One that had been too active of late.
“I’m pleased to introduce my lady’s maid, Leana Adley.”
“Adley,” he repeated, tearing his gaze away from her to address the maid. She was lovely, and the fact that her beauty moved him not at all told him again how much he admired the lady of Stanton.
“Aye, same as the cook. My father,” she said.
“Well met, Mistress Leana.”
“I regret not having been in the hall for the presentation of gifts at the Gule of August feast. My lady told me of the beautiful bracelet you gifted her mother.”
She was well-spoken for a cook’s daughter. She’d no doubt lived among nobles her whole life. As Idalia’s maid?
“It was my honor to create the piece for her.”
He returned his attention to Lady Idalia. “I trust you are well this morn, my lady?”
“Very well.”
That smile could chase away his demons, of which he had many.
“As often as my lady visited Roland, I’ve not come down here often,” Leana said, peering into the forge. “You are young for a master blacksmith.”
“Leana!”
He reassured Lady Idalia he wasn’t offended. “I apprenticed under my father,” he told the maid, “and spent the last few years as the master smith to Lord Bohun.”
“Bohun,” she repeated, rubbing her chin. “A border lord?”
“Aye.”
“We are certainly lucky to have you at Stanton. Roland was much loved here—”
“Leana . . .” Lady Idalia cleared her throat.
“Apologies, Master Lance. It seems my manners have fled somewhere this morning.”
He didn’t understand the look she gave her lady, but something told him the maid was most certainly up to something.
“Oh dear, I nearly forgot. I was to assist my father this morn. One of the kitchen maids took ill. My apologies,” she said, turning to flee up the hill.
She was gone in a moment, her blonde braid bouncing in her haste to leave.
Lance stared after her.
“Your maid is . . .”
Lady Idalia crossed her arms, also staring at the empty spot where Leana had been a moment ago.
“Incorrigible.”
Her fond tone belied the word she’d chosen. Obviously she cared very much for the woman who’d just been swallowed up by Stanton’s great courtyard.
“I am sorry for the interruption. You are engaged in your work.”
“Nay,” he said.
Much, much too quickly.
It was true, he had another ten knives to make. But he didn’t want her to leave just yet.
“Daryon and Miles have gone for supplies.”
It was unlike him to struggle for words, but it was also unlike him to knowingly court disaster. He knew no good could come from speaking with Stanton’s daughter. From looking at her. From longing for her.
Not when he wasn’t willing to use her for information.
The night before, he’d decided he’d shun any additional conversation with Idalia, but that decision had been made when not in her presence. With her standing here, just steps away, he found he was simply not ready to part with her just yet.
Since the natural landscape separated the forge from Stanton’s other buildings, most of which were scattered throughout the courtyard above them, it was easy to spot the lone figure watching them from above. When Lady Idalia saw him, she turned, sighing heavily.
“Father Sica,” she explained. The man finally moved on, although Lance wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“I do not care much for the priest.” Immediately clasping a hand over her mouth, she amended, “He is a man of God, of course. And so deeply revered by me and all of Stanton.”
Her cheeks had turned an eye-pleasing pink.
To quell her mortification, he admitted, “I do not care for him either.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve met him, then?”
“Nay, but I’ve taken mass.”
She looked down. “I missed mass this morn.”
“Something that is not typical for you,” he guessed.
“No.”
Lance wasn’t expecting what he saw when she looked back at him.
She looked embarrassed, but why? He’d already admitted he disliked the priest as much as she did, so he doubted this was over missing mass. And something about that look, and the way her eyes lingered on his arms . . .
I should not ask.
“Tell me,” he blurted out, knowing it was foolish to do so.
But she didn’t need to say a word. Her lips parted. The hue of her pink cheeks deepened.
“You did not sleep well.”
She shook her head.
“Nor did I,” he admitted, his eyes still on her. He allowed his meaning to flow into the words. “Lady Idalia.”
“Idalia, if it pleases you.”
Naught would please him more, but he could not. She was the daughter of an earl. Of this earl.
“It would please me very much to have leave to use your given name, but—”
“Then do so.”
He swallowed.
“Lance.”
She was both timid and bold—a mystery he should like to solve. But he could never forget he was here for a purpose. And that purpose was not to anger the earl by becoming too familiar with his daughter.
His young apprentices bounded toward them, wagon in tow. They would be upon them any moment.
“Idalia,” he said, despite knowing he should not, and then he made it much, much worse.
“Can you meet me again this eve?”
He didn’t say where. Or when.
But she knew, and nodded.
She grabbed her skirts and turned from him, meeting the boys midway up the hill. He watched her greet them and eventually disappear.
What the hell did I just do?
8
“He is a whoreson,” Idalia’s father muttered under his breath. Their guest had arrived just before supper. She didn’t recognize him, but according to Dawson, he was the son of a border clan chief. As such, he was seated with them at the high table. She’d been forced to distract Tilly from the epithets constantly streaming from her father’s mouth, all spoken just loudly enough for both of his daughters to hear.
She was accustomed to his language, of course. But he reserved the worst of it for the very man their guest now praised—the Scottish king who would only allow Stanton’s wool across the nonexistent border in exchange for what amounted to an expensive bribe.
“I would not disparage the English king here in your hall,” the man was saying, “but his policies do not make it any easier for us to trade either.”
Idalia smiled politely as the young man caught her eye—and then she turned away.
“I do wish Mother were here now.” Tilly pushed the vegetables on her trencher back and forth. “She had a way of containing Father’s language.”
“Has,” Idalia chided gently. “Has a way. Mother will get better.”
Tilly did not look convinced. If only she truly believed her words, Idalia might do a better job of making her sister believe them too.
“She is getting worse.”
Indeed, she was. Marina had said she’d refused to eat today, a more common occurrence of late.
“Oh, but I was to tell you she took a bit of bread and cheese earlier.”
“When? Marina told me she hadn’t eaten.”
“Just before supper. You were in the kitchens when she found father to tell him so.” Tilly lowered her voice. “So that is good, is it not?”
“Aye,” she reassured her.
Tilly glanced over Idalia’s shoulder and leaned closer, lowering to a whisper. “Father Sica was here when she told us. He and Father argued about it.”
“As they seem to do more each day.”
The priest was becoming more and more insistent that he be allowed to “treat” her mother. So far, he had been den
ied. No one else believed her ailment was a punishment from God or that she may be possessed by the devil.
“He cannot be allowed to see her,” she said.
“Mmmm.” Tilly was already thinking of something else. Idalia could always tell when her mind wandered.
“What are you thinking?” Idalia lifted the goblet of wine in front of her and brought the sweet liquid to her lips.
“I worry for you at times.”
She looked away, not wanting to meet Tilly’s eyes just then, and realized she was being watched by their guest. Straightening, she nodded to him and asked, “Is the meal to your liking, my lord?”
Not wishing to talk any longer about her mother—or to think about the meeting she’d arranged for after dinner—Idalia conversed with their guest and her father until the two finally rose, signaling the end of the meal.
Heart pounding, she carried about her normal activities, inquiring after the other guests in the hall—various retainers and tradesmen—and visited her mother as she did each night. She then retired to freshen up, using the rose water Leana always left out for her. She was just about to leave when it occurred to her exactly what she was doing.
Preparing for her assignation.
With the blacksmith.
That she was meeting him, alone, should have been reason enough to give Idalia pause. Lance was not a man to trifle with. Although he was kind and honorable, there was a darkness in him. Besides which, even the most rational part of her knew nothing could come of their friendship.
The thought of how her father would respond to the notion of a match between his daughter and the blacksmith nearly made her laugh aloud. He’d slam his mug on the table. And once he overcame his sheer disbelief at her audacity, he’d utter every swear word he’d ever learned.
So why am I meeting him? Father Sica already saw you together.
Unlatching the door, pleased that few moved through the courtyard at this time, Idalia left the wooden door unlocked behind her and made her way to the exact same spot where she and Lance had spoken the night before.
She stopped abruptly when she saw he was already waiting for her at the top of the Small Tower.
He turned and Idalia barely stopped herself from gasping at the sight of him.
He looked no different than earlier in the day, though cleaner of course. But something in his expression . . .
Lance knew what she did. That this attraction between them had no place in either of their lives. And yet, here they both were.
“How did you get up here?” She’d left the door unlocked, assuming he would have to follow her up.
Lance held out a small iron circlet with a lone key hanging from it.
“I am a blacksmith” was his only answer.
“And a good one if you were able to replicate the key so easily.”
He rarely smiled, which was likely for the best—the effect was devastating. It was a smile meant to tease, not necessarily to taunt.
“Roland was not nearly as skilled,” she said honestly, joining him along the outer battlements.
“My first master . . .”
“Your father,” she clarified, noticing his reluctance to speak of him as such.
“Aye, my father. He served King Henry, and his own master was considered one of the most skilled blacksmiths in all of England at the time.”
“And so he passed those lessons down to you.”
Lance didn’t answer.
When she glanced at his profile, Idalia was not surprised to see his tight-set jaw, and though she knew the topic was one he did not wish to discuss, curiosity forced her to press him.
“You do not care for your father.”
His breathing grew noticeably heavier, making Idalia immediately regret the question.
“I am sorry.”
“You’ve no need to apologize, my lady.”
“My lady?”
“Idalia,” he clarified, and the familiarity of her name coming from his lips made her very core clench in anticipation.
Anticipation? Nay, never that.
“It was an impertinent question.”
He did this thing then, with his tongue, that Idalia had seen him do before. Not a licking of his lips precisely, but for a moment she spied his tongue as he wet first the top and then the bottom lip.
She was staring.
“Nay,” he said, “I do not like my father.”
Even though she’d suspected as much, to hear him say it so bluntly . . .
Her own father could also be quite difficult at times. And as her mother became more and more ill, he was getting worse. But she liked him, of course. Loved him dearly.
How could a father push away his son so effectively?
“Yet he taught you many things?”
“Aye.”
He would say no more on the matter, so she tried a different topic.
“And your mother?”
Lance closed his eyes, and Idalia silently cursed at herself for having chosen poorly.
“She is no longer with us,” he said, his voice soft.
Idalia’s heart sank. “I am so very sorry.”
She was filled with the desire to reach out and touch him. His hand, his cheek. Anything that might offer comfort. Of course, she resisted the urge.
To touch him would be to give in to this madness consuming them both.
“Two years after I left Marwood, I received word she was ill. By the time I arrived home . . .”
Idalia thought of her own mother lying, even now, in her bed as she’d done for nearly a sennight. The pain hadn’t lifted this time.
“Now it is I who must apologize.” He turned to her. “I did not mean to make you worry about your own mother.”
“Nay,” she said, forcing her voice to be strong. “Mother will recover, of that I have no doubt.”
Telling herself the same, over and over and over again, made the visits to her mother’s sickbed more tolerable. It hurt to see the mother she’d always looked up to, who’d always been such a vibrant force of nature, brought so low.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
He was looking at her, a question in his eyes, and something about that look urged her to unburden herself. Who better to speak to than a newcomer to Stanton?
“Around the time of the last harvest, mother began getting pains here.” She pointed to the side of her head. The moon afforded them ample light to see each other, although his face was cast in shadow. “They came and went, but each month, they seemed to be getting worse. The physician gave her skullcap, which alleviated them for a while. And then . . .”
She looked up toward the keep, her eyes finding the part of the keep where she knew her mother would be lying, asleep.
“The pain in her head moved downward, to her stomach. She is resisting eating this week, and the whites of her eyes are tinged with yellow.”
Idalia could not bear to think of them. Her eyes, Father Sica claimed, were evidence of the devil’s work. “In fact, these last few days they appear more yellow than white.”
There. She’d said it.
Lance ran a hand through his hair. “That does sound unusual.”
“If word spreads of mother’s condition,” she continued. “My father fears my sister and I will not make a good match if Father Sica’s thoughts on the matter are spread.”
Idalia looked toward Eller’s Green. “If there are bad spirits, certainly there must be good ones too?”
Lance moved to stand directly next to her. So close. She didn’t step away, but at least she forced herself not to do as she wished and move closer.
“Some would say you speak of the saints. Of God.”
“Some?”
He didn’t answer, but neither did she press him.
“We should not be here,” he said, his tone flat.
“Nay, we should not.”
Idalia looked down at his hand, where the key still hung from his hastily made circlet, then asked, “Does that mean we will not
meet again?”
She wished to take the words back even as part of her was proud for asking the question. It had been uncommonly bold of her.
“Would you like to meet again?”
She did not hesitate. “Aye.”
“Then we shall. Tomorrow evening?”
Her heart soared. “Tomorrow evening.”
Lance bowed deeply. More deeply than her station warranted.
“Until then, my lady.”
She felt the loss immediately as he walked away. When Lance stopped just before entering the tower, she thought for a moment he’d changed his mind and would stay.
“Idalia,” he corrected.
This time, she did not mistake his tone. More than familiar, it dripped with promise and longing, and if she could summon the nerve to utter his name aloud, Idalia was pretty sure hers would do the same.
Which would not do at all.
9
Lance handed Daryon the punch and nodded.
“I’ve not used it before.”
His brother, the more self-assured of the two boys, had just stepped outside. Which was exactly why Lance had given Daryon the tool now. Although Miles did not intend to hold his brother back, his skills sometimes intimidated the more soft-spoken lad.
“I know you haven’t, lad.”
Lance stepped aside. “Make sure it’s hot enough,” he said, watching as Daryon put on his gloves and used the pliers to heat the end of the horseshoe. When the iron glowed, he placed it back onto the forge, picked up the punch, and looked up at Lance with wide eyes.
“Now turn it and use the pritchel hole to punch the backside,” he said, even though Daryon already knew what to do. If he could say one good thing about his father, it was that he’d never assumed Lance could do something he’d never tried before. Watching and doing were two different things.
“That’s it,” he encouraged as the boy created the first of six holes that would be needed. He worked quickly and efficiently before the shoe cooled.
He did it easily enough.
“You’re doing a fine job.”
“He has a fine mentor.”
He spun toward the door, leaving his apprentice, and embraced the man who strode toward him.
The Blacksmith: Order of the Broken Blade Page 5
