a moment, he looked like one of the villagers, his clothes soaked and muddied.
“Mayhap,” Stephen answered him. “’Tis fortunate that we saved all but the front part of the roof. The thatch can be replaced. Less so the beams and braces.” He turned to one of his soldiers and ordered a fire picket for the remainder of the night.
Then he turned again to Rowena. Even in the dim light of the lamp’s low flame, his dark eyes drilled into her, sending a shiver through her as cool as the night.
What did he want?
Oh, Lord God, please let it not be—
“Come,” he said, breaking apart her thoughts. “You can finish this night with Ellie and the other maids. There is nothing more we can do until morn.”
At the manor house? Rowena turned. A sharp pain stabbed at her ankle. “Oh!”
Stephen grabbed her as she drooped. Ellie took the babe as Rowena grimaced down at her foot. “My ankle. I must have turned it running outside.” She cried again as she tried to put weight on it, and she gripped Stephen more tightly.
Immediately she was lifted up. She started, catching the damp linen of Stephen’s simple shirt. She was in his arms! Hastily, with the other hand, she pushed her undertunic down to cover her legs.
“Go ahead,” he ordered Ellie in French. “Prepare your pallet for Rowena.”
“Nay, I can’t take her pallet,” Rowena answered in the same language.
Stephen stopped and looked down at her. “Tu parle Français? You speak French?”
Rowena clung to him, realizing how much she disliked being so high and putting her safety in this man’s arms. “Oui,” she whispered, peering over her shoulder at the ground that seemed too far away.
“I thought you were a farm girl. Where does a farm girl learn French?”
Heat flooded her face. Could she tell Stephen she’d learned French out of necessity? To answer him truthfully would be admitting too much. Would it give this Norman the same idea that Taurin once had?
If only Lord Stephen could read her thoughts and save her the humility of an explanation. For as he stood there his frown deepened, his handsome face cut with moving shadows as the lantern that someone had raised swung about.
She couldn’t speak the full truth. “You Normans invaded our land, remember?” she finally whispered. “’Tis how I learned. From a Norman.”
* * *
Stephen tightened his mouth. Aye, he and his fellow Normans had come to this land, but ’twas his king’s right to rule England. The crown had been promised to William. And in the two years since, had they not brought order to these unruly villages?
But just because the Normans were scattered about did not mean that all Saxons had learned French, especially not a simple farm girl. Why her?
The babe in Ellie’s arms fussed and then he remembered. Rowena had given birth to a Norman child. She must have learned the language during the course of her pregnancy. Or mayhap before. But one thing he was certain of, if given the choice, Rowena would not have learned a single word of French. And seeing the dark pleading in her eyes, Stephen would stake his life that Rowena’s heart did not belong to the child’s father.
Still, ’twas an uncharacteristic emotion that ripped through him when he should be feeling nothing. He picked up his pace. Best not to think with his heart, he reminded himself. Without exception, it gave bad advice. He’d seen many fooled by it.
“My lord,” Rowena whispered, her face so close to his that he could have stolen a kiss should he’d so desired. “Please put me down. You’re hurting me!”
Stephen stopped. A guard approached and lifted a lantern again. Horror bled into him as he saw her pained expression.
She blinked. “Your grip is too tight, my lord!”
He relaxed. “My apologies. I...I didn’t want you to slip.”
“I have my own good grip, milord.” She shook her head. “Please, let me try walking. We’re at the manor house now, anyway.”
Stephen looked up, surprised to find he’d reached the grand entrance to his home. Inhaling, he set her down just as a woman opened the large oak door. It was his sister, Josane, who was also his chatelaine. Staring openly at the pair, she held the door back for him. “Ellie has just come in with a child, Stephen!” she exclaimed in French. “Have we lost a family? Was there a fire? I can smell the smoke—”
“Oui, Josane, ’twas a fire, but no one was hurt. The child belongs to this woman, Rowena.”
Josane peered at Rowena, her expression concerned but cool. “Oui, Gilles told me he’d given her a hut, as you’d requested.” She looked over Rowena’s shoulder at the villagers slowly filtering away. Then, lifting the skirt of her fine linen cyrtel, she swung out her arm impatiently. “Come in. Come in. ’Tis cold and damp out.”
Stephen stepped forward to scoop up Rowena again, but she lifted her hand. “Nay, I’ll walk.”
She tried one hobbling step, only to reach for the door. Impatient like his sister, Stephen lifted her again and carried her over the threshold into his manor house. “We’ll take you to the maids’ chamber. ’Tis small, but your son will be there with Ellie.”
Josane hurried ahead of them, through the narrow corridor to where it opened into the great hall. Stephen listened to the sound of her shoes crunching the rushes strewn about. Josane’s cyrtel swayed back and forth in rhythm with her steps. She preferred a practical, shorter hem than what other ladies of the manor might wear. As chatelaine here, she was always busy, and the longer hems of ladies of leisure often snagged the rushes.
Torches soaked in tallow lit the way down the far corridor, infusing the air not with the oily scent of animal fat, but with sweet herbs and dried flowers. Josane hated the smell of burning tallow and had concocted an infusion to mask the odor. Now it swept along with them as he carried Rowena the length of his home, deep into the servants’ end.
Ahead, Josane opened a small door. Stephen ducked as he took Rowena inside the tiny room. Its floor was filled with pallets, except where a table, a chair and an old chest stood. Ellie had already moved a crude chair beside a pallet that held little Andrew. Stephen set Rowena down on it.
For one brief moment she clung to him, her arms still locked about his neck. Whether ’twas because she could not feel the chair beneath her or because she wanted to remain in his arms, he didn’t know. But in the instant, he stilled.
Two lamps lit the room, making it easy for him to see the apprehension swimming in her pale blue eyes. She wet her lower lip, then held it tight between her teeth.
Sympathy—something he did not want to own—washed through him as he held her close. Immediately, the sermon from the previous Sabbath echoed within him. Be ye kind, one to another, tenderhearted. He felt his jaw tighten.
Why this sudden piety? Stephen had never felt conflicted with his faith before, even when trapping plotters against the crown. His God-given duty allowed him to punish evildoers without so much
