Alice whimpered.
Not even out of breath, Beth frowned at their astonished audience. “Everybody out.”
After an instant’s pause, a stampede ensued, leaving her alone with her antagonist and Michael, whose mouth hung open.
“Michael, would you give us a minute, please? We need to have a little talk.”
He closed his mouth, but made no move to leave.
“We’ll be fine,” she coaxed. “I promise.”
He frowned. “I shall be right outside the door should you need me.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
Beth contemplated Alice’s messy hair for a long minute after he left. “I’m going to let you up now. But if you give me any trouble—I mean any trouble—I will take you right back down again. Do you understand me?”
No response.
With a mental shrug, Beth released her hold on Alice and backed away.
The other woman lurched to her feet, stumbled once, then spun around and glared at Beth while she rubbed her aching shoulder.
“I’m going to give you a little advice,” Beth began, “that is frequently passed around where I come from. You would do well to keep it in mind.” She would have to clean it up a bit, but the message should get across all the same. “You shouldn’t provoke people. You never know who you might be dealing with.”
The woman’s scowl deepened.
Beth rolled her eyes. “Look, I have neither the need nor the desire for enemies, Alice. Your name is Alice, isn’t it?”
Again, no response.
“I have enough problems as it is,” Beth continued. “I don’t need you causing more. Now, I don’t blame you for wanting Robert. I really don’t. I am well aware of his appeal and his many good qualities. But I want to make this perfectly clear to you.” She took a step forward. “You cannot have him,” she declared, voice stony. “He’s mine.”
Boy, it felt good to say that. So good that she decided to say it again. “Robert is mine. Whatever happens between us in the future is exactly that… between us. Just him and me. If you or any other woman who has her eye on him—don’t think I haven’t noticed that there are several of you—ever try to deceive us or come between us with schemes or bullshit lies like this again, I will have no other choice but to grind you into the dirt.”
Her tone left no doubt that despite her diminutive size, she would have little difficulty doing so if challenged.
Alice’s scowl shifted into a worried pucker of her brow. “How did you know?” she asked with a hesitance she hadn’t displayed earlier.
“Know what? That you and Robert have never been lovers?”
“Aye. Even those who live here were uncertain.”
Beth shrugged. “I just knew. Why did you lie and say you were?”
Alice cast the doorway an uneasy glance.
“It’s all right. No one is listening.” She had sparked Beth’s curiosity now.
“The men mock me,” Alice admitted uncomfortably. “As do some of the women. Because of my height. I thought they would cease if Lord Robert showed an interest in me or if I could at least make them think he did.” Her gaze fell. “It worked for a time, but then you came and their taunts grew worse.”
Beth sighed. She could see the men making Alice miserable for being taller than they were. And there were always petty, malicious people who enjoyed saying nasty things about others because of differences in their appearance. Beth had been ridiculed herself often enough to know the hurt such could generate. During her childhood and adolescence, she had been made fun of for being short, pale, freckled, and more. To this day, she did not understand people who had to jeer at and look down on others in order to feel good about themselves.
She never would.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” she announced. “If you intend to continue whispering behind my back, glaring, sulking, scheming and turning your friends against me, or if you ever try to seduce Robert, then I will kick your ass out of here, because I do not need the headache. And by here I mean Fosterly. I don’t want to see you in the keep. I don’t want to see you in the inner bailey. And I would rather not see you in the village. If, on the other hand, you cut the crap and start anew, just do your job and don’t give me any grief, then you are welcome to stay.”
“But what of my punishment? I shamed you in front of the others.” Her nose and eyes reddened. “Will you have me whipped?”
“Whipped?” Beth repeated, appalled. “Hell, no!” Sheesh. She couldn’t believe she was actually starting to feel sorry for the woman, but damned if Alice didn’t look like she was struggling not to cry.
Beth frowned. Hadn’t Michael mentioned something about the previous owner of Fosterly treating the servants harshly? And that a lot of them had died because of it?
Had the bastard actually whipped women for mouthing off?
“Why don’t we just start with a public apology?” Beth proposed.
Alice lifted a hand to wipe her nose, and Beth realized that the obnoxious, contemptuous act she had put on earlier had been precisely that—an act. “As you wish.”
Beth turned to the doorway. “Michael—”
“I shall send them in right now,” he said, out of sight.
She closed her mouth and looked at Alice. “Do you think he heard it all?”
Alice nodded miserably.
Ignoring the stares of the servants who shuffled back into the room, Beth swiftly thought back over their conversation, recalled all of the things she had said about Robert, and wished she could go back to bed and start the whole day over again.
Since she couldn’t, she simply avoided looking at Michael, who was the last to reenter.
When everyone had reclaimed their former positions, keeping their distance from Alice this time, Beth did not have to say a word.
Alice dropped to her knees and bowed her head. “My lady, I do beg your forgiveness.” Beth opened her mouth to grant it, but the woman spoke again before she could. “I did shame you by calling you whore, not because I believed ’twas true—for I know otherwise—but because I was jealous of the affection Lord Robert holds for you, an affection that I admit he has never bestowed upon me, though I have led many to believe so. I was angry from the taunts I have suffered since your arrival and ashamed of the lies I have told. I should not have sullied your name when ’tis clear you make him happy. I vow I will never speak against you again and do humbly beg your forgiveness.”
Speechless, Beth stared at the top of the woman’s bent head.
Wow. She had expected a quick, grudging, Sorry I called you a whore and had gotten quite an impressive speech instead. Alice must feel thoroughly humiliated and know good and well that the taunts she had endured during the past few days were nothing compared to those she would be subjected to when all of this became common knowledge.
“Thank you, Alice.” Beth smiled as the woman rose. “That is the nicest apology I have ever received.”
Alice bobbed a curtsy.
A snide male voice spoke behind Beth. “I knew Lord Robert would not take up with a behemoth like her.” Several snickers followed.
Alice’s face flushed crimson.
Beth swung around furiously. “Hey!”
Everyone jumped and stared at her, wide-eyed.
“I do not want to hear one more word spoken about this, not to me and not to her,” Beth ground out. “Anyone who does will have to scrub every garderobe in the castle from top to bottom. Is that understood?”
In the blink of an eye, the smirking audience turned into bobble-head figures, hastily nodding their agreement.
Beth gave them a curt nod of her own. “Good. Now let’s get back to work.”
It took a while, but eventually conversation began to flow once more as hands resumed lifting and
scrubbing.
Few spoke to Alice.
Those who did were careful not to taunt her.
Strolling over to Michael, Beth decided to help him prop up the wall for a few minutes while she considered how she might extract a promise from him not to repeat what he had witnessed. It took her several minutes to gather the nerve to glance up at him.
When she did, she groaned.
He was grinning from ear to ear.
“So help me, if you say one word to Robert about all of this, I will—”
“Grind me into the dirt?” he suggested cheerfully.
“Aye,” she growled.
He laughed. “Fear not, my lady. If ’tis your wish, I will not inform Lord Robert that he is yours.”
Groaning again, she covered her face with her hands.
Robert whistled a cheerful ditty as he entered the bailey, his spirit lighter than it had been in some time, despite his inability to locate his enemy. Another fortnight had passed, and no further attacks had ensued, leaving him with the hope that Michael and Stephen had been right and his enemy had moved on.
Work on the outer wall progressed rapidly.
Davey was up and walking about.
Sir Miles and Sir Winston had both survived their wounds and were slowly recovering as well.
And somewhere in the keep before him, he would find the woman who had brought joy and passion back into his life.
A roar of masculine laughter swelled on the air, echoing off the stone walls.
Pausing, Robert glanced around, seeking its source.
All was as it should be. No men loitered anywhere that he could see in groups large enough to have created such a ruckus.
Curious, he continued on toward the practice field.
Another roar of laughter buffeted him.
Cupping his hand above his eyes to shield them from the sun, Robert looked up at the men atop the curtain walls. Not only were they not laughing, they, too, seemed to search for the source of it.
A stern frown sent them hieing back to their posts.
When Robert reached the practice field, he found it deserted.
His captain slumped on a bench against the keep, glowering fiercely and muttering to himself.
“Why are the men not training?” Robert demanded, bearing down on him.
“Lady Bethany called them away,” the burly warrior spat, obviously furious at having had his authority usurped by a woman.
“All of them?”
“Aye.”
“For what purpose?”
“I told her the men would be at her disposal once their training was done for the day, that the threat remained and the men must be ready to defend the keep.”
“For what purpose?” Robert repeated.
“’Twas women’s work, I told her! Not fit for a man’s attention, not when he has training to complete! But she would hear none of it.”
“For. What. Purpose?” Sooner or later the words would penetrate.
“I thought she understood when she left, but here she came, dragging a blanket piled high with the men’s gear, determined to toss it into the moat if they did not—”
“Faudron!”
His captain jumped. “Aye, my lord?”
“Where is Lady Bethany?”
“Entertaining the men in the north tower.”
Fury struck like lightning. Grabbing Faudron by the throat, Robert hoisted him off the bench and shoved him back against the wall.
Face mottling, eyes bulging, the man struggled to get his next words out before he suffocated. “N-not that kind of entertaining.”
Robert drew him forward, then slammed him against the wall again.
“C-cleaning!” Faudron sputtered. “Cleaning, my lord.”
Irritated beyond belief, Robert opened his fists and let the man drop down onto the bench again. “Explain.”
Coughing, Faudron complied. “She is forcing the men to clean the north tower, my lord. Called it a filthy pig sty and insisted that if they left it for her to do, she would toss aught she found lying on the floor into the moat. The men did not take her seriously until she began to do just that.”
“The men ignored her request?” Robert found himself torn between anger that the men had disobeyed her and dismay that she had asked them to abandon their training for so trivial a task.
“I, ah, did not think you would wish them to cease their training and, ah…,” the man stammered, searching for an answer that wouldn’t increase Robert’s ire.
Shaking his head, Robert turned and started toward the north tower. “Never show her disrespect again, Faudron, or you shall answer to me.”
“Aye, my lord.” The man did not sound thrilled by the notion.
As Robert approached the open doorway of the tower, another wave of laughter poured through it. A couple of men lingering outside grinned and nudged each other until they caught sight of the approaching earl. Then, smiles vanishing, they bowed and hurried away.
Frowning, Robert slowed his pace and actually found himself slinking closer to the wall outside the doorway so those inside would not see him.
“Give us another, my lady!” a boisterous male voice called out. ’Twas one of Robert’s more spirited knights, young and having only recently earned his spurs.
Several others seconded his plea.
Give them another what?
“Where should I put this, my lady?” a quieter voice asked near the entrance. Hugh.
“What is it?” he heard Beth respond.
“’Tis my favorite tunic,” Hugh answered as though ’twas obvious.
“That’s a tunic?”
“Aye. My youngest sister made it for me.”
“Awwwww. That’s so sweet. Put it in the to-be-washed pile. We’ll see about mending it once it’s clean.”
“My thanks.”
“Sure.” Beth raised her voice over the din. “I don’t know, guys. I think maybe I should stop.”
Vociferous complaints erupted.
“Seriously,” she spoke above them. “I don’t think spouting dirty limericks could exactly be considered proper behavior for a lady.”
Dirty limericks? What were dirty limericks? And why would she think reciting them improper?
His men evidently saw naught amiss with it, because they all denied any impropriety and begged her to continue.
“Are you sure?” she asked next. “I know you’re bored, but I don’t want to do aught that might make Robert angry. And some of these are quite…” She emitted a little huff of frustration. “What’s the word I’m looking for?”
Beth had confessed that she sometimes had difficulty finding the medieval equivalent of some of her modern words. Robert aided her whenever he could, committing her peculiar words and phrases to memory and using them himself on occasion. He wished to do aught he could, after all, to make her feel more comfortable in this place and time.
“Bawdy?” Marcus suggested.
Robert’s eyes widened. She was telling his men bawdy tales?
“I was going to say crude,” Beth murmured, “but bawdy might cover it.” She spoke louder so the others could hear her. “Don’t you think these limericks are too bawdy? I don’t want to upset Robert.”
A brief moment of silence ensued that led Robert to believe they were clearly misleading her and having second thoughts about it. Then they jumped in as one and insisted he would approve.
Robert’s eyes narrowed as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Just how bawdy were these tales? Surely his men would do naught to incur his wrath.
“All right, all right,” she laughingly agreed. “Let me see if I can remember another one.”
A couple of quiet minutes passed, acc
ompanied by assorted rustling sounds and occasional whispered comments.
“Okay, I’ve got one,” she announced.
A loud cheer split the air.
“Tell us! Tell us!” the men chanted.
Beth laughed. “Okay. But before I do, you need to know that Stormy Weather is the name of a song.”
“Will you sing it for us, my lady?” one man called.
“Maybe in a fortnight when you clean this place up again,” she said not unkindly, eliciting many a groan. “Oh, and brass is a metal. I haven’t seen any here, so I wasn’t sure you knew that. Come here, Marcus. I need you to translate a word for me. What do you call…?”
A split second later, Robert heard his squire sputter and cough. “My lady!”
“Look how red the boy’s face is!” someone belted out with glee.
“Aye! ’Twill be a good one, I vow!”
“My lady,” Marcus whispered desperately, “I cannot.”
“Sure you can. If I don’t use the right term, they won’t get it.”
“Lord Robert would geld me if he knew I discussed such with you!”
Exactly what word did she seek?
Though curiosity begged him to wait and see, Robert opted to save his squire further embarrassment.
Assuming a foreboding expression, he stepped into the doorway.
Seated upon a tall stool just inside the doorway of the north tower, Beth felt a shadow fall across her. Turning, she smiled as her heart leapt. “Robert!”
Hopping off the stool, she took two steps toward him, then noticed his expression.
Uh-oh. He looked rather displeased. Had he heard one of the dirty limericks?
Behind her, the knights quieted and anxiously stood at attention.
Robert raised one eyebrow, daring one and all to offer an explanation.
“Um…” Without looking at Robert’s men, Beth flung one arm out and pointed at them. “They made me do it.”
Gasps ricocheted through the room.
Beth peeked over her shoulder to gauge the reactions of the accused. The looks of shock and abject horror that painted the men’s rough faces were absolutely priceless.
Rendezvous With Yesterday Page 25
