Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she patted the space beside her. “Come sit, Margaret, and tell me what has happened.”
Sensing that she’d found a pair of sympathetic ears, Margaret did as she bid, hopping up and settling in on the fluffy feather mattress next to her.
“It’s Meg,” she corrected, wrinkling her nose with distaste. “No one but Father calls me Margaret.”
Rosalin’s mouth twisted, trying not to smile. Instead, she nodded solemnly. “Forgive me,Meg.”
The little girl rewarded her with a tremulous smile, and Rosalin melted a little more.
“That’s all right,” Meg assured her, patting her hand as if their ages were reversed. “You only just got here, and you haven’t seen me since I was little.”
Rosalin pretended to cough.
Meg’s tiny, delicately arched brows drew together over an equally tiny nose. “Are you sickly?”
Rosalin couldn’t hide that smile. “Nay, Meg. I’m perfectly hale.”
The little girl studied her. “Good. Andrew is always coughing, and he isn’t allowed to play outside. He’s no fun.”
Rosalin felt a sharp stab in her chest but tried not to let her fear show. Cliff’s three-year-old son Andrew had always been frail. Though no one spoke of it, he was not expected to see beyond his childhood.
Glad that the little girl was no longer close to tears, even if she couldn’t say the same, Rosalin asked, “So why don’t you tell me why you are wearing breeches and a lad’s surcoat?”
Meg looked down as if she’d forgotten. “John said I’d get in the way.”
Rosalin didn’t follow. “In the way…?”
Meg gave her a little frown of impatience, as if she hadn’t been paying proper attention. “Of riding lessons. Father gave John a horse for his saint’s day last week, and today he begins his training with Roger and Simon. It isn’t fair. John is two years younger than I am. I want to train like a knight, too. He can barely pick up the wooden sword Father gave him. How’s he supposed to kill bloody Scots if he can’t lift a sword?” Rosalin coughed again and made a note to tell Cliff to have care of his language around Meg. “He shouldn’t have told Father when I borrowed it. No one likes a tale-teller.”
Rosalin was having a hard time keeping up, so she just nodded.
The little girl’s face crumpled. “Roger wouldn’t let me stay, even when you can see my skirts won’t get in the way. I don’t want to sew with Idonia and Mother. Why won’t they let me train with them?”
Because you’re a girl. But as it didn’t seem the right time to explain the harsh truth of the sexes, Rosalin gathered the sobbing child in her arms and sighed. She understood her pain. She, too, had wanted to be with her brother—probably even more so, since he was all she had. Learning that she couldn’t simply because she was a girl had been a bitter draught to swallow.
Riding, practicing swordplay, and running around outside had seemed vastly preferable to sitting inside with a needle and lute. Of course, that was much too simplistic a view of their respective roles, but at Meg’s age, she had seen it the same way.
After a moment, the little girl looked up at her, her long, dark lashes framing big, blue eyes damp with tears. She might look like her pretty, dark-haired mother, but Rosalin saw Cliff’s stubbornness in the firm set of her chin. “Will you talk to him?”
“Talk to whom?”
“Father. He’ll listen to you. Everyone says he’s never refused you anything.”
Rosalin laughed. “I assure you, he’s refused me plenty. I wanted to ride and practice with a sword, too.”
Margaret’s eyes widened to almost comical proportions. “You did?”
“Aye. And I thought it just as unfair as you when he told me no.”
The smile that spread across the little girl’s face was almost blinding. “You did? He did?”
Rosalin nodded, then paused for a moment to think. “What would you say if I took you on a ride tomorrow and let you practice by holding the reins?”
It clearly wasn’t what Meg hoped to hear, but after a moment of disappointment, she decided to take what she could get and negotiate for better terms. Perhaps the little girl was like her aunt in that regard.
“For how long?” Meg asked.
“As long as you like.”
