Merielle leapt to her feet, trembling with fury. How dared he speak to her like that in her own home? Her late husband’s home. “That’s enough!”
But Sir Rhyan’s hand darted across the table and clamped around her wrist, holding her back. “Sit down, lady!”
Master Bonard leapt to his feet, also. “Sir! You are a guest here. I beg you, release the lady at once!”
He did not, but kept his eyes on her face, waiting for her compliance.
Merielle sat, frowning at her protector. “It’s all right. I told you that chivalry was not in his book. Sit down, Master Bonard.” She felt her hand being released but would not rub her wrist where his fingers had hurt her. “I have always believed, Sir Rhyan, that no woman should be obliged to accept a man’s say in her private affairs. A husband, of course, but not a complete stranger who cannot possibly know what is best for her.”
“Your feelings do not concern me—we are speaking here of families, mistress, not of one person only. Families who have a right to be protected by law. What did your late Canterbury husband know or care of Yorkshire estates hundreds of miles away to the north except for the rents that poured in each year? What do you know of them? He couldn’t even look after you properly, could he?”
“You will leave my late husband out of this discussion, if you please. Had things gone differently, we would not now be having this conversation. You vented your malice by confiscating my property—”
“My property! My late father’s. And I had every right to reclaim it. Who else would look after those families if I didn’t? Eh?”
“I’ve told you. But you timed your vindictiveness well, didn’t you, Sir Rhyan? You waited until I was a widow—”
“Nine months, I waited.”
“—and had lost the child I so desperately wanted,” she panted, willing the tears to stay away, “and then you—”
“I didn’t know of that, then. It would have waited.”
“—sent lawyers to me. I suppose you thought I’d inherited so much from my father and husbands that I could afford to lose a little. Is that what you thought, sir? Did you care about my distress?”
“Do you care about the distress suffered by those families at the hands of your so-called stewards, who knew damn well there’s no one to come and see what they got up to? The frauds? The thefts? The unjust punishments? The abuses? The taking of daughters?”
“What?”
“Yes, all of that, and more. It’s next to my land, woman, so I know what’s been going on. Is it surprising I wanted to get it back, to give those people some normality in their miserable lives? It’s good land going to waste with poor management, not enough oxen, ploughs, hardly a roof on the church. And you here, sitting around with your lovers—”
His quick reaction caused Merielle’s arm to swing blindly through space, missing his head entirely and slewing her round with the effort. To steady herself, she braced her arms on the table and glared at him through narrowed eyes ready to kill with one piercing stare. “Hypocrite!” she spat. “It’s all right for men, then, is it? I’ll have you know, sir, that I can administer all my property in York, Lincoln and Canterbury, run a household and a tapestry-weaving business and still have energy left over for lovers whenever I feel like it. And if you choose to tell that to Sir Adam to see if you can put him off the idea of taking me to wife, well, don’t trouble yourself: I can do it much more effectively. With embellishments. If anyone is going to deter my late sister’s husband, sir, it need not be you, I thank you.”
“Even so, lady, that is what I shall do.”
She gasped and stood upright. “Ah, yes, of course. Just to make sure. You are his heir, are you not? And it wouldn’t do for me to get in the way of your inheritance, would it? Think of the dower he might tie up which you’d not be able to reach until my death. I see you’ve thought of that.”
Unmoved, he stood and let his eyes rove slowly from the wreath of pennyroyal still on her abundant black hair, over her full breasts and narrow waist, the swell of her hips under the green woollen kirtle, then back to her eyes, blazing with anger. “I’ve remembered everything, lady, as you say. But let me remind you again, lest you forget. You will not marry anyone without my permission. Not even my uncle.”
“And what could you do about it if I did, pray? Apart from reclaiming my property once more, what could you do? Unwed us?”
“Tch, tch!” He shook his head, slowly. “Do you mean to tell me, Mistress Merielle St Martin, that you would leap into your brother-in-law’s bed, another middle-aged and wealthy admirer, just to spite me? I’m flattered that anyone should go to so much trouble, but I’m sure you must have a good reason.”
“Then you are even more arrogant than I thought, sir. The only reason I could have for spending the rest of my life with Sir Adam Bedesbury would be to fulfil my responsibilities to my baby niece, my sister’s child. Is that a good enough reason, do you think? If the child were related to you, Sir Rhyan, would you think of doing the same?”
“Alas, lady, the degree of kinship is too close. I would not be allowed to marry my uncle. But in any case, I’ve always found it too extreme for my taste to suppose that one must needs marry the parent of every motherless child, related or otherwise. Responsibility is one thing, but your plan is as irrational as Master Bonard’s one eye. I suggest you examine your reason more closely.”
Reluctantly, Merielle saw his argument and was annoyed that he had been the one to advance it. “I have no plan that you speak of,” she snapped. “My point is that I have a good enough reason and that, if I choose, there is nothing you could do to prevent me, Sir Rhyan.”
He looked surprised at that. “Ah, forgive me. I had thought you were quite determined, with your talk of dower and such. In that case, Sir Adam will have the pleasure of trying to persuade you while you will have to exercise great restraint not to accept him. It should be most entertaining. And I can stop you, lady. Don’t doubt it.”
“Leave my house, sir, before I have you thrown out!”
But even that was too late, for he had already made his bow as he spoke and was turning to go.
Her own exit was meant to show him how he deserved no courtesy, but his hearty bellow of laughter followed her out of the hall and beyond, where she snatched the crown of green leaves off her head and hurled it at poor Bonard who had appeared with condolences at the ready.
“A fat lot of good that thing did!” she yelped, massaging her bruised wrist at last. “And why is Allene not here when I need her?”
Knowing that for her mistress to run through her vocabulary of insults would not improve her temper, the ever-practical Allene placed a beaker of hippocras between Merielle’s shaking hands and nudged it upwards, hoping thereby to bring the flow of invective to a halt. She was tempted to revert to the gentle clucking noises of the nursery to calm Merielle’s anger, but Allene’s experience as her nurse told her that this was neither the time nor the place to attempt pacification.
To Merielle’s accusing enquiry about where she’d been, Allene retorted with commendable composure, “Upstairs, packing. Where else would I be? If I’d known your guest was going to march in and out as if he owned the place, I’d
