BLACK AS KNIGHT

In 1420, England and France are at war. Newly made English earl Grimme Kyneward must take a Scots noblewoman to wife to keep his lands and his life, but the one he needs is not available. What does a knight do when he cannot have the woman he wants? He snatches her, of course.

Never mind that Lady Brìghde Fàileach is the wrong bride; she has her own reasons for wanting to marry the first earl who plucks her out of her wedding just before being forced to say “I do.” That the earl has a deep and abiding aversion to brunettes is convenient for her, and the fact that he is also in need of a castellain to run his household, which is in shambles, is even better.

She is fully aware that a man in need of a noble wife will also be in need of legitimate heirs, but she readily agrees to it, freeing her from her father and fiancé forever, and giving her power to rule his household, which includes any and all mistresses and the four bastards amongst them.

Grimme has no desire to bed Brìghde, but he must have a legitimate heir. Brìghde has no need to bed Grimme, but she’s absolutely certain she’ll enjoy the experience. And on the journey back to his lands, Grimme and Brìghde forge a friendship Grimme is certain will last forever …

… but for Grimme’s ravenous liege who covets everything Grimme loves and will do anything to get it.

---

1

East Lothian, Scotland
April 1420

“ … DAY OF BINDING, if any man do allege and declare any impediment—”

BOOM!

The cathedral shook from the force of the narthex’s massive doors blowing open such that they bounced off the stone walls.

Lady Brìghde Fàileach and her groom whipped around whilst an hundred people leapt to their feet, the men’s swords drawn from sheer habit.

A giant mail-clad intruder stood in the doorway, one big gauntleted hand resting on the pommel of his broadsword.

“I object.” He said it calmly, in English, almost as if he were bored, but his voice was deep and it resonated in the nave all the way up to the apse where Brìghde and her groom stood gaping.

“What ho!” bellowed Brìghde’s father as he scrambled around the end of the pew, his sword already drawn as he strode down the choir toward the nave and the stranger. “Who are ye an’ by what authority do ye object?”

“My own.” His accent was Sassenach with a hint of French. “I need that bride.”

Brìghde’s father gasped. “Ye canna burst into weddings and appropriate brides as if this were a merchant’s faire tent!”

“Watch me,” the giant said wryly and lifted a finger, whereupon three more well-armed mail-clad soldiers erupted from behind him and ran down the nave to the apse. The intruder engaged in swords with Brìghde’s father, and quite handily defeated him, for Walter Fàileach, once a famed swordsman, was forced to fight with his left hand. His left shoulder was not much better than his right.

The second soldier engaged the groom’s father, who had never been much of a swordsman at all.

The third soldier engaged the best man, which was somewhat of a struggle.

The last soldier picked Brìghde up, threw her over his shoulder, and sprinted right back out of the cathedral, trampling her fallen wimple and bouncing her all the way, her long black hair falling out of its coif and nearly dragging along the ground.

It was a most unpleasant experience, and even had she a mind to scream or fight, she was too out of breath to scream, it would be painful and futile to pound on the soldier’s well-armored back, and she couldn’t kick because her legs were clasped so tightly against the soldier’s chest.

Thus, she did not protest as the men ran for their horses. She did not protest when she was thrown over the mounted giant’s lap. She did not protest until they were well away from the kirk and she gathered her remaining bits of breath to yell over the wind and thundering hooves, “May I please sit up?!”

“Nay, my lady!” the giant yelled back, and pushed his horse to go faster. “’Twill have to wait until we are clear.”

Brìghde sighed and braced herself. She would have many bruises upon her belly and ribs tomorrow, as she was wedged in the tiny space between the pommel and knit metal.

No one could follow: It was five miles from her home to the kirk. The whole family had traversed it by carriage without a mounted guard. Brìghde’s menfolk would have to return to her home to fetch horses that could catch the knights. Even if they managed to do that in a timely fashion, they would not know where she had gone once they rounded the turn in the road and plunged sharply into the woods.

It was darker here and it would be darker still in an hour or two as the sun set and the fog rolled in. She did not know how they would go in the dark or even if they would. Stopping and lighting a fire might not give them away through the dense forest and fog, but she was quite sure these men would take no chance of being found.

Thus, with nothing to do but bear the offenses against her body and wait for an opportunity to answer nature’s call, Brìghde determined that she was going to chastise her mother mightily for not thinking to supply her a horse.

Soon the woods grew black and the soldiers slowed their horses to a walk. After some time passed, they stopped. Three men dismounted and one wrangled Brìghde from the giant’s lap, clearly expecting her to fight, but even if she wanted to, she was too tired and sore and stiff. He put her on her feet. Her head spun, her legs buckled, and she fell over. The giant dismounted and gently assisted her to rise and held her whilst she regained her balance.

“Well!” she croaked, still holding on to his gauntleted arm. “That was an adventure.”

“Mea culpa, my lady,” he said, “but we are in a rush.”

“Hoooo,” she breathed and plopped on her arse. Then she flopped on her back and clasped her fingers over her belly.

“My lady,” the man said solicitously. “We need to go.”

“I’ll not go anywhere until my head stops spinning. Didn’t my family tell you to get me my own horse?”

Silence. “What … are you talking about, my lady?”

“When my family hired you to abduct me, didn’t they tell you to get me my own horse? I’m quite sure you would have been paid enough.”

More silence. “Uh … ” he finally drawled, surprise in his voice. “No one hired us to abduct you.”

Brìghde lay there on the forest floor and opened her eyes to see four silhouettes looming over her. She thought for a moment. “You just … happened … to be out abducting brides today?”

“Aye.”

Now she was furious. “Of course! Because that level of planning is just beyond their ken!”

The four men exchanged glances, then one said, “Why would you think your family had anything to do with it?”

“I don’t want to discuss it. I’m too angry. Not at you.”

“Are you saying,” one of the men began carefully, “that you wanted to be abducted?”

“If you saw my groom, you’d want to be abducted too!” she snapped.

There was a minute pause and then they all started to laugh.

“Good Lord,” one of them wheezed.

“Who are you, then?” Brìghde demanded. “And where are you taking me?”

“I am Earl Grim Kenard,” the giant said. “I’m taking you home with me.”

“I have never heard of you,” she said flatly, “and I know who all our neighbors are on both sides of the border.”

“Aye, well, you missed one. My earldom is small and only five years old, with a bare fifteen miles of Scottish border, ’twixt Sheffield to the west and south, Tavendish to the east, and Dunham to the north. The king granted it to me for my service at Agincourt.”

“Hrmph. And you are taking me there?”

“Aye.”

“Why?”

“May we discuss this when we are farther along our journey?”

“Very well. All I ask is that you not ravish me.”

“We have no intention of it, my lady.”

“Well then!” She held her hands up so that the gentlemen could pull her to her feet. “Let’s be upon our way. Do we plan to walk through the night, good sir?”

“‘My lord.’”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Nobles who lower themselves to do their own abducting don’t get obeisance.”

He snorted. “I’m a warrior and, since I am not in France with Henry, I was itching for a battle. Sadly, your people disappointed.”

“They disappoint me every day.”

“Apparently. We will walk. You may ride, although we do not have a sidesaddle.”

“No need,” she replied. “I am able to ride astride, prefer it in fact, so long as no one need see my bare legs.”

“’Tis pitch black, my lady,” he answered dryly. “As well, we have business to tend.”

“Speaking of business to tend, I have need of a bit of privacy.”

The earl took her hand and began to pick his way carefully to a nearby tree, then released her. “Stay close, my lady,” he warned.

“Where would I go?” she asked with irritation. “’Tis dark, ’tis in a fog-bound forest, I have my wedding slippers on, I have no provisions, and I think I’d go with you even if you did want to ravish me.”

“That bad, eh?” a different man asked.

“You could not imagine.”

“I have no imagination,” said the earl.

“Aye, it was that bad.” Once she was finished and back at the horse’s side, he began to wrap a cloth ’round her face. “’Tis really not necessary. I did not cry out all this time.”

“Because you thought your family hired us,” he said dryly.

With a series of jostles and grunts, Brìghde was soon astride a very tall, very broad horse. The four conferred among themselves whilst she arranged herself, tucking her skirts around her legs to protect them from the chafing of the leather.

“Show your hands, my lady,” the earl said, after which a rope was wound ’round her wrists tightly enough so that she could not escape and loosely enough that she could hold onto the pommel.

They set out again, though now very slowly and impossibly quietly for four mailed men and their horses. The earl led the way for what must have been the better portion of two hours. Brìghde’s eyes had gradually accustomed themselves to the dark enough to see shadows, trees and such, downed logs they must traverse, a stream at which they stopped for a long drink and to replenish their flasks. Brìghde’s gag was removed and she was given to drink, of which she did, for a long while and requested more.

“Need you answer nature’s call again?” the earl asked, and again she wondered at his consideration, within the rules (she presumed there were rules) of abduction.

“No, but I might as well, whilst we’re here.”

He took the ropes off her wrists, then lifted her down from the horse. Once again, she stumbled, even more sore than before and starting to feel all her bruises. She grimaced and groaned with every footstep around a big tree. Once she had finished, she emerged to find all four with their heads together and murmuring. She was only a few feet away from them and still could barely hear their voices at all.

She tilted her ear back the way they had come and heard nothing but faint rustles she assumed were night rodents.

“We camp tonight, my lady,” whispered the earl in her ear.

She jumped, startled out of her wits, as she had not heard him approach even though she was listening to her surroundings.

“’Twill go very badly for you should you run.”

“I just told you I needed to be rescued,” she said snidely.

“And it could be you are cooperating and telling tales so as to effect your escape from us, in which case, I commend your quick thinking.”

“Fair,” she said approvingly, “and thank you for the compliment. However, I am drained and I hurt. I am also hungry. As you have promised not to ravish me, I shall seek the better part of valor.”

“We do not ravish you, you do not run or cry out? Is that our bargain then?”

“Also feed and water me, don’t bind or gag me, and don’t make me walk.”

“Done.”

With that, he lifted her back onto the horse without replacing her gag and bonds, and led it across the swift-running stream. The horse’s hoof slipped on the moss on the bank and it was all Brìghde could do to hold her seat whilst the four men and their beasts navigated into the stream.

Brìghde knew where they were. She had played here endlessly with her brothers during her childhood and was fairly certain of the terrain. Ever being one to turn a situation to her own advantage, she did not doubt her ability to do so now. The questions were: Could she think of it quickly enough and how long could she go without food?

“If I told you where we are and how to get to the nearest town away from the kirk, would you believe me?”

“No,” all four men said at once.

“Fair,” she said again. “But for my own comfort, I am compelled to suggest we ford this stream for a generous mile. There is a good area to make camp on this side of the stream, and ’twill not leave tracks, although I do not think anyone saw us go into the woods, nor would they think to look there, nor do they know who you are. Besides, they would all have had to spend time running to Fàileach to fetch their horses and armor, which is a good five miles away from the kirk. The other direction.”

No one moved or spoke for a good two or three minutes. When the silence lengthened, she said, “I know you don’t want to trust me, but I would really like to go to sleep.”

“As it happens,” the earl said slowly, “that was our exact plan.”

“Oh!” she chirped. “Now you have proof I am willing to fall in with you.”

“Do not make me regret trusting you, my lady,” he warned.

When she escaped, it wouldn’t be back to Walter Fàileach, for a certainty. She needed to plot.

They set off down the stream. Once they arrived at their campsite, Brìghde said softly, “There is a ledge some two hundred feet away from here under which you may light a fire.”

“How do you know these things, my lady?” one of the knights asked as the earl lifted her off his horse.

“My brothers and I played in these woods for years.”

No one said anything else, but presently she heard a flint and saw a spark in the darkness. She waited patiently whilst the earl and his men divested themselves of their mail, leaving them clad in their leather gambesons. By the meager light, they draped their mail over tree limbs, then loosened the girths on their horses’ saddles. They led the beasts to the stream from which they drank greedily. ’Twas a cool night and Brìghde’s wedding dress was heavy, but her slippers weren’t, and the moisture from the moss seeped through. She sighed. Cold, wet feet were the bane of her existence.

“My lady,” the earl said quietly as he led Brìghde to the fire and gallantly seated her on a coarse blanket, “you may sleep next to me and trust I will not ravish you, or you can sleep on your feet tied to a tree.”

“With you,” Brìghde said immediately.

“I cannot believe your groom was that undesirable.”

“The entire circumstance was untenable.”

The men chuckled low in their chests, then sat around the fire with their packs, digging in. She took her slippers off and set them by the fire to dry, then she stretched out to warm her feet. The earl threw a canvas sack in her lap before sitting beside her with his own.

“You came well prepared,” she muttered as she explored her sack to find a goodly amount of bread and cheese, as well as several pears. There was also a full bladder. She uncorked it, but the earl snatched it from her.

“Careful, my lady. ’Tis a fine vintage of wine I enjoy, but do not suck it down as if ’tis a cheap ale or fresh spring water.”

“Oh. Thank you,” she said as he gave it back to her. She sipped and savored it. “Good Lord, that is excellent.”

“I told you.”

Then Brìghde fell silent as she ate—the first meal she’d had since breakfast, after which the day had been taken up with wedding business. The bread was hearty. The cheese was of a quality to match the wine. The pears were crisp and sweet and perfectly complemented the cheese. “’Tis likely the most delicious meal I’ve ever had,” she muttered to herself around her bite. She might be a lady, but she had been brought up with boys and these men were warriors. They should have no reason to take offense at her lack of propriety.

“Hunger is the best sauce.”

“Indeed. May I fetch more water?”

“Nay,” he said as one of his men arose and went to the stream to fill a bladder. Whilst he was there, he settled the horses for the night. When he returned he handed the water to Brìghde without a word.

“Thank you.”

Brìghde had no idea what time it was, but now that she was a little rested, fed, watered, and her feet warm and dry, she was beginning to grow sleepy. It had been a very long day, and she was far more pleased with this ending than the one she was fated to endure. Fortunately, she had spent so many a night sleeping in this tiny, sheltered glade, this brother or that brother scattered about that it almost felt like home. She had a favored sleeping spot, but she wasn’t sure she would be … able to … make …

---

2

THE SOUND OF horse tack and men’s low murmurings awoke her at dawn. The fog was still thick and she sat up to look for the earl. There, next to the stream, through the fog, she saw a dark blob squatting, filling his flask whilst his men destroyed the evidence of their passing. A good tracker would be able to tell in the moss that someone had made camp here, but not even the best hunting dogs could follow a scent in the water.

“Good morn, my lady,” the earl said from above her suddenly.

She smiled and said, “Good morn to you, too, my lord.”

He held his hand out for her to take. She did, and, forgetting about her sore and bruised body, attempted to spring right to her feet, but instead was met with aches and pains all over. She arose with great difficulty, not bothering to hide her grunts and groans. Finally she was on her feet, but she wished for nothing more at the moment than to lie down and go back to sleep. Finally she gathered her courage and stretched against the pain. She groaned some more.

“You’re beautiful,” he said matter-of-factly, “which surprises me, really, but you need not fear me. You are not to my taste.”

She came down from her stretch. “What do you intend to do with me, then?”

“Wed you.”

Brìghde threw up her hands. “If ’tis not one forced marriage, ’tis another. What do I care? At least you have some manliness about you.”

He blinked, then began laughing after his men started to snicker. “You do not seem overly distressed, my lady.”

“Hrmph. I am property,” she said bitterly, “so does it matter what I think of my owner?”

“Not really,” he said blithely, then swung up onto his enormous dark red destrier with a luxurious black mane, tail, and feathers. “Let us be upon our way before the fog burns off. We will eat in the saddle.”

Brìghde bent and pulled the back of her skirt forward to tuck it into her girdle, making of her beautiful red and azure wedding kirtle a peasant woman’s working garb. She groaned whilst she did so—

“Are you going to mimic an old woman our entire journey?”

“Aye,” Brìghde groaned and struggled to stand upright, clutching her back. “I’ve never been thrown over a shoulder or the back of a horse before, nor have I struggled to stay in the saddle of a warhorse bound and gagged.”

“I could not have anticipated such a willing captive,” the earl said. “In the village, we will see if there are any horses for purchase. But for now, ’tis time for your creaky bones to move.”

With that, he signaled for one of his men-at-arms to pluck Brìghde off her feet and plop her onto the earl’s horse’s rump. The man handed her the earl’s pack, which she spread over her lap. The earl twisted to look at her whilst she arranged herself.

“My lady,” he said politely, “do not think to escape.”

She hooted. “I am escaping.”

“So you say.”

“To prove it yet again, I shall tell you. Continue in the stream. It feeds the village of Laight. There will be provisions there, an inn, stables for the horses. ’Tis a full day’s hard ride by road. How far it is or how long it will take by woods and in a stream, no less, I cannot guess.”

“Two days,” all four men said in unison.

“Ah, well then. You know we will need to camp again.”

“We did not set out upon this errand without knowing our way, my lady,” the earl said with irritation. “Stupid men don’t survive on the battlefield as long as we have.”

“Forgive me for my air of superiority, my lord,” she said haughtily. “I am only trying to help and to prove my trustworthiness. Please keep in mind that I do not know what you know.”

He harrumphed. “Very well.”

In the fog, she could only see that his hair was a dull gold and his eyes were dark. His skin was ruddy, his nose long and straight, his jaw strong, his teeth good, and his face overall, not loathsome.

She nodded. “You’ll do.”

His eyebrow rose and he chuckled. “I will, will I?”

“Of course, but compared to my groom, anyone would.”

His men laughed, and with that, the earl turned and tapped his horse into motion. The four horses were wading in the stream in no time, headed the direction Brìghde wanted to go.

“How far is your home?” she grunted as she adjusted her seat.

“Ninety miles.”

“What did you say your name was, again?”

“Grim Kenard.”

“You don’t seem very grim.” He growled, which made her snicker. “I am not terribly original, my lord.”

“Indeed,” he grumbled. “I may ravish you after all, for that. Listen carefully. ’Tis between ‘grim’ and ‘gram.’ Grem.”

“Oh, aye,” she said and attempted to pronounce it correctly.

“Well enough. So. Marriage?”

She sighed. “Do I have a choice?”

“No. You may be as amenable as you have been and be treated with respect, or you may fight us and be gagged and bound, but ’twould seem to me that simply being wed would free you from your circumstance. Was your betrothed a noble of consequence?”

“The second son of a clan chief.”

He grunted. “Couldn’t your father have made a better match for you?”

“He doesn’t care about me,” she scoffed. “It was sufficient for his purposes. It would make him furious were I to become an English countess.” And once she had the earl’s name, then she would escape. “But why me?”

“You were the most convenient noblewoman of marriageable age and circumstance I could find in the time I had.”

“Ah … you’re a Sassenach and I am Scots. We are enemies.”

“I am beyond caring.”

“Hm. Interesting. If you need a noble bride, would that not imply you also need an heir from her? If not also a spare?”

“Under normal circumstances, it would; however, I will not rape a woman, much less force her to bear my babe, so I had planned to gently woo and seduce you—”

At that, his men began to quietly snicker and snort.

“You made your task more difficult than it had to be, abducting her,” Brìghde observed. “Could you not have done that before offering marriage?”

“Time was of the essence, and aye, I am well aware that abducting a woman is not the most effective way to woo her; however, I would think treating her with kindness and respect would go far toward establishing some trust. Even if time were not of the essence, would your father have allowed me to court you?”

“Ah, nay. My marriage was arranged when we were children, and I would not even have my groom as a playmate, though our borders march. He is ugly and stupid and we hate each other. I didn’t want bairns from that ass, as I would be obliged to slay them in mercy.”

“And there it is. I do need an heir, that is true, but bedding you is not the most pleasant of thoughts for me and, I’m sure, even less so for you. Mayhap careful wooing,” he said snidely at his men, who now did not bother to hide their amusement, “will make a difference for both of us. But until I can force myself to bed you, I shall continue as I have always done.”

Brìghde found this very odd and a mite hurtful, should she be honest. She was bonny. She knew it because she had been told so her entire life. There were few men who saw her out and about, or visited her estate who did not watch her endlessly and, betimes, attempt to seduce or even force themselves upon her.

She is contracted, Walter would growl. Keep your eyes in your head.

Even the earl himself had remarked upon it. Why wouldn’t he want to swive her? Unless …

“You swive men, then?”

He laughed. He had a wonderful laugh. “No.”

That … hurt.

“My keep is full of women who are happy to see to my needs. I simply have a deep and abiding aversion to brunettes.” Then it was not specific to her. That made it a mite less hurtful. “Knowing that, then, will you accept my suit with the goal of bearing an heir?”

Having bairns was not her biggest goal in life, but it was what she was expected to do, had thought she would be doing anyway, and she’d rather do it with almost anybody but Roger.

“If you continue to treat me as kindly as you have thus far,” she mused, “I see no reason not to.”

“You do ken what I mean by bedding you, do you not?”

“Aye. You will swive me until I am with child.”

“And you know what swiving is?”

“I have brothers,” she drawled, which made him chuckle.

“What was so awful about your circumstance that you are willing to loan your womb to any man who abducts you?”

“Many reasons, which I may or may not tell you later, but my immediate concern was avoiding that jackanape’s spindle.”

All four of them laughed.

“This adventure has been far more preferable to swiving him, and at least I can bear to look at you without vomiting. Indeed, I should thank you. But since you did abduct me, I shall keep my gratitude to myself until you prove your claims of kindness, gentle wooing, and steadfastness.”

With great amusement, the earl said, “That, I can do.”

“So … why did you need a noblewoman to wed so urgently that you would risk abducting one, much less a Scot? If my people find out who you are, your small earldom will be as good as destroyed. Are Sassenach noblewomen that thin on the ground that you would risk it?”

He took a deep breath. “I needed a noble wife before I am killed, and, hopefully, a legitimate heir.”

“Killed?” she asked, now alarmed.

“’Tis a very long story and I would rather not think about it, much less tell it at the moment, and I would beg your leave to enjoy your very amusing cooperation as a respite from my problems. I will tell you anon.”

Brìghde could appreciate the need for a respite from one’s problems and she could also hear the weariness in his voice, so she would wait.

“If you would be so kind as to feed me … ” he said.

“Of course,” Brìghde said and dug in his pack. He held his hand over his shoulder, palm up. She slapped a good portion of bread into it. For herself, she looked for the cheese. The five of them ate in silence whilst the horses made relatively good time for picking through a stream.

“Pear.”

Without a word, Brìghde handed him one and continued to feed and water him thusly for the next half hour whilst she fed herself, almost giddy she had not greeted the day despoiled by that buffoon Roger.

“But since you are so cooperative and forthcoming,” Kenard said suddenly, breaking the companionable silence, “I would ask: Are you learned in the art of housekeeping? I would have simply assumed so, but you ride astride, so … ”

“I ride astride, as I am the only lass amongst a litter of lads, with barely a year between each of us. But aye, I was also trained in a noblewoman’s duties. My mother is a virago about it—that is what my father calls her, and not approvingly—and she trained me.”

“If you must be away from your groom so much that you will bargain your womb for the protection of my name, you and I may be able to fill each other’s needs. My earldom is in shambles.”

“Oh?”

“My castellan is—was—an excellent steward in his day. In fact, he built my earldom to what it is now. But he is old and feeble and deserves his rest. To be blunt, it has grown at such a rapid pace that he cannot keep up and my household has slipped into such chaos that I have noticed and it has begun to affect me, which I will not tolerate. He has found and attempted to train others, but they have not been able to do the job to his satisfaction. His standards are a bit above mine but that is an extra source of distress to him that now he cannot keep to his own expectations. I can offer you a title, a roof, food, wine, more coin than you can spend in a lifetime, and all the freedom you want once I know I can trust you. Ideally, I would like for you to bear me one or two sons and then rule the earldom in my stead so I can go back onto the battlefield where I belong.”

Kind, handsome, titled, wealthy, intelligent, and offering her the freedom to rule an earldom the way she wanted to in exchange for … a son. Mayhap. If he could bear to bed her. She might not want to escape at all.

“I am amenable to the bargain. I only need endure your amorous attentions—”

“Not amorous.”

“—until I produce at least one son—God grant me easy fertility—”

“Aye,” he agreed fervently. “But if you are not, I may be forced to use a surrogate, which I do not want to do, either.”

“—and in the meantime and forever after, I may rule your earldom. I am a power-hungry lass, I will have you know, and I covet the chance of having a fair bit. Aye, I can settle for being a countess with an iron fist, especially if you are gone most of the time and won’t be getting in my way.”

They all laughed.

“I need your assurance you will be absent.”

“With any luck, aye.”

“Also, that wine.”

“I did not expect the wine to be such a point in my favor. To the production of an heir, as you seem amenable to that, I need to have your word in turn that when the time comes, you will not gainsay me. I will leave you be otherwise and after a second son, you may take a lover as you please. I care not, but I will not rear another man’s get.”

“Considering whom I would have been obliged to bed last night, you are far more preferable, my lord. You have my word.”

“Very well, then.”

It was late afternoon when she heard the dogs, but from which direction, she did not know. “Stop, my lord.”

But his party had already halted. Brìghde twisted to look around, as did the earl and his men, but they did not stray from the stream.

“That’s my father’s voice,” she whispered. “My deerhound may be amongst that pack, and considering he has slept in my bed since he was a pup, he will know me instantly.”

With a sharp gesture from the earl, one of his men took off to the north, and one to the south. With a click of his tongue, he, Brìghde, and his last soldier continued onward. For Brìghde to leave the safety of the stream now when there were hunting dogs about would be the height of folly, and she only prayed that she would not be obliged to walk in it to throw off her scent. The foliage was dense here, too, and it was relatively dark, the forest an old one and little disturbed except by, perhaps, wee laddies exploring. Brìghde was not even sure her brothers had ever come this far.

Brìghde could feel the earl’s big body, tense now, whereas all day he had been relaxed. She did not know how much time had passed before one of his men returned from the north, but the sun was about to set.

“’Tis indeed her people, my lord. Perhaps thirty. Ten dogs, none deerhounds. I followed them into the village. They have settled at the inn for the night. They intend to return home early on the morrow to search elsewhere.”

“Very well,” the earl muttered. “We will make camp now, then, whilst we can see without aid of a fire.”

---

3

BRÌGHDE WAS TOO tired to do anything but eat and drink. The earl admonished her once again to sleep with him or sleep tied to a tree, but as she had the night before, she fell asleep before she could feel his arms around her.

It was pitch and the forest was absolutely still when she awoke to tend her needs. The earl was spooned against her back, his arm heavy in the curve of her waist. She moved slightly and his arm tightened just a bit. She did not know if he was awake or if it was a reflex. Carefully she inched out of his grasp, but as she stood, he grabbed her skirt and made her trip.

“Ooof,” she grunted.

“I told you not to run,” he growled.

She sighed. “Nature calls, I am thirsty, and I have every reason to stay with you. I did not want to wake you, particularly since your man is standing guard somewhere out there in the darkness.”

He released her slowly. “Do not bolt.” She attempted to hurry, but her body was sore and she groaned at every twitch of muscle. Still, he growled at her when she returned. “You took too long.”

“Shall I give you a detailed report?” she asked testily as she lay again on the blanket he had smoothed out for both of them, his strong chest against her back. Since he had no lust for her, she did not mind. It was no different from how her deerhound took over her bed of a night, and really, what was the earl but a human deerhound?

He made no answer but shifted to allow herself to settle so he could again drape his arm over her to make sure she did not run away.

The next time she awoke, the sun was high in the sky, the fog completely burned off. Hearing nothing, she quickly scanned the area. There was the earl’s red-and-black destrier calmly drinking from the stream. She closed her eyes.

“I know you’re awake, my lady,” the earl said dryly from behind her. “Do not go back to sleep.”

She groaned. “Where are your men?”

“Scouting. We are out of provisions and must go into the village today, whether your people are there or not.”

“Oh.”

“Come, ’tis time to be off.”

Brìghde got to her feet with less groaning than the day before, but still a bit. She picked up the blanket, shook it out, then folded it. “I’m hungry.”

“Sadly, the only thing I’ve to offer you is more wine.”

Her stomach rumbled. “I’ll take it!”

He laughed. “Here,” he said as he handed her the bladder. “Don’t drink too much, lest you fall off the back of the horse.”

She looked up with a smile, which she fought to keep on her face because now, in the sunlight and with her first opportunity to truly study him, she realized he was not only not loathsome, but possibly the most breathtaking man she had ever met—and she had met many a breathtaking man in her travels.

Until I can force myself to bed you …

… deep and abiding aversion to brunettes …

Brìghde drank deeply with her eyes closed to disguise her thoughts. He was much taller than anyone of her acquaintance, brawnier. His hair was a blonder red in the sunlight, his growing beard bright copper. His face was sharp and lean, his nose and jaw strong. His smile was … devastating.

After everything she had heard and seen, she had dreaded mating because she knew the only man she would ever swive was Roger. Thus, it had made her absolutely ill. But with this handsome giant in front of her and Roger suddenly removed from her future, she knew exactly what she was feeling.

She would not hesitate to swive her new betrothed.

However, if she were not careful with her expressions, he would know what she thought of him and, as she had never been able to bear mockery of any sort and she could not laugh at herself, she did not want to have to bear any manner of teasing should he catch her out.

Soon enough they were on the horse and into the stream, riding silently. Brìghde had nothing to say and she doubted the earl wanted her to make any noise anyway. The sun had traversed into the west enough to become blinding when one of the earl’s scouts appeared.

“My lady’s people are gone, my lord, back to their lands. I have secured lodgings and food for us and the horses, and found a priest.”

“Another horse?”

“I felt it best to leave that to your judgment, my lord. There are few for sale, and they are of questionable quality. Yet there is an impoverished knight seeking to sell his destrier and tack. I would have purchased it, but I did not know if my lady would be amenable to riding so much farther on a warhorse.”

“What say you, my lady?” the earl asked over his shoulder.

“’Tis preferable to riding on a rump or squeezed between your mailed belly and your pommel with your knees poking my ribs.”

He chuckled. “Aye, then. I shall see to it on the morrow.”

It was close to sunset when they made the road at the outskirts of the village. They gathered no attention at all in such a large town. Once at a stable, a young groom met them and helped Brìghde dismount.

The earl dismounted and turned to Brìghde, who now could see that he was haggard and clearly exhausted. “I know you are hungry, as am I, so first we will—

“My lord, the priest awaits,” his man murmured.

“—go see the priest,” the earl sighed heavily.

She nodded.

They walked down the lane to the kirk and entered its cool dimness, where the rest of the earl’s contingent was also awaiting them.

The five of them waited patiently in the pews whilst the priest finished speaking to an old woman, then sent her on her way with a smile.

“You are the two needin’ to be wed?”

As one, Brìghde and the earl said, “Aye.”

The priest’s brow rose and he looked at Brìghde. “Where’s your father?”

“We don’t need him,” the earl rumbled. “We are of age, not related, and consenting.”

“Ye don’t need me fer that, then.”

“We need your register.”

“Aye, then. Your name, please?” he asked Brìghde once they reached the book.

“Lady Brìghde Fàileach, daughter of Walter Fàileach, clan chief of Fàileach. That’s B—”

“What?!”

Brìghde, startled, jumped at the earl’s bellow. “What what, my lord?”

“You are not Lady Margaret Dunham?”

“If I were,” she said testily, “I would have said Lady Margaret Dunham.”

“I heard the banns myself!” Kenard insisted.

“Aye, you did! Lady Margaret wed my brother in the ceremony just before the one you interrupted. ’Twas a double wedding. I was to wed Roger MacFhionnlaigh, thereby uniting our lands between MacFhionnlaigh and Dunham.”

His men groaned, and the earl clapped his hands to his face. He dropped his head back and began to pace.

“You snatched the wrong woman?” Brìghde asked incredulously.

“I snatched the wrong woman,” he croaked.

The priest heaved an irritated sigh. “If ye’ve no need of me services, I’ve other things to do.”

No one spoke. Brìghde was suddenly on the verge of tears, afraid that, having made such a grievous error, the earl would simply take her back. If he did, she would request he take her to her brother at Dunham. The earl had been generous thus far, and ’twas not her fault!

“How can I turn this to my advantage?” Kenard whispered at the ceiling as he paced, his hands clasped behind his neck.

“Did you need to wed Lady Margaret specifically?”

“Aye.”

“You cannot wed she who was already wed when you arrived, and she is now my sister-in-law … ”

Kenard grasped her upper arm—hard—and dragged her out of the kirk and into the lane. His men followed.

“You said you know all your neighbors to the north and south of you, save me. Do you know the Duke of Sheffield?”

“Of him, though I have never met him. Walter—my father—thinks he is not of fit wit to be a duke.”

“He’s right, but that is neither here nor there. As I said, the dukedom of Sheffield is my neighbor to the south and west. Sheffield was unofficially promised my speck of land before the king granted them to me.”

She grimaced.

“’Tis worse than that. Sheffield is my liege, and he has ever been envious of my friendship with King Henry. If I die without a wife or issue, there is a very good chance he can get my land. As long as I was on the battlefield, he was content to wait until I was killed, but I am a very hard man to kill. A year and a half ago, Henry sent me home to solidify my earldom so that I could return to the battlefield with a strong estate that could support and defend itself against a border war. It has been able to support itself for three years, but it could not defend itself nor could it withstand a siege for long. It has taken me that long to build another army after Henry took most of my force with him to France. Now, it can both defend itself and withstand a siege, so I thought I would be free to go back to France. But a month ago, I was warned that Sheffield has grown impatient with my refusal to die, and is plotting to do it himself.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Brìghde breathed. “You need a wife to assure your estate’s longevity in the case of your death.”

“Aye, that, but here is the nut of it: Sheffield is a man who, it is rumored, killed his cousin and his cousin’s legitimate heir—a babe—to gain the dukedom. The duchess also mysteriously disappeared. Since this happened thirty years and two kings ago, few people remember or care. Henry knows of these rumors, but can do nothing, even if he had time. He doesn’t like Sheffield, doesn’t trust him, but Sheffield is a title that goes back centuries and thus far, Sheffield has proven his loyalty to Henry.

“If I die under suspicious circumstances, Henry will never let him have my lands. Sheffield knows this; thus, his plot to kill me without raising Henry’s suspicion will take time to implement. If I am wed to a noblewoman and I die suspiciously or not, Henry will not let him have those lands, as he will back my wife and her right to it, so killing her would be suspicious and futile. If I also have a legitimate heir, there is no point to killing me at all, as he will have to go through three people and that is nothing but suspicious when he already has a cloud hanging over him.

“Know this: I do not fear death. I fear for the future of my family, as he will not kill me first. He is evil and cruel and will delight in killing everyone for the sport of it in front of me before killing me.”

Brìghde closed her eyes, took a deep breath and released it slowly through puffed cheeks, suddenly not so sure about this bargain after all. Yet she had her own weapon and the wherewithal to use it. “I ken you need a noble bride and quickly. But why do you need Lady Margaret specifically?”

“Firstly, if Dunham found out who snatched his daughter, he would descend upon me, but most of Dunham’s force is in France fighting my force, so holding off that siege indefinitely would be no feat. It would give me time to woo and seduce Lady Margaret to my side. I could also hold off Fàileach—” She didn’t bother to correct his atrocious attempt at Gaelic. “—if he could be arsed to care enough to join in, and I gambled that he wouldn’t, as I am told Dunham and Fàileach don’t much care for each other.”

Brìghde nodded. “That’s true. My brothers have all but disavowed Fàileach so he would not lift a finger to avenge an insult to Dunham, allied by marriage or not.”

“Secondly, I did not know you existed.”

She harrumphed. “That is because I have been held prisoner for the last three years and I doubt you had any reason to scout MacFhionnlaigh.”

“Indeed. But now Fàileach has a reason to lay siege to me, and I will have to fend off him and MacFhionnlaigh and Dunham, for you are his son-in-law’s sister. I cannot hold off a siege of that magnitude. Sheffield won’t have to do anything, Tavendish—my neighbor to the east—won’t assist as I have committed a vile act of war, and Henry—”

“You won’t have to outlast any siege at all!” she chirped, interrupting him as excitement pooled in her breast.

That brought the earl up short. “Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“Firstly, Dunham will also not lift a finger on my behalf.”

“Why not?”

“You may never have heard of me, but I am infamous throughout the Lowlands for outwitting Walter—we don’t refer to him as our father—time and time again. Everyone, including Walter, will assume that I had arranged for my own abduction.”

Kenard and all his men gaped at her.

“Aye, he’s enraged right now, but my mother, brothers, and Dunham are laughing themselves silly that I did it again, in spite of being held at swordpoint, and then it will spread to the other clans and Walter will be humiliated he canna keep his daughter under control or outwit her. I will be blunt: I need the protection of your name so that I will be forever free of MacFhionnlaigh and Fàileach, which is why I am willing to stand as assurance against your death and provide an heir in trade for it.

“I will write my brother and tell him ’twas indeed a plot ’twixt you and me, which was in the making for some time. Walter will want to make war on me for outwitting and defying him, but he has to cross Dunham lands to do it, and Dunham won’t allow that. MacFhionnlaigh will do nothing alone as he is wet as moss and as easily trampled. Furthermore, Dunham and your Sassenach neighbor to the east, Tavendish, are good friends, no matter that the Scottish border separates them. Through me, you would be allied with Dunham and Tavendish, who might assist you with Sheffield if you laid out your plight to them. You didn’t commit a vile act of war by abducting an enemy bride, my lord. You conspired with that cunning Fàileach lass for your own purposes and hers, which are well known, and came out politically stronger with two strong nobles at your back. Your king canna be but even more impressed with you than he is now.”

The earl immediately offered his hand for her to shake. “Done.”

---

4

GRIMME REMAINED silent the entire next day, sunrise having made his panicked plan to abduct a bride look utterly foolish. He knew better than to panic and normally, panic was not something he felt. But this was not war; it was politics, about which Grimme knew little. He was a knight, a soldier, and a commander. He need not worry himself with anything but that his men functioned well together, and if they didn’t, to find out why and repair the situation.

The night before, all five of them had taken their meal in the taproom, Lady Brìghde happily eating and drinking all of them to shame. Of the inn’s proprietor, she had requested parchment, quill, ink, and sealing wax.

“Bra— Bri— Bre— By the bye, how in God’s name do you pronounce your name?”

“Bree-juh.”

“In English.”

“Oh. Bridget. Fallack.”

“Thank you. Do not expect me to pronounce it in Gaelic, Bridget.”

“Very well,” she said smartly, then drawled, “Grim.”

He grunted. “Point taken.”

The writing implements arrived. Brìghde looked at Grimme. “Do you have anything you want to say?”

“I’ll leave that to you, as he’s your brother.”

Brìghde sat up and began to write. “‘Dearest Baldy—’”

“What?”

“His name is Archibald, but I always called him ‘Baldy’ because I am his bratty younger sister and that is my purpose in life. This way, he will know ’tis from me, in case my penmanship does not convince him. ‘I have wed Earl—’ How do you spell your name?” She wrote carefully as he spelled. “‘—Grimme Kyneward. Inform Walter that the abduction ’twas a plot of my and my husband’s own devising because I will not be bent to his will. Be sure to press the point that I will not be bent to his will, and demand he admit it was an ingenious plot. In writing.’”

Grimme laughed.

“‘Further, my husband the earl wishes to assure him that any attack on Kyneward will be met with fatal force.’”

Grimme and his knights snorted. “Seven hundred men is not a fatal force.”

“‘If he cannot be dissuaded, please discourage his march across Dunham lands. Your sister, Countess Budgie Kyneward.’”

That had made Grimme grin. “Budgie?”

She held up a finger. “Don’t you dare. ‘P.S. Please have Mum send my possessions to—’” She looked at him expectantly.

“Kyneward Keep. South to Catlowdy then twenty miles west to Hogarth and ’tis twenty miles south beyond that.”

She wrote. “‘—and if she cannot do that, please at least send me Mercury.’”

“What’s Mercury?”

“My dog. Sign this.” He did. Quite satisfied, she folded the parchment, wrote the direction on it, dripped wax on it and slid it over to Grimme for his ring’s seal, then gave it to one of his knights.

Grimme sighed, handed the man some coin, pointed at another knight, and muttered, “You two leave at first light for Dunham.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Thank you!” she said brightly. “Did you purchase something for me to wear that is better than my wedding dress?”

“Aye, my lady,” said one of his men and gave her a package with breeches, a shirt, and boots. “You’re about the size of my page.”

“Oh, well done, good sir! I don’t have to wear a dress all the way.”

Grimme’s men bid their good eves and went to sleep in the stable. Grimme had been eyeing a tavern wench who matched his tastes precisely and was about to escort Brìghde to the room he’d taken for her so he could fuck the wench. However, it occurred to him that just because he did not find his little wife to be at all to his taste—the exact opposite of it, in fact—did not mean that no other man felt the same way.

She was attracting a lot of attention. She wasn’t trying to attract attention. She was a beautiful noblewoman in a tavern full of men who weren’t used to seeing noblewomen, beautiful or otherwise. He looked at her more closely.

Aye, she was comely. She was short, reaching only to Grimme’s shoulder, if that. She had long, thick midnight-black hair that shimmered blue in the sunlight. She had the biggest green eyes he had ever seen punctuated by thick black lashes in a bit of a heart-shaped face, with a straight but delicate nose. Her skin was pale, with a plethora of very faint freckles. From what he could tell of her body from having slept next to it for two nights, she was curvaceous with generous breasts and hips.

He liked curvaceous, all breasts and hips and arse, but there was that blonde over there awaiting him. “Time for bed, Brìghde, and you cannot stay down here without me. Long day ahead.”

Grimme did not awaken terribly rested, as he had indeed spent his wedding night fucking the blonde, and breakfast was again a competition who could eat and drink the most, with a bright and well-rested Brìghde, dressed in boy’s clothes and looking in no way like a boy, winning handily.

The second she saw the war stallion he had purchased—named Troy—she practically ordered Grimme to give her coin to buy pears, which she promptly shoveled into the beast’s mouth.

Once on the road south, both beast and saddle far too big for a tiny woman like Brìghde, she was as silent as Grimme and his remaining man-at-arms, but she was an excellent horsewoman, keeping up with the punishing pace he set, and did not complain except for her incessant groaning whenever she moved a muscle. Whenever they slowed from a canter to a walk to rest their mounts, she happily busied herself looking at the scenery as if she had never seen a tree or a meadow or a brook.

When they halted for the night some ways off the road in a small copse, though she could not lift the saddle off the horse, she requested of his man a currycomb and set herself to grooming the animal and speaking to him as if he would answer her questions. Grimme watched her work in the boy’s clothes, stroke and scratch the beast, saying,

“Who’s a good laddie? You’re a good laddie, aye, you are.”

“That is a temporary mount, my lady,” Grimme said wearily.

“Not anymore,” she said crisply. “Oh, what a good lad.” Troy craned his neck around so he could get his cheeks scratched too, and pulled on her sleeve with his lips then snuffled all the way up her arm until he was snuffling at her cheek and pulling her braid. “What’s this? Why, ’tis more pears! For you! He’s a good lad. Who’s a good lad? You’re a good lad. I will grant you dessert before your supper.”

“I thought you gave him all the pears.”

“I bought two bags.”

“You’re going to make a pet out of a destrier?”

“I make a pet out of every animal who catches my fancy. Aye, I do, don’t I? And he is absolutely breathtaking, aye, you are. But ’tis because of his name, mostly. Troy. You’re a Trojan horse!” She chortled at her own jest, making Grimme roll his eyes. “Somebody had a sense of humor, aye, they did, didn’t they, laddie?”

“Or he really is that much of a knight,” his man muttered.

“He won’t be by the time we get home,” Grimme retorted.

By the time she had given him two rations of oats and they had all bedded down, Grimme still sleeping with his arm in the curve of Brìghde’s waist, the beast was in love with her.

Grimme had dodged matrimony for years but now he’d married a strange girl who had more motive to wed anybody but her intended. Grimme was an earl, true, but that was mostly parchment. Other than his reputation as a knight, no one knew who he was. He had very little power, very little land, and a small keep. But what he did have was men and money. Aye, most of his army was in France, but Grimme had spent the last year and a half gathering more men to rebuild it. He could do that because his father was clever and had nurtured Grimme’s earnings from the lists and spoils of war and profits from his various enterprises, and turned it into a moderate fortune with wise investments and strict control of the purse-strings. Several seasons of good weather had helped. Grimme chafed under his father’s thriftiness, but knew it to be for the better.

Though Grimme was relatively wealthy in coin, he was land poor—yet Duke Sheffield wanted Grimme’s measly holdings anyway. Grimme could not, in all honesty, blame Sheffield for being angry about it when he had had good reason to expect it. What he could blame Sheffield for was his sudden need to possess everything that Grimme loved. King Henry had decreed the lands to be Grimme’s and Sheffield could not go against the king without incurring his wrath. Grimme had sworn fealty to Duke Sheffield, which left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he had no choice if he wanted to be an earl.

And he did.

’Twas not every day the bastard son of a merchant was elevated to nobility.

Now, on their second day homeward, he was in a bit better mood, or at least enough to start getting to know this girl he’d married.

“How old are you?” Grimme asked. Not that it would matter.

“Two and twenty. You?”

Not a mere girl, then. “Six and twenty.”

She was clearly surprised. “That is a bit young to be a newly made earl, is it not?”

“I grew into my frame quickly, and was able to finish my apprenticeship as page and squire well before usual, attained knighthood, then rode out onto the battlefield.”

“And you are also more clever than usual, apparently.”

He shrugged listlessly. “Not clever enough, if the last three days is anything to consider.”

“You are having second thoughts?”

He took a deep breath and decided to confess. “I am now dismayed that I felt I had to abduct a bride at all. I was advised to take my time and find a noblewoman to wed the usual way of nobility, but I cannot think of one noble in England who would wed their girl to me, I felt pressed for time, and I panicked. At the moment, I am contemplating how very wrong it could have gone if I’d snatched the woman I meant to.”

“Ah,” she said softly.

“I am a soldier. I am accustomed to taking what I want, vanquishing people without thought to their wants, because that is the nature of war. I find myself in a war of politics that I cannot simply hack my way through. I do not know how to wage this war. I assure you, I am not usually this dimwitted.”

“Does it not ease your mind a bit that I needed to be rescued and thus, it benefited both of us?”

He shook his head. “That I did not snatch the woman I meant to means I failed my quest. I do not consider near misses, when the cause is mistakes I made, to be victories. I do not like to credit luck, as luck is outside my control and I cannot tolerate that which is outside my control. I may have won this battle, but I won in spite of my mistakes, not because of my intellect, skill, and experience.”

“Not luck,” she returned. “Never luck. ’Tis God’s hand.”

He pursed his lips and thought about that. If ’twere God’s hand, then God had also planted the panic in his breast that sent him on this quest.

“I must ponder that a bit more. It sits little better than luck, for I have ever been aware of what God wants me to do. Why would He keep such a task from me?”

“Mayhap He did not want you to ponder it so much that you decided He would never ask you to do such a thing, and ’twas your fear driving you to it, and therefore would decide against it.”

He looked at her sharply. “You speak as if you know God’s will.”

She shook her head. “Nay. I assume my success is God’s will.”

“And your failures?”

She looked at him and soberly said, “I never fail. Success may take time, and what you consider failure, to me is only God protecting me from an unfortunate end. The only question of success is when and what circumstances I must endure and plot against to ensure the success He is guiding me toward.”

He understood exactly what she was saying and in general, she was right, but he could not see past the fact that he had snatched the wrong woman.

“You failed at outwitting your father,” he persisted.

“I had to endure the wedding and marriage to get away from Walter to plot against people who are easily led,” she corrected. “God removed from me that burden. I was, in fact, plotting my own abduction, but I could not go anywhere without Walter’s hand-chosen guard. I wasn’t allowed to ride any but the slowest horses in the stables. Thus, I could not slip the fortress, nor could I outwit or outrun my guard, and they are immune to my charms.”

“Oh?”

“Not that,” she huffed. “They are Walter’s closest and most trusted men. They also hate me because he does, so they were eager to have me under their thumb.”

“That’s not why they hate you and that’s not what they wanted you under,” his man said matter-of-factly.

The earl barked a laugh, but Brìghde said, “Very astute of you and also true, but I was not going to crow about my irresistibility in front of a man who finds me resistible.” Grimme and his man exchanged grins. “If he ever even suspected one of them had taken advantage of their opportunities to throw my skirt up, he’d have them killed in the most painful and long-lasting way possible.”

“I must ponder this,” Grimme repeated slowly, chirruping his horse into a canter and leading in silence until the horses needed to rest.

“Tell me of your household,” she said. “I would be at least a little prepared for what I might find. You said it is in shambles?”

“Aye,” he sighed, wiping his hand down his face. It did not bother him until it affected him directly, but that was happening more and more often. If Brìghde could do what she said she could do, then mayhap he should simply accept that it was God’s grace and pray to feel gratitude he did not yet. He crossed himself.

“My castellan is also my father,” he began. “My legitimate brothers—I have three—have no use for him. His wife and mistresses, including my mother, are all dead, and he was tired of the demands of being a merchant, so I asked him to come live with me and he took it upon himself to build my earldom for the same reasons you are eager to take his place.”

“Why did you take him in?” Brìghde asked sharply. “Not one of Fàileach’s children would take him in were he destitute, so your brothers must have their reasons. Why do you not have such a reason?”

Grimme shrugged. “I love him. I enjoy his company. I am grateful to him for my profession and my wealth. You see, my legitimate brothers got as much attention from him as they would allow, but their mother was bitter, and she poisoned their minds against him. Also, I am twenty years younger than my next oldest legitimate brother, and they resent that my father set me up as well and gave me his surname. So they twisted it in their minds that I am his favorite, when I am not. And then there’s my next oldest brother, who is also a bastard. His mother died when he was an infant, so my mother reared us together until I was sent for a page and he disappeared for a while. He’s a thief by trade and never made any effort to hide it, so our legitimate brothers despise him for his own acts. I’m quite sure my father has other bastards elsewhere and I have no doubt he either supported them or doesn’t know they exist.”

He slid a glance at Lady Brìghde to see that her mouth was pursed in surprise. “You must admit, it is odd. Most men don’t acknowledge their bastards.”

“Aye, and that is what my legitimate brothers would prefer.”

“You have spoken with them?”

“Nay, ’tis what my father confessed to me once in a drunken stupor. They are successful merchants, as my father was, but they resent that though I am a bastard, I have done as well as they.”

“And then you earned an earldom.”

“I don’t know if they know about that. You questioned my youth; ’tis because my father had the funds to outfit me as a page and squire and was friends with a very old knight who was desperate for apprentices and would sponsor me as if I were nobility, for I could fight in his stead. My father could see no brighter future for me than as a knight, as I was ill-suited to commerce and too restless to be a smith or scholar, and did not take pleasure in scratching out a living stealing, as my brother did. Does.”

“I cannot imagine a father who loves his legitimate sons, much less his bastards.”

“You will see. My hope is that you and he rub along well with each other.”

“I, too. You have women in your keep to see to your needs, you said? You plow the maidservants?”

“I do, but my four mistresses take precedence.” He grinned at her stunned expression.

“Is your lust so vast that you must keep a stable of paramours?”

“That is an odd thing for a lady virgin to ask, particularly when she is your wife and ’tis not proper to share such intimate details.”

“I have six brothers,” she said flatly. “They talk frankly and vulgarly. I have heard and seen many things I should not have and would rather not have. My sensibilities will not be offended by anything you say, and I feel it is something I must know to do my duty.”

“It is not. Your curiosity is aroused.”

“Are they or are they not part of the household?”

“Aye.”

“Am I or am I not now the ruler of said household?”

“Hrmph. Very well, then. Remember you asked. Aye, my lust is that vast. ’Tis a Kyneward trait. I can break any one woman with my lust, and I have, every last one.”

She gaped at him, then she started to chuckle. Then she started to laugh. “Break her?!” she squealed, laughing until she was snorting and squeezing tears out of her eyes. She mimicked nearly falling out of the saddle.

He glared at her. “I am glad that amused you, Budgie—” He gave her a smug smile when she stopped laughing and glared back.

Then she snickered until she snorted again. “‘Break her.’”

“—but I say that in all seriousness.”

She looked to Grimme’s man-at-arms for confirmation, which irritated him.

“’Tis true, my lady.”

“Oh. Huh.”

“You think I boast, but rather, ’tis a complaint. ’Tis frustrating to enjoy a woman for some time and then hear her say, ‘I cannot accommodate you further. My body hurts.’ Or ‘I will not do this thing you ask of me.’ Or ‘I am with your child.’ Then, I must find another. ’Tis why I keep them all near. Each enjoys something the others will not do and I rotate amongst them to give their bodies time to recover. Not one of them alone could satisfy all my tastes or the frequency I demand. ’Tis also why I need a maidservant.”

“Or three,” his man muttered.

Grimme laughed. “Aye, that too. And I take my opportunities when I am at war or traveling.”

“Oh,” Brìghde said, seeming a little dazed. “Well. Then.” She gathered herself enough to ask, “Do you have children?”

“Aye, four sons.”

“I would hope you do not show any favoritism toward them than any child I might bear you.”

“Nay. My boys believe each other to be my favorite, but I have none. They are different. They have different needs. They are different ages. Their needs change as they grow, wax and wane. Further, it depends on how much their mothers want or expect or allow me to do. So whether I show favoritism or not, they believe that I do. I cannot make them understand.”

“Ah. We do not have that problem. Walter hates all his sons equally, and I far more than them.”

“I cannot imagine that.”

“So! Your household functions around your women?”

“It does indeed. They demand much, and they refuse to obey my father.”

“Why do you not rein them in a bit? Surely you can order them to obey your father.”

“Oh, no. I do not involve myself in household affairs. ’Twould be a disaster for me should I get between four women.”

“Five, now,” Lady Brìghde said dryly.

Grimme and his knight laughed. “They get along well—”

Brìghde hooted. At that, his man did, in fact, snicker.

Grimme scowled at both of them. “—and they know what my quest was, so they are prepared to welcome another woman into the household.”

“Welcome,” she snorted. “Why did you not simply wed one of them and declare one of her sons your heir?”

He hesitated. “I needed to wed a noblewoman.”

She looked at him for quite a while, her eyes narrowed. It was possible this girl could see through his vague answer to the truth, but it didn’t matter. If she was as quick-witted as she seemed, she had probably already deduced and if not now, she would soon enough.

But the only thing she said was, “Your stamina is commendable.” Again Grimme laughed. “Well? Tell me of them.”

“There is Emelisse, with whom I have been for eleven years.”

She gasped. “Why, that would have made you fifteen when you bedded her!”

“Aye. She is five years older than I and the mother of my two oldest. Ardith has no children. Dillena is the mother of my next oldest. Maebh is the mother of my youngest.”

“French, English, Welsh, and Irish, respectively.”

Grimme cast her a quick glance. “Aye.”

“And a Scots wife. Your children?”

“I have no daughters. My sons are Gaston, who is ten—”

“Sweet Mary and Joseph! You were a father at sixteen!”

“Aye. ’Twas why I went on the battlefield and lists early. I had a family to feed.”

“I find that quite commendable also, that you did not abandon them.”

“My father didn’t abandon his bastards or their mothers, thus, it didn’t occur to me to abandon mine. Max is nine, Terrwyn is seven, and Pierce is five, so I had had four children by the time I was twenty-one.”

“And you haven’t had another in five years?”

He slid a look at her. “Ardith is learned in remaining without child. I assume she has taught the others. I prefer it that way. I do not want any more children with them.”

She pursed her lips. “I see.” What did she see? “You have a bit of a French accent. Where is your birthplace?”

“London. I spent most of my adolescence in France. I was there so long I not only acquired the language, but also an accent. The wine you enjoyed is from Bordeaux.”

“You said your earldom is only five years old?”

He nodded. “It was granted to me at Agincourt, on my twenty-first birthday. It was in need of repair, so in between my knightly duties of battle, I competed on the lists and bred my stallion to build my coin chest, whilst my father turned Kyneward into a proper keep, villeins, crops, sheep, suchlike.”

“How many servants? How many serfs or villeins?”

“My father will know. What do you know of husbandry?”

“Enough to get myself in trouble,” she quipped.

Brìghde was sounding better and better. “You read then? Write? Do sums?”

“Why, of course! Who ever heard of a castellain who could not keep the books?”

“Are noblewomen not usually sent away to a convent or such to learn … something other than reading and writing?”

“I was sent to a convent when I was twelve, aye, and we learned to read and write and sum. But since I already knew how to do those things, it was terribly boring. I didn’t have any friends to help ease the time. I can play the lyre very well, but I don’t like it enough to practice on my own. I can embroider, too, but ’tis difficult for me to sit still and do such fine work. I loved my history and philosophy classes, but not enough to stay. I was supposed to be there six years; however, because it was boring, I ran away. It took me three years to get home, and I did not know until I returned that Walter had never meant to send for me until it was time to marry Roger. He was furious.”

“Ahhh, that is why you were so competent in the woods.”

“One reason.”

“What if he had sent you back?”

“I would have left and found another way in the world. I shouldn’t have gone home at all, but I was tired of scraping by and I missed my comforts—and then I was promptly imprisoned, so that was an embarrassing lapse in judgment.”

“You seem to have led an unusual childhood.”

“I am the fifth child, only daughter, of seven children. Walter was angry with my mother for producing me for he had a vanity that he could have seven sons, as he was a seventh son.”

“A seventh son is the head of a clan?”

Lady Brìghde shrugged her shoulders. “They all died in the plague. Or so I am told.”

“You do not believe that?”

“I would not be surprised should I find he had murdered one or two of them, mayhap three, when the plague did not oblige him. When you took me, he had a sword in my back.”

“That is often the case with willful daughters, and clearly you are one.”

She cast him a grin. “Indeed, but I was not speaking figuratively. He had the point of it in my back. If I moved a muscle, I was dead.”

“I believe I begin to see why abduction was preferable.”

“Aye, it has been most agreeable. Should we continue thusly, I think I shall be very happy.”

Suddenly troubled, he said, “Loyalty does not seem to be one of your virtues.”

Lady Brìghde scoffed bitterly. “Loyalty is a weapon used by those who demand it. You are supposed to be loyal to your liege, but he is evil and wants to kill you.”

“Aye, but my liege’s interests are the king’s interests, and the king is my friend. He and I share a mutual respect, and I am loyal to him because he is worthy of it. It is unfortunate that I must follow the chain of command to do so. As I am one who demands loyalty, I pray you not force me to regret trusting you.”

“Keep your word and enforce my position as castellain, and I will have no reason to want to betray you. My loyalty can be earned, my lord, but it cannot be compelled.”

---

5

THE JOURNEY FROM Fàileach to Hogarth, the biggest town closest to Kyneward, took another day, and Brìghde and Lord Kyneward chatted happily for the whole of it. He was witty and learned, even for a young man who had spent most of his life on a battlefield, as both his father and the ancient knight for whom he had served as page and squire valued education. Further, Brìghde engaged his man-at-arms in conversation as well, drawing him out, learning of him. It was easier to rule a household when one knew who was in it.

Every night, the earl slept with her for reasons she did not know, but did not mind.

“I’m not going to run away,” she had said testily, although, she thought as he draped his bare arm over her waist, he did make a fine substitute for her dog.

He did not explain himself.

The closer they got to Kyneward, the more Brìghde looked forward to taking over as castellain until she was quivering in anticipation. She would miss her mother, of course, but it meant she would be in total control, without having to do everything the way her mother did it, having to avoid Walter, having nothing at all to do in the MacFhionnlaigh household where she would not be a countess and enduring Roger’s mother to boot, or having to tip-toe around the four women—seven including maidservants—her husband was bedding. She felt it best to keep that to herself. If he didn’t know how that many women could share a man’s bed and not have strife, he would never know what Brìghde might have to do to them to rule the household.

They might not obey the earl’s father, but they would obey Brìghde with or without the earl’s sanction. Indeed, her mother had broken more than a few contentious women over her knee, as had her mother before her, and Brìghde was her mother’s daughter.

“Brìghde,” asked the earl as they drew closer to Kyneward land, “do you think it is possible we will both benefit disproportionately from this arrangement?”

“If there is to be an arrangement, it should always be disproportionately advantageous.”

He laughed. “You are delightful company, my lady. Do you perchance play chess?”

“Aye, I do!”

“Excellent. Ahead is the village of Hogarth. ’Tis twenty more miles to Kyneward, but there is a smaller hamlet between the two.”

Hogarth was in fact quite a big town, with fine clothiers and merchants of other refined goods that were not to be had in tiny hamlets and villages. There were several inns and liveries, and many, many taverns.

“When you are settled,” Kyneward said as they stopped at a livery and took an inn for the night, “we will come outfit you as befits a countess. We would do that tomorrow, but it will take many days and I am eager to get home to my family.”

“My lord—”

“Grimme.”

“Thank you. Grimme. I have nothing to wear but my wedding dress and these clothes for a lad. Surely we could find something already made that I can wear until we can shop properly? And as to that, I have nothing else either. Brush, hairpins, dagger.”

He grimaced. “Of course. I apologize.”

“I must also go to the kirk.”

“I, too,” said the earl, surprising her.

“You do not seem the devout sort,” she said as they walked in the direction the innkeeper had pointed.

“As much as I can be, whilst keeping a harem,” he grinned at her.

She was still laughing when they entered, and he poked his elbow in her ribs to make her stop laughing, but she could barely bite back her giggles.

“Shhh,” he teased, then whispered, “What are you praying for?”

“I want to give thanks for my disproportionate advantage. And you?”

“Same thing.”

THE EARL AGAIN slept with her.

“We’re not in the forest anymore, my lord.”

“It occurred to me that I should not have left you alone in the room in Laight. This inn is far nicer than the one there, but I do not want to house a woman who is in my care in a room alone. If you were not my wife, I would sleep on the floor or have my man stand watch, but he also must rest if he is to be of any use to me.”

She shrugged. Why not. Nothing untoward would happen and even if something did occur, she was his wife and she had promised him sons (or at least to attempt them), so it would not, in fact, be untoward at all. She had bargained with full knowledge of having to bed him and, thanks to her brothers’ big mouths and a few—many—moments of witnessing the act, knowing exactly what bedding entailed.

The earl might have an amorous aversion to her, but she certainly did not have an aversion to him, and after several delightful days of conversation and laughter, and his admission of his appetites, she wouldn’t mind if he did have amorous intentions.

That could be, she reasoned, simply by comparison to Roger MacFhionnlaigh, from whom the earl had saved her by a breath.

Aye, that was it. She had never had a true suitor because everyone knew her final destination was Roger’s bed.

She felt his body relax and his breathing shallow out, and was oddly disappointed.

THE THREE OF them spent the next morning gathering basic necessities: two plain kirtles of uninspiring colors—

“I … would rather you not wear black,” the earl said when she fingered a fine linen. He was staring between her and the cloth as if he feared she would suddenly betray him. She could not decipher his expression, nor fathom what about the black disturbed him.

Confused and a little wary, she said, “Is it important to you that I not wear black?”

“Ah … well, aye, it rather is.”

“Why?”

“Please,” he said courteously, his voice strained.

—girdle, hairpins, ribbons, brush, comb, a glass—

“My lord—”

“Grimme.”

“Grimme. That is expensive.”

“Do you have one at home?”

“Aye. We are wealthy and my mother gives me anything I want.”

“Then you should have one here. You do not have to worry about the state of my coin chest.”

“Until I do,” she quipped, but he did not laugh.

“Aye,” he mumbled distantly, as he had been since he asked her not to buy black.

—parchment, quills, ink, a lovely dagger she saw in a window and sighed over, stockings, two pairs of sturdy daily slippers and one pair of leather boots, and a lovely pouch to carry it all in.

“Will that do?” he asked, concerned when she said she was ready to get back on the road.

“For the next week or two, aye.”

They had stayed in the most expensive part of Hogarth, so they traveled south around the less savory part of town, and headed out.

In another fifteen miles was the hamlet of Waters. It boasted only the basic necessities to support a keep and goods that knights and peasants needed and could afford. But it also had an overabundance of taverns for a hamlet.

“My forces eat here. I supply rations, but I also pay them enough to find their own food.”

“Ah.”

The earl was greeted with bows and curtsies and smiles and well wishes, and then they were through it in a blink. The road from Waters to Kyneward was a well-trod five miles of rolling hills that presently forked, giving way to a route around the keep that continued south, a road that continued west, and the third a long lane leading to the keep, which was, indeed, small. To either side of the lane were tiny thatched cottages with kitchen gardens just beginning to sprout, and beyond, more green rolling hills as far as the eye could see, covered in sheep, and, beyond the keep, fields of grain just showing their green heads.

The lane itself was lined with tall, deep, neatly trimmed boxwood hedges.

“That’s lovely,” she said.

“That is not their purpose.”

“Oh?”

“My arbalists will hide there in case of an invasion. What think you, Lady Brìghde?” Kyneward asked earnestly.

“Your keep might be small, but your lands are prosperous,” she said approvingly.

“My father’s work.”

“You, ah … your west curtain wall … ” She said hesitantly, not wanting to be like her mother, finding fault with everything first. “’Tis crumbling.”

“There are architects and stonemasons at the back of the keep rebuilding the walls and building a third bailey to protect the villeins within the fortress. You can hear them if you listen to them closely enough.”

“Oh, aye,” she chirped. “You have no moat.”

“No need. The whole fortress is dug down to solid rock.”

“Excellent!”

This was getting better and better.

Then they were noticed.

“My lord! My lord! Lord Kyneward is home!”

And, as had happened in the village and in the hamlet, Kyneward was suddenly swimming in goodwill from the villeins, serfs, and cottagers, which he returned wholeheartedly, with laughs and waves and jests and good-natured taunts.

Indeed, Lord Kyneward’s homecoming was like nothing Brìghde could imagine. The villeins in the fields stopped and waved enthusiastically. Servants emptied the keep and ran down the slope to meet their company, gathering around their horses like the foam of the sea around a rock. “Come now, come!” he called, laughing. “Let us through. We may celebrate when we have rested.”

They all ignored his command, men, women, children, dogs, all too excited to see their lord to allow him to get out of their reach.

Brìghde’s father would never have gotten a reception like that, and her good fortune was looking more and more disproportionate. She could not be more pleased.

“Papa! Papa’s home!”

Brìghde saw four boys racing out of the keep and the biggest threw himself at Kyneward, who laughed and hoisted him up onto his lap.

“Papa! Papa!” One of the big ones pulled the smallest away so hard, the little boy fell on his arse. “I want a turn!”

Kyneward flashed Brìghde a grin and dismounted so he could gather all four boys in his arms. He arose and tossed the two oldest on the back of his horse, threw the next youngest on his own back, and plucked the littlest one off the ground to hold him in his arms.

Something within Brìghde suddenly began to ache. Walter Fàileach would never have greeted her thusly, and in fact, no one had ever been that happy to see her. Her mother had barely noticed when she’d arrived home from the convent except to note that she was happy to have her second-in-command back and Brìghde immediately needed to see to this task and that errand.

“Lord Grimme! Lord Grimme! You’re home!”

Brìghde looked up the hill to see the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life running down the lane, followed closely by three other equally bonny women. They were all tall, blonde, fair of skin, and light of eye. In fact, they were so alike, she would have thought them sisters if Grimme had not told her about them. Brìghde, who had never had a reason to doubt her own beauty, felt embarrassingly out of place, with her black hair and deep emerald eyes (though equally fair skin) and being so appallingly underdressed in her boys’ breeches, shirt, and boots. It was far from the first time she’d felt so very out of place, but it was here she would be expected to stay for the rest of her life.

The woman in the lead threw herself at Kyneward and gave him a lusty kiss, which he returned wholeheartedly, her arse filling his big hand. Brìghde simply watched, curious how the other three reacted to that kiss, but … nothing. Then it was their turn and they each gave and received an equally lusty kiss.

They acted like a family, which shocked her. After the way he had so lightly spoken of them, she had assumed his “household” was a collection of wenches who had had his children, but that he did not pay attention to until he wanted to satisfy his lust.

Treating all his women as if they were dear to his heart was not normal. The mistress—one—who may or may not have the lord’s heart, had her own residence and the wife pretended to be ignorant of the mistress’s existence.

The fact that all these women and children and its lord lived together as a family was an unfortunate development, for it would be a much more delicate balance than women who were, in fact, dear wives.

“Where is she?” she heard one of the women demand.

Kyneward gestured toward Brìghde, who gave a little wave and smile.

All four of the women’s jaws dropped.

“Please don’t mind my garments,” Brìghde called helpfully. “I was getting married to someone else, but then I was compelled to ride for an hundred twenty miles. I know I am a fright.”

“She doesn’t act abducted,” a different mistress said, still looking at Brìghde with some suspicion.

“I really didn’t mind,” Brìghde assured them, which was likely the wrong thing to say, since all four of them then glared at Grimme, who held his hands up in surrender.

“Were you hoping I would bring home an unhappy wife? Emelisse, Ardith, Dillena, Maebh, this is Lady Brìghde Fallack.”

“Have you not married her yet?” the first woman demanded. In French. “Must you torture me with a wedding, too?”

“I have wed her,” he returned in the same language. “It so happens that we are preferable to her own family.”

“Does she know who we are?”

“Oui.”

Again all four sets of eyes, light blue, looked at her as if she were a ghost.

“You’re going to bed her?” the French one practically screeched.

“Not until I absolutely must,” Grimme said as he turned away and strolled up the hill toward the portcullis, his arms draped over two of the women’s shoulders, the children dancing around them, the other two women walking backward in front of him to chatter at him excitedly.

“If you could dismount, my lady,” said a boy from below Brìghde, “I would take your horse to the stable.”

Brìghde watched Grimme and his family. She had never felt so empty, watching what she had never seen, much less hoped for for herself.

“My lady?”

She shook herself. “Yes. Um, of course,” she murmured and dismounted with the boy’s help.

“’Tis too much horse for you, pardon my sayin’ so.”

“Mayhap,” she muttered vaguely. The boy stood with the horse’s reins whilst Brìghde gathered her meager things and clutched them to her breast.

Now what?

She was the wife, the countess, the lady of the manor, the castellain, the Lady portion of Lord and Lady Kyneward, yet here she stood in a dusty road dressed like a bedraggled boy, with serfs, servants, and knights flowing around and past her as if she were not there, whilst the Lord portion of Lord and Lady Kyneward capered with his family and forgot she existed.

Almost a sennight of his most delightful company and … he’d forgotten all about her.

She looked over her shoulder, back toward the forest-lined road from which they’d come. She could walk away right now and no one would ever notice.

“Brìghde!”

She looked around to see Kyneward far away, surrounded by people who loved him, whom he loved, smiling at her, waving and shouting at her to join them.

His women were not smiling.

“Come!”

She cast him her brightest smile, pulled her shoulders back, and marched herself up the hill to the castle entrance as if she were the lady of the manor.

“Well!” she exclaimed brightly. “Isn’t this lovely!”

The lands were, but the keep wasn’t. It was much bigger than he had led her to envision, but it was not nearly as big as Fàileach. The ditches outside the walls were littered with rotting wood and other building materials. She was glad there was no moat, for moats stunk. The outer bailey was almost all stables, well built and pristinely kempt. The inner bailey, however, was a disaster. The sheds and outbuildings in the inner bailey close to the keep were in dire need of demolition and rebuilding in more efficient spots.

The women and children continued to talk at the earl, who answered as he could get a word in. He was happy here, she saw, and she wanted to be happy here, too, but she was not sure that would be completely possible, with four women who were not mere whores, as Brìghde had thought, and thus, set against her already by virtue of her station.

His head mistress should be his wife and she was understandably bitter about it. He didn’t need to marry a noblewoman. He wanted to marry a noblewoman, likely to establish to himself that he was a noble. He’d only been an earl for five years and before that had had no expectation of becoming one. If he hadn’t wed the woman in eleven years, there had to be more reasons than that she was not a noblewoman.

Brìghde’s best course of action would be to make sure none of the women had reason to fear Brìghde would take over the earl’s spindle. Aye, he was extraordinarily pleasing to the eye, but he wasn’t worth going to war over. If he really wanted a legitimate heir, she’d get his spindle eventually anyway, and she’d have his naked beauty right next to hers until she caught.

Her former betrothed could not lay claim to any beauty more than as a particularly ugly imp. Unfortunately, she had once informed him of this, and though they had been a mere six and eight years old, he had never forgiven her. Of course, if he had not been mean to her, perhaps she would not have been forced to make such an observation. She had not been able to look into his face since, and God help her if she had not been abducted to escape a wedding night with him.

She and Roger hated each other, and she was quite sure Roger was as happy about her abduction as she was.

“You’re welcome, Roger,” she muttered.

Brìghde followed them up the stairs and into the keep. In the great hall, a priest stood next to an old man leaning on a cane. He would have been the earl’s height as a younger man. His expression alit when he saw the earl. “My son,” he croaked as he held out his arms.

“Papa,” the earl said warmly and embraced him. “I have brought you a gift,” he said as he released him.

“Oh?”

The earl gestured to Brìghde. “Come.”

Brìghde squeezed through the paramours, who deliberately blocked her way until she elbowed one in the ribs, and stood in front of the earl’s father. Even hunched over he was far taller than Brìghde.

“My bride, Lady Brìghde Fàileach Kyneward.” The priest and old man both gaped at the earl, who shrugged sheepishly. “I unwittingly snatched the wrong woman, but ’twas a fortunate turn of events for both of us. Lady Brìghde, this is Sir John Kyneward, my father and castellan of Kyneward.”

“Lady Brìghde,” he said tremulously and attempted to bow.

“No, no!” she breathed, concerned, and held onto his arms so he would not fall, then grasped his hand. “None of that.”

“She assures me she will be a good candidate for the position of castellain. I will leave it for you to decide.”

The man’s face softened even further and his smile was one of joy and relief. “Oh, I pray so, my lady.”

Brìghde gave him a saucy wink. “You shall see.”

“Castellain?” the French woman cried.

“Oui,” Grimme said with some measure of excitement. “And was that not fortunate!”

“I am not going to allow her to tell me what I can or cannot do.”

He either had not heard that or he was ignoring it. “And this is Father Hercule.”

“Father.”

He bowed. “Welcome, my lady.”

“Come, come, my dear,” said the old man, weakly tugging her hand. “You’ve had a week to get acquainted with my son and now I would see what you know.”

He led her slowly through the great hall, past the chapel, and into a large study. “This is my domain,” he murmured as he bid her enter and closed the door behind her. “The witches can’t come in here, even if they wanted to. Sit, sit.”

“All pardons, but I have been sitting for the last week,” she said dryly.

“Of course, of course.” He shuffled toward a chair and fell back into it with a sigh. His head tipped back and his eyes closed as he caught his breath. “I do not know you, know of you, know any of your qualifications, but I know that my son seems to be happy with your presence, and he is an excellent judge of character.”

Brìghde coughed into her hand.

“Mostly,” he amended with a fleeting smile, his eyes still closed. “He is also dazzled by tall, willowy, blue-eyed blondes, but the Kyneward men have always been a lusty lot and my son is no different.”

Brìghde decided to walk around the study, which was lined with books. There was even a clock and a globe. “I heard all about his insatiable lust and his ability to break women,” she teased.

He barked a laugh. “You are forgiving.”

“Forgiving, no. Uncaring, aye. The women may want to claw my eyes out, but I do not care enough about them or Lord Kyneward to want to claw theirs out. He has no amorous intentions toward me, so I am perfectly happy to ply my trade far away from home and free from a marriage contract I abhorred.”

“And what of a legitimate heir?”

“When he feels he can bear to bed a brunette, I will be happy to comply, which was one reason I made the bargain.”

He laughed. “Does he know that?”

“I would rather he not,” she mused as she walked around looking at the lovely things Sir John had. “He is only attractive to me by comparison to my other groom and I have never been allowed other options, so he is a novelty simply because an option was presented to me. It will fade, but he would tease me about it forevermore, and I canna laugh at myself.”

“Then rest assured, I will not tell him.”

“Thank you.”

“Now tell me about your trade.”

Thus, Brìghde began to list her qualifications for the position of castellain, what her mother did, how she did it, how Brìghde would have liked to do it but for her mother’s insistence that her way was better. When he nodded, she was encouraged to forge on. She told him how she would stock the larders and storage rooms, what supplies she would lay in, how, when, and in what season, and how the outbuildings should be arranged.

“Good, good,” he murmured.

Even more emboldened, she revealed her ability to do many of the jobs in the castle: candle-making, baking, weaving, spinning, sewing, brewing, dying, laundering—

“How did you come by such extensive knowledge?”

The half-lie rolled easily off her tongue. “My mother made sure of it, you see, to give me reference for what was a reasonable time spent in each occupation.”

She did not notice, but dusk had fallen whilst she spoke—

“Light some candles, will you, my dear?”

“Goodness! I have chattered your ear off.”

“’Tis a lovely way to lose an ear, if I must. I am impressed.”

So very, very pleased with his approbation, she was nearly in tears. Now, if he only stayed happy with her. She found the flints and lit the candles she saw, then returned to her chair when she had gathered herself and said nothing more. The noise in the great hall rose and the soft swish of the door opening to admit a servant interrupted the peace in the study.

She dropped a curtsy. “My lady, Sir John, my lord requests you join him for supper.”

“Please inform my lord that I am in council with Lady Brìghde and would request the leisure of dining here. Then bring us our supper and wine.”

The servant curtsied again and scurried away.

“Will my lord not find that a slight?” Brìghde asked.

He waved a hand. “Grimme gives me whatever I want. He’ll not insist. You read, write, and work sums?”

“Aye.” She hesitated. “Ah, but … I cannot manage the estate outside the inner bailey walls. I do not know how.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, awaiting their suppers, which came promptly, and ate in companionable silence. As she ate, she began to wonder if the earl’s father did not deem her fit for duty after all, if perhaps his words were simple courtesy.

Then he spoke. “The outer bailey is all stables and training pen. The stable master keeps a tight rein on it.”

She snickered at his jest, and he winked at her.

“We will hire a steward together. ’Tis too much for one person. I should know.”

“Ah … mayhap a housekeeper also? Once I’ve the house running the way I want, I mean,” she added hastily. “We also need carpenters to rebuild almost the whole of the inner bailey.”

“Whatever you need, my dear. If you can do all you have said, I will die a happy man, knowing my son is in good hands.”

At that, tears did begin to swell. “Do you intend to do so as soon as you have stepped back?”

“Oh, no. I have other plans. Should you find yourself in need of help, I would be willing to keep the books, but I would rather not.”

“The earl said your other candidates were inept.”

He sighed heavily and sipped at his wine. “They were quite adept, in fact. I was too exacting and gave them no time to learn. I was not ready to cede my position, and took any opportunity to find fault.”

Brìghde’s eyebrows rose to hear a man confess his mistakes so easily.

“And now we come to the end of my life when I cannot do half so much they did.”

“Surely you have your own servants.”

He puffed an unamused laugh. “Every time I get a servant trained, one of the witches sends him on an errand and never lets him go. Female servants disappear even more quickly.”

“Do they do this purposefully?”

“I do not believe so; they simply think only of themselves and appropriate the first servant they see and then keep them milling about waiting for commands.”

“And you have not asked my lord to assign any to you permanently?”

He huffed impatiently. “Grimme does not interfere in the workings of the household at all. He thinks I should be able to assert my authority, but he has never given me any over the women, much less my grandsons. If I cannot control the women, I cannot control anything else. He might as well put me out on a wintery hilltop to die. I do not fault him for keeping his women, but I am angry that he ties my hands so, and I do not care for those particular women.

“All my mistresses were intelligent with interests, or at least a willingness to learn new things. They were also kind and the ones who had my babes were good mothers. I could not keep a mistress unless she was my friend. Grimme’s mother was an illiterate wet nurse when I met her, but we became lovers when I noticed that I was spending more and more time with her simply talking. She had educated herself when I wasn’t paying attention. They were all quite different in appearance, as that was never my first reason for taking a mistress. Thus, I do not understand my son’s habits. I tell you this in all good faith. However, should you carry tales, ’twill make no difference as the witches already know what I think and Grimme does not care.

“Emelisse is deceitful and vicious. Ardith is as sharp as a wheel of cheese and without any interest whatsoever. Dillena is the quiet one. She keeps to herself, so in truth, I have no complaint there. Maebh is almost as insatiable as Grimme and she acts childishly sometimes, so she is merely irritating.”

“Do none of them have any redeeming values? The quiet one excepted.”

His shaggy eyebrow rose. “Other than their ability to please my son?”

Brìghde couldn’t help her snicker and the old man winked at her with a hint of a smile. “He said he did not like brunettes, but I find it extraordinary that he has such specific taste.”

Sir John shrugged with confusion. “I cannot explain. I appreciated variety. I will credit them: They do love their children, and they try to be good mothers, but ’tis as if they are too dimwitted to learn how.”

“Oh?”

“Emelisse is the mother of Gaston and Max. She keeps them by her side or in their chambers, though they chafe. She is afraid they will get hurt outside, does not want them to be knights, but does not allow them to spend time with Father Hercule at studies, as then they are not within earshot. She treats them like dolls. Beloved ones, but dolls nonetheless. When they can sneak out of their chambers, they run about endlessly, break things, get in the servants’ way. They are everywhere, no one can control them, and no one can find them, which sends her into the trusses, screeching with fear that they are dead, blaming anyone and everyone for their escape, which makes her cling to them that much tighter.

“Dillena is learned and writes stories for her son, teaches him how to read and write, sees to his needs, but other than that, seems utterly baffled by what a boy needs.

“Maebh practically ignores hers, allowing him to do what he pleases, but when she does pay attention, she hugs and kisses him, tells him what a good boy he is, then forgets he exists. None of them make any attempt to discipline them. The youngest, Pierce, Maebh’s, enjoys his studies, but he is the only one. The next youngest, Terrwyn, Dillena’s, doesn’t like his studies, even with his mother, so he will coax the older boys into mischief, over which Emelisse will then panic and scream at Dillena about her ‘monster.’ The older boys resent the younger ones’ freedom and the younger boys resent the attention Emelisse showers upon the older two. And Terrwyn feels completely forgotten by everyone until Emelisse screams at him.”

Brìghde was confused. “Do they not have a nursemaid?”

Sir John shook his head. “We have had several. Emelisse would never give her babes over, and she drove the ones for Dillena and Maebh away.”

“Why?”

“Because she ‘didn’t like them,’” Sir John mocked in a high-pitched voice.

Brìghde laughed.

“No, in fact, Emelisse believed them to be contemptuous of the women’s place in the household and she could not bear it.”

“Were they? Contemptuous?”

“Not particularly, but Emelisse will allow no one else to be happy if she is not happy, and she has not been happy since Grimme brought Ardith home ten years ago.” Brìghde could understand that completely. He looked at her pointedly. “The boys need a strong hand.”

“Oh, noooo,” Brìghde breathed. “I’ll not get between a woman and her bairn, and as I am the wee laddies’ stepmother now, ’twould be putting fire to a hayloft. The lord’s first priority should be to see to the proper instruction of his sons. If I remember correctly, are not three of them of age to be apprenticed as pages?”

The old man nodded wearily. “Aye. I have spoken with Grimme, but because it involves the witches’ objections, he sees that as household business. He loves the boys and does not want to send them away, thus he claims he has simply not gotten around to arranging for it. The truth is, he does not want them to leave home and he dotes. He is far too indulgent, in my opinion.”

“Where are their chambers?”

“The women and the boys live on the third floor. Emelisse is in the chambers over Grimme’s. Dillena is across the hall from her. Ardith and Maebh are next door to Dillena. The boys have the two chambers at the end of the hall near the back stairs, across from each other.”

“Two of the women share a chamber?” Brìghde asked, surprised.

“They share more than that,” he drawled.

Brìghde pondered that for a second or two, then— “Ohhhhhh,” she breathed, eyes wide in comprehension. Then she laughed. “Well. Isn’t that special.”

Sir John barked a laugh. “Aye, ’tis. How do you know about such? You’re a maiden, no?”

“Aye,” she said airily, “but I have six brothers, we are all a year apart, we played together, and even now, most of the time they do not remember I’m a lass, so they speak freely enough.”

The old man chuckled softly.

She saw no need to mention that which she’d seen, so there was a companionable silence in the room and Brìghde sipped at the lovely wine she had had on the journey here.

She was about to open her mouth to ask something else when she realized that Sir John had fallen asleep, his chin to his chest. He was snoring. She finished her supper and her wine, then went to the door and peered out. The great hall was still loud, but the platters were being cleared away. There was Lord Kyneward lounging in his chair in the middle of the head table, looking out over all his people.

“Psst! My lord!”

Lord Kyneward craned his head around his chair and Brìghde beckoned to him. He shot his chair back and crossed the room in four long strides. “Is something wrong?” he demanded.

“No. He is asleep. I … don’t know whom to fetch. I don’t know where his chambers are or I would take him myself. I haven’t even bathed yet.”

Lord Kyneward smiled and caught a passing servant and instructed him to put Sir John into bed, his chambers through the door at the back of the study. He caught yet another servant and told her to prepare Lady Brìghde’s chambers and bring her a bath.

“Pardon me, my lord. Which chambers are hers?”

“Across the hall from mine.”

Lord Kyneward was turning away so he did not see the minute expression of disbelief the servant flashed him before scurrying away.

“Across the hall from you?” Brìghde asked.

“Aye,” he said with a grin. “’Tis so I can bid you play chess with me and I will not have to fetch a servant to drag you down a flight of stairs.”

Brìghde grimaced. “Ah … did you displace someone else to put me there?”

“No,” he said, puzzled. “Those chambers have been empty since we moved in.”

“Ah.”

“Emelisse wanted them,” he continued blithely, “but I want all my women on the same floor.”

Brìghde barely kept from dropping her face in her palm.

“If she begs you for them, do not give in.”

“Oh, I won’t,” she murmured, seeing a very long war in her future.

---

6

GRIMME WAS IN A terribly good mood. No, Brìghde had not supped with him and so his welcome-home supper was a bit dampened by her absence, but he was so happy his father had taken to her so quickly and easily that he was jubilant anyway.

He made his way up to the third floor and walked into Emelisse’s chambers to find her in the bath, her maidservant washing her hair.

“Leave me,” she snapped at him in French.

“I have been gone three weeks,” Grimme said testily, immediately irritated. “Could you not be a little more welcoming?”

“After you brought home a wife?” she snapped. “When you should have married me?”

Grimme’s good humor began to fade, but he shouldn’t be surprised at her anger. Aye, his trip to Scotland had been met with a slight problem, but he’d expected resistance and had gone prepared. That he had not had to use any had pleased him. Abduct bride. Marry her himself. Be upon his way. Very simple, all according to plan. No, he had not snatched Lady Margaret, but God had saved Grimme from his own stupidity and directed him to snatch the right woman after all. He was pleased with his new bride and though he was glad to be home, he had enjoyed their journey immensely.

Only God could have planned something so perfect.

“You knew this day would come, yet here I am here with you. Nothing has changed.”

“Nothing has changed?!” she screeched. “Nothing has changed but that there is another woman in the house—”

“Whom I will not be bedding until I must.”

“—for whom you put me out of my rightful place at your side! And then she did not even bother to appear for supper to sit there!”

“’Twas never your rightful place and you knew I was going to bring home a wife. What did you expect?”

“I expected her to be bound and gagged and locked in a chamber at the top of a tower.”

He shrugged his concession. “So did I, but isn’t it fortunate for all of us that she needs us as much as we need her?”

“We,” she growled, “don’t need her.”

“You do understand that if Sheffield killed me before I wed, he would have killed you first, do you not? Or you would have had nowhere to go and no coin to get there, so you would have died out in the wilderness.”

“You should have wed me!” she screamed.

There were many reasons he would never have wed Emelisse, none of which he felt like enumerating. “I needed a noblewoman.”

“You didn’t need one,” she retorted. “You wanted one.”

“I’m an earl,” he said flatly. “Henry would expect me to wed according to my station. What if she looked like you?”

That made her pause. “She doesn’t.”

“Mayhap you should be grateful, as if she did, I would have fucked her before the ink was dry and I would have taken her straight to bed as soon as we arrived home and I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”

She snarled at him. “I also did not expect that you would make her castellain. I hope you do not expect me to obey her every command.”

Grimme scowled in confusion. “What commands could she possibly need to give you?”

“Any command Sir John feels free to give me now.”

“Which you do not obey, so … ?”

That calmed her a bit. “What chambers did you put her in?” she mumbled.

“The ones across from me.”

She gasped in horror. “You didn’t!”

“I did,” he returned blithely.

Grimme and Emelisse had had their fallings out before, when she expected him to obey as if she were his mother. It was a hazard of bedding a woman five years older than he when he was barely fifteen and growing into his manhood on the battlefield and the lists. He couldn’t tolerate her overbearing nature, but in the end, he always came back to Emelisse.

Tears sparkled in her eyes. “Did you do that on purpose?” she croaked. “To hurt me?”

“The things I do might hurt you,” he returned, “but I have never done them for the purpose of hurting you.”

“When you know what hurts me and you keep doing those things, then you are doing them to hurt me.”

“Emelisse,” he said firmly, “we have been together for eleven years. You know my habits and you know I am not going to change. I am home now. There is a wife somewhere in this keep, but I know not where because I am with you, my lover. Do you want me to come to you tonight or not?”

She sniffled, then muttered, “Oui.”

---

7

BRÌGHDE OPENED HER chamber door very late that night after having sat with the earl at table and watched the after-supper amusements. His second-in-command was on his right and they were trading jests, trying to out-do each other, getting more and more vulgar as the night went on.

She didn’t mind. Which jests she understood, in both English and French, were funny. The ones she didn’t ken used Sassenach words that had other meanings she did not know.

No one else spoke to her; indeed, no one else noticed her. The mistresses had been nowhere in sight when she left Sir John, so she had slipped into the chair to the left of the earl, where the lady of the manor should normally sit.

When she could no longer keep her eyes open, she had requested excusal and the earl had bid her a quick but hearty good eve over his shoulder so he could go back to his conversation.

Thus, here she stood, still dressed in a peasant boy’s clothes, alone in a close, dark, cold keep in an inadequately lit hall with her meager possessions in her hand, looking into a vast nothingness. She trudged down to the farthest end of the hall and counted six doors not including hers and the earl’s. She snatched the last torch and returned to her chambers.

The chamber was large, but not as large as hers at Fàileach. There was a massive four-poster bed along one wall, but it looked like it would collapse any second. At least it had linens on it.

There was a man-sized hearth in the corner of the room, but there was no fire, no wood laid, no wood in the chambers at all, and no chairs in front of it. In fact, she saw now, the bed was the only furniture in the room. There was no place to put candles, so there were none of those, either.

There were two large diamond-mullioned windows that had no drapes. There were no tapestries on the walls. There were no rugs covering the stone floor. There were no hangings on the bed.

She took the torch into the antechamber. There was no bed for a chambermaid, no chests, no bathtub, no water pitcher and basin. She went to the garderobe. At least it did not stink, but only because it hadn’t been used in years.

She sighed and dropped her face in her hand.

No one had curtsied or bowed to her when she came in as the new countess. The villeins and servants had ignored her. The groom felt free to chastise her for riding a horse too big for her. The servants had not been gathered and introduced to her. Chambers should have already been prepared for any bride’s arrival, but not only had that not been done, the earl’s explicit order to do so had been completely ignored.

No one had taken her things from her to place them in the chambers if they had been prepared. Not even Sir John noticed she had her possessions with her.

Aye, this household was a complete and utter disaster.

Dispirited, she decided to go to sleep and start fresh in daylight. She threw back the linens to find there were no sheets, no blankets, and no pillows. Just one thin coverlet.

“It’s not Roger MacFhionnlaigh,” she whispered to herself, near tears. “It’s not Roger MacFhionnlaigh.”

She was just tired. The situation would not seem so awful after a good night’s rest and a hearty breakfast.

She closed the door, dropped her things by the bed, doubled up the coverlet, donned her heavy wedding dress over her boy clothes, and gingerly climbed into the bed hoping it wouldn’t break with all the creaks and groans it made, covered herself, and tried to go to sleep.

WHEN SHE AWOKE, it was still dark outside. She was freezing, her feet most of all. Now she was too cold to go back to sleep, too tired to find a servant, even if she knew where to look, or get wood and make a fire herself, if she knew where that was, either. It was dark, and she was cold and tired.

She walked across the hall and knocked on the earl’s door.

The chamberlain answered the door. “Aye?” he drawled contemptuously.

“Is Lord Kyneward here?”

“He is not,” he sniffed, and slammed the door.

Of course not. He would be with one of his mistresses after so long away.

Wrapped in her coverlet, she made her way downstairs where many knights were barracked, obliging her to pick her way through them to get to the hearth. The fire was banked. She threw more wood on it because she was too tired to take it upstairs and start afresh, poked it to blazing, pulled up an upholstered chair and ottoman, plopped in it, curled up, and went to sleep.

“What the devil are you doing?”

Brìghde was fairly certain that the question was directed at her, but her eyes would not open.

“Brìghde!”

“Mmrmph.”

“Why are you not in your chambers?”

“Cold,” she mumbled. “No blankets. No fire.”

“What?!”

She turned over on her hip away from the earl and mumbled, “Will see to it tomorrow.”

“Aye, you will, but for now—”

She gasped when she was jolted from her warm cocoon and swept into the earl’s arms, but he moved so fast, she had no time to ask him what he was doing before he took the stairs, bumped his door open, and dropped her on his bed. She sighed and relaxed whilst he tucked her in. She vaguely heard the earl poking his own fire to life whilst the chamberlain apologized profusely, and then felt the earl climbing into bed beside her before she finally fell asleep.

---

8

BREAKFAST WAS LONG over by the time Brìghde dragged herself out of the earl’s warm bed, the chamberlain nowhere in sight, went across the hall, divested herself of her coverlet and wedding dress, leaving her in her peasant boy’s clothes, pulled on a pair of her new sturdy slippers, then went down to the great hall, which was empty. She continued on down the stairs to the cellar kitchen for food. It was a relaxed chamber of household servants, cooks, and bakers eating and chatting. She cleared her throat, and was cast glances of contempt and suspicion.

“Who are ye an’ where’d ye come from an’ why’re ye dressed like a boy?”

Brìghde slipped into a familiar role. “New ’ere. Was told to come to the kitchen for a meal ’fore gettin’a work.”

“Who told you that?”

“Some ol’ man.”

“Aye, right, then.”

A cook arose and put together a very fine platter of food for her, far too rich for a servant, much less one they’d never met. “What’s yer name, girl?”

“Bridget.”

“Whatcher duties?”

“The ol’ man said he’d assign me soon’s I ate. Who is he?”

“That’s Sir John, the keep’s steward.”

“Don’tche worry he’ll catch ye lazin’?”

Someone snorted. “Sir John canna get down the stairs. He’s’na been down here for a year and a half.”

“More.”

“Aye. Ol’ codger don’t know nuffin ’bout what goes on ’round ’ere.”

“No housekeeper?”

“Never had one. Earl don’t know how to be an earl—” Brìghde already deduced as much. “—an’ the old man’s a merchant by trade, so he don’t know either.”

Brìghde made sure to talk with food in her mouth. “Fine eatin’ for servants.”

“With Sir John not bein’ able to keep count, we eat what we want when we want ’ow much we want. An’ then we take more ’ome. Only thing’s sure is don’t let the earl suspect nothin’s goin’ on. Feed ’im an’ ’is men good, an’ you can ’ide everythin’ else from Sir John, so long’s it’s not on the main floor.”

“What about pay?” Brìghde asked.

“Didn’t ’e tell ye? Pay once a week, ’stead o’ every day. Old man takes some time to get ’is body creakin’ to the coin chest. Don’t wanna do it ever’day”

That also made sense.

“So it’s like this. Ye do as little as ye can get away with—and pray to God ye don’t get one o’ the hags, ’cuz they run ye ragged if they notice ya doin’ a good job—take food ’ome at night, sit on yer arse ’ere or catch up on yer work at ’ome, collect yer wages.”

“Hags?”

“Earl’s got four ’arlots who fancy ’emselfs ladies of the manor, mostly that Frenchie one, what’s been widdim for years.”

“Four, eh?”

“Aye, an’ any blonde maidservant ’e can get ’is ’ands on.”

“We only got three,” someone else said around his food.

“Seven women’s enough, don’t ye fink?”

“Not fer ’im.”

Brìghde snickered. “Ol’ man said ye got a countess yesterday.”

“Ain’t seen her,” someone said flatly. “Still abed, like as not.”

“’Ja see the look on the Frenchie’s face when the earl put her out o’ her chair?”

The room exploded in cackles and Brìghde didn’t bother to hide her grin.

“Can’t wait to see what the new lady’ll do widdem.”

One of the bakers sobered. “Don’t wish too hard. She may be the death of all of us, worse than all the hags put together. So we’ll have them and her.”

That was, indeed, a sobering thought.

“I’d best be on up to the ol’ man,” Brìghde said as she wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve, “see what he wants me ta do.”

“Good luck. Come back for supper, after the betters’ve eaten. I’ll send a bundle home wit’ ye.”

“Aye, and thank ye.”

“Oh, ye might wanna watch out for the earl’s bastards. Four o’ them, too. They get inta all sortsa things and last thing’s we need’s the hags down here. They ain’t bad boys, but they’re … ”

“Lads,” Brìghde finished.

“Aye, cooped-up ones, which are the worst kind.”

She nodded and waved, then climbed the—

“Not those stairs, girl! The back stairs. Where’s yer brain? Ye wanna get caught?”

Back stairs. Aye. She’d forgotten. Brìghde managed to look just confused enough.

“That way.”

With another thanks, Brìghde climbed the back stairs and emerged in a covered walkway in the bailey. She stood there and thought. The servants were stealing the food and getting paid to do as little as possible, but instead of being angry, Brìghde was sad. Sad that Sir John had built the earldom to prosperousness, tried to control the spending, but did not know what was going on in his stewardship anymore simply because he couldn’t climb stairs, which meant he also could not go outside to supervise the villeins.

The earl did not want to be bothered with household business. The keep had never had a lady, so it was no better than a barracks that happened to have four women and four children ensconced at the top of the tower demanding things. None of the mistresses seemed to have any authority to do anything at all, even if they knew what to do or wanted to try. Sir John had been a merchant, so the earldom might be prosperous, but he had no idea how to run a household and did not know that he did not know. A skilled and strict housekeeper would have gone a long way, but neither the earl nor his father nor the commoner mistresses knew how a noble house functioned.

“Sweet Mary and Joseph,” she whispered.

She didn’t blame the servants; that was what a rational person would do when left unsupervised with the most minimal of duties having to be performed to keep from detection. She didn’t like it, but it was logical and once upon a time, she would have gloried in serving in a household such as this one.

Brìghde wouldn’t put them out. The food, whether it was being stolen or not, was excellent. She snorted. It was excellent because they were cooking for themselves. All she had to do to keep them in line was visit the kitchen every so often without warning, take quill, ink, and parchment, and make notes. That, to a servant, was terrifying.

She turned to go up the back stairs to the second floor and hoped she could find her chambers. She needed a gown and to rearrange her hair.

She did, indeed, find her chambers, doffed her boy’s clothes and donned one of her new kirtles, a deep rich green that the earl had suggested. It didn’t fit as well as she’d like, being too snug over her breasts, the waist too low, and the hem too long, but it was the best she could do in a color other than black. She still found his reaction to a mere length of cloth a tad disconcerting.

She dug in her pouch for her glass and groaned when she saw what a mess she was. The kitchen servants would never suspect the peasant girl they’d fed was the countess. Unfortunately, they would also not suspect this woman was a countess because she was not richly dressed and coifed enough. She looked for a water pitcher, which had not magically appeared in the night.

She dug her brush out—she was ever so happy she had requested the stay in Hogarth—fixed her hair quickly, then licked her fingertips and scrubbed her face. She checked her glass. It would do.

Well rested, well fed, with daylight streaming through her beautiful (if undraped) windows, she felt more able to tackle the day. The trick was to keep herself from getting overwhelmed with all that must be done, and to discern the proper first steps.

She opened the door next to hers. Empty. The door next to the earl’s. Empty. All four of the remaining chambers were also empty.

She went up the back stairs to the third floor where maidservants were milling about looking bored, some sitting on the floor, one lying down. They did not notice her. Brìghde counted. Fifteen.

“What are you doing?” she asked, startling most of them. Two others were sound asleep.

“We’re waitin’ on the ladies’ pleasure,” one said a bit snidely. “Ain’t you here for the same thing?”

“Noooot quite. I’m Countess Kyneward, and I am not happy.”

Their eyes narrowed as they swept her up and down. “Ye think we’re stupid, do ye? Ain’t no countess dresses like that.”

This was unfortunate, but entirely foreseeable.

“Which door is Lord Kyneward most likely to be behind?”

They all pointed to the same one.

Brìghde took a deep breath, marched herself through the gaggle of maids who were so surprised they did not try to stop her (that would have been a mistake), went to the door and started pounding on it.

“GRIMME, GET YOUR ARSE OUT OF BED!”

The maids gasped and stepped back.

There was much cursing and scrambling behind the door before it was snatched open to reveal an enraged woman—until she realized the intruder was Brìghde. Before she thought to take advantage of the situation and deny that Brìghde was the new countess, which would have caused Brìghde no end of problems, she dropped a bare curtsy and said, “My lady,” through gritted teeth.

Two other doors opened and three other tall, willowy, blue-eyed blondes stepped out, who also curtsied and murmured, “My lady.”

Thus began the scramble of the maidservants to wake up, hop to their feet, curtsy, and deliver many apologies.

“What’s your name again?” Brìghde demanded.

“Emelisse.”

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear to all four of you. I do not care about you, I do not care about your dealings with Lord Kyneward, I do not care that you are here, I do not care why you are here. I care that you—” She twisted and swept her finger at them, then turned back to the favorite. “—have a stable of fifteen maidservants doing nothing whilst awaiting your pleasure, I have none, I spent the night freezing in a bed that was not made before I slept in the barracks with the knights before the earl found me and dropped me in his bed.”

“You slept in his bed?” the French one shrieked.

“I did, because I HAD NOWHERE ELSE TO SLEEP!”

This was not an auspicious beginning.

“Brìghde?”

Oh, and there was Brìghde’s husband, naked, hair rumpled and swinging around his shoulders, jaw stubbled, coming up behind his mistress. He was more beautiful naked than clothed and she did not bother to look away from his spindle.

“What’s the matter?”

Brìghde repeated it, only louder this time, because now she was beyond furious.

He spread his hands. “What do you want me to do? This is household business. You told me you would relish taking over. Here you are. It’s yours.”

“The problem is—”

He held a hand up. “No. I do not want to get involved. That was the bargain.”

“Your chamberlain goes first.”

He paused. “I’m listening.”

“Your order to prepare a room for me last night was ignored,” she growled. “The bargain was that you enforce my position here. How can you enforce my position if your servants ignore you and they do not know who I am? Such as, say, your chamberlain, who slammed the door in my face last night, forcing a countess to sleep with soldiers for some warmth.”

His face flushed and he immediately disappeared.

With a smug look, the mistress slammed her door in Brìghde’s face. But conveniently, she had slammed it so hard it bounced, so the latch did not catch such that the door stood minutely ajar.

Brìghde cracked her neck this way and that, looked at the maids who were trying not to giggle, said, “Watch this,” stood back, raised her skirts, and kicked the door open.

The mistress, shocked, looking half terrified, skittered out of Brìghde’s way as she stalked through the chambers until she found the one with the bed by which her husband was dressing.

“Grimme Kyneward!”

“Aye, aye,” he grunted from inside his tunic as he pulled it over his head. “I take your point. No need to kick doors in.” Then his head popped out and he grinned at her. “That, my lady, was very impressive. I shall have to get you a velvet glove for your iron fist.” Brìghde gaped at him, but he pointed at her and chortled. “The look on your face.”

She huffed and slumped over, her rage leaving her in a whoosh. “Stop trying to make me laugh. This is serious.”

“Are you laughing? You’re laughing. Try not to laugh. Grimme, get your arse out of bed!” he mocked in a high-pitched voice then roared with laughter.

She broke down and snickered.

“Aye, I know it’s serious,” he grinned, “which is why I am going out of my way to involve myself in household business. You’re welcome.”

“I have nothing to thank you for,” she said as he brushed by her.

“Roger MacFhionnlaigh!” he called on his way out the door.

Brìghde huffed and stalked back through the chambers and out into the hallway where four identical blondes and fifteen maidservants stood frozen. She jabbed her finger at the stairs. They all bolted.

---

9

GRINNING, GRIMME clipped down the stairs and into the great hall and waited for all the women to gather. That, he thought, was the most rousing entertainment he’d had in a while. Grimme, get your arse out of bed! He laughed until he was bent over and started to cough. She’d kicked the door in! He straightened, met Brìghde’s somewhat sheepish expression and started to laugh again. She flushed, huffed, and crossed her arms over her chest, but would not look at him because she was trying not to laugh.

That girl was trouble, and he could not wait to see what she did next.

He inhaled, his chest expanding, then bellowed,

“IF I PAY YOUR WAGES, REPORT TO THE GREAT HALL IMMEDIATELY!”

It took some time and he gestured for Brìghde to come stand beside him. He started to laugh again and draped his arm over her shoulders, squeezing her to his side, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

“Och!” She dropped her arms and leaned against him.

He was going to lose his chamberlain today, which would hurt, but she wanted him to enforce her position as he’d bargained, so that was what he was going to do.

Father Hercule appeared at the door of the chapel, the boys popping up from behind him and squeezing past.

Sir John’s door opened and he shuffled out. Grimme waved him over to his side also.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“My countess is not impressed with her reception last night.”

“Oh, I know I—”

“Not you.”

They waited. And waited. And waited. Until no more servants trickled out. He remained silent until all of them looked appropriately terrified. His women were off to his left, on the side, also looking terrified. His sons were watching with anticipatory glee.

“Papa,” Grimme asked, “does this look like the correct number of servants?”

He sighed heavily. “I don’t know.”

Grimme began. “This is Lady Kyneward, my countess. Other than I, she is the supreme authority here. And with that, I am off.”

“Oh, no,” Brìghde said, grabbing the tail of his tunic before he could flee.

He huffed and dropped his head back. “Very well.”

All eyes were on her as she studied them for a few long moments, then she looked at Grimme’s chamberlain. “You,” she said sweetly, “are dismissed. No reference. Present yourself to Sir John’s study with your belongings and you may collect your wages after I have ascertained that you have not stolen anything.”

The chamberlain, his color gone and his eyes wide, looked to Grimme. “My lord … ”

Grimme shook his head. “Did it not seem odd that a brunette in an expensive gown whom you did not know was knocking on my door in the middle of the night? After I had just returned with a countess? Did you think that perhaps you should have fetched me? Or even inquired as to who she was? Begone. Now, my lady,” he said, sketching a deep, mocking bow and sweeping his hand out toward the gathered servants, “they are yours to do with what you will.” He straightened. “Do not involve me in household business again.”

And with that, he sauntered out of the great hall, howling with laughter all the way.

---

10

BRÌGHDE LOOKED AT Sir John and began to laugh. She laughed so hard she was squeezing tears out of her eyes and the befuddled look Sir John gave her made her laugh harder. “Oh,” she breathed, fanning herself as she wound down, wiping her eyes, “what a splendid morning!”

Thus she was happy and smiling as she looked around. The chamberlain had dragged himself up the stairs to pack his belongings. She could paw through his things all she wanted and wouldn’t know what he had or had not stolen, but he didn’t know that.

First, she looked at the mistresses. “The maidservants referred to you as ‘ladies.’ You shall not be referred to as ladies, because you are not. You shall be addressed as ‘Mistress,’ as is proper for commoners.” She waited a few seconds for effect, then looked around at the fifty or so servants. There should have been three times that many for a keep this size.

“Today, we start anew. We will consider that today is your first day, and that you have no history here. I do not plan to dismiss anyone else. Yet.” She looked directly at the cooks and bakers who had fed her that morning until every one of them recognized her and their eyes grew wide. “Carry on as you have been for now. That is your reward for excellent food and being kind to a stray. We shall go over menus later.”

They bobbed curtsies and bowed and whispered, “Thank you, my lady.”

“I intend to make this a noble house. How many of you know what this means?” About half the servants raised their hands. “Excellent! If you have suggestions, bring them to me. I will listen. You won’t believe me. I ken. Hopefully you will come to trust me as I find problems and repair them. When I have everything the way I want it, I will hire a housekeeper. Tomorrow morning, after lauds, you will line up at Sir John’s study, where I will take your names and positions. Now!” she said breathily, clapping her hands together and looking at the mistresses. “Which one of you is the favorite one again? I can’t tell you apart.”

Sir John bent to whisper, “Emelisse.”

Ah, yes, the French one whose face was contorted with rage. “Who is your chambermaid?” Her jaw grinding, she slowly pointed. The girl stepped forward. “Are you happy with her?” Now she looked suspicious, then nodded. “Excellent.” She looked at the chambermaid and said, “Shoo.” The girl ran up the stairs. “Now you may choose another maidservant.”

She looked very, very shocked, then she surveyed the gathered servants and pointed. “Her.”

That girl looked as if she had just been told to eat pig shit. “All right, then,” Brìghde said. “Go. Go, go.” She looked at the mistress. “You’re excused.”

“Gaston,” the mistress said sharply at the boys in the doorway of the chapel. “Max. Come.”

Brìghde looked between them and their mother. They did not want to go. “Go!” she barked. The boys, startled, also ran up the stairs. Their mother gave her a dagger stare and Brìghde called, “You’re welcome! Who’s next?”

Sir John advised, “The next one is Ardith, the one with no children.”

Brìghde repeated the process with her and the last two mistresses. The sons of those women were left behind. “Who takes care of the young masters’ chambers?”

Four hands went up. “Go on.” They too, flew up the stairs. She looked at the two remaining boys and said, “Go to the kitchen for some sweetmeats or … whatever suits you, then go out and play.”

Shocked, they stayed frozen for some seconds, then raced each other across the hall and down the stairs.

“Who would like to be my chambermaid?” Not one hand. She snickered. “Who is the most experienced one here?” Everyone turned to look at one girl, who shrank into herself. “My bedchamber only has a bed that is about to collapse. It has no linens. I want you to oversee my chambers’ transformation as best you can with what little furniture may be in this keep, and I suspect there is not much. I want to see how you do without direction. If you please me, you shall be well rewarded. You have my permission to command anyone to do anything so long as it is for my benefit.” The lass’s eyes were wide. “Who here is the least experienced?” Everyone turned to look at another girl, who nearly whimpered. “You shall be my other maidservant, and take direction from my chambermaid. I will ask you your names later. I will never remember all of you at the moment. My chambers are across the hall from Lord Kyneward’s. Go. Make of it the absolute best with what is available, as you are outfitting for a countess. You have until midnight.”

They didn’t move, but exchanged glances.

“Aye?” Brìghde asked kindly. “Speak.”

The experienced one curtsied. “My lady. We will need manservants to move furniture.”

“Oh, aye. Of course you will. Stay there.” Brìghde studied all the men. “Who would like the chance to earn the position of chamberlain for Lord Kyneward?” Multiple hands went up. “All of you stand over there.”

She tugged on Sir John’s sleeve and when he bent, she whispered, “What did Grimme’s chamberlain do?”

“Grimme hates shaving himself,” he whispered back, “and he’s meticulous about it. A decent barber could be his chamberlain and he’d never know, and he’s been able to dress himself since he was three.”

She chuckled, then looked at the pile of men. “Who wants to try shaving the earl’s face without a nick or bump?”

Not one hand. She traded glances with Sir John, who looked down in an effort to hide his impending laughter.

“Very well.” She looked to her new maids and said, “Take whom you please.” Some silent communication passed between the two girls and all of the men, and four men disappeared up the stairs with the girls.

“Kitchen staff, you are excused.” That left a fraction of servants left. “I do not know what you do, and right now I do not care. Go about your normal duties if you have any.”

Father Hercule disappeared into the chapel and she and Sir John were alone. A grin slowly started to widen his face. “Oh, my lady. I don’t think Grimme realizes what he has unleashed.”

She smiled and clapped, looking up at him and quivering with delight. “I know.”

---

11

“‘GRIMME, GET YOUR arse out of bed!’” he mocked at Brìghde once he seated her at table for supper. His knights roared, and she grinned. “We have been laughing about that all afternoon.”

“So happy I amuse you, my lord.”

“You have amused me since I abducted you. So much so, I missed you at supper last night and breakfast this morn.”

“You abducted me eight days ago. How can you miss me?”

“And spent most of every day and night together, and sleeping together. I grew accustomed to laughing and chatting with you.”

“Oh.” Her mood dimmed a little.

“Brìghde?” His smile faded. “What did I say?”

“Oh, ’tis not you,” she hastened to assure him. “I do not make friends very easily. Well, I do, but I canna keep them very long. I very much enjoy your company too, but I would rather not spend so much time with you that you grow tired of me.”

“Why do they grow tired of you?”

“That, my lord Grimme—”

“Just Grimme. My mistresses call me Lord Grimme.”

“Ah. Very well. Ply me with food and drink, and I will tell you.”

“You’ll do anything for good food and drink, won’t you?” he asked wryly as he poured wine into her goblet.

She laughed and raised the cup to him. He clinked his goblet to hers. “And plenty of it.” She looked around whilst she sipped.

The tables were arranged in an E shape. The head table was perpendicular to the other three, on a dais. People sat on both sides of the three parallel tables. Grimme’s place was in the middle of the head table, Brìghde to his left, Sir John to his right.

The mistresses sat at the middle table at the end closest to Brìghde and Grimme, two on each side. The laddies—the only children in the hall who were not servants—were to sit next to their respective mothers. Emelisse was flanked by her two. Ardith the barren sat next to Grimme’s oldest. On the other side of the table, Dillena sat closest to the head table, her son next, then Maebh, then the littlest boy. Emelisse’s children were hungry, angry, and restless. The other two were sleepy and slouching from all the sweetmeats they’d eaten all afternoon and tired from being outside, but they were happy.

In the hall, there were almost three dozen knights called vingteniers, who each commanded a group of twenty men called a vingtaine. There were another seven knights, called centeniers, who each commanded a section of five vingtaines to make an hundred men, called a centaine. Three knights, each of whom commanded a force of one thousand, were gone with almost three thousand of Grimme’s men to France. Their seats sat empty to honor their absence.

Grimme’s deputy, Sir Drew, who commanded the entire force of seven hundred that remained at Kyneward, sat to Sir John’s right, leaving four empty seats to his right. Father Hercule sat to Brìghde’s left, leaving another four seats to his left.

“The mistresses and children all used to sit up here, my lady,” Father Hercule whispered to Brìghde when she asked him why there were so many empty chairs.

“He displaced all of them?”

“I advised him thusly,” he replied softly, “so as to honor your place as Lady Kyneward. ’Twould not be seemly for Lord Kyneward’s mistresses to sit in a place of honor with his wife, and ’twould be even more an insult if the favorite mistress and the wife were to sit together.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“You’re welcome,” he murmured with a comforting smile.

Grimme knocked his knife against his goblet and stood, tugging Brìghde up to stand with him. Everyone else stood then. “This,” he said, splaying his hand on Brìghde’s back, “is my new wife and countess, Lady Brìghde Kyneward. Please make her welcome.”

The knights applauded and cheered loudly, and the one who had assisted in her abduction and returned with her and Grimme led the cheers. She grinned and waved at him.

The mistresses, however, remained silent and stone-faced.

Grimme seated Brìghde, then his father, then himself. Everyone else sat, and the food and wine was put out in abundance. In this, the kitchen servants and bakers did not laze about, and ’twas no wonder no one noticed anything else falling apart. Or rather, that it had never been put together in the first place.

“You were telling me why you have no friends,” Grimme murmured after everyone settled in to eat.

“Oh. Aye. You see, I want to have friends, but once I make one, after a while, she will get tired of me and either lose patience or drift away. In some cases, when she is too polite to do either, I can still tell, so I drift away to relieve her of my presence. Mostly I have just learned to keep to myself. ’Tis not rare for me to make an immediate friend, such as you or Sir John, but none have ever stayed my friend after a few weeks or, if I am lucky, months. My brothers are my only real friends, and that is because we have a common enemy and we can fight amongst ourselves until we’re all too weary and bruised to be angry.”

“Neither I nor Sir John is going to get tired of you.”

She looked at him from under her brow. “You have known me a sennight and Sir John barely one day. Overmuch familiarity engenders disparagement. By the time a friend wishes to part company with me, there is much anger and resentment built up, and friendships do not survive that sort of anger.”

“Mayhap if you argued as you went along and came to agreement, or agreed to disagree, ’twould not build up until you cannot reconcile.”

“In my experience, that is an extraordinary accomplishment.”

“I had a friend once. My very best friend. We had known each other from the cradle, ’twould seem. My mother, brother, and I, and he and his mother, lived across the hall from each other above my father’s shop. My friend had even less of a future than I. My father outfitted us both as pages and sent us to a noble. We learned together. Studied together. We competed at everything. I would win one. He would win the other. We were equally matched. We grew and attained knighthood very early, as both of us were large for our size, and smart. We have even been taken for brothers. We fought together on the battlefield. We had saved each other’s lives again and again.” Grimme hesitated, then continued slowly, “Once, I carried him off the battlefield when he was injured so that he would not be slain in mercy.”

She laid his hand on his arm, and he blinked at her, surprised. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said softly. “I can see that it is an unpleasant tale for you to tell.”

He laid his other hand over hers and gave her a pained smile. “Perhaps it needs to be told, and I would like to tell it to you, if you will grant me the honor.”

She smiled, pleased that he wanted to confide in her. “As you wish.”

He took another deep breath. “Aye, well. We were at the Battle of Agincourt, where I earned my earldom and he didn’t, though he had an equal hand in what happened and deserved one as much as I.”

“Aw,” Brìghde sighed.

“But that was not the worst of it. He had already begun drifting away from me before that, as he could not bear the burden of his gratitude for carrying him off the battlefield. He would have feigned his happiness for me and finished fading away. It was that I seduced his lady love.”

She grimaced.

“I swear to you, Brìghde, I did not know she was his lady love. He spoke of a woman he was wooing. I thought nothing of it, as I do not woo.”

“You don’t?” she asked breathlessly.

He grinned. “She claimed that she allowed him to woo her because she wanted me.”

“Mmm hm,” she hummed and pulled her hand away to take a bite off her platter.

“He accused me of taking everything away from him, his dignity, his honor, his chance at nobility, and then his lady love, which, he told me, was why he had never introduced me to her. He refused to believe that I did not know and would not concede that it takes two. She rebuffed him.”

He stopped talking and began to eat in earnest, as did she, but after a few bites, she said, “Well, I am sorry.” She was.

“I am not finished.”

Her eyebrows rose and she looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she ate.

“You do not even let a good tale get between you and your food, do you?” he laughed.

She grinned and popped a bite in her mouth to punctuate the jest. “Go on.”

“We had had a philosophical disagreement of many years’ duration, which was what finally turned us from friends to bitter enemies.”

“And that was … ?”

“I,” he said slowly, now looking at his platter and toying with his food, “am not an honorable knight.”

“How so?”

He raised his eyes to hers. “I want to win. By any means necessary. I identify my enemy, I do what I must to conquer him. I will ambush. I will sneak through the night and slit the throats of hundreds of men silently, like a snake, then lick the blood off the blade. I will lay traps, spy, poison, and run a sword through the backs of retreating soldiers so they do not return to bedevil me another day.”

Brìghde was confused. “What about ransom?”

“Only when I’m not outnumbered, and those battles have been few and far between. If I do not have the force to take knights for ransom, I take their armor and horses when I’m finished laying a field to waste.”

“That is the nature of warfare.”

He blinked at her as if he had expected her to judge him harshly. His expression softened. “Not when one has been reared to adhere to the chivalric code. The only place I have always fought honorably is on the lists, and that is because I could not win otherwise. My friend found my philosophy dishonorable, but he tolerated it as we fought our way through France, victorious always. He could not see that he needed my warcraft to make it possible for him to ply his.

“And I did not come to my philosophy lightly,” he hastened to assure her, as if he’d argued this point for years. “It was difficult to change my thoughts, but I was simply tired of losing. I do not lose well or graciously and finally determined I would not tolerate losing at all. So, he saw my having had his lady love as the final manifestation of my dishonorable and cowardly way of waging war.”

She studied him for a long time, her mouth pursing, her nose scrunching, her lips twitching back and forth. “He believes your earldom to be illegitimate.”

“Aye, and the fact that he fought honorably, by his code, and deserved one as much as I, and ’twas only that Henry saw my fleeting valor, but did not observe his steadfast valor that made the difference.”

“Oh,” Brìghde said sadly. “How long were you friends?”

“Twenty years and then a few more. We have been enemies since Agincourt.”

“What was his name?”

“Aldwyn Marchand. He is Sheffield’s deputy, prime commander of all Sheffield’s forces.”

Brìghde gasped. “Leading the charge for your death?”

“I’m told no, and I would believe that, for that is not Aldwyn’s way. On the other hand, he remains in the service of Sheffield, so he may have changed; I know not. You will likely meet him soon as I expect the duke will insist on visiting to celebrate our marriage. If he is still the Aldwyn I know, I have great sympathy for him, as it chafes for any intelligent knight to be subject to a dull-witted noble. Divine right of kings,” he scoffed. “So many men too simple to wage an effective war, and too many men too prideful to wage war to conquer, chivalry be damned.”

Brìghde sighed sadly and dropped her head, shaking it.

“Do you judge me now, my lady?” he asked coolly.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Trojan horse.”

He looked confused.

“Someday—not today—I will tell you why and how I was to be the Trojan horse to destroy Clan MacFhionnlaigh.”

Comprehension slowly overcame his features. “My God,” he whispered, aghast.

“I told you you rescued me from more than marriage to an imp.”

“The horse,” he whispered.

Brìghde smiled wistfully and picked at her food. “Aye. But!” she said, sipping at her wine. “Do you care, I am sad for both of you, as I understand both your philosophies. My father believes as you do, but his bloodlust is never sated. He continuously looks for battles to pick just to go to war. That is dishonorable. I didn’t like the MacFhionnlaighs and I certainly did not want to breed with that pack of disgusting dimwits, but they did not deserve to be slaughtered simply because my father is carrying a grudge over a slight.”

He blinked. “Would you have done it?”

Brìghde’s mouth tightened and she looked away. “I … like to think I would not have once I was no longer under his control.” She shook her head. “We are discussing the nature of friendship, not my moral failings. Your point is that you are not angry with your friend, but he is angry with you. And you saved his life, which he cannot bear at all because it means you are no longer equal in all things. He is in your debt. In his mind, he is inferior, not only because he does not have an earldom whilst you do and he is more deserving, but because he sees himself as having been the weak one and you the strong one, and having lost his lady love to you was the final insult to his manhood.”

“Aye,” Grimme muttered with a sigh, looking down at his platter, only half eaten, whereas Brìghde was busy licking hers clean. “But that does, in fact, prove my point. For twenty years, Aldwyn and I argued incessantly. Fought. Grew angry with each other. Yet those small contentions did not damage our friendship. One large philosophical contention alone did not break us. It took many contentions and much of fate to do so.”

“I would argue that that is the privilege of history. My brothers and I are loyal to each other because we are so close in age and we have experienced the same things. ’Tis not something that can be claimed with just anyone.”

He pursed his lips and thought, then nodded. “Aye, I see your point.”

Brìghde looked up to see that the hall was quiet. Everyone was finished eating and were bored awaiting Grimme’s order for the entertainments to begin. She quickly glanced at the mistresses, two of whom were trying to coax their sons to eat more, but they had come to the table stuffed. One mistress was staring at her empty platter morosely, and the last sat back with her arms crossed, glaring at Brìghde.

“Dismissed,” Grimme rumbled, and slid his half-eaten platter over to Brìghde.

“Oh, thank you!”

As the hall emptied of those who did not wish to stay and the mummers appeared to begin the evening’s amusement, he snapped his fingers and bid more wine be poured for both him and Brìghde. The mistresses scattered and took their sons with them.

“Good eve, Papa! Good eve, Grandpapa!”

“Good eve, boys!” Grimme and Sir John called back to them as one.

“Excellent wine,” she breathed under the cacophony as she sipped, her eyes closed. “Thank you, Husband.”

He smiled. “I believe we have indeed been disproportionately advantaged.”

“I agree.”

“And so I ask again, what makes you so unlikeable?”

She put down her goblet and dropped her knife. She leaned back, crossed one leg over the other, stared at the opposite wall. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her jaw slid back and forth, then she turned her face toward him but looked at the floor. “I’m right.” She raised her eyes to his. “I’m always right. Even when I’m wrong, I’m right.”

Grimme started to grin. “That is the most winsome thing I have ever heard a woman say.”

She laughed, but a little sadly. “I want a friend like yours so badly,” she said softly, “that I will beg like a dog to have his ears scratched. Sometimes, I make immediate friends, as I said. Sometimes, someone will pursue me to be my friend—those I am suspicious of, but will still take because I am so desperate.”

“Is that why you acquiesced so easily to this marriage?”

She shrugged. “One reason. You seemed friendly and did not ravish me.”

“Your expectations are too low.”

“You see, I do not want to have small arguments along the way because for me, any argument at all always ends the friendship. I try to be kind. I try to listen and be a good friend, give good counsel. It is not returned, but still I ignore slights and hurtful words, I ignore annoyances and pranks. I ignore the gossip about me, I ignore things I overhear. I ignore my resentment of the hints for coin or this and that and give her what she wants, until I don’t, at which point she stops speaking to me. As for philosophical differences … ” She sighed. “I’ve never had a friendship last long enough to have a philosophical difference. I try. I try, Grimme, but at some point, she is wrong and I am right, and I can no longer bear the weight of my righteousness silently.”

Grimme held his hand out, palm up. She looked at it, confused, then raised her eyes to his. He gave her a crooked grin and flexed his fingers. She hesitantly put her hand in his. “If you will let me, I will teach you that friendships don’t end with an argument or two. You don’t have to beg for ear scratches from me.”

---

12

GRIMME SAT IN HIS chair just after midnight and Brìghde had requested excusal. It was quiet but for the scraping of tables being pushed to the side and the erection of cots for his men. He had not realized that all through the meal, his father had been listening and there the two of them sat, father and son, silently contemplating.

“Trojan horse,” Sir John murmured.

Grimme nodded slowly. “It worries me, her lack of a sense of loyalty.”

“Son, she has no reason at all to be loyal to you. You abducted her, and the fact that it suited her purposes does not make it worth any loyalty, for you would have brought her here against her will anyway.”

“Aye.” He paused. “After our wedding, she wrote a letter to her brother absolving me of an act of war.”

“Oh? That’s … ”

“Loyalty to herself.”

“But she told you about her father’s plan, which, considered the proper way, is a gesture of good faith.”

He did not answer for a long time. “She has been very free with information. What if … she is not disloyal or acting in bad faith, but so desperate for a friend she will tell anyone who is kind to her anything and everything in the hopes that they will like her?”

“That occurred to me whilst she was speaking.”

Grimme shrugged. “No matter. I don’t befriend those I fuck and I don’t fuck my friends.”

“If you don’t intend to bed her, why did you wed her and bring her home?”

“I do intend to bed her,” he said testily. “Just not … today.”

“I don’t understand you. How are you able to turn down even the most beautiful of brunettes?”

“Papa, you fucked a dwarf.”

“She was comely and the price was right.”

Grimme rolled his eyes.

“I’d bed Brìghde myself if I thought she’d accommodate my infirmities.”

“I knew you would before I brought her home. I regret to inform you she’s married.”

“Never stopped me before,” Sir John said blithely.

Grimme laughed and clapped his father on the back, rubbing his shoulder. “That’s my papa.”

“And with that, I shall find my bed.”

“Sleep well.”

“And you, my son,” he said with a pat on Grimme’s arm.

Grimme sat slouched, his foot on the table, his chin on his fist, still contemplating what it meant to have in his household a woman capable of slaying an allied clan at her father’s behest for … a slight. How large a slight it was, well … Grimme had avenged himself for a slight before, but not to that extent. The thing that bothered him the most was that she did not know if she would have gone through with it once she became Lady MacFhionnlaigh and took up residence.

“Grimme.”

“Lord Grimme,” he growled without turning.

“Lord Grimme,” Emelisse pleaded, pulling out her—no, Brìghde’s—chair and sitting in it. She clutched Grimme’s hand and held it to her breast as she leaned forward, tears in her eyes. “Don’t let her come between us,” she whispered in French.

Grimme rolled his head on the back of his chair until he was looking at her. “Did we not discuss this last night? How many times must I tell you that I am not at all interested in bedding her—”

“But you must! For legitimate heirs. What if you acquire a taste for her?”

Grimme laughed suddenly.

“I am not laughing! She is beautiful.”

“That does not signify. She is not beautiful in a way that appeals to me.”

Her nostrils flared. “You sat at supper whispering with her the entire time. I tried to get your attention. Your harlots tried to get your attention. Your sons tried to get your attention. A few of your men tried to get your attention. You have never sat at supper and whispered with me all the way through.”

That was because he and Emelisse had nothing to talk about. He preferred it that way, but even if he didn’t, Emelisse had nothing of interest to say.

“Nothing could take your attention away from her. She pounded on my door and you laughed. She ordered you to get out of bed and you laughed.” Grimme started to snicker again. “You see? You would have put me away for days had I done such a thing to you. Never mind kicking in my door!”

“Make sure it’s latched next time.”

She gnashed her teeth. “Gr—Lord Grimme!”

“She amuses me. Think of her as … Aldwyn.”

“That is not what I see. You left my bed when your knight summoned you and you did not return until late morning. Then I learn she slept in your bed last night. You slept with her, did you not?”

“Aye. I slept with her almost all the way home from Scotland, too.”

She whimpered. “But—”

He huffed, no longer amused. “You misunderstand my marriage to her. I did not wed a woman. I bought a measure of safety from Sheffield’s plans for my death, and also had God’s blessing to get a castellain and a willing womb. She just happens to amuse me. Now, I weary of this conversation. If the boys are distressed by my having snubbed them, send them to my chambers.” That was the last thing he wanted to do, as they would want to wrestle and he was too tired to wrestle little boys.

“She is different,” she said flatly. “There is something about her that draws you to her.”

“I am not drawn to her that way.”

“Non, there is something else. I am going to lose you.”

“If you continue with this, oui, you might,” he burst out, exasperated.

“I mean, I am going to lose you to her.”

He looked at her with something akin to astonishment. “You see things that are not there. I bed you, not her.”

“You bed three or more others, too,” she said bitterly, “and do not tell me you did not get your cod satisfied on your journey to get her.”

“This again?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “You know why. Do not expect me to curb my lust simply because you cannot pace me.”

She flushed.

“I do not disrespect you by demanding you do what you don’t want to do, so do not badger me with your unhappiness that I go elsewhere for those things. As to Brigitte, if you are cordial to her, she will be cordial to you.”

“After this morning’s display?”

“She told you immediately that she does not care about you or why you are here. She was angry at me because she was tired because my orders were not carried out because the servants are not under control and you four hoard them all and my chamberlain dismissed her and no one knew who she was so could not command anyone. That was all my fault. She has no interest in you as anything but a member of the household for which she, as castellain, is responsible.”

“I will not be commanded, much less by her.”

“I cannot think what she could possibly want you to do.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Oh, you cannot think. This morning she felt free to kick in my door—”

He somehow controlled his snicker.

“—and storm into it as if it belonged to her. Then she lined me up with your other harlots as if I were a servant and ordered me to choose two maidservants, then ordered me upstairs. Then she ordered Gaston and Max upstairs with me.”

Grimme found nothing truly untoward about that, but kept his thoughts to himself. “She is just getting the household settled. She will not need to command you to do anything once everything is put to rights.”

“Tell her she is not allowed to command me for any reason at all!” she demanded.

He sighed. “Go to bed. I will be there anon.”

It wasn’t long after she left that he heard, “Papa!”

He smiled to see his youngest son, of Maebh’s womb, running to him with a big smile.

“’Tis very late, Pierce,” he said and pulled the boy onto his lap. “Why are you not in bed?”

He blinked. “No one put me there.”

Of course not. “Would you like me to do so?”

“Aye, Papa, and will you tell me a story?”

“Mmm, let me see. I will tell you the story of how I plucked Lady Brìghde straight out of her wedding.”

Exaggerated for best effect, of course. He had not gotten through their first night in the woods before the boy drifted off and his body grew heavier against Grimme’s chest until he released tiny snores.

He looked up to find that most of his men were in their cups around the hearth or sleeping. Grimme sighed and stood, the boy cradled in his arms and took him to his chambers, sliding him gently in bed beside his snoring brother. Once tucked in, Grimme looked down at his sons and smiled a little. Sometimes he did not feel as if they were his blood, just any four of many, many children in the keep and the bailey. How did a man feel his sons to be part of him? The boys’ mothers certainly felt them to be part of them, but Grimme could not capture that feeling. Any sons Brìghde bore him would be his legitimate sons, but he could not imagine caring for them any more or less than he cared for the ones he already had.

He should start preparing them for their future, the way his father had prepared Grimme, Grimme’s brothers, and Aldwyn. They could be warriors or respected scholars or doctors of medicine or merchants or clerics or craftsmen, sure of themselves. He wanted them to enjoy their occupations as much as Grimme enjoyed his, and he didn’t much care what they were, so long as they weren’t thieves like Grimme’s older brother.

He simply … did not want them to leave him.

Troubled by his neglect of his sons’ educations, he clipped down the stairs to his own hallway and slowed as he reached the span between his door and Brìghde’s. Hers was wide open, candles and torches blazing, hearth also ablaze. She had servants running in and out, fetching buckets of hot water and leaving with empty ones.

He leaned against her door frame, his arm up over his head to watch. The girls curtsied to him as they went in and out of the chambers. One, a tall, willowy, blue-eyed blonde, didn’t curtsy. She gave him a long look up his body, met his amused gaze, looked back down his body, then settled her attention on his cod. He smirked. She raised an eyebrow at him.

He shook his head with a wry grin, and she rolled her eyes and shrugged, then went about her business, cupping and squeezing his half hard cod as she went past. He looked over his shoulder and watched her disappear down the stairs. He puffed out a long breath.

“Oh! Grimme! Good eve.”

“Are you going to keep the maidservants up all night?” he asked, because if she didn’t, he would.

“Sweet Virgin Mary, I hope not,” she breathed, then flopped in an overstuffed chair and wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. “I’m drained.”

“Food?”

“Nay, but wine would not come amiss.”

He ordered one of the girls to fetch wine for both of them. She curtsied and scrambled, and he watched after her too.

“What is that scowl for, Lord Husband?”

He grunted. “I have never seen the servants work this hard or this fast.”

“There is a reason for that,” she said lazily, then yawned.

“Which is?”

“They haven’t been working much at all, but this wanders into things you do not want to know about.”

“Indeed.” He looked around at her chambers. “I would you acquire things of your own taste, not pieces scavenged from forgotten corners. If these chambers are not to your liking, you are free to choose different ones.”

“Aye, I will, bu—” A huge yawn caught her. “—but there are too many things to be done first, particularly if your duke is going to be visiting anon. Do you know! There are one hundred thirty-four guest chambers in this keep that do not have furniture!”

“Twenty-four total.”

“Well, it seemed like one hundred thirty-four. We shall need carpenters. And wood.”

“We will go to Hogarth and fetch some as soon as I can get away.”

“Thank you. Did you need me for something?”

“I was going to ask you to play chess with me, but I see you have a bath awaiting you.”

She nodded wearily, and said nothing whilst the remaining maid left. His brow wrinkled and he tilted his head to see if— “Brìghde, are you crying?”

She dashed her fingertips against her cheeks. “I miss my dog,” she whispered. “I have never slept a night that he did not sleep with me since he was a pup and now … ”

“You slept without him on our journey.”

“I slept with you and you are almost as big as he is, and almost as intrusive into my sleeping space. Last night, for example.”

Grimme laughed. “Would you have been allowed to take him to MacFhionnlaigh?”

“He was awaiting me there,” she muttered.

“What’s his name?”

“Mercury.”

“Roman? Commerce?” he asked, confused.

“Speed. Mercury has winged sandals and helmet.”

He smiled wistfully and sighed, his smile fading. “Aye.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I had a horse once,” he said, for some reason compelled to tell her things he had either never told anyone else or had forgotten. “Ares.”

“Greek god of war,” she murmured.

“He was born small and weak. He’d be dead in a couple of days, but my patron knight told me I could have him if I could save him. I was thirteen. I think. I sat with him and his dam night and day, slept with him, kept him warm, poured goat milk down his throat until he could nurse. His dam wanted him to live too; without her, he wouldn’t have survived. I spent every penny I had to keep him alive.

“So then, my knight took us to the best trainer in France, and loaned me the coin. I did the bulk of the training, with the trainer’s help, and he trained me how to train a horse to war. Ares carried me through every battle I ever fought as a knight, every tournament I ever entered, across France, up and down England.” Grimme wiped his hand down his face, wishing he’d never said anything, but now could not stop speaking. “I’ve never owned or ridden another horse that could match him. Intelligent. Fierce. A warrior.” She was watching him carefully, which made him angry because she saw too much. “I was approached about breeding him. I was very careful to breed him to mares who could match him and I made a lot of money. I have two of his sons and I only ride one or the other.”

“What happened to him?” she asked softly.

Why had he thought he could end the story there?

Because the story didn’t end there. It hadn’t ended at all.

“Sheffield has him. Marchand—my friend—rides him.”

Brìghde gasped, her eyes wide and her hands over her mouth. Indeed, her eyes were glistening again, and now he was happy because she could cry for him, that he had someone who would cry for him.

“Sheffield demanded him as tribute,” he muttered, looking down and scuffing his boot on the stone. “I had no choice. You will likely get to see him, too, when the duke visits.”

“Oh, Grimme,” she whispered.

He pushed himself away from her door jamb. “Good eve, and sleep well.” He halted, then said over his shoulder, “When the duke comes, he will tour the stables. Whatever you do, do not let him know how much you love Troy. He’ll demand him and I’ll have to give him to him because he’s my liege and God knows, Sheffield wants to possess everything I love.”

---

13

“MY LADY. LAUDS.”

Brìghde sighed at the hand on her shoulder, but did not open her eyes. She was so very comfortable in the old but sturdy bed with a new mattress. “Thank you, Avis. Bring me the green kirtle.”

She arose, allowed her chambermaid to help her dress, then sat on a stool whilst the girl brushed her hair, braided it, and dressed it. She looked in the glass. “That is very lovely. Thank you.” She could see the girl blush and smile in the glass. Brìghde turned and said, “You did very well with my chambers, and by the time I set. I am pleased. If you continue to serve me this well, I shall double your wage.”

“Thank you, my lady,” she whispered.

She looked around. “Does nothing match? Where is everything? Certainly the last occupant of this keep left something?”

Avis shook her head apologetically. “Not very much, my lady. We searched every corner of the keep for even this much and—” She shrugged helplessly.

“That’s a new mattress. Where did you find it?”

She pulled her lips between her teeth.

“Tell me,” she teased.

“You said all maids were to obey our orders, aye? We ordered one of the hags’—mistresses’ maids to bring us one of their mattresses that had not been swived upon. They have several, stacked upon each other.”

Brìghde beamed, and the girl ducked her head to hide her smile. “Excellent work. Very good thinking.” She leaned closer. “Which hags and how did they react?”

The maid giggled before she caught it in her hand. “Maebh and Ardith, mum. They only grumbled because they had to get out of the bed before we could get to it.”

“You and I should get along very well.”

“Aye, mum,” she whispered shyly. “You must hurry, however. The servants are lining up for roll.”

“Ah, aye. Thank you.”

If Brìghde wanted to get all the servants accounted for before breakfast, she would have to skip morning prayers and go straight to Sir John’s study, where he was awaiting her with his ledger. She went to the study door and said, “Kitchen staff first.”

They went quickly, Sir John checking them off, verifying their positions and wages. The serving staff next, who had to hurry to get the tables readied for breakfast. Next, the chambermaids and on down to the last servant in the keep.

There were many not accounted for and many important positions not filled. Sir John shook his head wearily. “I cannot keep up,” he murmured. “If they were dismissed, if they disappeared … ” His eyes were shiny with tears of frustration, and Brìghde would have comforted him, but it was time for breakfast.

“Come, come. A good meal will make everything look brighter. Can you go outside?” she asked as she accompanied him to the table.

“Only with help. Getting down the stairs outside the keep is dangerous business.”

“Ah.”

She and Sir John stood by their chairs and awaited Grimme, who appeared in simple breeches, tunic, and boots, which was standard clothing for a soldier to wear under his gambeson, mail, and armor.

“Good morn, Papa. Brìghde,” he said cheerfully.

“Good morn, Grimme.”

He seated her, then his father, then he sat. Everyone else then sat and breakfast was served. Brìghde looked at the mistresses’ spots. “Where’s your family?”

“Emelisse is sleeping. The boys are likely also asleep. The others, I don’t know. When are you going to get me a new chamberlain?” he muttered, scratching at the copper-gold stubble on his jaw.

“I asked who would like to shave the earl’s face without a nick or a cut and no one was interested.”

Grimme and Sir John chuckled.

“Is there anything else you need from a chamberlain?”

“See to my clothing,” he mumbled as he ate. “See to my comfort when I’m there.”

“Did you like him?”

“He’s been with me for eight years, so … aye.”

Brìghde pursed her lips and thought mayhap she had been a little too quick to take offense.

He slid a glance at her. “But I want someone I don’t have to train. I train enough pages and squires and men-at-arms. And horses. I don’t want to have to do it at home, too.”

Brìghde nodded. “Fair. Who occupied this keep before you? There is no furniture in this house.”

“So you said,” Grimme said around a bite. He was wolfing down his food and must want to get out to the training field. “It was empty when we got here. Papa saw to furnishing it for our needs, but that was five years ago, so … Kyneward has a dower house that may have something in it, but I doubt it. It’s boarded up. I haven’t been there, nor has anyone else, I don’t think. Papa?”

“Nay.”

“Where is it?”

“In the southwest corner, just inside the border between Kyneward and Sheffield.”

“How far is that?”

“Seven miles.”

“Where are the keys?” she asked breathlessly.

“I have them,” Sir John said.

Grimme slid her another glance. “Not this week. I will send knights with you, but we are conducting important training practice. Sheffield guards the border heavily to make sure we know they are there, and I don’t want them to mistake you for a wench who’s lost her way, and they would be very happy to see a beautiful woman alone and vulnerable. Wedding you would not be at the forefront of their thoughts.”

It irritated her, but she could see his point. “Very well. I have things to do.”

“Aye, and one thing you must do is adjudicate the villeins’ and merchants’ complaints against one another and against us.”

She looked at him, aghast. “You do not have a manorial court?”

“A what?”

Brìghde thought she would never overcome the shock at what this earldom lacked. “Uh … do you not adjudicate them?”

Grimme shook his head with finality. “No. My method of adjudicating conflict is to let the soldiers fight it out until one of them surrenders or dies.”

“Then … who does do it?”

“Father Hercule, when he can. Otherwise, no one.”

“So they’ve been arguing amongst themselves all this time?!”

“Aye.”

She leaned over her platter to look at Sir John. “Do you not have a lawyer here?”

Sir John and Grimme both looked at her strangely. “We should have a lawyer?”

“Oh, sweet Virgin Mary and Joseph,” she moaned, planting an elbow on the table and rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“Brìghde,” Grimme said stiffly, “I am the bastard son of a wealthy merchant, not a noble. I should not even have been made a knight, much less an earl and I have very rarely been in a noble’s home, and that only to sup occasionally. I have been an earl a mere five years, more than half of which I have spent in France. Neither of us knows how a noble household runs, which is something that has become painfully obvious to both of us over the last two days. We have done as well as we can with what little knowledge we have. There is no such thing as lessons in how to be an earl.”

“And I,” Sir John said darkly, “have been busy building a fortune, at which I excel, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Brìghde swallowed at the chastisement and wondered if she would lose both her new friends in all of three days.

Grimme went on, “I don’t even know how to get my sons legitimized, and my incessant missives to London have gone unanswered. We understand that you are learned in these matters, and we are grateful that you are, and that you have consented to see to putting us to rights. However, if you could refrain from pointing out how dimwitted we are, we would appreciate it.”

She flushed. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I— My mother is— I try not to be like her but … ”

“Forgiven. Do you know how I can legitimize my sons?”

“I only know Scots law,” she mumbled, flushing, utterly ashamed of herself because she had suddenly turned into her mother and she had sworn never to do so. She looked at Father Hercule next to her. “Please tell me you studied law before you took your vows.”

He smiled. “I did.”

“How can Lord Kyneward legitimize his sons?”

“He doesn’t have to legitimize them; he only has to declare an heir.”

“That is not what I want,” Grimme said. “I want to legitimize them, not name one of them my heir. Making a wise decision as to an heir amongst my sons is not only difficult at their ages, it would cause much strife amongst their mothers. I want my heir to be legitimate because none of my women have any expectations as to their sons being the heir. I don’t want the conflict.”

“You cannot legitimize them, my lord,” Father Hercule returned.

“Out of curiosity,” Brìghde asked Grimme, “which one would you name?”

“I—don’t—know!”

She turned back to Father Hercule. “You know the laddies. What do you think?”

“Pierce,” he said immediately. “He is shrewd, learns quickly, and he also has a bit of a ruthless streak, which, if it can be nourished in the correct way, will be what he needs to be earl.”

“He’s five,” Grimme drawled impatiently. “How ruthless can he be?”

“That is whom I would choose and that is part of my reasoning,” Father Hercule said firmly.

“You’re hired,” Brìghde told Father Hercule. “Send for a new priest.”

WHEN SHE RETURNED to her chambers just after midday meal, after having sequestered herself with Father Hercule to build a list of complaints to be heard and to set a regular weekly court day, her chambermaid was stacking wood by the hearth.

“Oh! Good afternoon, my lady,” she said, curtsying.

Brìghde smiled. “Come. Let us talk.” She offered her one of the mismatched chairs in front of the hearth and Brìghde took the other. The girl looked scared.

“Do you know Lord Kyneward’s chamberlain?”

She flushed. “He’s … me uncle, mum.”

“Oh, is that so!”

“Aye, mum.”

“Take me to him.” Her eyes popped out of her head. “I am not going to accuse him of thievery. Lord Kyneward values him, and I would offer him his position back.”

Her face lit up. “Oh, mum, thank you!”

Brìghde hopped up and gestured at the lass to hurry. She clipped down to the kitchen, surprising the kitchen staff, and asked where she could find carrots. They scurried to get them for her and she sweetly said, “Thank you,” then ran back up the stairs. It was pleasant to walk outside, as she had not been outside in a full day. “Come, we must visit my pet first.” She led the girl to the stables and Troy snuffled at her as soon as he saw her. “Good day, my sweet wee laddie,” she said and puckered up to smooch his snout. He lipped her nose. “Today I have carrots for you.” He gobbled them as fast as she could pull them out of the sack. “Sweet Mary! Do they give you nothing to eat?”

“Pardon, my lady, but he’s spoilt.”

She turned to see whom she assumed to be the marshal. He bowed, but was trying to keep his smile in check.

“Are you accusing me of spoiling this magnificent charger?”

“Aye, my lady, I am.”

She turned to Troy and nuzzled his snout again. “I can spoil you all I want, can I not, my beast?” She looked over her shoulder and said, “He’s a Trojan horse.”

“Aye, mum,” he chuckled. “Do you need him saddled?”

“Oh, no. I am going to walk. I just stopped by to pet my pet. Aye, he is. Who’s a good laddie? You’re a good laddie.”

“Ah, mum, I was wondering— We do need him to train and—”

“Any day, any time after breakfast. If I need him, I will try to request him in advance. Tomorrow, in fact.”

He bowed again. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Are you going to breed him?”

“Already done, by Lord Kyneward’s orders, mum.”

“Let me see her.”

The marshal led her across the outer bailey to a different stable. “This is where we keep the breeding mares.”

“Oh! ’Tis why you have so many horses!”

“Aye, mum. Lord Kyneward breeds and trains horses for sale. As he had Ares and now his sons, his horses are much in demand and nobles from all around come to purchase.”

He took her to a stall where a lovely bay mare who was almost as big as Troy stood munching oats. “Oh, good day,” Brìghde sighed, holding her hand out for the lass to sniff. “What’s her name?”

“Helen.” Brìghde gaped at him. “All our mares are named Mary until Lord Kyneward decides upon a name. We have mares who’ve been with us two or more years who still haven’t been named. Since this one and Troy took a liking to each other almost immediately and she was already in heat, ’twasn’t difficult to get him on her. So my lord named her Helen. He has a gift for knowing which stallions to breed to which mares and he spends quite a bit of time with their lineages.”

“Oh, what a lovely lass you are,” Brìghde cooed, but Helen did not seem to appreciate her attentions, so she stepped back. “I suppose I’ll not be riding her.”

“No, you will not. Nobody has been able to ride her but my lord and then only barely. She’s thrown him dozens of times.”

“Ah, ’tis not just me, then.”

“No. She is five, but her previous owner practically gave her away for she could not be trained. If anyone can train her, ’twould be my lord.”

“Does Ares have a consort?”

“Aye, he does. Come.”

The mare was mostly white with big black splotches, and mixed black-and-white mane, tail, and feathers. She too was almost as big as Troy. “Why, good day to you, Mistress Aphrodite.”

“Oh, no, mum. Her name is Enyo.”

Brìghde searched her mind for an Enyo, and could think of nothing. “Why?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Lord Kyneward.”

“Do you breed her?”

“We do, but Lord Kyneward would rather not, as we don’t have Ares and Lord Sheffield will not allow him to mate her. At the moment, she’s not in heat, but we cannot afford to leave her fallow, as her foals are too fine.”

“Why did Sheffield not take her too?”

“He doesn’t care about mares.”

“Idiot.”

The marshal chuckled.

Unlike Helen, Enyo seemed to like her quite well, even going so far as to wrap her neck around Brìghde’s shoulders to hug her, and Brìghde fell in love. “Oh, you bonny lass,” she cooed, with her arms around the mare’s neck, scratching her. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance and shall return to see you soon, aye, I will. What a bonny wee lassie you are! Thank you, Marshal. We’ll be off!”

The day was overcast, but warm for April. Brìghde paid careful attention to the villeins’ cottages, all of which needed a few repairs. Kyneward would need a land steward before those few minor repairs turned into many major repairs.

“This way, mum,” Avis said softly, and led her off the main lane through a pathway cut between cottages three rows back from the lane. She stopped at a cottage and knocked.

“Go’way.”

“Hamond, ’tis me, Avis.”

“Girl!” came the gasp and the door was ripped open. “Ye shouldna be away from the keep! Go back afore ye get—”

Avis tilted her head to the left. He looked at Brìghde and though he was surprised, he kept his expression carefully back.

“I made a mistake,” Brìghde said crisply.

Both Avis and her uncle gaped at Brìghde. A noble admitting error was unheard of and possibly scandalous, but doing so made one seem trustworthy.

“Lord Kyneward values you highly and he allowed me to dismiss you to honor a bargain he and I made, but he did not like it. Thus, since he has said nothing about it, much less complained, and he will not ask me to request your return, I would like to honor his gesture to me. If you would care to return, I will double your wages.”

Avis gasped and Hamond’s jaw dropped open. “My lady,” he breathed, stepping out into the small pathway.

“Before you accept or refuse,” she said, “we must have a bargain amongst the three of us. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Hamond, Lord Kyneward values you. Avis, you showed me your worth when you put my chambers together within your power and in the time I gave you. This is all I have to guide me; however, I must trust someone. You two must be my eyes and ears. I mean to set the keep to rights the way a noble household should be run. I need to know what goes on belowstairs or I will be crawling all over the keep at all hours of the day and night and nobody will see or hear me and I do not like to hear bad things about myself because then I will get angry. I want to know all the household goings-on. Who’s swiving whom. Who has a grudge against whom for what reason. Who is stealing what from whom, where, and how. Who’s a layabout. Who causes trouble. And I need to have your word you will not let your personal grievances against a good servant inform me whom to dismiss.”

Hamond was nodding along and Avis seemed to be soaking up the instructions as if she had accepted the terms.

“I do not want to know anything about where Lord Kyneward puts his spindle.”

They both choked.

“Do we have a bargain?”

“Aye, my lady.”

“Avis?”

“Oh, aye, my lady.”

“Excellent. If we hurry, we can have you in livery by supper.”

And the livery was awful. Brìghde grimaced when she saw Hamond dressed in his finest. The three of them stood in Grimme’s chambers and Brìghde tilted her head. “When was the last time you had new livery?”

“I couldn’t say, mum.”

Brìghde groaned and dropped her head in her hand. “So much.” She mimicked sobbing for a moment and then drew up a deep breath. She turned to Avis. “How long have you had that?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know, mum.”

Then Brìghde glanced at the unmade bed, which a maidservant should have made, which Hamond would have made sure she did. She pointed to the bedsheets. “Those are very worn. In fact, so are mine. That’s not something an earl and countess should be sleeping on.”

“That’s the best we have, mum.”

Brìghde sighed and closed her eyes. “Very well.”

Suddenly the chamber door opened and there stood Grimme, in his mail, who stopped short. “Oh. Good afternoon, Hamond.”

“Good afternoon, my lord,” he said, bowing.

Avis curtsied.

Brìghde opened her mouth, but Grimme held his hand up. “Household business.” With that, he dropped to his knees, looked under his bed, pulled out a sword, and left.

“Hamond,” she said suddenly, “do you know why Lord Kyneward does not like black?”

He looked surprised. “His tournament armor is black and his horse, Ares, is black.”

“Hrmph. Suffice it to say, your new livery will not be black. Suggestions?”

---

14

GRIMME AND HIS knights were deeply engaged in whatever drills they were practicing, so much so that the next morning, he and they all bolted down their breakfasts with barely a word.

“Wait,” she said as she caught him when he arose to head out to the practice field. Grimme looked at her, irritated, distracted. She snapped her fingers in his face. “Pay attention.”

“What!”

“What’s your favorite color?”

His mouth dropped open and then his expression hardened and his nostrils flared. “Brìghde.”

“I am absolutely serious. I am going to order new livery. I know you hate black, and I want to know what would please you.”

“Black,” he snapped and scraped his chair back so fast it fell over, then stalked out of the hall, all his knights following him.

She and Sir John exchanged looks. “Did you say you are going to order new livery?”

“Aye, and bedsheets. Why?”

Sir John’s brow wrinkled and he slowly arose and shuffled toward his office, gesturing for her to come with him. He sat heavily at his desk and sorted through his very tidy stack of papers that were arranged in some way she did not understand. He pulled out a bill and handed it to her. “That is from the seamstress in Waters. Livery. Bedsheets.”

Brìghde studied the bill. “Firstly, I would not order good livery from Waters. Secondly,” she said slowly, “there is no new livery in the larders and nothing but worn bedsheets upstairs. I had my maid ask the paramours’ maids about the state of their bedsheets, and ’tis the same. A countess, an earl, and his mistresses should not be sleeping on bare threads. Thirdly, if you didn’t order it, who did?”

“I’m sure it’s just an error,” Sir John said wearily.

He didn’t believe that.

“I will rectify it,” Brìghde murmured.

He flopped back in his chair and said, “How long will it take you to get the keep into the order it should be?”

“Uh … I don’t know. Grimme is convinced the duke will be coming soon, but I don’t know what that means. We must be ready, and I am hurrying. Why?”

“I am tired and I want—” He snapped his mouth shut.

Brìghde’s mouth twisted and she looked away.

“Go,” he muttered. “Just … go.”

“I … will need coin,” she said uncertainly in a small voice.

“Coin?” he barked. “To go do … whatever you do?”

“No,” she said, confused. “I’m going to Waters. To find out about this bill.”

He blinked. “Oh. Aye. I suppose you will.” He made shooing gestures as he arose and she left his study, closed the door, and waited for him to open it and put a pouch in her hand. She counted it.

“That should be enough.” She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

He did not smile back. He nodded wearily and closed his door.

She hurried up to her chambers to tell Avis where she was going, then across the hall to ask Hamond if he felt Lord Kyneward needed anything. Razors. She clipped down the stairs, out the front door, and ran across the inner bailey to the outer bailey, to the stables. “Good day!” she called.

Grooms popped out of the stalls and fell all over themselves to bow and serve her. No, here, they would not be able to laze about as the indoors servants had done before Brìghde had come to set them aright. This was the marshal’s domain and he would know if the slightest, most insignificant straw were out of place.

“I would like my horse, please.”

“All pardons, my lady,” one ventured. “Which one is yours?”

“The golden destrier with the white mane and tail.”

Their mouths dropped open, which Brìghde found extraordinarily satisfactory, and she preened.

“But … my lady … that’s … a really big horse.”

“Now, please.”

Once Troy was led out, she admired his deep golden hide and nearly white mane and tail, and the thick white feathers about his hooves.

“My lady, all pardons, but the only side-saddles we have belong to the mistresses, and they are not big enough for your horse. Are you sure you would rather not ride one of the palfreys? Or at least a gelding?”

“No,” she said airily, “I would not. Saddle him with what he came with.” She put her nose against her horse’s and scratched his cheeks. He huffed and nibbled her nose with his velvety lips. “I grew rather attached to this lad on our journey, did I not? Aye, I did,” she told the horse. “You are a pretty lad, aren’t you? Aye, you are.” She hugged his neck and spoke to him, then fed him carrots whilst the grooms saddled him. “Have you seen your consort today? She doesn’t like me.” When her bag of carrots was empty, they assisted her in mounting.

Once again, she arranged her skirts so that they would protect her against the leather yet allow her knees movement. She started when a saddled sway-backed nag was drawn up next to her and a groom mounted, then looked at her expectantly.

“What.”

He gestured to the portcullis. “Whenever you’re ready, my lady.”

She laughed. “Oh, no. You are not coming with me.”

“But if I don’t, my lord will—”

“And if you do, I will. You stay here.”

“My lady,” he begged. “Please.”

“Nooooo.” With a laugh, she kicked her stallion into a flat run and thundered out the portcullis and down the lane, leaping carts, children, sheep, and gates.

For the good livery the upper servants would wear, the clothier had to visit Kyneward for an extended stay, but she had no furniture. It would have to wait until they had some. But the candle was burning down quickly until there would be an unannounced visit by the duke. She would go to Hogarth soon to start outfitting the keep in earnest.

She let the horse have his head for as long as he wanted. After years of being pent up in either her chambers or her father’s study, allowed out with the heaviest of guards on the worst horses in the stable, it was absolute heaven being alone outside on a powerful horse, free to go where she would as fast as she wanted to.

When Troy finally slowed, she pulled him back to a walk for a while, then cantered the rest of the way into the village.

She garnered many a shocked look as she clip-clopped merrily into the hamlet. She waved. “Good morn!” she called to that farmer. “Good morn!” she called to this baker. “Good morn!” she called to the seamstress, which shop was the first place she was headed. She stopped her horse and dismounted (not without some difficulty). “I am Lady Brìghde Kyneward,” she said to the still-dumb woman.

“I know,” she whispered. “Ye came through here three days ago with the earl.”

Brìghde smiled. “Excellent! Then you likely know I need clothes.”

“Aye, but my lady, I do not carry such finery, nor do I know the latest fashions. I provide linens and rough livery for scullery maids and the like.”

Her eyebrows rose. “But I do not need the latest fashions today. I need you today. Would you rather I take my business elsewhere?”

She gasped. “No, no! Welcome. Welcome, my lady. Come in, come in.” With that, she yelled a boy’s name into the shop and presently, one popped up. “Take my lady’s horse to the livery.”

Brìghde nodded approvingly and followed the woman into the shop. She looked around. It was unimpressive at first and stayed that way throughout her inspection. The fabric was rough and in uninteresting colors, half of it black. She sighed.

Black was her favorite color.

“Now, I must tell you,” Brìghde said finally, “that I am a working lady, and will soon take over Sir John’s duties.”

“Oh?” she asked carefully.

“Aye. Serve me well today and you shall have all the business you could dream of.”

She bobbed a curtsy, but looked more afraid than delighted. She might not know how to manage more business. Oh, well. She would learn.

“I am in need of more rough gowns such as I am wearing and servants’ clothing for myself. ’Tis why you are perfect for my needs.”

The woman’s jaw dropped. “But my lady—!”

“No, no. I am serious. Please take my measurements and get me three daily gowns, ten white shifts, and four sets of pages’ clothing. Can you do that in a week?”

She gulped. “Yes, my lady.”

“And … oh. Sir John was teaching me the ledgers, and I saw some of your bills and I thought that mayhap a delivery of bedsheets and livery was not accounted for properly? I could not find the merchandise.”

The woman struggled to keep her smile in place, but her skin paled. “I must have mixed up the bills, my lady. The bedsheets are awaiting delivery when the livery is finished.”

“Excellent! Also, I was wondering if we have any credit against future purchases? Or perhaps we have not settled our accounts properly? I have not been able to go over all the bills, you see. I would not have you go unpaid.”

She gulped. “I don’t think so, but I will go over my records and calculate it. If so, ’twould have been an honest mistake.”

Brìghde waved a hand. “Everyone makes errors,” she said reassuringly. “I’m sure everyone in Waters has made errors at some point or another, no?”

“I—I wouldn’t know, my lady.”

“Mayhap,” Brìghde said softly, “some other merchants might like to be made aware of any errors in calculations for goods to the keep. Oh, and in future, please direct the deliveries to me. Now!” she resumed brightly. “About my new clothing … ”

SHE SPENT THE DAY going through the hamlet ordering what she could from the few resources available and making sure every single merchant knew they would be undergoing scrutiny by the new countess. Kyneward had merchant credit all over Waters so she needed few coins. Now, how to keep that from Sir John so as to spare his feelings, she did not know.

She bought a good pair of scissors and several razors from the blacksmith in coin, as the blacksmith would admit to no credit there. She went to the cobbler and ordered another pair of boots, but could not order slippers or fine shoes, as he did not trade in finery, either. She purchased an entire set of sewing implements. The only other thing she purchased outright was a wheel of a particularly good cheese (which made the cheesemaker preen) and a loaf of bread, then a bag of pears for Troy.

She sighed sadly. His name was particularly poignant to her, considering the task Walter had assigned her in anticipation of her becoming Lady MacFhionnlaigh. Aye, it was indeed worth promising children to a strange man who intended to force her to marry him if it meant she would be forever free of Roger and her father. That the earl was kind, funny, and handsome was even more fortuitous. When the time came, lying under him would be no hardship.

Her brow wrinkled. Unless … he was so averse to brunettes he could not rise for her at all, ever, and if his collection of tall, willowy, blue-eyed blondes (including three maidservants) was anything to go by, it would be quite the hardship for him to lie with her.

She could admit that did bruise her vanity, as she was not accustomed to being rebuffed for her appearance. Why would it be a pleasurable experience for her if she knew all along that he was disgusted by her? She couldn’t bed him if he had to force himself, for she would have to beg and why should she beg to carry his babe? It wasn’t her earldom under attack.

She was not so desperate to keep him as a friend as to be able to swallow that insult without stating her opinion.

His aversion to brunettes was one thing, but his insistence that she not wear or buy black made her wonder if one had anything to do with the other.

’Twas almost sunset when she and Troy trotted into Kyneward’s stable, where the grooms barely spoke to her, would not look at her, and stayed as far away from her as possible. She huffed and stomped her foot. “What has happened that you barely acknowledge my existence?”

“They have been roundly berated for allowing you to go out alone,” came the earl’s deep voice, filled with anger, from the entrance to the stable. She turned to see him standing by his destrier, reins in hand, glaring at her. “And they may be even more severely disciplined, once I decide upon it.”

She clucked. “Oh, really,” she huffed. “They tried, and I ordered them not to. Then I outran them. They had no chance even had they disobeyed my order, especially with that nag they had saddled. And then I would have berated and disciplined them. Recant your beration.”

“Wife,” he growled.

“Husband,” she mocked with wide eyes and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

She knew she had him when his mouth started to twitch. He opened his mouth, pointed at her, took a breath, and said— Nothing. He simply started to laugh. “‘Beration’ is not a word.”

“It is now. Give your reins over, tell them you won’t discipline them any further, and inform them that I will go out whenever I please with or without whomever I please on that horse—” She turned and looked at a groom. “His name is Troy. He is mine. No one else rides him when he is not occupied in training or warfare. Have my purchases taken to my chambers, the ones across from his lordship’s.”

“Aye, my lady,” he whispered.

She turned back to the earl. “—and to pamper him shamelessly with pears and carrots and whatever else he asks for.”

Grimme sighed and threw up a hand. “You heard her.” He handed over the reins to his horse and offered her his arm, which she took, and strolled with him out of the stable, through the outer bailey, inner bailey, and up the stairs to the great hall.

“I never thanked you for offering me your bed the first night.”

“You’re welcome,” he smiled warmly.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“You disturbed one of my knights, who fetched me, as he was horrified that a countess had to sleep in a chair amongst men of war. And,” he said slowly, “I … apologize for snapping at you this morning. I have much to think about.”

“’Tis well.”

“Thank you also for returning Hamond to me.”

“I was very angry,” she said simply, “but after some thought, I realized that because you immediately honored the bargain at great sacrifice to yourself without complaint, I wanted to show you my appreciation.”

He slid her a glance. “You didn’t want to find a new chamberlain.”

She snickered.

“Green.”

“What?”

“My favorite color is green.”

---

15

BRÌGHDE WAS IN THE chapel early the next morning to pray as she had always done at home but had not yet had a chance to do here. Her customs were all awry, but they would have been anyway, as the last time she had had any custom was the morning before her wedding, after which she would have had to establish new customs at MacFhionnlaigh, which would have involved avoiding Roger’s mother. And father. And Roger.

Whilst she plotted to disappear forever.

If she lived that long.

Kyneward was not MacFhionnlaigh, and she was here to stay, so she was free to create customs she would not have to abandon. The only person who commanded her was her husband, who did not seem to care much about commanding her at all. Here at Kyneward, there were no plots, no angry fathers, no overbearing mothers, no husband she could not abide, much less his family, no swiving a disgusting imp (although now she was the disgusting imp) and she had a friend. Finally. Two friends!

Until she was right and could no longer suffer being right silently.

She finished her prayers, crossed herself, and stood, turning to see Grimme kneeling with his rosary. She sat quietly so that she would not disturb him as she passed by to leave.

“Amen,” he whispered.

She arose to leave, but he caught her with a smile. “Good morn.”

“Good morn,” she said, taking a seat beside him when he moved over. “How was your night?”

“Busy,” he said.

Her brow wrinkled. “What could you— Ohhhh.”

He chuckled.

“Do you go to confession for that?” she asked cheekily.

“Why bother?” he drawled. “Do you suppose God has blessed us? You and me.”

Brìghde looked at him, once again noting how fine of face he was. “I do,” she answered simply.

“Tell me about the Trojan horse.”

Surprised, though she should not have been, she began. “’Tis not much more than you could deduce from what I said. The finer point was that once established as Roger’s bride, I was to host a feast of all the MacFhionnlaighs from far and wide, choose a propitious moment, and poison the lot of them. And then Walter would ride in with his army and lay waste to MacFhionnlaigh’s troops, who would, hopefully, be dead drunk.”

“You speak of it as if ’twere just another Sunday for you. It … bothers me, as your propensity for loyalty—or lack thereof—bothers me.”

She supposed she deserved that, and he wasn’t wrong.

“You said your loyalty could be earned, but not compelled. You profess no loyalty to your father, yet you were poised to do as he commanded you. Please help me understand.”

She took a deep breath. “No one knew of the plot except Walter and I. I was supposed to wed Roger two years ago, but MacFhionnlaigh offended him somehow—don’t ask, I don’t know what happened—and he wanted revenge. If he had said, ‘They are weak and I want their lands and I will go to war to obtain them,’ I would have thought nothing of it, for they are weak and I don’t like weak men. But for a slight … It didn’t have to be anything big.”

Grimme was nodding. “If my neighbor’s weakness bore a consequence to my land, say, allowing invaders to cross because of a lack of defense, then aye, I would take it. If not, no. But certainly ‘I want your land’ is a better reason than ‘You hurt my feelings.’”

She laughed. “It is. Thus, he kept me at his side for two years, plotting and planning. I learned potions and poisons. I learned how to wield my dagger and sword more effectively. Not once did he say a derogatory word to me the entire two years. He didn’t praise much, either, but I didn’t expect any. It was … Grimme, it was wonderful. In those moments when I was at his side, I would have done whatever he asked to keep his approbation. But then I would go to my chambers and wonder what spell he had me under.”

Grimme tensed just slightly. “But at the wedding, he had a sword in your back, and you said he walled off all your options for rebellion.”

She heaved a sigh. “Aye. After all that and he didn’t trust me not to rebel.”

“You said no one would be surprised if you had been plotting to do so.”

“Aye. But since I could not outwit him before the wedding, I would have to do so after. I intended to run away, as I did from the convent, but how long would it take me to prepare so that I never had to return? Could I hold Roger off long to escape his spindle and Walter’s plan? Could I keep from doing it at all if he caught me before I did what he wanted?”

Grimme looked a little befuddled. “Once you were with MacFhionnlaigh, wouldn’t you have his protection?”

“Not … necessarily. Walter would have visited often, ever threatening to kill me if I did not do as he said. He would have gotten impatient enough eventually to do so. But if I did do as he wanted and succeeded, the other clans would have executed me. He would have disavowed all knowledge.”

“What?” he breathed.

“I do not know, but I believe that his intent was to be able to take MacFhionnlaigh, aye, but stage it as if I had acted alone and his seizure of it would have been to protect MacFhionnlaigh from me and he arrived too late. Then he could turn me over to the clans for execution. I was terrified to do it, and terrified not to do it. Either way, I would have died, by the clans’ hand or his.”

“Brìghde,” he whispered, looking quite horrified.

“If I am right—and some days I could not believe he would go to such lengths to avenge himself for my rebellions—”

“Why could he not simply kill you?”

“My mother. She has some hold on him that none of us has ever been able to ken. He gives her whatever she wants. He had to have a way to get me killed without doing it himself. At this point, I could easily be convinced he will do anything to kill me without making my mother suspicious that he had done so.”

They sat in silence for a moment or two before Brìghde realized she needed to wipe a tear from her cheek.

“Why didn’t you poison your father?” he finally asked.

“Och!” She waved a hand. “He’s had tasters for as long as I’ve been alive, and that’s simply because he has not hardened himself to every poison in the world.”

That seemed to intrigue him. “Are you hardened to poison?”

“Only the one I was to use. He wouldn’t dare poison me.”

“Because your mother would know.”

“Aye.”

Grimme nudged her. “Should I fear you will wreak havoc upon my household and supplant my rule with yours?”

She snickered at his teasing. “Were your brains suddenly to turn to mush, I would of course assume power,” she teased in return, “but I’ve no fear of that.”

“You might,” he said wryly, “should my helm be battered on the battlefield and I return with the wits of a vegetable.”

“Then you shall go into battle knowing your estate is safe in my hands.”

“But I do not know. I’ve yet to see you with complete control.”

“You’ve seen my iron fist already.”

He started to chuckle again. “I’ve yet to get you that velvet glove.” He paused. “I shall think on what you have said, but know this: I will not let him harm you.”

She smiled softly at his sincere tone. He believed what he said, and he would do what he could to protect her, but in the end she would offend him and he would no longer be her friend and then he wouldn’t care.

“Ah … ” he began delicately. “On to something entirely different.”

“Am I in trouble?” she asked warily.

“No, no! My youngest son, Pierce. Maebh’s. The five-year-old.”

Brìghde nodded encouragingly.

“He lurks and skulks about the keep. He has seen you pass through, and is distressed that you have not said good day to him though I tell him time and time again that people who cannot see or hear him cannot say good day. He doesn’t understand. He finds you fascinating.”

Brìghde blinked. “Why?”

“He hates Emelisse,” he said flatly. “You showed him Emelisse is not as powerful as she thinks she is. He wants your protection from her—”

Brìghde had many thoughts on that. “Oh.”

“And perhaps a little attention. May I introduce you? And … will you be kind?”

“Of course,” she said in a small voice, hurt.

“Brìghde,” he said softly, picking up her hand and running his thumbs over the veins, “I don’t know you. Please do not hold my requests against me. I don’t want them to fear their stepmother.”

She took in a deep breath and nodded. “I— Hm. Um … ”

“Say it.”

“Very well. Sir John asked me to intervene, as I have brothers and might understand your sons. I said no, because I do not want to get between a mother and her child. Yet … what little I have seen—and it has been very little—and have heard, they need to be allowed to be wee laddies. More, they need your guidance.”

He nodded wearily. “I know. I hesitate to take them away from their mothers, as they are so attached— Rather, Emelisse is attached.” His mouth tightened. “I know that Gaston and Max need to be apprenticed out to a knight as pages, and Terrwyn is that age now. Pierce enjoys his studies with Father Hercule, so I suspect he may thrive as a scholar. I was surprised at Father Hercule’s assertion that Pierce has a bit of a ruthless streak, as he is only five.”

“He gets it from his father,” Brìghde said wryly, which made him laugh.

“Aye, I suppose. But quite frankly,” he said, his voice a little hollow, “I don’t know them as well as my father knew me, my brother, and Aldwyn at those ages, so I cannot tell which of them are suited to the battlefield or possibly commerce, as my father and brothers are.”

“You do not send them away so that you can observe and do for them what your father did for you.”

“Aye.”

“Have you been?”

“Have I been what?”

“Observing them.”

He slid her a glance that made his irritation clear. “No.”

She refrained from saying I didn’t think so.

“But you knew that.”

She shrugged. “How can you observe them when they spend their days in their chambers or running around the inside of the keep and you are out on the practice field?”

“Come,” he said, assisting Brìghde out of the pew, walking together out of the chapel to see the boys already running about. “Boys!”

“Papa!”

Then they were surrounding him, jumping on him like excited puppies. He picked up the littlest, who watched Brìghde with great curiosity. “Good morn, Master Pierce,” she said with a smile, and held her hand out.

“Take her hand like this,” Grimme murmured and demonstrated, “and then kiss her knuckles.”

He tried it and pressed his mouth so hard against her knuckles he would wake up with a fat lip. Brìghde kept her laugh to herself. “Thank you.”

“Boys, this is Lady Brìghde. She is my wife.”

“We know,” Gaston muttered with a hateful glare.

Brìghde looked at him with a wry expression and said, “I am not going to try to be your mother, but if you allow me to, we might be able to be friends.”

He rolled his eyes and turned away.

Brìghde looked at the other two and said, “Max? And Terrwyn? Aye? Very nice to meet you also.”

The three older lads looked to start playing tag in the great hall whilst the servants were readying breakfast. “Grimme,” she said softly, “will you allow them to run in the bailey?”

“Aye, I think so,” he said, putting Pierce on his feet. “Come, boys. I will play with you.”

They turned into the four happiest lads in the world, and she waved at Pierce, who was craning his neck around to look at her as he was shuffled out the door. He returned her wave hesitantly.

“You stay away from my sons.”

Brìghde turned to see the French mistress snarling at her. Brìghde rolled her eyes and took a few steps away from her, but was jerked back by a long bony hand wrapped around Brìghde’s entire upper arm. It hurt. But she merely looked at the hand, then up at Emelisse and murmured, “Get your hand off me before I cut it off.”

The woman was so shocked she did, in fact, drop her hand.

“We can be friends,” Brìghde said flatly, “or we can ignore each other, but I would rather not be enemies because I dispose of my enemies, which requires more work than I care to perform. Do not make me work harder than I absolutely must.”

“You have Grimme. You do not get my sons, too.”

“I do not have Grimme. I do not want Grimme.”

Emelisse was surprised, if not shocked.

“Nor do I want your sons. But,” Brìghde said low, stepping forward and looking up at the utterly beautiful woman Brìghde could not hope to compete with even if she wanted to, “I will treat them—and you—any way I feel moved to. Stay out of my way and we will have no trouble.”

With that, Brìghde stepped around her and continued upon her way.

“May your womb one day find too many choices to make.”

Brìghde did not stop walking, but shivers ran down her spine. It was said in a whisper, in sing-song French. It sounded like a curse, but instead of panicking, she simply raised her hand with the middle finger up prominently.

Brìghde smirked at the witch’s gasp of outrage.

There were advantages to having grown up with six brothers.

---

16

“SIR JOHN,” BRÌGHDE murmured after breakfast as the two of them sat on the same side of his desk whilst Brìghde wrote out her purchases of the day before and their exact amounts. “You referred to the paramours as witches. Did you mean that?”

He cast her a sober glance. “Why?”

“Emelisse cursed me.”

“She has cursed me also.”

She dropped her quill and wrung her hands. “Has it come true?”

Sir John heaved a sigh. “Brìghde. The thing you must know about curses is that they only work if you believe them, and even then almost never.”

Brìghde was confused. “But that’s … witchcraft. ’Tis of Satan!”

“Consider: If you were Satan—”

She gasped, her eyes wide at his blasphemy.

“No, no. Listen to me for a moment and ponder. I want an answer. If you were Satan, and you wanted to exploit all the evil in the world, would you waste your time on trifles such as curses and potions and possession of animals?”

She worried that in her mind.

“With all the evil that humans are capable of—say, your father. Sheffield. When those two are wandering the earth wreaking havoc on anything and everything for sport, when men have warred with each other from the dawn of time— The man my son idolizes, Henry of Monmouth— He is not a good man. Grimme was with him when they took Rouen. They starved the town out, so it released twelve thousand of its poor, thinking Henry would let them through his forces to find sustenance.” He shook his head. “No. He let them starve and my son was there at his side and saw nothing wrong with it.”

Brìghde looked at him without understanding.

“Well?” he barked. “Is that or is that not evil?”

Confused, Brìghde said, “That’s … war.”

Sir John’s forehead thunked on his desk. “There’s two of you,” he groaned. He raised his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do you pray to God?”

“Of course!” she said, horrified that anyone would question her devotion.

“Mm hmm, and does God give you what you want when you do what He says?”

“Aye,” she said firmly.

“Oh, really,” he drawled with a bit of disdain. “What was the last thing you prayed for that you got?”

“A miracle to keep me from marrying Roger MacFhionnlaigh,” she said flatly.

Sir John, shocked, blinked at her but looked at Brìghde’s list. “Ah. And so where is God on the battlefield?”

“With the victor,” she replied helplessly, unable to understand his point.

“One innocent person is slain, it is murder. Slay twelve thousand, but that is just … war?”

“Aye.”

“And what about your father’s plan for MacFhionnlaigh?”

Brìghde’s mouth tightened. “You say Satan does not waste his time on trifles such as potions and curses, but exploits the larger evils that men do.”

“Aye.”

“Walter wanted to lay waste to MacFhionnlaigh because they offended him in some way that they probably don’t know they did. Instead of saying, ‘Och! Ye hurt me feelin’s!’ so MacFhionnlaigh could say, ‘Och! I’m verra sorry!’ he plotted for two years to slay the entire clan. His vanity is a trifle that Satan exploits. Do not say Satan will not use every trifle, even the fancies of a jealous French mistress; he has the time, energy, and demonic army to do it.”

Sir John heaved an exasperated sigh. “Never mind.”

“Does Grimme know? About Emelisse, I mean?”

“He can’t. He prays every morning. He is superstitious and has a very deep fear of witches, demons and such, which I don’t know how he acquired, so if he thought she were a witch, he would’ve put her away immediately. As for her witchcraft, I don’t find it any worse or better than anything the church teaches, and St. Augustine was clear on its irrelevancy to the gospel or anything else, but let’s not debate theology any longer, as I am a bitter old man.”

It bothered Brìghde that her friend Sir John had such a blasphemous opinion of the church, and she wanted to talk about it, but trying to show him where he was wrong would distress him and she did not want to lose her friend, so she tried not to think about it.

“My son believes in witchcraft, but I do not. Emelisse is not one. I have seen no evidence that she has been any more detrimental to a household than any other man’s mistress, which is to say if she is a witch, she is a very inept one. There is no reason to plant those seeds in his mind, which would throw the household into more chaos than it already is, and my very strong advice to you—since I cannot command you—is to keep your belief to yourself. He doesn’t need to know, I don’t want to discuss it, and it would immediately make him suspicious of you and your motives.”

“Aye,” she murmured, properly chastised.

He then went back to her list. She could tell when he began paying attention and shrank in on herself in dread.

“Brìghde,” he said slowly, “what … Do I read this correctly? You spent almost no coin yesterday, but you returned with merchandise.”

She pulled out the coin purse and dropped it on the list. “There is the balance,” she sighed. “Sir John … I don’t know how to say this, but … ”

By the time she was finished, he was nearly in tears, and she despaired that she had had to hurt him so. She did not like hurting her friends, as those hurts built, and then the friendship ended.

But she was training to be castellain of Kyneward and she was right, and she also could not bear the burden of being right without a way to repair the situation. To repair it, he had to know and she was the only one who could tell him. Hesitantly, she reached out and put her hand on his back, but he waved her away, so she decided not to tell him about the kitchen staff, as she had already managed the situation. She arose quietly and left the study, pulling the door closed and standing there, sad and helpless. She had made her friend cry.

The midday meal was called then and she stood behind her chair to await Grimme, as did his paramours and their children. He entered the hall with three of his men, laughing. One of his men said something, which made the rest of them roar. Grimme’s face was red and shiny with sweat. His blond-roux hair was wet and dark. Though he had taken off his mail and gambeson, clad in only breeches and a belted tunic over it, he was still a very large man, at least twice her size, as he could sleep curled around her almost doubled over.

“Brìghde!” he called, grinning at her. He turned to his man and said, “Tell my lady.”

His face flushed. “Ah, ’tis not fit for a lady, my lord.”

The others jeered him, so Grimme turned and, as he walked toward her, as his men stopped at their own chairs, he told the jest. It was bawdy, she knew, but this jest also used Sassenach words whose double meaning she did not ken. She laughed anyway when the rest of the knights began to roar yet again.

She took quick glances at the paramours, three of whom seemed to understand the jest no better than Brìghde and one who rolled her eyes. Brìghde supposed that was the English one.

“Boys!” Grimme called.

The lads, standing behind their own chairs restlessly, waved at him. “Papa!”

He stopped and, squeezing between two of his men, he stepped up on the table, his leg perfectly defined in his hose, flexing with his effort, then he dropped onto the floor behind his smallest son with a thud. The wee laddie fair jumped into his arms, whilst Grimme clasped the next youngest to his side and ruffled his hair. Then he looked across the table with a wide grin to inquire of his two oldest, flanking their mother, as to how their morning studies had gone.

“They were not present this morning, my lord,” Father Hercule said matter-of-factly from beside Brìghde. She had not even noticed he’d joined the table.

Grimme’s smile disappeared and he looked stonily at their mother. She met his look defiantly, her chin high. His mouth tightened and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. He set his second youngest aside and put the youngest down. He leaned across the table and pressed the woman’s ear to his mouth and spoke for quite a while. She flushed, her jaw tightening angrily, then she whirled and ran down the aisle, around the end of another table to the stairs, then disappeared up them.

Without a look in Brìghde’s direction, he stepped on that table, then stepped on the head table, his foot right between her place and his, then dropped with a thud next to Brìghde. He scraped his chair away from the table and plopped his arse in it. The rest of the household then were free to take their seats and the meal was served.

“Are you and Troy going out this afternoon, Brìghde?” he asked pleasantly as he stuffed a piece of meat in his mouth.

“He’s in the field today. Tomorrow, we are going to Hogarth. I must discuss livery with the clothier, drapes, hangings, and such. I must order nice gowns and slippers. Then we must hire carpenters for new furniture, as I must fetch the clothier here, but I have nowhere to put him or his retinue. I need to hire a clerk, a land steward, and a housekeeper. As well, I need everything else, as my bridegroom did not allow me to bring any of my possessions with me.”

“All apologies,” he said, not at all apologetic. “If your father refuses you your possessions, I will send for your things.”

She gasped a little, her hand to her breast. “You would do that for me?”

He cast her a glance as he ate. “Aye. I’d not have you go without your pet.”

“Thank you!” she breathed.

“Would you like company tomorrow?”

She gestured to his knights.

“They’ve trained without me before.”

She looked at him with mock suspicion. “’Tis to keep me from going alone, aye?”

He flashed her a grin.

She huffed. “Then a ‘no’ would be ignored.”

“Very much so.”

She laughed. “I would enjoy it. After breakfast. How was your morning?” she asked to be courteous, but apparently he heard it in her voice.

“I will not bore you with my occupation any more than I will allow you to bore me with yours.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, which made him laugh.

As a servant passed behind Brìghde’s chair, she caught her and murmured, “I want several barrels full of water heated to boiling by the time this meal has been completely cleaned up. Find all the soap in this keep, brooms, brushes, cloths, scrapers, and such, and gather every unoccupied servant in and out of the keep, and I know there are many of those.”

The girl, looking half terrified, curtsied, said, “Aye, my lady,” and scurried off.

Brìghde turned back to her platter to see Grimme looking at her. “Time to clean the floor,” she said archly. He grimaced, but she refrained from pointing out how filthy it was; that was something her mother would do. “Oh! I was perusing your stables with your marshal yesterday.”

“I heard. How did you find them?”

“Very impressive,” she said sincerely.

He gave her a warm smile. “Thank you.”

“He said this is a breeding estate.”

“Aye. ’Twas something I started by accident once my trainer and I had Ares battle-ready.”

“Who is Enyo?”

“One of Ares’s consorts. Goddess of war, Ares’s counterpart.”

“Ah, that is why you did not name her Aphrodite, as I assumed.”

He nodded. “Enyo has been considered Ares’s wife, sister, mother, or companion-at-arms, ’tis not clear, but I think of her as his wife and dearest companion, who rides at his side into battle, along with his sons Phobos and Deimos.”

Brìghde looked at him in confusion. “You don’t have a mare named Aphrodite?”

Grimme shook his head.

“But Enyo is also Ares’s lover?”

“Only to produce warriors like them. Enyo is more valuable to Ares than Aphrodite.”

“Ah. Who are the sons you said?”

“Phobos and Deimos, gods of fear and dread. Deimos is the red I rode to Fàileach. Phobos is silver with the same black mane and tail as Deimos.”

“Who’s their mother?”

“The beasts or the gods?”

“The gods.”

He hesitated. “They’re Aphrodite’s sons. As for the beasts, they’ve got different dams. I’ve bred Ares to a dozen select mares across France and another two dozen in England. The royal stables are filled with his get. God only knows what Sheffield’s done with him or even if it’s occurred to him at all, and I’ll never know if Ares has sired any others whilst he’s in Sheffield’s possession, which will disturb my recordkeeping.”

“I would like you to take me on a tour of your stables, if you please.”

“I will soon, but not this week. I was told Helen was not pleased to meet you.”

She sniffed. “Enyo loved me. What is wrong with Helen?”

“She’s difficult and she doesn’t like anybody.”

“Then why would you buy or breed her?”

“Firstly, I would pay any price to have her dam and sire, but they will never be for sale. Secondly, she was cheap. Whether she can be trained or not, I could spare the coin to at least try. Thirdly, she is—was—a maiden. I hadn’t found a stallion yet that could mount her, but she fell in love with Troy the minute I walked him past her stall and is completely tractable in his company. I decided to see what comes of it. Thus far I’m the only one who’s been able to ride her, and only for a few seconds before I land on my arse in the dirt.” His brow wrinkled. “Would you be so kind as to ride the mares when Troy is out on the field? The stable is growing, my marshal can’t hire enough grooms fast enough to exercise them, and they need to be ridden. My women go riding almost every day, but they have their own mounts and are not willing to ride any others and they won’t ride astride.”

Flattered, she said, “Of course! Thank you.”

“The grooms will tell you which ones need to be ridden. In fact, mayhap you and I should go out together and see if Helen is as tractable with Troy whilst riding.”

“That sounds like fun! Speaking of Ares and the duke, you said he will call upon us? To celebrate our marriage?”

“Aye,” he said around a bite.

“How soon can we expect him?”

“A month at the latest.”

“Whether he does that or not, ’tis not proper. He and the duchess should be expecting an invitation to Kyneward Keep. We shall prepare a celebration of our marriage and invite all the local nobles. But we must decide on a date soon so as to forestall a surprise visit.”

He paused. “Summon the enemy on our terms and our territory,” he mused, then looked at her. “I hadn’t thought of it. We have never hosted any such thing, I have no wife, and I’m always gone.”

“Had no wife.”

“But if you think an invitation three or more months hence for a fête will forestall a surprise visit, think again.”

She grimaced. “That is what I fear. However, our cooks are excellent and I shall have them prepare a feast for the ages.”

“That look in your eyes is terrifying.”

She grinned at him.

Grimme leaned against her and whispered in her ear, “Please do not poison my liege.”

“You want me to,” she whispered back.

“What I want is of no matter. Just don’t.”

She started to laugh, then realized he was not jesting. She decided not to protest. “Aye,” she grumbled.

“Promise.”

“I promise I will not poison your liege.” Grimme sat back in his chair and continued to eat. “This time.”

He looked at her out of the corner and she granted him a sunny smile. He pursed his lips as he studied her, then said abruptly, “When I give the order.”

That surprised her. “When?”

“He covets what I love, aye, and he is bitter about having been promised this land, but he has not been here in years. Once he sees Kyneward as it is now, once you have it repaired and dressed in finery, he will be ravenous for it on its own, not because it was denied him after being told to expect it. I am generally of a mind to strike first, but I need evidence he is about to plot my death to be able to justify it to the king.”

Brìghde’s bottom lip slowly dropped open and her eyes had widened. “You fear him,” she whispered.

“No,” he corrected as quietly. “I am wary. He will enjoin Aldwyn to lay the plans, and he is who worries me. Aldwyn is clever and we have not fought together since Agincourt. He will have learned much since then and I do not underestimate my enemies.”

“But you are wily. He can’t know what you have learned since then, either, and wily defeats frontal attacks.”

“And what he does not know,” Grimme again said in her ear, “is that my wife is a Trojan horse and I will wield her to her fullest capacities.”

He drew away from her and studied her soberly. She was no less sober. “You trust me?”

“No,” he rumbled. “But I need you and I can only pray you will not betray me.”

---

17

THAT NIGHT BRÌGHDE dropped into her bathtub with a hiss and a sigh, leaning back and thinking about how sore she was going to be on her ride to Hogarth with Grimme in the morning, to which she was looking forward a little less now. Riding forty miles round trip after a day of hard labor was no mean feat.

It had taken a mere fifteen minutes for some forty servants to scrub all the tables and chairs in the great hall with hot water and lye soap to her satisfaction and take them out to the bailey to dry.

However, it had taken hours for the forty of them—and Brìghde—to dig up several inches’ worth of compacted filth, discarded rotting food, and dog shit upon the stone floor with scrapers. It had taken Brìghde a half hour to teach them what she expected and how to do it and on her hands and knees, by the Virgin Mary, and she had spent the rest of the afternoon tending them to get the floor completely clean and a thick carpet of rushes and herbs laid by suppertime.

Three of the paramours had drifted down the stairs just in time to see Brìghde, dressed in her boy clothes, on her hands and knees digging and scrubbing. They had begun to snicker and whisper. She had looked up and said, “Unless you want to join us, I suggest you go find something else to do.”

They simply curled their lips at her. She got to her feet and approached them. In disgust of her filthy clothes and hands, they backed up with contemptuous grimaces—all the way up two flights of a spiral staircase as Brìghde stalked them with a vicious glare, threatening to touch their persons with hers.

Unfortunately, the lads, who had been ordered to stay indoors although the day was a perfect day for four wee laddies to be outside playing, thought all the water on the floor was for splashing.

Finally, Brìghde could take no more.

“Lads!” she said with forced gaiety. “Let’s go out to the stable.”

They stopped splashing immediately. Pierce dashed outside. Terrwyn followed. That left Gaston and Max, the two oldest. “We don’t take orders from you,” Gaston snapped, crossing his arms over his chest.

Brìghde shrugged. “’Tis not an order. You may stay here if you want.” She gestured to Max. “Shall we?” When he hesitated, she said, “Your father approves.”

That got him out the door. She left Gaston behind without a glance. Once she’d gotten the other three to the stable, she asked the grooms to take them in hand and have them brushing the warhorses. “’Tis a great responsibility,” she said gravely down at them, “grooming knights’ steeds. They must be beautiful.”

“My lady,” the head groom whispered to her, “they’re all out in the field. May I suggest the ponies? They do need to be groomed.”

“I don’t care. Just put them to work.”

“Aye, my lady.”

When she walked back into the hall, there was Emelisse standing at the bottom of the stairs, unwilling to walk in the water, Gaston beside her looking triumphant.

“What have you done with Max?” she demanded.

“He’s working in the stable,” Brìghde grunted as she walked around to correct this servant or that servant, and to point out missed spots.

“Gaston, go get him and bring him back.”

“Sweet Virgin Mary!” she burst out. “Nothing is going to happen to him in the stable with a legion’s worth of grooms. Quit being such a bloody coward and let him go play with his brothers.”

Emelisse snarled at her and snatched Gaston up the stairs after her, but Brìghde didn’t miss the quiver of his bottom lip and his longing look at the keep door.

Sir John did not appear at supper, and she dared not seek him out to see to his welfare though she did send a lass with a tray and wine. Grimme did not ask her about it.

Now she lay in the bath, her eyes closed, almost asleep, when the door opened suddenly, and she started and whirled, crossing her arms over her breasts.

“Emelisse said you sent my sons out to the stable today,” Grimme growled.

“Get—out.”

“This is my house.”

“I am in the bath with no clothes on and you are holding my door open for any passerby to see.”

He slammed the door.

“Again. I have no clothes on. Go away until I am bathed and dressed, and we can argue like civilized people.”

“You’re my wife,” he said flatly. “I have the right to see you naked and I will argue with you whenever and wherever I bloody well please.”

She curled her lip at him, turned and laid back down in the water, hoping it was dark enough he couldn’t see. “What is wrong with having sent them out to the stable?”

“’Tis not that you did. ’Tis how you did it.”

“Oh, sweet Mother Mary and Joseph,” Brìghde grumbled, her brogue thickening with her irritation.

“Do not speak to my sons that way again.”

“Like this? ‘Lads! Let’s go out to the stable.’ Like that?”

“That is not how you said it.”

“You weren’t there.”

“I didn’t have to be. Emelisse told me all about it.”

“She has absolutely no reason in the world to lie to you about me, none at all, nooooooo.”

He was silent.

“Did you ask your sons?”

“They’re asleep.”

“Wake them up.”

He sighed heavily, went to the hearth and dropped into a chair, his back to her, and dropped his head back on its top. “I do not,” he muttered, “want to be drawn into a war.”

“What, exactly, do you think happens in a household of four women sharing the same man’s spindle? And what did you think would happen when you brought a wife home?”

Silence.

“I did not draw you into any war. Your mistress did. The laddies were splashing in the water all over the floor—as if that is the most interesting thing in the world, which is pathetic. I wanted them out of the house for the duration, so I bade them do something productive. Wee laddies make trouble in a house when they are bored, and they are intolerably bored.”

“Intolerable for you or for them?” he muttered.

“For all of us in equal measure. You aren’t paying attention to their needs. I need them out from underfoot. They need firm guidance away from their mothers, who need to keep their hostilities to themselves. I care not what your women think of the way I treat your sons. Someone has to take them in hand, and since this is my domain, it is my responsibility.”

“What of my opinion?”

“You have had no opinion for ten years, so it is of little use now. As far as I can see, the laddies’ only value to you is their devotion to an indulgent father. Papa! Papa! Papa! Papa!”

“That is not true. And although I might be willing to concede all the rest of your points, I demand you leave my women be. They are the mothers of my sons and they have done nothing to earn your hatred. Did you call Emelisse a coward?”

“Firstly, I do not hate them. I don’t care enough to hate them. Secondly, aye, I did call her a coward because it’s true. And there poor Gaston goes, up the stairs, when his brother is out in the stables having a semblance of fun, and he wants to be allowed to go too. He thought she’d go fetch Max and the boys could be miserable together, but that is not what happened.”

“Brìghde,” he sighed wearily.

“Grimme,” she said crisply, rolling her R contemptuously, “the bargain was that I would bring order to your house and you would enforce my rule so that I could do that. You have forced your father to work around them for years, and look what has happened. I will not work around them because my primary goal is to get this earldom working like an earldom in spite of itself. That was the bargain.”

“What has happened,” he said tightly, “is that my father and I don’t know how an earl’s household works.”

“But I do and you are now asking me not to do it. You cannot have it both ways. No one wants things to change, and your bringing home a wife is a most drastic change indeed, much less one who intends to turn the house upside down and shake it out, which they and everyone attached to Kyneward fears, including the merchants in Waters. And with good reason. If you do not want to be drawn into these battles, keep your women away from me and your sons occupied in the things they should be doing. The two older boys should have been sent out two years ago to apprentice as pages.”

“What have the merchants in Waters to do with anything?” he asked slowly.

“Household business,” she sing-songed.

“Indulge me.”

“They and the servants are cheating you. Sir John is overwhelmed and too frail to keep up. I had to tell him and by the time I left, he was sobbing over his desk, and I didn’t tell him about the servants because I have managed that already. ’Twas why he was not at supper. This is what happens when you willfully ignore household business. This is your earldom, your ultimate responsibility, but you have not paid attention to the burden your father carries, which is vastly heavier because you gave him no authority over your women and children. If you expect me to pull you out of this mess, I need you to keep your women away from me and your sons occupied.”

There was a long silence.

“Grimme, the water is cold and I want to get out.”

She saw the silhouette of his hand waving in the firelight. “Get out,” he sighed. “Even if I were looking at you, I am not going to suddenly find ardor that wasn’t there an hour ago.”

Brìghde was starting to shiver, so she took the chance. He didn’t turn when she snatched her towel and scurried to Avis’s antechamber to dry off, then she peeked around the threshold and saw him still facing the hearth. She bound to her bed and dove in, pulling the covers up to her head.

He chuckled, but it was a sad, weary one.

“I ken you don’t want to send your sons away to apprentice,” Brìghde said quietly as she arranged herself under her covers as well as she could without throwing them off to start again. “So why not assign them to men in your forces?”

“Their mothers would harry me and I do not want to get involved in their squabbles.”

Brìghde said nothing to that. Her mother harried her father over many things, but sending her sons off to become pages to other knights was not one of them. ’Twas the way of nobility.

“You’re the earl,” Brìghde said softly. “You have the ultimate authority here and you are allowing women to lead you around by your spindle.” He growled at her. Well, she’d already lost Sir John. What did it matter if she lost Grimme too? She was here permanently, she had a task to perform, he didn’t want to bed her anyway, and she was right. “They are your sons. They aren’t three years old anymore and wee laddies grow into men. What kind of men do you want them to be? And are you going to allow their mothers to rear them as useless, simpering ones lazing on their father’s successes simply because you don’t want to tell your women to shut up and sit down? Because if you don’t, I will.”

★