“I think I do, too.”
“Shall we go?”
“If I offer you my elbow, will you take it?”
Giving him a look of exaggerated exasperation, she grabbed his elbow and pulled him toward the main avenue. “Come along, my impetuous lad,” she said. “We are going to eat well and we are going to speak more about this proposal you have given me.”
“Before or after we get drunk?”
She grunted in response. “You are impossible.”
He smiled down at her, his long blond hair draping over one eye. “I amquitepossible, my lady,” he said. “I intend to show you just how possible.”
Grinning, Mira met his eye for a moment before looking away, unable to hold his gaze. Her breathing was coming in quick gasps and her heart was thumping strangely in her chest, all signs of madness, she was sure.
But a good kind of madness.
Something that had started off as a pretense had turned into something else.
*
“And then Iam going to annex all of Norfolk. It should all be under one house, and that house will be de Winter. When I am the head of the house, it will be the most powerful in England.”
Jonathan had been watching Douglas and Lady Mira in the distance as they skirted the market and headed toward the north side of the city, but he was listening to Davyss de Winter spout his plans of grandeur. Truthfully, almost since the moment Douglas had taken up residence at Axminster, young Davyss was lauding his plans for the de Winter empire when he came to power.
And what plans they were.
As the heirs to the Earldom of Radnor, the de Winter family owned practically all of Radnorshire, but they also had deep ties to Norfolk. Great swaths of the shire belonged to the House of de Warenne, the Lords of Surrey, and Davyss’ mother was the sister of the current Earl of Surrey. Lady Katherine de Winter was more powerful that her brother and certainly more formidable. She had a son who thought just like her. A big, strapping, powerful, talented son who was a full-fledged knight at least two years before he should have been.
Jonathan had to grin at the ambitious Davyss.
“Who are you going to annex?” he asked. “Bigod’s properties? If you try, you will not keep him as an ally.”
Davyss knew that. He knew all of it, fundamentally, but he had a big ego and a big mouth. “Mayhap I will marry one of their ugly daughters,” he said. “That would join our families, and when Bigod dies, I will step into his place.”
“He has a nephew, Davyss,” Jonathan said in a low voice. “And I take exception to your calling Bigod women ugly.”
That brought Davyss pause. He and Jonathan had served together for some time and he’d known the man most of his life.He knew why Jonathan, an elite, Blackchurch-trained knight, was now languishing at Axminster when he should be out leading armies. Davyss’ callous comment touched on that very thing.
“I did not mean all of them,” he said. “Forgive me, Wolfie. That was a careless thing to say.”
Jonathan waved him off, as if none of it mattered. “Go on,” he said. “Finish telling me how you will make one great de Winter empire and force the end of the Bigod dynasty.”
It was the first time since reaching the marketplace that Davyss had stopped talking. Or at least took a breath before he continued. His comment about Bigod women had slowed him down, and he was genuinely contrite about it. As Lady Isabel and her women stood over near a man who sold exotic fabrics from all over the world, Davyss and Jonathan were on guard several feet away. Eric had gone off, somewhere, so it was just the two of them.
Davyss’ attention shifted from his boasting to Jonathan.
“I’m sure you are weary of listening to me boast,” he said. “I’ve not had the chance to tell you how sorry I am that you ended up at Axminster. You know my father offered to speak to Bigod on your behalf. You do not have to stay here.”
Jonathan held up a gloved hand to silence him. “I know,” he said. “And I appreciate it. But it seems that we are at an end.”
“Just because he thinks you seduced his niece?”
“Ididseduce her.”
“Because you’re in love with the girl,” Davyss said. “Everyone knows that.”
Jonathan took a deep breath, trying to shake off the pain that the subject provoked. “It does not matter anymore,” he said. “I was foolish to have pursued her. She was meant for someone else and I knew that from the start.”
