“A good plan, my lady,” the cook replied with a smile and a wink. “An egg posset, warm and thick and sweet. I’ll find me a small pot in the kitchen and use the coals in here to warm it. I think me I’ll make twice the usual amount so you and your betrothed can share the cup. I have a feeling he may be choking along with you.”
Jos stood just inside his bedchamber, his back to the closed door and his head bowed as he massaged the throbbing ache that radiated out of his shoulder. He gave thanks for Thomas. The steward had agreed to bear the news that Freyne’s lord was unavailable to his guests as he departed from the hall. Unfortunately, hiding in the bedchamber would deal those same guests the exact insult that Jos had hope to avoid when he thought Henry had come to kidnap him.
Raising his head, he looked at the closed door. Dear Lord, it was hard to believe that creature out there was his Avice. The friendly child with whom he’d traded vows had become a woman as forthright as his mother. Not only had Avice argued with him, throwing his invitation to enter back in his face, she’d brushed her mouth across his cheek, teasing him like some lightskirt.
Perhaps it had been an accidental touch, but as angry as she seemed to be, he doubted it. And if the taunt were meant to torture him? Then she’d succeeded. She’d set his senses on fire and left him longing to press his lips to hers, just to see what it felt like to kiss her.
Indeed, he would have kissed her right there if he hadn’t instinctively tried to embrace her with his right arm. The pain that followed was a reminder of how his greed for gold and glory had destroyed both his future and hers. What sort of man was he if he couldn’t even use his arm to embrace his betrothed? What sort of husband could he be if he lacked the ability to protect his wife with his sword? Henry of Lavendon was a fool if he still intended to entrust his only daughter to him.
Sitting in the chair near his bed, Jos prayed his guests wouldn’t tap on his door, trying to draw him out. Then he wondered how long would he have to stay in here before they left him in peace.
An eternity, that’s how long. Not only were his guests still here, they were moving his furniture.
Jos paced his chamber, then grimaced as a screech rang out in the hall—the sound of wood being dragged across the tile floor. There was a moment of blessed silence, then another screech reverberated into his bedchamber. It was more than he could tolerate. He threw open the door and scanned the hall.
There was no sign of Lord Henry or any of his party save for Lavendon’s daughter, and Avice had well and truly made herself at home. While the chair he used when dining was yet where it had been when he entered his bedchamber, the high table was missing and the smaller chair was on its way to some spot closer to the fire by way of Avice’s efforts.
She no longer wore her cloak. The sodden garment was draped over the back of his chair, revealing that she wore a set of loose-fitting gowns meant for riding, the outer one green with wide sleeves that revealed an inner gown of pale yellow. Rather than a woman’s usual twin plaits, Avice’s honey-brown hair was confined to a single long braid that reached to her hips. Being maiden still, she wore no wimple or headcloth. That let her braid swing freely from side to side as she moved, the cheery red and green ribbon twined into it giving off metallic glints in the firelight.
Avice hadn’t yet noticed him. Jos watched as she drew a bracing breath then wrapped her arms around the back of the chair. Tilting it onto its hind legs, she pulled it a few feet closer to the fire. That shriek rang out again. Carefully lowering the front legs back to the floor, she rested for an instant, then once again tilted the heavy piece.
Jos followed her trajectory and found his table in pieces on the floor. Lord save him, she’d be at this process for quite a while before he once again had his precious silence.
“Who gave you permission to move my furniture?” he demanded of his betrothed.
She gave a startled cry and let go of the chair. The front legs hit the floor with a resounding thud. She whirled toward him. Their gazes met. All the color drained from her face. Then she lifted her chin to a haughty angle, although she looked more waif than queen, what with her face framed with the fine wisps of hair that had escaped her braid.
“Would you rather that I freeze while I take my meal?” she asked, nay, demanded. Her tone yet owned that honed and angry edge he’d heard earlier.
“What meal?” Jos asked. The only meal he expected this day was the one the alewife would bring him, the one he would consume in his chamber. By himself.
“My meal. I will be dining when my servant returns from the village,” his betrothed retorted. “Didn’t I tell you that you’d regret inviting me to enter?” she added sarcastically.
By God but she was far bolder than his mother when it came to trespassing on his rights! “My invitation gave you no authority to move anything in this hall or to take a meal,” Jos retorted, matching her sarcasm with his own.
Her eyes narrowed as the color returned to her face, burning bright with new heat on her cheeks. “No authority perhaps, but I have the right based on dear necessity,” she replied stiffly. “I’m trapped at Freyne, and I’m cold and hungry. I presumed I might either freeze or starve to death before my host appeared to offer me a sliver of comfort, so I made myself at home.”
Her words both stung Jos and left him wanting to shake his head in confusion. “What are you prattling about? You’re not trapped here. Where’s your lord sire?”
Avice made a rude noise at that. “Halfway to Lavendon, if my guess is correct.”
“But you are here,” Jos gasped out, shocked to his core. What sort of father left his only daughter in another man’s house without so much as a fare-thee-well to the man in question?
Avice rolled her eyes and released an impatient breath. “What? Did your mother not warn you that I was to be your surprise gift this season? Happy Christmas to you,” she added in a snide singsong voice.
Despite her taunt, something akin to embarrassment flashed through her gaze. Then she sighed and crossed her arms as if she sought both to shield and comfort herself.
“Know you, I resisted their plot with all my might and failed. So here we are, trapped together, at least for the now. If I promise to leave you in peace, will you give me your word not to waste your breath and wear my patience by protesting my presence?”
Jos gaped at Avice. What he saw, besides the young woman who would one day be his wife, was a plot concocted by his mother and Lord Henry. It seemed they intended that he and Avice married far sooner than Jos wished.
Anger over such meddling flared instantly into rage. May God take them for stealing the solitude he craved. He opened his mouth, ready to curse them both to high heaven.
Avice held up a forestalling hand. “I beg you, do not scream at me. And please don’t command me to leave. I cannot go, not in this weather and not without a proper escort, which you apparently cannot provide. And, trust me, my father won’t be returning to fetch me until after the Twelfth Night, even if you beg him to do it. He’s gone completely mad.”
The longer she spoke, the more anger drained from her tone, until her last words were filled with only embarrassment and hurt. That, as much as what she said, punctured Jos’s reaction.
“Nay,” he said to himself in defeat. Avice wasn’t the only one trapped. They were both of them victims of this manipulation.
Avice made a strangled sound. She whirled, turning her back to him, then again wrapped her arms around the chair. Tilting it, she once more started on her journey to the table’s new position.
For an instant Jos watched her, wincing at the sound of the legs against tile. Then he sighed in defeat. It wasn’t her fault that he had lost the isolation he craved. He stepped to her side and grabbed the back of the chair with his left hand to stop her.
“Let me help you, my lady.”
She didn’t immediately release the chair to him. Instead, looking up at him, she studied him for a long moment. Then her shoulders relaxed and the tension left
her expression.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said quietly, moving aside as she used the back of her hand to shove those stray wisps off her cheeks. With that motion Jos caught a glimpse of the girl he remembered.
“And many thanks for not being angry at me over what others have done,” she added.
Jos blinked in surprise at that. Why in the world would she expect him to be angry at her over something that wasn’t her fault? The need to reassure her flowed over him with enough force that he managed a small smile.
“Well, one thing is certain. Whatever food accompanied you in that cart is sure to be of a better quality than what I’ve been eating since August last,” he told her.
Aye, it would definitely be better than anything he’d had since arriving at Freyne. That thought set an unexpected grinding in Jos’s stomach. It was a moment before he recognized the sensation as hunger.
“So, if we are dining together tonight, my lady, what is it that we’ll be eating?”
Avice sipped deeply from the mazer, then sighed in pleasure. As Lina had promised, the warm posset—a mixture of egg, milk and wine, flavored with a hint of precious pepper—was both delicious and filling. She carefully set the bowl-shaped wooden cup back onto the table. It was a beautiful piece, polished until the maple from which it was made glowed almost as brightly as metal. By its size, it was clear it had been crafted to be used by two.
She slid the cup a little to the left, but not quite far enough that Jocelyn could reach it with his good hand. It was a ploy on her part and very bad manners. It was customary for seatmates at a meal to share both the food and drink, bite by bite and sip by sip. But she wasn’t yet ready to give up the posset, craving a little more.
“If you don’t know where the linens are kept, how did you know where to find this cup?” she asked her companion for the evening.
She didn’t understand why or how it had happened, but from the moment she’d asked Jocelyn not to shout at her, he’d become the perfect host. Together they had reassembled the table and put the chairs in place. Then Avice had asked about a tablecloth and Jocelyn had admitted he had no idea where the linens were stored.
Jocelyn shrugged. “When I arrived, I wanted a cup to keep in my chamber. I found it in one of the coffers in the solar.” He indicated the second door at the back of the hall, confirming Avice’s guess. “It’s likely the linens are in there, too. I just wouldn’t know. I quit opening chests when I came across what I wanted.”
As he spoke, he shifted toward her and reached for the mazer, his fingers moving a little as he tried to wheedle it from her. “Hey now, give it up. You can’t drink it all. Your Lina commanded us to share.”
Avice made a face at him. “If I must,” she said as she helped him balance the big cup in his hand.
He sipped, then made a pleased sound and drank more deeply, lifting the cup out of her bracing hand. When he set down the cup, Avice looked into the bowl.
“You took half!”
He gave her a quick smile. “I wanted to see if you were right about it. You are. It’s an excellent posset and the perfect drink on so miserable a night.”
Avice started to laugh at that, only to catch back the sound. She didn’t want to be this comfortable with him. Instead, she folded her hands on the table and stared at her joined fingers. The urge to ask him what he planned for her rode her hard, but her fear of his answer was the stronger. With them trapped together this way, it was better not to know.
“Are your thoughts so heavy that you need to avoid looking at me?” Jocelyn asked, shifting closer to her and leaning so he could peer at her downcast face. As he did, his hair fell forward, the ends brushing the top of the table.
“Aye, they’re as heavy as your hair,” Avice replied, straightening and smiling to hide her lie. She leaned back to better see him, then shook her head in disapproval. “Look how long your locks are! I think you should either let me cut them for you or let me plait your hair. I’ll do it the way mine is done.” She pulled her braid over her shoulder, then held it out to show him her maid’s careful workmanship.
“I love this ribbon,” she said with a smile and a pleased sigh. “That’s silver wire that gleams. I embroidered it into the ribbon myself.”
“Let me see,” Jocelyn said.
Slipping the end of her braid into his right hand, which he yet braced in the sling, he slid his left hand up the length of her plait to where the ribbon was knotted at the base of her neck. His finger brushed her nape.
Avice shivered in reaction and looked askance at him. “What are you doing?”
The golden lights were back in his dark eyes. He moved his fingers along the top of the ribbon, once more sliding them across her nape. “Examining this method of hair restraint,” he said, his voice filled with amusement. “Do I get to keep the ribbon if you use it in my hair?”
“You!” Avice retorted with a laugh. “Nay, you do not. Make your own ribbon.”
Still, he fingered the top of her braid. The sensation of him toying with her hair and the brush of his fingers against her nape warmed her in a way that was both pleasurable and disturbing. When she could bear it no longer, she gently tugged her braid free from his right hand, then shifted away from him in her chair. She intended the movement to suggest that he should release her plait. Instead, he slowly slid his hand down the length of her braid until he held its end in his left hand. Unnerved, Avice caught her lower lip with her teeth.
“What? Am I disturbing you?” His voice had gone husky and deep.
“You are,” Avice admitted.
He gave a quiet laugh at that. “My lady, honesty is not how this game is played. You must tell me that you don’t understand my question.”
“What game?” Avice asked breathlessly, overwhelmed by what she was feeling and confused by what Jocelyn was saying. To hide her reaction, she picked up the mazer and took another deep draught of the sweet drink.
“At last, my lady,” Lina called out from the hall door. “We come bearing the semblance of a meal.”
Startled, Avice yanked her braid from Jocelyn’s grasp at the same time she shifted to face forward in her chair. As she moved, she nearly knocked over the mazer. Crying out, she caught it just before it spilled, then pulled the cup into the safe grasp of both her hands.
Beside her, Jocelyn freed that muted laugh of his again. Avice kept her gaze locked into the depths of the cup. What was the matter with her? Why did she feel as if she’d been doing wrong when she hadn’t been?
As the cook started across the hall followed by three children, all of them bearing either a platter or a bowl, amusement at Avice’s reaction to the intrusion welled up in Jos. It filled his chest, then warmed his heart before finally escaping as a low chuckle, when what he really wanted to do was guffaw. That urge felt uncomfortably foreign until he realized it had been forever since he’d last given way to pleasure and laughed out loud.
He leaned close to his betrothed. “What hey, my lady? You wear the face of a sinner. What have you been doing that you shouldn’t?” he whispered.
Avice shot him a frowning glance but it swiftly dissolved into answering amusement. Jos couldn’t stop his smile. Here was the amiable child he remembered, a girl quick with a jest and a laugh. Although he was glad the child Avice still existed, he was beginning to appreciate far more the woman Avice had become—one filled with a wondrous tangle of innocence and bold honesty.
“Be still and behave yourself, or I really will braid my ribbon into your hair,” she warned.
Jos threw up his left hand as he yielded. “I bow to your greater threat,” he told her as the cook and her aides set their burdens on the table. There was a platter of cheeses and bread, a bowl of dried apples soaking in wine, another plate of pickled fish, while the last bowl contained shelled nuts.
After fighting so hard to spend this holiday alone, Jos found himself wondering if he might not enjoy the next twelve days just a little.
Avice stirred on her pallet ben
eath a pile of bedclothes and blankets that didn’t quite keep the cold at bay. Not wanting to be awake, she tried snuggling deeper beneath the layers. Lavendon’s solar was far warmer than this one, but then, at home she slept with all ten of her mother’s maidservants. Although that made the chamber pleasantly warm in winter, summer nights could become stifling.
Pulling her knees into her chest and shivering, she revisited her decision to sleep alone. Although Milly had come to the solar to aid her lady in disrobing, the child was sleeping in the warmer kitchen with Lina, who believed she was taking ill. Also sleeping with them were Lina’s new scullery lads, the alewife’s two young sons, and a pair of dirtier little creatures Avice had never seen. Despite that the kitchen was more comfortable than the solar, she had thought it best to stay as far from their fleas as possible.
When sleep continued to elude her, she poked her head out from under the swathing bedclothes. Across the chamber, the night candle offered up a wee but friendly flicker of light. She smiled. It seemed that candles were another item Jocelyn knew how to find in his own home.
Lord, but he was a mystery. He’d remained at the table with her for hours after the meal as they shared a third posset and conversation. Although she’d heard his tale before, she asked him to tell her of his first battle, the one in which he’d gotten that scar on his forehead. The moment he began to speak, he again became the lad she remembered, the boy who threw himself into whatever game was at hand, no matter how dangerous. His face had taken light as he recounted the thrill of climbing high into a tree so he could use his crossbow to protect his foster mother and father from the men attacking them. Somehow, he turned his terrifying fall from that same tree into something just as entertaining as the climb, despite that it had nearly killed him. As she had in the past, Avice listened in awe to the part about how in the same battle his foster mother had picked up a sword and slaughtered man after man without a bit of armor to protect her or even a shield upon her arm.
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