Page 14

H IS EYES STILL CLOSED , Ranulf groaned as he lay in his bed the next morning. God save him, his head felt as heavy as a lead weight, and his arms, too.

It was as if he were suffering the effects of too much wine, except that he hadn’t had much wine at all last night when Bea had sat beside him at the evening meal, looking lovely and ethereal and hardly saying a word.

How many times had he told himself he wished she would be quiet? Yet it had been distinctly disconcerting having her sit silently beside him throughout an entire meal.

As disturbing as it was having Bea so obviously angry at him, she simply had to go back to Tregellas, taking her avowals of devotion, her bright eyes, her lovely lips and his heart with her. Her anger was easier to bear than the anguish he would feel if she learned the truth about his past.

As for her assumption that a woman had broken his heart, she was right.

A woman had. But it was not Celeste’s rejection that made him turn away from Bea now, or think himself unworthy of her innocent devotion.

It was the terrible thing he’d done after, and the worse thing he’d done before, when he was still a boy.

No, it was better this way. Bea must not want him and they mustn’t be near each other, lest he give in to temptation. She had to go back to Tregellas.

At least Maloren had looked pleased for once, he thought, trying to find something good about the situation as he threw off the bear pelt and other coverings and tried to get out of bed. It was as if he were trying to move through mud.

He lay still and took a deep breath, inhaling the light scent of lavender from the clean sheets.

Last night when he’d retired, he’d found the bed made with fresh sheets, the mattress repaired and stuffed with new straw, and the floor swept.

Tapestries depicting colorful scenes of a hunt and ladies playing instruments, cleaned and free of soot, covered the walls.

Closed wooden shutters kept out the wind and the rain.

A large beeswax candle burned on the table that had been moved beside the bed, and there’d been a goblet of spiced wine beside it, too.

This chamber that had once been little better than a cold, barren storeroom was now a place of warmth, comfort and ease.

He’d drunk the wine as he stood staring at the newly made bed, knowing Bea must be responsible for the changes in spite of what had passed between them. He couldn’t deny he’d been pleased when he’d crawled naked between the sheets, and he’d had the most restful sleep he’d had in weeks.

He smacked his lips, where the taste of wine and exotic spices lingered. It had been very good, that wine, but surely not enough to render him…

He pushed himself up and reached for the goblet. Leaning close, he sniffed the dregs in the bottom and cursed softly.

He’d been drugged. Someone had put something in that wine to make him sleep.

Wide-awake now, he threw off the covers and jumped out of the bed, hissing as his bare feet touched the cold stone floor.

Someone had wanted him insensible— to do what?

His soldiers could hold off an attack without him, at least for a little while, and there was nothing worthwhile to steal from his chamber, except his armor and sword, and they were still there.

Or perhaps that dose was intended to do more than make him sleep. Perhaps his death had been the goal, and only by chance and God’s mercy had the dose not been lethal.

He grabbed his clothes from the top of the chest and started to dress. God save him, what o’clock was it? He went to the window, threw open the shutters and cursed again. Rain was pelting down from the sky like the biblical deluge.

The door to the chamber banged open. Maloren marched in carrying a bucket of water and with clean linen over her arm.

“So, you’re awake at last,” she grumbled as she ran a scornful gaze over him. “ Some people think they can sleep the day away once they’re in command. And close those shutters or there’ll be water all over the floor.”

“Do you know who put that goblet of wine by my bed last night?” Ranulf demanded, paying no heed to anything else she said.

As soon as he asked the question, it occurred to him that it might have been Maloren’s doing, some scheme to keep her “lamb” safe from his supposedly nefarious designs.

“Who else but my good and gentle lady?” she replied, glaring at him as if he’d gone mad. “She even helps them as don’t deserve it.”

Bea had put the wine there?

Someone must have gotten to it before she had brought it to his chamber. “Where did she get it?”

Maloren made a sour face. “We brought it from Tregellas, of course. She prepared it for you with her own hands, too, and after that long journey.”

Surely Bea hadn’t…?

Maloren sniffed derisively as she continued to glare at him. “Although why she bothered, I don’t know. You don’t even have the grace to be grateful.”

Between his heavy head and the realization that his wine had been drugged, he had no patience for Maloren’s impertinence this morning.

“Since it’s raining, you and your mistress will have to remain under my roof for the next day at least,” he said through clenched teeth. “Might I suggest, Maloren, that in that time, you curb your tongue. Otherwise, you may be forced to contemplate your insolence in the dungeon.”

The maidservant’s mouth fell open and a look of fear came to her eyes. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“You think not?” he asked. In truth, he would never put a woman, especially an elderly one, in a cold, dank cell merely for being impertinent, but he wasn’t above letting her think he would.

“M-my lady wouldn’t let you!” Maloren stammered, backing away.

“Your lady has no power here, Maloren, so take care how you speak to me,” he said as he followed her.

“I neither know nor care why you hate me as you do, but hear this and believe it—I grow weary of your baseless accusations and rude remarks. I have no seductive designs on Lady Beatrice. She is my friend’s relation, and therefore sacrosanct. ”

The old woman’s hands fluttered to her chest. “You…you won’t touch her?”

Would that he could promise that! “I give you my word as a knight of the realm and Lord Merrick’s brother-in-arms that I have no wish to seduce her,” he answered instead.

Maloren’s whole body seemed to slump with relief. “Thank God.”

“So now that you have my word, I expect you to address me with the respect my position deserves, if not my person.”

Maloren meekly bowed. “Yes, my lord.”

“And now you can go.”

“Not yet, my lord, sir,” Maloren said. She bustled over to his clothes chest and threw open the lid with so much force it banged against the wall.

“What are you doing?”

“My lady’s ordered that all your clothes are to be washed and mended.”

He instinctively looked down at his rumpled breeches and the shirt still in his hand.

“Not what you’re wearing,” Maloren said. “Those’ll be taken care of on the morrow.”

With that, she headed for the door, carrying his one other shirt, his extra tunic, two pairs of breeches and some stockings in her thin, wiry arms. Ranulf thought of stopping her but decided against it.

His clothes could stand to be cleaned, and he had something more important to do than argue with Maloren.

He had to talk to Bea.

He quickly washed and finished dressing and hurried to the hall.

Where he discovered pandemonium. It seemed like a hundred servants were busy there.

Some were sweeping the old rushes into a pile near the door.

Others were scattering new ones, followed by children sprinkling herbs and getting nearly as many on themselves as on the rushes.

The hounds were tied in a corner, apparently too occupied by the bones they were chewing to mind their restraints.

Another group of servants, with buckets and rags and what looked like pots of beeswax, were at work cleaning the furniture.

More, on ladders, were sweeping away the cobwebs from the beams and corners.

The tapestries were missing, and a large fire crackled in the central hearth.

Torches burned in cobweb-free brackets on the wall, illuminating the chamber so that it was nearly as bright as on a sunny day.

This had to be Bea’s doing, too.

“Oh, there you are, Sir Ranulf!” he heard her call out and then saw, to his shock and chagrin, that she was one of those standing on a ladder, where she’d been brushing away a spider’s web with a small broom.

He immediately had visions of her plunging to her death, lying on the flagstones with her neck broken.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded as he strode toward her ladder. “Get down from there!”

Mercifully, she didn’t hesitate to obey. She climbed down quite nimbly, which didn’t excuse her taking such an outrageous risk.

Once on the ground, he saw that she was dressed no better than a peasant in a gown of simple doe- brown homespun, with a square of plain white linen on her hair. She had a smudge of dirt on her nose, too.

Yet she’d never looked more beautiful. Or kissable. Or desirable. And although she was dressed like a peasant, he was still very aware that she was nobly born, worthy to be a lord’s wife, and the chatelaine of any castle in the land.

What he would not give to have her chatelaine of this castle—as long as he was castellan. To be with her every day and see her leading his servants like a pretty, merry general.

What he would not give to have Bea for his wife…except that he had nothing to give.

He mentally gave his head a shake, for such thoughts could avail him nothing—and she’d put herself in danger again . “You could have fallen and broken your neck, and then what would I tell Constance and Merrick?”

“That I had been behaving in a most unladylike manner and it was not your fault,” she replied with a disarming, devilish little grin.