a castle just to be able to seduce a woman?”
The wine merchant nodded. “That’s what they say, and now he’s come here.”
“If he’s got any foul intentions toward Lady Gillian, she’ll set him straight,” Young Davy staunchly declared, interrupting their conversation as he handed his grandfather a piece of thick brown bread to go with his ale and cheese. “She’s as fierce as the devil, too.”
“Blasphemy!” the chandler muttered in the corner where he nursed his ale.
“You women are always thinking about marriage,” Young Davy continued, ignoring him. “You had her married off to James d’Ardenay after the poor lad’d only been here a week.”
“Well, he died,” Peg said defensively.
“We wouldn’t have to worry if she’d take a husband,” Felton, the baker, noted from his place near the door.
“Would you have her take the first man who asked her?” the miller countered from across the room, as far from his enemy as he could get. “Would you want any of those fools who’ve come courting her to become the new lord? I wouldn’t. God save us from arrogant idiots!”
“She probably don’t want to marry ’cause o’ that father o’ hers,” Old Davy piped up from beside the hearth. “Cruel, vicious villain. He’d make any woman think death might be better than marriage.”
The wine merchant shifted again, this time with impatience. “Perhaps if all you want to do is talk about the lady, I should retire alone.”
Peg jumped to her feet and took his hand to lead him up to the second level of the tavern, where travelers slept and she plied her other trade. “Don’t be angry, Charlie. We have to care about what goes on up at the castle, same as you have to worry about the king’s taxes. Lady Gillian’s a good woman, even if she is a lady, so nobody wants any harm to come to her.”
Old Davy looked anxiously at the others after the merchant and Peg had disappeared up the stairs. “D’you suppose there’s any truth in what that fellow said?”
“Not a bit,” Young Davy said confidently. “Lady Gillian’s too honorable and too clever to be fooled by any smooth-talking knight, no matter how good-looking he is. Why, remember that one knight that come, Sir Wa-tersticks or whatever his name was? Didn’t she send him packing quick enough?”
The men in the tap room chuckled and nodded.
“Set his hair on fire,” Old Davy said between wheezes as he laughed. “She had to say it was an accident o’course, but it probably took a year for it to grow back. And oh, didn’t he curse?”
“Ah, love! It’s a grand thing,” the miller said with a smirk in the baker’s direction. Then he started to sing a ballad about a long-lost love, while the baker slammed down his mug and stormed out of the tavern.
Chapter Three
TRYING TO CONTAIN HIS frustration, Bayard tossed his helmet onto the large, canopied and curtained bed in the extremely tidy chamber to which a male servant had brought him after he’d left the solar. Linen shutters covered the window, and a chest painted green and blue stood in the corner opposite the bed. There was a cot for his squire and another table with an ewer and basin, and plenty of clean linen. The floor had been recently swept and everything looked remarkably free of dust.
It was certainly an improvement over their accommodations on the road, which had tended to be cramped—except that here, instead of being welcomed, he’d been met with distrust, disrespect, and disdain.
Although his rational mind told him that Lady Gillian was right to be suspicious, for these were dangerous times and John the most untrustworthy of kings, he couldn’t subdue his annoyance over his reception. You’d think he was the traitor, the way she’d treated him.
The garrison commander couldn’t be more suspicious if he were Philip of France himself. And as for that steward…
He wondered if the lady had any idea that her steward was in love with her. She was a lady, a ward of the king, and he was an untitled commoner, but a marriage between then was not completely impossible. John needed money to mount another campaign to win back his lost lands in France—a lot of money. He would eagerly accept bribes and payments that would enable him to do so, even from untitled commoners and in exchange for the hand of a noblewoman.
Yet, he’d seen no little looks of intimacy exchanged, no apparent desire on the lady’s part. Any tender concern had been in Dunstan’s eyes alone, not hers.
No doubt she was too selfish and too determined to rule this estate on her own to fall in love, for it was now abundantly clear that she, and she alone, was in command of Averette.
The only other women he’d ever heard controlling an estate had been widows and even then, not many and not for long. Then again, he’d never heard of a young woman like Lady Gillian, who might dress like a peasant, but was as arrogantly confident as any man he’d ever met. And stubborn.
Shaking his head, Bayard strode over to the table beside the bed and ran his finger along the top, skirting the beeswax candle in a bronze holder. No dust there, either.
The door crashed against the wall, heralding his squire’s entrance. Frederic carried the leather pouch containing their clothing over his shoulder and, with a weary sigh, heaved it onto the bed beside Bayard’s helmet.
Bayard was used to Frederic’s theatrics by now. “I didn’t realize a few items of wool and linen would be so taxing. Perhaps you should lie down.”
Grinning, for he was likewise getting used to his master’s sense of humor, Frederic pushed on the cot, making the ropes creak. “I would, if you think this’ll hold me.”
“If it doesn’t, try not to wake me when you land on the floor. But before you take a nap or unpack our clothes, get me out of my hauberk.”
It took a few moments to remove Bayard’s surcoat and to get the heavy mail hauberk over his head.
After Frederic helped him remove them, Bayard rotated his neck and stretched his arms over his head. He untied his mail hosen that protected his legs and gave them to Frederic to put away, then removed his padded gambeson and likewise handed it to his squire.
Clad in his loose shirt, breeches, and boots, he went to wash. There was a lump of soap that smelled of lavender beside the linen, as well as plenty of water in the ewer. He poured some into the basin until it was half full and felt his face, deciding he need not scrape the whiskers away until tomorrow.
“Did you see that pretty serving wench?” Frederic asked as he started to close the lid of the chest. “The one with red hair and freckles?”
“Yes,” Bayard replied, recalling the one female servant who’d been bold enough to show herself while he was on the way to the keep with Lady Gillian. She was pretty, he supposed, and slender, and about fifteen years old.
His squire got a look on his face that Bayard easily recognized. He’d encountered many jealous or envious men in his life, starting when he was younger even than Frederic, and including the Duc d’Ormonde—although that had actually proven to be a beneficial thing, or he might be in Normandy yet. The duke had feared that his captive was far too attractive
