Joanna’s curves would be a pleasure to bundle up against in an evening that was rapidly becoming chilly. Perhaps he should have made good his threat to throw her over his shoulder after all.
Lost in thoughts he knew should be forbidden, Hal barely registered when Joanna stopped again. He found himself in the square where they had first met opposite the Guild Hall.
‘So you were leading me in circles,’ he said irritably. ‘Why?’
‘Because I had no wish to return home so soon,’ Joanna said. ‘I said you were in no danger of losing your way.’ She dropped his arm and stalked past the hall, rounded a corner and stopped in front of an imposing house on the end of a row.
‘You live here?’
She nodded.
‘Yet you were sitting alone in the square?’
Another nod, this time accompanied by a loud bang as she lifted the ornate iron doorknocker and released it.
‘I told you I was waiting for someone and I was.’ Her eyes were wide and innocent, but the full lips were curved once more into a smile as the door flew open and light flooded the street to reveal the figure of a man.
‘Where have you been so late?’ demanded an irate voice that was sickeningly familiar to Hal. It was the man who had sat at the Guild Master’s right hand.
‘I believe you have met,’ Joanna said sweetly. ‘This is my uncle, Master Simon Vernon.’
Hal cursed to himself as he bowed, realising now what Joanna’s half-secret smiles had meant. He turned to go but Master Vernon spoke.
‘What are you doing with my niece? Is it your doing that she’s so late back?’
‘Master Danby kindly brought me home, Uncle,’ Joanna said. ‘For which I thank him and shall say farewell.’
‘I know your face,’ Master Vernon said. It sounded like half an accusation, half a threat.
Hal bowed again. ‘I had the honour of presenting my work to you this afternoon.’
‘Honour nothing!’ Master Vernon snorted. ‘You’d better come in and explain what has happened to keep her out so late.’
Joanna stiffened. Clearly this had not been part of her scheme. Now she was in the light Hal saw her eyes were once again red rimmed. For all her bravado she had been weeping as they walked. Hal stifled his sympathy, reminding himself that Joanna had led him intentionally to meet the man he had disparaged in such strong terms.
‘Gladly, Master Vernon,’ he said, and walked inside.
‘You let me say all those things and did nothing to stop me,’ he muttered to Joanna as Master Vernon walked into the back room calling for wine.
‘Yes, though I don’t intend to share what you told me. If you had not insisted on accompanying me you would have been none the wiser.’ Joanna glanced to the door her uncle had gone through. ‘I didn’t intend you to come in, but if you think you can turn this meeting to your advantage, then do so. If not, drink your wine, go quickly and leave me in peace.’
Master Vernon returned, followed by a woman with a baby on her hip who settled herself by the fireplace. Joanna rushed to the woman, who must be her aunt, dropped to her knees and began to sob loudly while the woman patted her shoulder and made soothing sounds.
‘What is this?’ Master Vernon barked. He glared at Hal. ‘Joanna, has this man played you ill?’
Joanna winced. ‘No. Master Danby has done nothing wrong. Sir Roger told me he cannot marry me.’ She stood and wiped a hand across her face.
‘You swore he would ask,’ Simon cried.
‘Sir Roger will be back in August. He’ll ask me then, I’m sure,’ Joanna insisted. Hal frowned, hearing the desperation in her voice. What had Roger told her that she had pinned her hopes on him so deeply?
‘Now what am I to do with you?’ Simon thundered. ‘I must find you a husband myself as you seem incapable, though I doubt I’ll find anyone willing to take you off my hands if you go traipsing around the city with strangers like a common tavern wench!’
He rounded on Joanna. ‘Is it not enough that you go chasing after one man but you have to go wantonly flinging yourself into the company of another?’
Joanna paled. Her eyes lit with the fire Hal had been on the receiving end of, but surprisingly she bowed her head and folded her hands meekly.
‘I asked Mistress Sollers to accompany me. She deserves no censure,’ Hal said swiftly.
Master Vernon gave an angry snort. ‘Go to bed, Joanna. We’ll discuss this in the morning.’
Joanna curtsied to her uncle. She seemed younger and suddenly weary as she left the room with her aunt. Hal’s heart lurched and he vowed to have a forceful talk with his brother as soon as he returned to the camp.
Master Vernon seemed to notice Hal for the first time. He walked close to Hal and pursed his lips. ‘Master Danby, is it? You bear the same name as the wretch who has disappointed my silly niece. I assume it is not a coincidence that you brought her here?’
Hal took a deep breath. ‘Sir Roger is my half-brother. My father is Robert, Baron of Danby and Westerdale, who holds land from William of Pickering.’
‘A nobleman with a blacksmith for a son?’
‘My mother was not of noble birth. I followed her father’s path in life.’ Hal’s answers were clipped. Questions he’d been asked a hundred times before. Justifications he would have to make forever.
‘Do you believe your brother intends to marry my niece?’ Master Vernon demanded.
‘No,’ Hal replied honestly. ‘I have tried to tell her as much, though as she will not believe the words from his lips she is unlikely to believe them from mine.’
Master Vernon crossed the room and poured two glasses of wine. He passed one to Hal and scowled. ‘I am not an unfeeling man,’ he declared, despite all evidence indicating otherwise to Hal. ‘But I have fed and kept Joanna for a decade. I cannot afford to keep her forever. I have my own family to consider. She must find a husband soon.’
The reason for her desperation was becoming clearer now. Instead of insisting Roger did not marry Joanna, Hal should have persuaded him to commit to her. He’d caused this with his blunder.
‘Bringing Joanna safely home was a kindness. I think you have a good heart,’ Master Vernon said. ‘Better than your brother’s at least. Perhaps you are the sort of man the Guild needs—or could be in time.’
Hal smiled and drank his wine. Joanna had told him to turn events to his advantage and they seemed to be doing so of their own accord. He spoke rapidly of his ambitions, the forge at Ravenscrag, and his work for the abbey at Rievaulx and the villages on the moors. Master Vernon nodded approvingly.
‘I told you this afternoon to go back to your home and make a life for yourself,’ Master Vernon said. ‘I mentioned marriage.’
Hal’s
