
“It isn’t one of our guests. It’s Sir Blane of Dunborough.”
“Sir Blane of...” Mavis repeated. Then her eyes widened and a look of horror came to her face. “Not that terrible old lecher! It made my skin crawl just to look at him! Surely Father wouldn’t be so cruel!”
Tamsin drew herself and spoke as she had to Sir Rheged, with pride and resolve, so that Mavis would believe her. “He’s rich and powerful. It’s a much better match than I could have hoped for.”
“But you yourself saw the way he went after the maidservants. If you hadn’t kept them—and me—away from him—”
“Surely once he has a new, young wife he won’t want to dally with servants.”
“I don’t think marriage would ever stop a man like him from trying to take advantage of any woman. And he wouldn’t have a wife,” Mavis said. “He would have you. You would be in that disgusting old man’s bed, Tamsin.”
Better her than Mavis, Tamsin thought, her cousin’s compassionate concern making it all the more necessary that she wed Sir Blane. “I’m aware of a wife’s duties—all of them,” she said, meeting her cousin’s gaze with all the cool composure she could muster.
“It may not be pleasant, but if I’m to have children, I will do what I must, and I do want children,” she continued, trying not to imagine little boys with flashing brown eyes and dark hair, or little girls with thick lashes and long, waving black hair.
She took Mavis’s hands in hers. “This may be the only way I’ll ever have a household and children of my own. I’ll no longer be a beggar at my uncle’s table, a glorified servant who must be grateful for every mouthful.”
Mavis regarded her questioningly for a long moment, until at last she lowered her head and pulled her hands free. “If that’s how you feel, Tamsin, then I must be happy for you, and wish you well on your betrothal.”
“Thank you, my cousin, who is more than a sister to me,” Tamsin said, embracing her.
Mavis threw her arms about her and hugged her close.
* * *
Rheged awoke to pitch-darkness and the scent of wool. God’s blood, he’d fallen asleep in the woolshed.
He rolled off the bundle and onto his feet at once. Moving his stiff arms, he bent his knees and straightened, then brushed any bits of fleece from his tunic before raking his fingers through his hair.
He opened the door and peered into the yard. It was barely dawn, the yard empty and quiet, with only the footfalls of the guards on the walk to break the silence. Like a shadow, Rheged crept out of the shed and along the wall, stealthily making his way back to his quarters, more glad than ever that he had a chamber to himself.
On the other hand, he thought as he slipped through the outer door into the guest quarters, he might not be the only man sneaking into his chamber in the wee hours of the morning. If anyone saw him, they would likely think he’d been sporting with one of the servants, like that pretty wench with the pert nose who’d spent most of the feast near the squires. Nevertheless he was relieved to get to his chamber without encountering anyone else.
Once there, he checked to make sure his prize was safe, washed, changed his clothes and packed his belongings, including his mail, helmet, plain surcoat devoid of any devices or crest, and gambeson, the padded garment worn beneath his mail. That done, he went to the hall to break the fast.
The
