“Enough, Sheldon! Richard can have her.”
“Then I will be glad to accept her as a daughter-by-marriage instead of as a wife.”
Warrick snorted. “That was never in doubt.” Then he asked nonchalantly, “And what of Emma’s tutor? How does she fare?”
“Ah, that is right, you have not seen her this last month, have you?”
Warrick did not need reminding of that. He wanted to go home. For the first time since he was a boy, he had areasonto go home, and it was frustrating him that he could not.
“How are the camp whores?” Sheldon was saying. “Any worth trying?”
“I would not know,” Warrick growled. “And you did not answer my question. Is Rowena well? Is she eating properly? Emma is not tiring her, is she?”
Sheldon chuckled. “Nay, she thrives with you not there to intimidate her. She adds grace and beauty to your hall. Emma adores her. Your servants defer to her. Melisant prefers her company to that of her own tutor. Aye, even your youngest daughter has improved in manner since Beatrix was sent to abide with her future in-laws. Likely you can thank your little Rowena for that as well.”
“Mayhap I should bring her here,” Warrick said dryly. “She can single-handedly take Ambray for me.”
“Was I singing her praises too highly?”
“A mite—and for naught. I have already decided on a new wife.”
Sheldon’s expression turned blank for several seconds before he exploded. “You did not! Say you did not! Damn you, Warrick, I could have sworn you were developing a fondness for Lady Rowena. So she is landless. So she is without family. Have you not got enough that matters of the heart can now take precedence for you? Who is this other lady? What does she bring you that is so important you wouldst risk another Isabella?”
Warrick shrugged. “She claims to have some properties, but for some silly bit of stubbornness, she will not tell me where they are.”
“Shewill not? Not tell you—?” Sheldon’s peppered brows narrowed. “Have you just got one back at me, friend?”
Warrick grinned. “Aye, the little wench has bewitched me as you thought. And as long as she has already taken over my castle, I might as well make her lady of it in truth.”
Chapter 42
Rowena laughed as Emma’s nose scrunched up when she smelled the rancid fat boiling. “Do I really need to know everything about everything? Even candle-making?”
“You will be fortunate if you have a candlemaker. If you do not, will you hire one at a cost to your husband, or will you be able to instruct one of your servants to do the task instead? If your soapmaker only knows how to make lye soap, will you never again have the sweet-scented one you prefer, because the merchants charge too much for it? Or will you be able to make your own?”
Emma blushed as she usually did when she had asked a silly question. “I hope Richard appreciates what I am going through for him.”
“He will appreciate having his home run smoothly. He need not know about the fire in the kitchen, the cow that got loose in the laundry yard, or the merchant who tried to overcharge you for pepper, and whom you had thrown out on his arse. Richard will see the quickly prepared boiled fish and eggs on his table, smile at you, and tell you about his own day, which was as naught in comparison to yours. Thus he will brag to his friends that he has the most wonderful wife in the land. She never complains, she never worries him with matters thatheknows naught about, and she rarely dips into his coffers.”
Emma giggled. “Does she really have to be such a paragon of saintliness?”
“Certainly not,” Rowena replied as she led them away from the noxious odor of the boiling fat. “Did I have the misfortune to still be wed to that old lecher, Lyons, I might have bought the overpriced pepper and stuffed his fish with it. I offer only general advice, my dear, that which my mother gave to me. You will find your own way with Richard, never fear. Now go and seek out Edith. There is no reason formeto take you through the step-by-step process of candle-making, which I already know, when Edith can do it. And do not ask again why you cannot simply be told how to do it. Hearing is soon forgotten, whereas doing is not.”
Rowena returned to the hall and the sewing she had left by the hearth. She was making Warrick a tunic in bright red samite, a lengthy task, as the thin silk required small, careful stitches. The light would have been better to see by in his solar, but she could not get used to treating that chamber as her own, even though he had told her to do so the day before he left, and even though she slept there every night.
Her trunk of clothes had appeared in his chamber that day, too. Not one word did he say about it, other than to remark on the prettiness of the royal purple bliaut with gold trim that she wore that evening. That her duties were to change completely with his going she did not find out until he had gone.
First Emma told about her wedding, which would come about only if she could master the duties of a lady wife, but she had her father’s permission to ask Rowena to be her teacher in those duties. Rowena had, perforce, put her foot in her mouth to ask who Emma’s father was. She had been furious with Warrick for a sennight for not giving her warning. But that same day, Mary Blouet had informed her that if she had agreed to instruct Emma, which she already had, then she was to be excused from all of her other duties.
Helping Emma was a pleasure. Rowena had developed a fondness for the girl that was going to make her miss her sorely when Emma married young Richard. That would not be until after Warrick returned, however, and no one could guess when that would be.
There had been other changes. Beatrix had been sent off to live with her new family the day after her punishment, and ’twas as if the whole castle breathed a little easier with her going. Once Warrick left, his youngest daughter had made shy overtures that Rowena encouraged, finding that Melisant was not as mean-natured as Mildred had thought, merely had she been wrongly influenced by her older sister.
Rowena’s change in circumstance had its effect on others, though she was inclined to think that where she was sleeping had had the most effect. Mary now came to her with her problems, and Mary’s husband saved the tenderest morsels of food for her. Even Warrick’s steward consulted her ere he sent John Giffard to the nearest town for supplies. John, when he was not off on errands, joined her and Mildred for their meals. Though Melisant had invited Rowena to dine at the lord’s table with her and Lady Roberta—who was the only one to still disdain Rowena—that was one presumption she would not make. Warrick might have made things easier for her ere he departed, but he had not said she was no longer to consider herself his serf. And a serf, even in the rich gowns of a lady, did not dine at the lord’s table.
Though her days were full with Emma, she still found too much time to think of Warrick. And she knew those strong feelings of hers were getting out of hand when missing him actually hurt. But with him not there to look at her with desire blazing from his eyes, she lost the confidence she had gained in those last days she had spent with him. He had wanted her when he was there. He had made concessions that she would never have expected. But she was, after all, no more than what he had made her, his leman, his servant, his prisoner. She could not expect more than that. She could not even expect that when he returned, for time dimmed all memories, and he might have already found someone else to interest him.
“Mistress, you are to come with me.”
