As each platter was loaded, a servant hefted it and hauled it out to the tables.
Truth to tell, Bridget wasn’t really needed here. The regular kitchen staff kept bumping into her. But after the day she had endured, she was anxious to keep her hands busy and her mind occupied, and it was too dark now to see to any gardening chores. With the peel in hand, she pivoted and dumped the loaves onto the worktable. Atop the platters of pork and fowl, she arranged the hot bread, blowing on her fingers afterward.
She had spent a great chunk of the afternoon in the company of the earl, dodging his booted feet as he attempted to be graceful—and dodging the wanton sensations that besieged her every time their bodies touched. For one wild moment, when she’d tripped and he’d trapped her in his arms, she’d thought he might kiss her.
The worst was, she’d wanted him to. More than anything she’d ever wanted in her life.
He’d smelled so good—like a forest at night, with the crisp, spicy scent of fir trees everywhere and a wood fire in the distance—that she’d been tempted to inhale deeply and suck him right into her lungs for good.
The man was proving so different than what she’d expected. Forsooth, he was unlearned and sinful, but he was also perceptive, thoughtful, and astute. When he chose to be, he was solicitous, kind, and considerate. Much like her own father, whom she’d always believed to be an exception among the masses of men.
But FitzHenri shouldn’t have surprised her, really. There was that time when he had visited with the new king years before. He’d arrived to arrange his tenancy of Shyleburgh and his betrothal to Aislinn. He’d seemed so brooding and formidable then. Grim, even. Everyone had been somewhat fearful of him, he being a foreigner, a subjugator loyal to an alien king. No one knew exactly what he would do.
But then a little English pageboy, in awe of him, had expressed admiration of a bronze buckle he wore. He’d tousled the child’s blond hair and given the ornament to him without a moment’s hesitation. Handed it over, just like that. So freely and unselfishly had that act been, the memory of it had stayed with her all this time.
A man like that had to be good inside, regardless of his hard visage. She’d been relieved of her guilt on some level about handing her worldly responsibilities to Aislinn. He would be a fine husband to her sister.
At the thought, her heart twisted a little in her chest.
“There ye are!” It was the maidservant, Berthe, staring pointedly at her from across the expanse of kitchen. When Bridget met her gaze, the woman winked.
“Why do you smile?” she asked. She knew Berthe as a rollicking, jolly sort, but had never experienced such familiarity from her before.
The servant came up next to her and bent down to grip either side of a hefty tray heaped with mutton. “Spendin’ yer last wildness, are ye?” she said with a grin, and winked again before jerking the tray up to her shoulder.
Flummoxed, Bridget asked, “What are you talking about?”
“Aw, go on now.” Berthe nudged the air with an elbow. “Who can blame ye?”
“Nay, verily. What say you?”
“You and his lordship. I see how ye two are.”
Bridget’s belly sank to her toes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Like sweethearts ye are, gaw.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?”
“Aye, strolling the grounds, dancing in his chamber.”
“You misinterpret!” Aghast, she gaped at the serving maid. “I was doing it for Aislinn!” She’d seen Berthe openly flirting with the earl when their paths had crossed that morning near the practice yard. And he had just as flagrantly returned her attentions with that one-sided lift of his mouth and a thorough perusal of her person. It was the same way he had returned Sorcha’s come-hither look in the bailey the day before.
Aye, he drew the eyes of all the womenfolk as he passed, damsel and crone alike. He could have any woman he wanted.
But not her. She could not credit that anyone would think so.
“Makes no never mind,” Berthe was saying. “Everyone’s glad to see ye sportin’ afore ye close yerself away in that nunnery. Good fer ye, we says. And what better than with the handsomest lord in all the land?”
“Sporting!” The iron cross at her throat was little comfort when she wrapped her fingers round it. Its deep-cut ornamentation bit into her flesh. “By the saints! I would never do such a thing to my sister.”
“Aw, Lady Aislinn won’t mind. Anyone can see she has the barest of feelings for the man.”
“Berthe…” Bridget paused to take a deep breath. “You truly are mistaken. The lord has bade me interpret his words to those who don’t speak his language. That is all.”
“And in his chamber today? What were you interpreting there?”
“He wanted to learn how to dance. To impress Aislinn.”
The fact that she’d enjoyed it so much, being in his arms, touching his body, moving with him to the sweet music, didn’t change that. It had all been for the benefit of her sister.
Berthe gave her a knowing smile. “Whate’er ye call it, lady. The way the two of ye look at each other doesn’t put me in mind of him courting Lady Aislinn, I’ll tell ye.”
With a throaty chuckle, the serving maid departed, holding her steaming burden high.
The way they looked at each other? She didn’t look at him in any special way. And he certainly didn’t look at her in any special way. Upon his orders, she provided clarity of communication between himself and his new vassals. And today, they’d merely been thrown together over a common purpose. There was nothing more to their relationship than that.
His occasional kindness toward her…? He was simply proving more chivalrous than she had expected.
Along with demonstrating a rare and infinite patience with her. Such as when she’d snuck out to visit the abbey. And, aye, a sense of humor, as well. Whenever she visited the soldiers with him, he jested with her like any other comrade.
And understanding? The man seemed to overflow with it. When he gazed deeply into her eyes and smiled his slow, confident smile, her whole being suffused with a joyous, tumbling warmth.
Even sharing her reasons for entering the convent had been agreeable, for the most part. He hadn’t reprimanded her for what other men might call her selfish and presumptuous refusal to do her familial duty and wed where she was told.
Stop this.
She released her grip on the crucifix and brushed her hands on her apron. It just wouldn’t do to have this glob of warmth glowing in her chest when she thought of the man. Not at all. She was making the same mistake again. Just as when, as a girl, she’d admired Samson of Reggeland, and believed he was her friend, but he’d only betrayed her trust and hurt her instead.
She remembered walking past her father’s solar soon after the Lord of Reggeland and his son had arrived. She’d heard the fathers talking, but it was the utterance of her name that had made her pause to eavesdrop.
When her father lamented his lack of sons, the Lord of Reggeland offered his own son in marriage to Bridget, and Father approved the idea.
“But she is only a child,” her father had said. “I won’t allow her to wed until her eighteenth birthday.”
“Agreed,” said the other lord.
Bridget had stood there grinning and hugging herself.
Betrothed! And to the good-looking boy who had come from the neighboring estate to learn to squire.
After that, she’d eagerly tried to befriend the lad, who was a few years older. At first, he was receptive. He thanked her for the honey buns she made for him. He smiled at her when she walked by. He winked at her the time he was handing up a helmet to his father, who was seated upon his mount and preparing to depart for home. She was so full of excitement and adoration, it must have showed in her eyes.
Soon, though, he came to find her attentions cloying and nettlesome. What lad of that age wanted a little girl tagging along everywhere he went? Like a rook she’d once observed attacki
ng a rabbit with an injured leg, he’d noted her vulnerability toward him and punished her for it. That was when she’d decided to forsake human comfort and turned toward scholarship and meditation.
Which was still her goal. She must redouble her efforts at getting Aislinn wooed and wed. From now on, it must be her sister spending her days with the earl, basking in his regard, and coming to know him. Learning how to tame him.
Thus, with a smile for the last servant to take away a platter, Bridget heaved a deep breath and headed, resolute, for the hall.
Nevertheless, the moment her wooden clogs passed over the threshold, what she beheld upon the dais stopped her short.
Chapter Sixteen
It appeared Aislinn had come to the same resolution she had, for her sister sat close beside their lord, turned more toward him than away, and was attempting to converse with him. He was listening, too, his head bent toward her.
Opposing emotions tore at Bridget, and she gnawed her lip. At least now she wouldn’t have to contrive their coming together.
“No mead for the lord,” she informed a servant about to mount the dais with a pitcher of the fermented honey. “He doesn’t care for it.”
The servant nodded and gave the pitcher to another table. Bridget forced a smile for Karlan and Father Usrich as she slipped into a seat near the end of the dais. The earl seemed perfectly able to communicate with her sister at the moment. Why disturb them?
“Do you know what our scamp Emma did today?” This came from Nurse, who sat next to Bridget. The older woman’s pique could not be missed. Though Bridget had reminded her endlessly about her imminent departure, Nurse expected the two of them to see to the children’s care together.
“Hmm?” Bridget asked, trying to shake her fog. Her eyes were glued to Aislinn and the earl gazing at one another.
“—in Aelfwina’s boot. When Aelfwina put the boot on…” The story continued as Bridget’s heartbeat slowed to a crawl. The voices of her family weaved and swirled around her.
Dinner progressed at a snail’s pace while she forced herself to eat and listen to the prattle. She concentrated so hard that most of the folk had already finished and left the hall when Karlan interrupted another exuberant story about her little sister.
“He’s beckoning.”
Bridget frowned at her friend. “Who?”
Karlan sat at an angle that allowed him to view the length of the table. He’d passed most of the meal glaring toward where the earl and Aislinn flirted. Fine by Bridget. It spared her the task of spying on them herself, since he reported every small infraction.
“The earl.” He said it with the usual sneer he used when speaking of their new lord. “He needs you for translating.”
Karlan did not like how the Normans were changing the church, imposing new strictures and supplanting the English higher ups with Norman priors and abbots. But his rancor toward FitzHenri, in particular, held more acid than seemed warranted.
She followed Karlan’s glower. His lordship, with an elbow propped on the table, was summoning her.
“Oh, bother.”
Karlan’s lip curled in disgust. “I don’t understand his problems with language. I can understand Aislinn’s Norman just perfectly.”
“Likely because you taught it to her,” Bridget drawled, then rose and went to the earl.
Father Oswald, Sirs Drogo and Albert, everyone who had peopled the center of the table had departed, save Aislinn and the earl. He leaned back in his chair when she arrived at his shoulder. A faint air of amusement tarried in his eyes.
“I would speak with Lady Aislinn,” he told her, “in a way she would comprehend.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
He reached behind to grab the stool his squire usually sat upon and dragged it between himself and Aislinn. Bridget wedged her way in and took a seat, nudging the stool back a bit to give herself room.
“Say to her…” He paused, settling his attention on her sister, who gazed serenely back at him.
They made such a beautiful pair, of proportional height, of similar coloring, both of them such handsome specimens of nobility, well comported and well-spoken. They would make such lovely babies together. They would bring Father and Shyleburgh great joy.
Then the earl did something extraordinary. He looked at Bridget and bored his focus into her. “Say to her what you would have a man say to you.”
She straightened. “Me?”
“Aye. Tell her a pretty rhyme, or something.”
“But I— I would have no man speak to me. I mean, I wouldn’t wish— My lord, I haven’t the words you require.”
“You read many poems of love, I gather. Let’s have one.”
Blind panic drained her limbs of warmth. “I don’t read those kinds of poems! I read the gospels and ancient sages.”
“Simply substitute Aislinn fair for Blancheflor, or Guinevere.”
“I tell you I don’t know those poems.”
“I’ll get you started.” His impassive gaze remained fixed on hers—that dark, forest-colored gaze with the blackest lashes. But when his fierce Norman lips moved again, Bridget instinctively sighted on them. She shivered over every delicious vowel he articulated. “Lady fair, of the crimson lips and snowy breast…”
Her face heated. Those words were so…so evocative, and she just knew she’d gone as red as the flamboyant apron Nurse wore on feast days. Heavens! And her sister was watching them!
She licked her lips and sucked in air. I can do this. I can do this.
After whirling stiffly toward Aislinn, she delivered the lord’s words in English as indifferently as she could.
Her sister blushed sweetly and averted her shining eyes. Bridget ground her jaw. Even Aislinn’s shyness was delicate and enchanting.
The earl said, “You know the rest. Tell her.”
“But I don’t know the rest!”
“Then make something up. You don’t expect me to utter these absurdities, do you? All that drivel and sniveling.”
She stared at him. “How is this possible? You are famed for wooing women and yet you don’t bring gifts. You don’t dance. You memorize love poems but sneer at them.”
“I’m a man of action. Not a minstrel.” He winked. “Tell her something…” In the air he waved a forefinger, drawing Bridget’s gaze to his handsome ring of garnet set in gold.
“Something about her sweetness and lovely face.”
Bridget met her sister’s eager, bright eyes and observed the anticipation there. For whatever reason, Aislinn was making an effort to please her intended husband and be pleased by him. All Bridget needed to do was nudge her sister, metaphorically speaking, a little closer in his direction. Indulging the girl’s vanity was certainly a way to do it.
This was all part of her plan, she reminded herself. Let Aislinn believe the earl found her irresistible, that he loved her. What woman could resist that? Bridget would also convince his lordship that Aislinn loved him. Everyone would be happy. For, if Aislinn fell in love with the earl, Bridget could forget about him and his disturbing kiss. She could never desire the man her sister loved. Never.
So what if she had to fabricate some of the words? She was a creative sort.
Thus, after a moment’s reflection, she intoned to her sister, “Have pity, my love, have pity! For thou art fairer than Helen who stole noble Paris’s heart. Fairer even than Venus, the goddess of love, thou art.”
“Did he say that?” Aislinn glanced shyly at the earl and back again. Bridget nodded with a rigid smile, and Aislinn shifted her gaze to her lap.
He said from the side, “That sounded good. Did she accept it?”
Quickly, while Aislinn wasn’t looking, Bridget stuck her tongue out at him. He chuckled.
She continued to Aislinn, “Lovely maiden, your beauty makes me weep a thousand times, and I sigh. I sigh for you.”
Her sister beamed up at him as the exalting meters rained down around her.
He muttered, “Jesu in His man
ger, that was good. I can tell it was good.”
Bridget almost laughed, but she managed a serious tone when she recited another verse. “But your heart is ice, frozen against me, and I die. I die for you.”
A gentle frown formed on her sister’s brow, to demonstrate her empathy for her gallant knight’s plight. She even leaned toward him.
Bridget offered up her coup de grace. “Do not be cruel, pulcele. Do not let me die. Restore me with but a cast of your glorious eye.”
“Oh, Bridgie,” Aislinn implored. “Tell him I’m not so cruel. Tell him my heart beats warmly in my breast!”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes, and turned back to the earl. “She says she feels the same.”
That mocking smile lingered under his eyes. “Does she, now? But no pretty words for me?”
“Oh, Saints Cuthbert and Egbert! What do you wish to hear? That your manliness fills her dreams at night?”
At that, a corner of his mouth drew back into the confident, partial smile she’d come to find so alluring. Curse him.
“’Twould be a start,” he said. “Now, tell her I long for her rosy sweetness embracing me.”
Bridget scowled.
“Tell her,” he urged.
She complied. Aislinn’s mouth fell open.
“Now tell her I yearn to unlock the bonds of her virginity.”
Shock pelted through Bridget. “I can’t tell her that!”
“Why not?”
“’Tis not seemly.”
“Very well. Ask her what she thinks of me.”
Bridget sighed loudly and said to her sister, “He wants to know how you feel about him.”
This clearly disquieted Aislinn. “Well, I-I—” Her gaze flitted nervously, then dropped to her hands twisting in her lap.
Worried, Bridget leaped to fill the silence. She said to the earl, “She says this. My lord, have pity on me. I am your devoted thrall! Your shining shield of strength, your bright-burning valor…” Her voice faltered when his gaze bounced over to Aislinn and back. Of course he’d noticed these weren’t her sister’s words. And they were much too like something from the Beowulf tale. What if he knew that poem? How could she have blundered so stupidly?
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