Simon's Lady (10 page)

From the look on his face, Gwyneth would have sworn that her words reminded him of something else he had forgotten, namely that she was to become his wife. He recovered enough to say, “I see.” He peered around her at the company in which she was traveling, and frowned. “And for this visit you needed an entire retinue?”

“I could not travel alone through London,” she explained calmly, making a continuing effort to restrain her indignation at this insulting reception, “and was pleased to accept the escort that Adela provided me.”

He grunted then asked, apparently recalling some precept of civility, “Have you had dinner? May I offer you a cup of wine?”

She hastily declined any offer of food or drink, her stomach shrinking from accepting anything from Beresford’s kitchens. But she was mindful of the others of her retinue, whose tastes might be less fastidious, and consulted their wishes. While the requested water from the well was being fetched, she turned back to Beresford and declined, in advance, any further forced gesture of hospitality from him.

“I see that you are engaged in your work, sire,” she said pleasantly, “and can assure you that it is not necessary to interrupt your exercise to show me about. You need only send me your housekeeper and she will attend to me well enough, I am sure.”

Beresford liked the first part of what she said about not interrupting his exercise. He had passed an excellent morning and afternoon in combat and had no desire to stop now. The physical release had been very effective in draining the disaster of the previous day out of his body. It was the second part of what she said about a housekeeper that stumped him.

After he had looked about him and muttered, “Housekeeper,” several times, as if attempting to conjure up a mythical creature, Gwyneth tried to put an end to his puzzlement.

“You need only send one or two of your serving women to assist me in my tour,” she said calmly. A momentary silence prompted her to ask, “You do have women in your employ, do you not, sire?”

“Yes, of course I have women in my employ,” he said confidently, although a slight raising of his brows seemed to suggest, “At least, I think I do!” He turned away from Gwyneth and said to the nearest page something that sounded to her remarkably like, “Go to the kitchens and see if you can find any women. If you do, send one of them here at once.” Then he added some further instruction, rapidly spoken, that Gwyneth did not catch.

The page ran off. Beresford looked at Gwyneth, feeling impatient to return to his day’s work. She looked at him, hard and handsome in his way, and was caught between two radically different emotions. She drew a breath and took control of herself and the situation. She had decided that she would not allow the ladies-in-waiting from the castle to accompany her on her tour of the premises. She was sure that the vile condition of Beresford’s house must be widely known, but she did not wish for the humiliation of fresh details to be spread in court. What could be seen from the gallery was bad enough.

“Well, my lord,” she said, “if you would have a bench brought around for the ladies, they may remain here and watch the training in company of the two castle soldiers who, I am sure, are eager for you to take the field again.”

Beresford found immediate favor with this suggestion and had her request for the bench quickly fulfilled, whereupon Gwyneth assured him that he need not wait for the arrival of the household women. With a nod, he turned again to his training, working his shoulder muscles as he strode toward the fray, eager to wield his sword.

Presently, Gwyneth saw a lone woman emerge with the page from a far passage diagonally across the courtyard. This passage led, no doubt, to a second courtyard, around which would be arranged the stables, the servants’ quarters and the kitchens, which would communicate with the main part of the house from behind. As the woman approached, Gwyneth saw that she was a slattern, though a pretty one. Dressed as she was, in a sluttish skirt and shirt, her virtue seemed to hang by a few threads. From the comely young woman’s expression, it was clear she was put out. Gwyneth reckoned that she should well not be pleased to have another woman bear witness to such an ill-kept house. Gwyneth guessed that she had heard the news of her master’s impending marriage and was, furthermore, displeased to have a new mistress—or any mistress at all.

This was confirmed by the young woman’s palpably insolent demeanor. “Give you good day,” she said curtly in a version of Norman. “My name is Ermina.”

“Good morrow to you, Ermina,” Gwyneth said in English, making the young woman’s eyes widen in surprise. Ermina’s attitude held no challenge for Gwyneth. She said authoritatively, “You know who I am and where I come from. You should also know, then, that I prefer English to French. In this case, I think it better to use English so that no misunderstandings may arise between us.”

Ermina said, “But your English sounds different.”

“That is because I come from the north. I confess that your English sounds different to me, but it’s completely understandable, which is the essential point, is it not?”

Ermina cast a wary glance at Gwyneth from sultry brown eyes. “Yes, my lady,” she said sullenly.

“Now, are you the woman in charge here?” Gwyneth inquired.

“In a manner of speaking,” she replied with a careless shrug.

Gwyneth did not hesitate to put the woman in her place. “Then we may begin my inspection of the house with the chambers in the upper story and descend, in due course, to the foul corners of the gallery.”

Ermina was brazen enough to say, “I’m to show you around the back courtyard.” Her disrespect was obvious. “The master’s wishes.”

So that was the extra order that Beresford had conveyed to the page. Gwyneth smiled briefly. Beresford wanted her out of the way, did he? “I have neither time nor stomach today, I fear, to brave the kitchens or the stables. I wish to begin with the main living quarters. Pray follow me to the stairs.”

Gwyneth did not look back as she set off with a determined step toward the unsound staircase that led to the upper story. She knew that Ermina was following her, and she used all her instincts to gauge the climate of emotions that emanated from the young serving woman. It was a complex composition, Gwyneth decided, and she would need further interactions with her before determining how best to dispel the woman’s mood or to turn it to her own advantage.

Having circumvented the activity in the yard by way of the gallery, they arrived at the staircase. Gwyneth lifted her skirts and tried the first step. She was rather surprised when it held her weight. She put her hand on the rail and tested its strength. It had an unstable, elastic feel, but seemed usable.

With Gwyneth present in his house, Beresford was distracted from his practice, as if a mote of dust clouded his eye. He blinked to be rid of it, then blinked again as he looked over at the spot where Gwyneth had stood. She was gone. His narrowed eyes quickly scanned the gallery and then popped open when he saw her at the bottom step of the stairs, accompanied by Ermina. Why did the page have to find
that
woman? He breathed a savage Saxon epithet, imagining the havoc that Ermina might wreak, after which—worse thought!—he wondered if Gwyneth would make it past the broken third step, which he from long habit knew to skip. Too late! He saw her stumble and nearly fall, saved only by her grip on the rail. Resigned, he threw his sword down, nearly maiming the man nearest him. He quit the field for the second time, fending off a blow with his shield as he did so.

He crossed to the staircase in a few long strides, bounding up the first few stairs, which groaned under his weight. Brushing past Ermina, he cocked his head and gestured her away. He caught Gwyneth at the small of her back and fairly propelled her upward, over the treacherous second-to-last step.

Upon stumbling on the third step, Gwyneth had remarked to Ermina that the house did not look as if it had been touched in five years. She had just received the rather snide rejoinder that it had been much longer than that when she heard the ominous sound of wood giving way and had the horrible thought that the stairway was about to collapse. Then the scent of male sweat and two powerful hands engulfed her, and the next thing she knew she was standing in relative safety on the balcony. With her heart beating erratically, she looked, astonished, into the gray eyes of Beresford.

“I’ve decided to accompany you on the tour of this part of the house,” he said gruffly. “If I had known you wished to visit here first, I would have done so from the beginning.” To Ermina he said, “You may go now.”

Gwyneth stepped away from him, and he quickly dropped his hands from her waist. “It is not necessary for you to accompany me,” she stated evenly, trying to regain her composure after the shock of his rough, protective touch, “and I think it important to be accompanied by at least one of your women,” She told Ermina in Norman, “You may stay.”

With her large sultry eyes, Ermina consulted her master. Beresford was out of his depth, but he was in his own home and would be damned if he was not in charge. Effecting what he thought was a pretty clever compromise, he gestured ahead of him, vaguely indicating a far door to his right. To Gwyneth he said, “You will probably wish to visit the mistress’s quarters, above all.” Then he turned to Ermina. “Run along ahead and straighten up, if need be.”

Ermina obeyed.

It seemed to Gwyneth that Beresford was still trying to get rid of her quickly. She would have none of it. She took a step in the opposite direction. “Yes, I will want to visit the mistress’s quarters,” she said. “But first I would like to visit the solar, which, if I gather correctly, runs above the passage over the main entrance, opposite us.”

He confirmed that this was so.

She looked up at him. “If we visit there first, Ermina will have more time to set the mistress’s room to rights, if need be.”

Beresford shrugged. He did not really care about the condition of the room, but wanted Ermina as far away from Gwyneth as possible. He proceeded to lead Gwyneth to the solar. After he had mounted his strong guard against the effect she seemed to have on him, he began to entertain the suspicion that she was deliberately trying to annoy him by opening every door and poking her head inside, thus making their progress around the balcony over the gallery excruciatingly slow.

Gwyneth was not trying to annoy him with her inspection of his house. As she looked into chamber upon chamber of unswept filth, she was attempting to discover the true extent of the neglect. She was also taking her time in order to brace herself for any truly nauseating experience. Finally, they arrived at the solar, and Gwyneth opened the door, half fearing to be overcome by some stench. Instead, the room looked merely unused, rather than abused.

She stood on the threshold but did not enter. It must have been a beautiful room once. Its generous space was in proportion to the general plan of the large house. The walls were paneled and the exterior one boasted the extravagance of three pretty windows of thick, leaded amber glass. Most of the panes were broken, of course, and stuffed with rags or simply gaping. Half the shutters were gone as well; the other half might best be used for kindling. The design of the limestone fireplace was impossible to discern for the soot staining it. The hearth was choked with ashes. The state of the fireplace gave her a fair estimation of what must be the state of the kitchens, for she guessed that this hearth stood back-to-back with the fireplace in the kitchens sharing the chimney.

In the center of the solar was the only piece of furniture, a trestle table, with the benches stored atop it. The rushes on the floor had long since decomposed and smelled merely stale, not rancid. She thought that it might be used now as a storage room of some sort, for she saw what she thought was an old mattress shoved in one corner, the straw stuffing exposed at crazy angles.

She closed the door and, standing beside Beresford, looked up into his face. Despite herself and the outrage that surrounded her, she was aware of the pulse of this strong man who could wield a sword with terrifying beauty. She was aware of his sweat, too, and its fresh quality. He was not, by Odin, clean in his household habits, but he was at least clean in his bodily habits, for his scent was not that of rank male sweat unwashed for days. It was that of a healthy man hard at work.

He looked down at her, still surprised that she had come to his house and puzzled by her desire to open every door of the living quarters. He was amazed that so ethereally lovely, so seemingly frail a woman would have such a visceral effect on him.

She broke their locked gaze by looking away, and said, “I gather that you do not use the solar these days.”

“Certainly it is being used,” he said. “My sons have it for their bedchamber.”

Her eyes flew back to his. “Their bedchamber?” She frowned. “That would be Benedict and Gilbert, no?”

“That’s right,” he said. “They’re down there, playing by the rain barrels.”

Gwyneth spotted the two boys below, who, she would have sworn, were urchins off the street. She looked determinedly away. Maternal anger shot through her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she had summoned a noncommittal smile. She said pleasantly, “Shall we continue?”

They proceeded along the adjacent leg of the balcony to the mistress’s chambers, where Ermina was making a half -hearted effort to put the dusty, musty wreck to rights. Gwyneth actually stepped into this room. Beresford, thinking that she would next inspect the master’s chamber, quickly entered his own room to pick up any clothing that he might have left here and there over the last day or two. As he snatched up several piles and tried to think of places to stash them, it occurred to him that perhaps he had let his chamber go more than just a day or two. He also made an effort to arrange the wild disorder of bedclothes, with not the most expert results.

Gwyneth was still next door, looking about her at the dismal state of her future bedchamber and trying not to fall into a pit of black despair at the age and depth of the dirt. The window giving out onto what she guessed was the secondary courtyard was boarded shut, as was the window to the balcony. The shutters were gone. Ermina flicked a limp dust cloth ineffectually at the cobwebs in one dim corner. In another corner Gwyneth spotted an interior door covered by a ratty curtain, which evidently led to the master’s chambers. Through the door she could hear the sounds of Beresford’s movements.