Dreams of Lilacs

Chapter 8



Gervase slipped into the back of the village hall, less gracefully than he might have wished, but only a few turned to look at him. To those, he shot a quick, reassuring smile. For the rest, he simply hoped that when they noticed him they wouldn’t start shrieking about his having come to carry off their children to cook them up for supper.

He leaned back against the rearmost corner of the building and forced himself to pay heed to the dispensing of lower justice that was going on in front of him. It wasn’t anything his father would have come to listen to, which had bothered Gervase on more than one occasion.

’Tis what they do and leave them to it, Gaspard de Seger had instructed. They’ll bring their most pressing concerns to me in good time.

Gervase had disagreed at the time, though he’d kept his mouth shut. After his father was gone, he had decided that he would be a different sort of master. It was a bit difficult to quell an uprising if a man had no idea what was happening half a league from his front gates.

The concerns were of the usual sort: water, food, and shelter and how to keep ruffians from the forest from making off with all three. Given that those numbered amongst his concerns as well, he was happy to see what sorts of solutions his villagers could hit upon.

He listened for most of the meeting until he knew that if he didn’t move, he wasn’t going to be able to walk without either an embarrassing display or a great deal of aid, which would have been embarrassing enough. He slipped back out the back door, grimacing as he continued on with muscles that vigorously protested the work. He supposed the pain would have been far worse if he’d spent the night on the floor in his solar. Of course he wasn’t going to admit that to the woman back at the keep, she of the mouth that ran too freely at his expense.

Where had a serving wench learned to play the lute that well? Or to speak Latin easily as well as he could? The saints only knew what else she could do. He had the feeling he was going to have to start admitting things to himself very soon that he didn’t want to admit.


She was obviously not a servant.

The daughter of a minor noble, perhaps, or a well-educated freeman. Surely naught but a man he could intimidate with a look and avoid any patriarchal displeasure. Her presence in his hall could be deemed merely a little misunderstanding, one that could be resolved very simply with an apology and a smile. No need for bloodshed.

He walked about the village green, grateful for even the smallest bit of freedom to think. It wasn’t that he couldn’t think at the keep. There was simply too much there that required his immediate and full attention. He hardly had time to even let his mind rest from one problem before he generally found himself assaulted by yet another that needed to be solved before he could do anything else.

He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, watching at times what lay before his feet so he didn’t trip and land on his face, at other times watching the sky and his surroundings lest he not be taken unawares. And while he was about that happy task, he allowed himself to think about what he had been. Before the fire. It was something he rarely did, because it was simply too depressing.

He supposed what he missed the most about his former life was the freedom to simply stride about the world, sure in his ability to face anything that came his way and emerge the victor. There was something to be said for having women throw themselves in his path and insist on attention, knights throw themselves at his feet and plead for mercy, nobles spend time devising a way to have him grace them with his presence.

It was entirely possible he might have been slightly arrogant about it all.

The one thing he was particularly sure of was that no fool would have plowed him over without having marked him beforehand—such as the fool who had come close to knocking him off his feet. He caught himself on his right leg and almost had it buckle underneath him. As it was, the pain almost brought him to his knees.

He regained control of both his leg and his temper and looked at the man in front of him who was babbling frantically about something Gervase couldn’t quite make out. The fool was some sort of nobleman, obviously, but a very rumpled one.

“Cease,” Gervase said in annoyance, “unless you’ve something useful to say.”

The man looked at him, then, blessedly, held his tongue until he seemingly had control over himself. “I’ve lost her,” he managed.

“Lost who?”

“My fiancée,” the man said hoarsely.

Gervase didn’t want to say the first thing that came to mind, which was that the wench in question had obviously found sense and fled before having to wed the tall, gangly youth standing in front of him. He dredged up a bit more patience.

“Where did you lose her?”

“On board a ship—”

“Impossible,” Gervase said. “How can you possibly lose someone aboard a ship?”

“It sank!”

Gervase put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “she drowned. How were you able to escape?”

“I took a different ship—and paid handsomely for the privilege, I’ll tell you that. There was a terrible storm and her ship was lost to it.” He clutched Gervase’s arm. “Her father will kill me!”

As well the man should. Gervase frowned and shook off the man’s hand. He folded his arms over his chest, wincing as he did so. “Did you have charge of this girl?”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Aye.”

“What is your name, lad?”

“Arthur of Harwych.”

An Englishman, of course. Gervase was only surprised the fool had managed to find a ship, much less find a captain able to get him onto proper French soil.

“And your lady’s name—”

“My lord Gervase!”

Gervase left off his conversation with the frantic man in front of him and turned to the village alderman who wanted his attention. “Aye?”

“About the planting, my lord. Perhaps you would care to see what we have stored here in the village to compare with what you have at the castle.”

Gervase did care, so he went with the man to see what sorts of things the villagers had laid by. Of course he had enough stored at the keep to feed his own people plus those belonging to the abbey and Beauvois over the hills to the west, but there was no sense in dampening the man’s enthusiasm. He spared a brief bit of envy for Nicholas de Piaget’s view of the sea before he shrugged it aside. Beauvois was a lovely keep, true, but Monsaert was not only beautiful, it was intimidating as hell. There was much to be said for a place easily defended.

Not that he’d managed that very well of late.

The morning wore on and he felt his body begin to ache in familiar ways that he didn’t enjoy at all. If he didn’t at least sit for half an hour, he wouldn’t manage to get on his horse and return to the keep. He excused himself from the discussion, then walked outside. He limped along a path for a bit, then made himself at home on the back edge of an obliging farmer’s wagon. Its locale had the added benefit of giving him a good view of what was happening in the town square.

That daft Englishman was still wandering about, spewing his nonsense. Gervase shook his head. He could scarce believe that anyone would have let his daughter go off in the company of that one, much less hazard a journey with him from England to France. An irresponsible father and a very foolish girl. He had no doubt that the silly wench had been caught in a storm, shipwrecked, then drowned. His only surprise was that her body hadn’t washed up on shore, but perhaps Master Arthur hadn’t considered that.

Arthur finally gave up trying to enlist aid and instead settled for simply shuffling along, looking dejected. Gervase couldn’t help a small—a very small—bit of pity for the lad. He flipped his page a coin, asked for two cups of ale, then offered one to Arthur when he managed to drag himself over to that side of the square and collapse alongside Gervase on the back of the wagon.

“Thank you,” Arthur said numbly, accepting the cup and then looking at it as if he hadn’t a clue what to do with it.

“Drink,” Gervase suggested.

Arthur drank, then dragged his sleeve across his mouth. “Her father will kill me.”

Gervase simply held on to his cup. “Why would he?”

“Because she asked me to accompany her on a quest to France,” Arthur said glumly. “I agreed, of course, to further win her favor. She claimed it was so she could visit her grandmother, unbeknownst to her father.”

That would be enough to inspire a father to entertain thoughts of murder, Gervase supposed. Best not to say as much, though, lest the man beside him become too terrified by the thought to continue his tale.

“There was some urgency to her journey, even though I think her grandmother is hale yet.”

Gervase frowned. “Is your fiancée English?”

“Of course.”

“Yet she had a French grandmother.”

“Her grandmother is the abbess at Caours.”

Gervase spewed out what he’d managed to get into his mouth. He looked at Arthur in shock. “Abbess Mary?”

Arthur looked at him in surprise. “Do you know her?”

“Well, of course I know her,” Gervase said. “We’re three bloody leagues from where she prays.” He looked at the man next to him. “This poor wench’s grandmère is the abbess?”

Arthur looked at him nervously, then nodded.

“But Abbess Mary has a son . . . ”


His words ground to a halt right along with his wits, apparently. Mary of Caours was an interesting case, to be sure. She had been made the abbess of Caours a score of years ago, at least. Rumor had it her ill-fated marriage to Etienne de Piaget had been brief, producing a single son, a son she had apparently left in the care of others as she’d been forced to flee to France to save both her life and her son’s. Gervase was a bit hazy on the details of how that had all come about, but he was clear on one thing: Mary’s son was the very intimidating and protective Rhys de Piaget who just happened to be the father of the exceedingly lethal lord of Beauvois, Nicholas de Piaget. Robin de Piaget as well, damn that one to the fires of Hell. Gervase thought there might have been an older sister somewhere in that litter, but what he was sure of was that there was a youngest daughter whose beauty was rumored to cause otherwise reasonable grown men to fall to their knees in amazement.

A daughter named Isabelle.

He grasped for any last shreds of composure and examined the details in a cold, calculating fashion that perhaps even Aubert wouldn’t have matched on his best day. There was nothing odd about Lord Rhys having a youngest daughter. There was especially nothing odd about the fact that Rhys de Piaget should have a gloriously lovely daughter named Isabelle while he himself should have a new servant—who couldn’t possibly be a servant—who was also gloriously lovely but happened not to remember her name.

He looked at Arthur and found a new reason to scarce believe what his eyes were telling him. Isabelle de Piaget was betrothed to that irritating scab of a man?

He had never seen her, of course, because he had never been a guest at Beauvois when she’d been there and he had avoided England like the plague when she’d been at home. But he’d heard the tales. ’Twas rumored her goodness alone qualified her for sainthood, but her face inspired lays sung with reverence.

Joscelin hadn’t seen Isabelle herself, though he had reputedly seen her elder sister, Amanda, because he knew Isabelle’s older brother Miles fairly well and he didn’t quite have Gervase’s undeserved reputation for being a ravisher of noblemen’s daughters, a lack of reputation that had allowed him places Gervase hadn’t dared go.

Was there a reason beyond brotherly amusement for Joscelin to have been smirking at him for the past fortnight?

Gervase looked at Arthur. “Are you telling me,” he said, trying to temper his surprise, “that you are betrothed to Isabelle de Piaget?”

The man shifted. Gervase had lost many things, but his ability to spot a liar at fifty paces hadn’t been affected.

“Almost,” Arthur said.

“Almost,” Gervase echoed. “How betrothed does that make you?”

Arthur shifted. “Perhaps not as betrothed as I would like to be, if we’re discussing something quite formal and archaic.”

“Which means you haven’t managed to speak to her father yet,” Gervase noted.

“Not yet,” Arthur admitted. “I’m hoping being of service to her will endear me to her sire and then he will agree to allow me in the front gates.”

“I imagine not, now that you’ve lost her,” Gervase said with a snort. He shifted to look at the man beside him. “What proof do you have that the ship was lost at sea? How long ago was it?”

“It was sighted coming hard up against the coast near here,” Arthur said weakly, “almost a fortnight ago. I’ve found several of the crew who survived washing up ashore. I’m convinced she did as well.”

“And why is that?” Gervase asked, having another sip of strengthening ale. He thought he just might have to have another cup very soon.

“I found one of her boots.”

Damn it, if he didn’t stop hearing things like that, he wasn’t going to manage a decent drink of anything. He dragged his sleeve across his own mouth, ignored the ale he’d spewed all over his own bloody boots, and looked at Arthur.

“What?” he said in astonishment.

“She apparently lost one of her boots at sea. It was washed up onto the shore.”

“And how could you possibly know what boots she was wearing?”

“Because they were mine,” Arthur said sadly. “I loaned them to her. My father’s cobbler has his mark, of course. They were of a particular color, a dark russet to match my horse—”

Gervase had the feeling he knew exactly the color of Arthur of Harwych’s horse. He didn’t want to think on why that was.

“She intended to travel in disguise,” Arthur said wearily, “as a lad. I didn’t see her, to be sure, but I know she had plans to cut off her hair—”

Gervase realized the man’s mouth was still moving, but he could no longer hear anything he was saying.

His servant had been wearing one boot when he’d rescued her.

He shook his head, because that helped him to cling to the surety that this was all a terribly amusing coincidence. The boy he’d rescued who had turned out to be a girl without a name hadn’t been . . . well, she hadn’t been in disguise. She had been garbed as a lad because that was a comfortable way for a woman of her beauty to travel alone along ruffian-infested roads. Her hair was shorn because, ah, because she no doubt feared the summer would be hot and less hair would be more comfortable for her. After all, it wasn’t as if when he’d first seen her she’d looked half drowned. Or traumatized. Or sporting any sort of wounds that could have come from washing up ashore, such as a large bump on her head, which had rendered her without critical memories of who she was.

It definitely wasn’t that she was so damned beautiful, he could hardly look at her.

And her name was likely Hildegard. He couldn’t see himself calling out the name Hildegard in dulcet tones for the rest of his days—

“I think I should go to Beauvois.”

Gervase looked at Arthur, then shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise it,” he said promptly. By the saints, that was all he needed, to have the fool next to him possibly spouting things he should have been keeping to himself. “Lord Nicholas will kill you. Go back to England.”

“But Lord Rhys will kill me there!” Arthur wailed.

“Then head south to Italy. Good food, lovely women.” He nodded. “That’s the place for you.”

Arthur looked as if he were ready to weep. Gervase had to admit he sympathized. If he thought he would have to soon face the full brunt of Rhys de Piaget’s wrath, he might have been tempted to weep as well. Not a year ago, of course, but now? Aye, he would have scurried home, lowered the portcullis with alacrity, and bolted himself into his hall. He might have even gone so far as to hide under his bed.

In fact, all but the last was sounding better all the time. Perhaps he could command his new serving wench to come and play for him whilst he cowered. If she was reluctant, perhaps instead of plying his lute, he could have her translate all the ways possible to say when your father finds out what I’ve done to you he will pull out my entrails, wrap them around my neck seven times, and then watch as I slowly and quite painfully smother until I’m dead into all the languages she knew.

He patted Arthur absently on the shoulder, then heaved himself to his feet and handed his cup to his page to run back to the tavern. He walked to the stables with perhaps more energy than he might have another time. There was no time like the present to try to make it so when a furious father arrived on his front stoop, he wouldn’t find Gervase unable to even heft a sword in his own defense.


He rode home, dismounted in front of his stables, then limped back to the great hall. He found Joscelin and Guy inside, standing in front of the fire no doubt discussing the few inane thoughts that were rattling around in their empty heads. He strode over to them—

Very well, he shuffled over to them, but it was done with a fair bit of enthusiasm given that he had suddenly discovered a new level of anxiety. It was nothing short of amazing how that sort of thing could spur a man on to feats of strength and agility heretofore unexperienced.

He stopped in front of his half brothers.

“Where is she?”

Guy looked at him in surprise. “Who?”

“The wench!”

Joscelin put his hand on Gervase’s arm, no doubt to soothe him. “She’s in your solar, of course, where you commanded she stay.”

Gervase shook off his brother’s arm. “And you aren’t there watching over her?”

“Ger, she’s perfectly capable—”

“I commanded that someone stay with her!”

Guy looked at him as if he’d never seen him before. “But Lucien is there—”

“Lucien is a useless child!” Gervase bellowed. He shoved his finger in his next youngest brother’s face. “Go stand guard in front of that door and do not move. Joscelin, you come with me.”

“I don’t know that I want to,” Joscelin began.

“And I don’t give a damn what you want. Bring your sword!”

Joscelin trotted along after him. Well, Joscelin walked alongside him at a pace better suited to a stately promenade that would have suited the queen mother’s vanity, but at least he had come along.

Gervase dismissed his guardsmen along the way, sending them to the proper lists, then gained his private garden. He waited until he had a modicum of privacy before he whirled on his younger brother.

“Do you know?”

Joscelin blinked. “Know what?”

“Who she is!” Gervase hissed.

Joscelin clasped his hands behind his back. “Ger, I’m not sure I understand—”

“Of course you understand, you cretin,” Gervase snarled.

Joscelin looked at him coolly. “I can outrun you, you know, in your current state. If you would like me to prove the like, by all means continue to speak to me in that manner.”

Gervase drew his sword. Unfortunately, it was damned heavy, his right hand was useless, and his leg like a jelly beneath him. The only reason he didn’t go down to his knees in the lavender was because Joscelin caught him and steadied him.

Which he didn’t deserve.

Joscelin took his sword, stabbed it into a flower bed, then slung his arm around Gervase’s shoulders and led him over to a bench in front of a small pond full of fish Gervase was convinced Cook kept only for the cats. He sat because he simply couldn’t stand any longer. He rubbed his good hand over his face, sighed deeply, then looked at his brother.

“I apologize.”

“Of course you do,” Joscelin said with a faint smile.

“Why you endure me, I don’t know.”

“Oh, nay,” Joscelin said with a half laugh. “You’ll not wring any maudlin sentiments out of me today. I tolerate your foul humors and sorry self because you taught me everything I know about chivalry, pretending to drink while not imbibing, and protecting my poor virtue while appearing to bed every eligible miss in any given place.”

“And the ones beyond your reach as well.”

“Aye, that, too,” Joscelin agreed. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, then shot Gervase a look. “You’ll recover your former strength.”

“I wish I had your hope.”

“You didn’t puke when you came home today. That’s progress.”

“I didn’t puke because terror has lodged in my belly and insisted on my full attention.”

“Terror? You?” Joscelin smiled. “Surely not.”

Gervase sighed deeply. “Who is she?”

“Who do you think she is?”

“Isabelle de Piaget.”

Joscelin’s smile deepened. “Did you divine that all on your own, or did you have help?”

Gervase would have tossed off a casual remark, but the truth was, he was afraid if he opened his mouth, he might just puke up what he’d managed to get down earlier in the day. “I met a lad in the village who claimed to be her fiancé—or, rather, wished he could claim to be her fiancé. He informed me in trembling tones that she had been traveling to France in the disguise of a lad when she had been caught in a storm and lost at sea.”

“Interesting.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Gervase asked sourly. “And how odd that I should find not a fortnight ago a bedraggled lad who turned out to be a woman with no memories and no name.”

“Odd, indeed.”

Gervase shivered in spite of himself. “I’m afraid to even think her name, much less say it aloud, lest I draw her father’s attention my way from his perch on that damned coast in England’s barren north.”

“What a coward you are, brother,” Joscelin said with a twinkle in his eye. “It isn’t as if Lord Rhys will be examining the blisters on her hands, or ask where you’ve been having her sleep, or wonder why it was you were too stupid to recognize a woman of breeding when you saw her.”

“And you did?”

“Oh, I knew the moment I clapped eyes on her, but I also saw her sister at Beauvois several years ago. Isabelle wasn’t with her, though I’m not sure why not. She and Amanda are mirrors of each other, though Amanda’s tongue is much sharper.”

“I don’t suppose you would go to Beauvois and give them the tidings, would you?”

“Are you daft?” Joscelin said, wide-eyed. “And have Lord Nicholas run me through? Nay, brother, I’ll leave you that pleasure.”

“Hell.”

“Probably.”

Gervase stared grimly out over his garden, noting the first hints of green amongst the ruin winter had brought. He contemplated where he might like to be buried, though he found the thought less appealing than he might have at another time. What he wanted to do was to go inside, find that stunning Isabelle de Piaget, go down on his knees, and beg her to stay a bit longer until at least the blisters on her hands had disappeared.

Or until she might be able to look at him with something besides disdain and irritation.

Perhaps even until she regained her memories . . .

He looked at his brother and found himself experiencing a surge of good cheer. “I can’t send her home yet.”

Joscelin blinked in surprise. “Why not?”

“Because she’s still missing her memories. The shock would be too great. She might return home and find her family nothing but strangers. Ask yourself what kind of man would leave a rare flower of that sort in a spot exposed to too much wind and rain.”

“You’re hopeless,” Joscelin said with a smile.

“Chivalrous,” Gervase corrected him. “I have no choice but to keep her here until she knows who she is.”

“Hemming your sheets while she bides her time?”

“I’m not having her scrub my floors,” Gervase pointed out.

“Ger—”

“Of course not hemming my sheets!” He took a deep breath. “I will shower her with luxuries, speak to her in dulcet tones, ply the lute with my crippled fingers until she begs me to stop. What else?”

“You could tell her you know who she is.”


Gervase shook his head. “Again, too much shock to a woman’s delicate humors is never good.”

“Lord Rhys is going to murder you,” Joscelin said thoughtfully. “But if I murder Guy at the same time, then I inherit the title. If I’m exceptionally clever, I might convince our lovely guest to look at me instead of you.” He smiled happily. “Life has a way of rewarding lads with good hearts, don’t you think?”

Gervase pointed back to the hall. “Go.”

Joscelin rose, rubbing his hands together. “I’m off to plot your demise—nay, that’s already seen to. I’ll go plot Guy’s demise—”

“Go!”

Joscelin went. Unfortunately, cheerful thoughts went with him until Gervase found himself with only his own black thoughts to contemplate—and they were very dark thoughts indeed. The end of his life was obviously rapidly approaching, so perhaps the best thing he could do was make an attempt at hoisting a sword so he might stave it off a bit longer.

He pushed himself to his feet, deposited his cloak on the bench where he’d been sitting, then fetched his sword. He walked farther out into the garden, as far away from the house as he could manage while there was still a path. If his private lists sported a bit of a hedge that shielded him from most prying eyes, could he help that?

Unfortunately, what he was faced with was not a pleasant afternoon spent sharpening his sword skill, it was a miserable few minutes wondering why he’d even bothered to get out of bed that morning. He had prided himself on being able to fight with either hand, but now all that holding his sword in his left did was throw him off balance. Holding his sword in his right was agony. He could only grasp his sword hilt, not heft the sword itself, and even closing his hand around the hilt cramped his palm and fingers so badly, he could scarce shake the hilt free. He stabbed the sword into the dirt at his feet, coming perilously close to skewering his toes, and looked heavenward and suppressed the urge to swear.

Weeping was simply beyond him. He’d wept enough already.

He supposed things wouldn’t improve with his standing out in what was promising to be a good bit of rain in a quarter hour. He took his sword, tried to resheath it half a dozen times before he gave up, unbuckled his sword belt, then resheathed his sword with his left hand. He turned, then froze.

Isabelle de Piaget was standing twenty paces away, watching him.

The grief on her face was almost enough to do him in.

He put his shoulders back and glared at her. So he was no longer her brother’s equal. At the moment, he expected that he wasn’t her grandmère’s equal, which stung so badly that he stalked over to her, fueled by a fury that a little voice in the back of his head warned him to temper.

He didn’t listen.

“What are you doing out here?” he snarled.

She looked rather unimpressed. “Gathering herbs.”

“What the hell for?”

“I thought you might try a soak in a tub of very hot water,” she said evenly. She held out the basket. “Put these in the water with you.”

“I am not bathing with weeds!”

She looked at him narrowly. “You are excessively rude.”

He growled at her. He couldn’t help himself.

Obviously the wench was accustomed to the ways of impossible men. He supposed that didn’t bode well for him, for it spoke eloquently of her father’s potentially mercurial temper. He wondered absently if it were even possible to get his sorry arse under his bed or if he might have to fold himself in two and squeeze into his trunk—

“I’ll leave these healing herbs near the hall,” Isabelle said evenly. “Use them or not, as it pleases you.”

Gervase watched her go, cursing her thoroughly. A man did that, he told himself, when he’d just made a complete arse of himself by insulting a woman who was simply trying to aid him.

He would have stomped back to the hall but he could scarce walk, much less stomp. Worse still, he only made it around the edge of the hedge before he almost walked into Isabelle. She looked at him as he came to a stumbling halt in front of her, then she reached out and took his sword away from him.

He opened his mouth to protest, then shut it at the look on her face.

By the saints, she was angry.

“You do not deserve this,” she said distinctly, “but since I see you have no squire to attend to your gear, I will do it for you.”

“I can carry—”

“So can I. I’ve done it often enough for my father.”

After her father had spent a full day of doing in men foolish enough to mistake his beloved youngest daughter for a servant, no doubt.

She put her basket over her arm, propped up his sword against her shoulder as she’d done with the wooden sword she’d been using to fight with Yves—and if nothing should have alerted him to the fact that she was not what he’d thought, it should have been that—then looked up at him.

“Put your arm around my shoulders.”

“Woman, you . . . you . . . ”

“You talk too much.”

“And you have absolutely no sense of your peril.”

She looked up at him, again apparently completely unimpressed with his snarling. “I’m trusting in your chivalry. Let’s go back to the house.”

He put his arm around her shoulders, but he didn’t dare lean on her. He was simply humoring her. He might have managed to humor her all the way back to the house if he hadn’t caught his toe on a flat bit of stone that wasn’t as flat as it should have been.

“I’ll have that seen to,” she said.

She said that, he had to concede, after she’d gasped at having to bear most of his weight. He wanted to snap at her, or shout at her, or somehow save his pride, but the truth was he had no pride left. All he could do was lean as gingerly as possible on a woman who was far stronger than she looked and wish he didn’t require the aid.

And damn his brother Guy if he didn’t simply stand in the doorway to the hall and watch their progress.

His brother took his sword from Isabelle, then took her place at Gervase’s side. Gervase leaned on him more heavily than he would have liked, but there was nothing else to be done.

“I’ll put my weeds in the kitchens, Your Grace,” Isabelle said seriously. “Should you at some point think them useful.”

Gervase watched her go until he couldn’t bear to watch her any longer. Then he stood there and fought with himself. It would have been simple to draw his sword, wedge it in a useful spot, then fall upon it.

Simple, but cowardly.

He stood at the crossroads of what he could see was now his life. In one direction was what he had been for the past four months: broken, surly, hopeless.

In the other direction was a woman who had paused at the far end of his hall and was looking back at him. She had found things to aid him if he was willing to leave his pride behind and attempt to use them.

Fortunately for him, he wasn’t going to have to decide on a direction, nor was he going to have to fall upon his own sword. His life that remained him was already counted in days, not years, because when Nicholas de Piaget found out Gervase had been forcing his beloved youngest sister to work as a scullery maid, Nicholas was going to murder him.

He patted Guy on the shoulder. “Send Cyon to me—oh, there he is. Lad, go fetch me clean clothing. I think I’m having a bath.”

“As you say, my lord,” his page said, looking horrified.


“Are you unwell?” Guy asked doubtfully.

“I’m fine,” Gervase said. “Remarkably fine.”

Guy looked at him as if he’d lost all his wits, but Gervase ignored him. He tossed his sword to Aubert, refused to speculate on how much of the spectacle in the garden his captain had witnessed, and whistled as he limped across his great hall. If he was going to die soon, there was no reason not to enjoy the time that remained him.

Even if that meant bathing with weeds.