Page 90

H e was over near the stables, helping Artus with the Billy goat by turning the animal out in the yard to graze, only the goat wasn’t so fond of Artus and began chasing him around. Thomas just stood there and laughed.

The goats had a serious dislike for Artus.

Maitland could hear Thomas, that deep and booming laughter. He sounded so… happy . Two hours after their unexpected and sizzling encounter in the tower, she could still feel his body against hers and when she smelled her hands, she could smell his musk all over her.

It was enough to make her lightheaded.

Truly, she still had no idea what had come over her in that moment with Thomas.

She’d been so strong and resolute to resist him, to deny him and whatever relationship he wanted to carry on with her, and then suddenly she was throwing herself at him like a harlot.

It was like she couldn’t control herself.

She simply wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Regret? Guilt?

Or… joy?

Supper was on the horizon and she busied herself in the kitchen with Tibelda and the three littlest foundlings as they began to pack the soft cheese away for the night.

The children, supervised by Tibelda, had the cheese curds tied up in squares of linen, enough to hold the curds together but porous enough to let the liquid drain out.

They were tied to branches, at least six or ten packages hanging from a branch, for easy transporting down to the vault.

With the goats milked for the night, Maitland waved the older children over to the kitchen, where two of them would take a branch of goat cheese bundles and carry it off to the tower with the vault down beneath.

Even Thomas got into the act as he and Artus took a branch between them, carrying everything down to the vault with Tibelda to direct them.

That left Maitland in the kitchen alone, focused on preparing supper.

She’d been trying to figure out what to say to Thomas for two long hours, wondering if there was anything she could say at all that hadn’t already been said.

Truth be told, she felt embarrassed by her behavior but she wasn’t sorry about it.

She supposed that time would tell if she was just a whim with him or not, if he’d finally gotten what he wanted from her and would now move on, but something told her that wasn’t the case.

No man could look into her eyes so sincerely and speak such words of depth and beauty if they were meaningless.

At least, she hoped so.

With the children packing away the cheese for the night, Maitland’s thoughts lingered on Thomas as she prepared the sup.

With the eggs gathered from the chickens, she made another egg dish with the eggs, a little goat’s milk and salt, and dill blended in.

Two days ago, they’d slaughtered one of the chickens and after they’d picked the bones clean, she boiled the bones with carrots and onions and salt, making a delicious broth into which she put cabbage, more onion, and a little wild thyme.

It made a wonderful pottage to eat with the baked eggs and the bread Tibelda had made, and by the time everyone came out of the vault, they could smell the delicious meal cooking.

But before they could eat, the animals had to be secured for the night, so the children raced to make sure everything was tied up and the gates of the pens were locked.

It was all part of the responsibility Maitland was determined to teach them– responsibility for themselves and for their surroundings.

She felt it important to give the children a sense of being responsible.

Meanwhile, Maitland and Tibelda carried the meal into the tower, into the very room where Maitland and Thomas had made love.

In fact, when Maitland entered the chamber, it made her pause, her cheeks growing warm as she remembered that old, worn table with the fondest of memories.

It was difficult to keep the smile off her face.

She set everything down and passed out the wooden bowls that Thomas’ carpenters had made for them, as the children, followed by Thomas, entered the chamber and clustered around the table.

Maitland began to dish out the food as Tibelda started a fire in the hearth, and Thomas sat down at the end of the table.

The last time he was in that exact spot, he’d been doing naughty things to Maitland, and as she made sure all of the children had a bowl full of pottage and baked egg dish, Thomas sat there and ran his hands over the edge of the table as if remembering.

He looked at her, she looked at him, and it was enough to cause Maitland’s heart to skip a beat.

She could see it in his eyes.

Pure, unadulterated warmth and attraction. Adoration.

Things were different now.

Feeling breathless, giddy, Maitland struggled to return to what she was doing, spooning out bowls of pottage and passing them around the table. Once the children were slurping up pottage and eggs, she dared to look at him again, only to see that he was still looking at her with a smile on his face.

She smiled in return.

Filling the last wooden bowl with a heaping amount of the egg dish and a great hunk of bread, she went to the end of the table and put it in front of Thomas.

His eyes never left her, not even when she put the bowl in front of him.

He continued to smile at her and she continued to smile at him, so much so that she nearly forgot what she was going to say to him.

“I gave the children the pottage first,” she said. “They will be busy eating soup, so you can eat your fill of the eggs and leave the rest for them.”

Thomas’ smile grew. “Thank you, Lady Bowlin,” he said as he took the spoon she was handing to him. “But I could have just as easily eaten pottage as well.”

She shook her head. “You are a grown man and you need more food than the children do,” she said. “They are quite happy with their pottage and bread.”

“And you?” Thomas said softly. “Will you not eat with me?”

Maitland nodded, perhaps a little shyly, and went to claim her own bowl of pottage and her piece of bread.

As the children sat at one end of the table and stuffed their faces, laughing and chatting because, for the first time in ages, their living situation allowed them to be joyful, Maitland sat down with Thomas at the other end and began to eat her pottage in silence.

Thomas eyed her as he ate. All they’d done is smile at one another, but there was still a measure of uncertainty in the air.

The dynamics between them had changed now, but he found it interesting that he didn’t want to run from her.

He couldn’t count the number of women he’d bedded and then run away, so this was quite a new experience for him.

He didn’t want to leave her at all.

“Now that you have all of this cheese, what next?” he asked after a moment. “When is Market Day?”

Maitland swallowed the bite in her mouth. “It is tomorrow, actually,” she said. “I have already spoken with the market patron, the commander of Roxburgh Castle. He has agreed to let me sell the cheese on behalf of Edenside.”

Thomas knew Roxburgh Castle, an English-held castle on the Scots side of the border. “Roxburgh Castle is garrison by Northwood Castle,” he said. “I know the commander very well. I grew up with him, in fact.”

“Oh?” she said, interested. “He told me his name was de Bocage, I believe.”

Thomas nodded. “Tobias de Bocage,” he said. “His father serves at Northwood Castle with my Uncle Paris and host of other cousins.”

“He is very tall,” Maitland said, spooning more pottage into her mouth. “I have never seen such a tall man.”

Thomas grinned. “You should see his father,” he said.

“As tall as a tree. His father, Michael, served with my father many years ago when my father was the captain of Northwood’s armies.

In fact, my father was the commander of ten or eleven of the best knights who ever fought in the north, and Michael was one of those knights. ”

“But why did your father leave Northwood?”

“Because he received an earldom from King Henry and the gift of Castle Questing,” he said.

“Of course, I was not born at the time, but my mother tells the tale. My father and Uncle Paris, and another uncle named Kieran Hage were the best of friends. When my father went to Questing, it was a very difficult decision for Paris to remain at Northwood while Kieran went with my father. It is a difficult thing to separate best friends like that.”

Maitland was listening with interest. “And your Uncle Kieran is still at Questing, with your father?”

Thomas shook his head. “He died about five years ago,” he said.

“The physic said it was a bad heart. He’d been suffering for years, but he was so attached to my father, and my father to him, that he simply held on as long as he could.

My father still has not gotten over his death and, at his age, I doubt he ever will.

For warriors, sometimes it is easier, and there is more of a sense of closure and finality, when men die in battle.

That is a glorious death. But when a man lives as long as Kieran did and dies a slow and painful death, that is very difficult for fighting men to stomach.

It seems to go against the natural order of things. ”

Maitland had stopped chewing, listening to the sorrow in Thomas’ voice. “He must have been a great man.”

“He was,” Thomas agreed. “One of the greatest men I have ever known. He raised great sons as well. In fact, I went to The Levant several years ago with one of his sons, a man who is now the Duke of Dorset. It is a long story how he obtained that title, but suffice it to say that I know his father would have been extremely proud of him for it.”

Maitland was quite swept up in the conversation. “I did not know you went to The Levant.”

“I did.”

“What was it like?”