‘You know a great deal for a man who’s been on his sickbed since before harvest time,’ Chester remarked drily.
Guyon shrugged. ‘My brother-in-law writes letters to his wife, my sister, and she shows them to me to relieve the boredom.’
‘Your brother-in … Ah yes,’ said the Earl. ‘He assists the chamberlain, doesn’t he?’
‘Along those lines. We all have our ways and means.
Speaking of which, is there a purpose behind your visit, or is it truly just to comfort my convalescence?’
‘That depends upon how sick you still are,’ Chester said and cocked a glance at the propped leg.
Guyon shook his head and laughed. ‘Sick only of being wrapped in swaddling. If I so much as sneeze, Judith appears at my side with some noxious potion or other.’
‘She’s a young wife, eager to show off her skills,’ Chester said, momentarily diverted. ‘Considering the life she led before her marriage, you ought to be grateful she’s not spiked your wine with monkshood.’
Guyon’s laughter deepened and seamed the corner of his eyes. ‘You don’t know the half of it, Hugh. Monkshood is far too swift a revenge!’
Chester looked a question.
Guyon sobered. ‘I owe her my life,’ he admitted. ‘And more than twice over.’
‘She’s a fine-looking girl with a sound head on her shoulders. You are luckier than most.’
Guyon clasped his hands behind his head. Fine-looking? Well, yes, perhaps she was growing that way as her body filled into womanhood and he would not deny her intelligence; but as to his being luckier than most? He thought back to her reaction inthe bedchamber, the fear in her eyes, the way she had run as if from rape.
For close on a year now he had held himself in check. The first months it had been easy for she was still so obviously a child, but time had blurred the division between girl and woman. He was aware of his hunger and the fact that unless he resorted to force, it could not be appeased. Whatever the change in her body, it was obvious that she was not mentally prepared to accept his flesh. Monkshood was indeed too swift for revenge.
‘What did you want to talk about?’ he asked abruptly and brought his hands down.
Chester darted his brows at the sharpness of Guyon’s tone which was quite at odds with the amusement of a moment since. ‘Where your land borders mine, up on Llyn Moel ridge, there is a blind spot between the hills, and the Welsh ride down the valley to raid. A keep is needed and the best site is within your bounds. When you see it, I think you will agree.’
‘Within my expense as well?’ Guyon asked. ‘I know the place you mean. Lord Gruffydd’s men came through the gap this spring and carried off some of our herds.’
‘I am sure we can come to an amicable agreement,’ Chester said with a benign smile.
‘It might be possible,’ Guyon fenced, knowing that look of old. Hugh d’Avrenches was no man’s fool when it came to arguing prices and what he did not know the canny officials he kept around him did.
Chester’s smile became a rich chuckle and his eyebrows flashed swiftly up and down. ‘I thought we could ride out tomorrow, your health and your wife permitting. There are some fine hunting grounds up there on my side, too. I’ve recently built a lodge.’
‘I may be able to escape for a few days,’ Guyon answered cautiously. ‘Providing your quarry is not boar.’ His eyes went to the door. ‘I don’t hunt them for pleasure.’
‘Does anyone?’ Chester said, taking his meaning immediately, and changed his expression to one of beaming welcome as Judith entered the room followed by a maid bearing a flagon and cups.
CHAPTER16
LONDON
WHITSUNTIDE1100
The cry of a boatman floated up from the river. Judith set her sewing aside and went to the casement. Blossom was drifting down from the apple trees in the garth, as green-tinted through the glass as the bright feathers of the popinjay regarding her beadily from its perch. Being momentarily high in the King’s favour, Emma’s husband could afford to waste silver on such rare frivolities as green glass windows and exotic foreign birds.
She and Guyon were in London to attend the Whitsuntide gathering of the court, held this year at the newly completed Palace of Westminster designed by Rannulf Flambard, who took men’s money and spent it in the name of the crown. The city was crowded, as packed to bursting as a thrifty housewife’s jar of dried beans, and only the highest magnates in the land were granted sleeping space within Westminster and its immediate environs. The rest had to manage as best they could. Conveniently for them, Richard, Guyon’s brother-in-law, owned a house on the Strand but a few minutes’ walk from the new palace and was able, with a bit of a squeeze and a great deal oforganising from Emma, to house Judith and Guyon and their immediate servants for the length of their sojourn. They were uncomfortable and cramped, but more fortunate than most … fortunate being a relative term, Judith thought and scowled over her shoulder at the bed in the corner of the curtain-partitioned room.
It was Richard and Emma’s and they had insisted on giving it up to herself and Guyon during their stay. A kindness that was a cruelty in disguise. Last night Guyon had sat up until the early hours talking to Richard and used the excuse of not disturbing Judith and the other sleepers across whose pallets he must step in order to reach his own bed as a reason to roll himself in his cloak among the other men in the hall.
Judith leaned her head against the wall and folded her arms, her eyes troubled. Ever since that incident in the bedchamber at Ravenstow, when his body had reacted to her touch and she had run from him in terror, he had taken pains to avoid the physical contacts of their relationship.
The morning after Earl Hugh’s arrival, he had ridden out with him to inspect the proposed site of the new keep. Judith, her mind and emotions in turmoil, had not been so foolish as to try and stop him. Indeed, when he told her of his intentions, after one brief, involuntary denial she had listened quietly to his reasoning and to Earl Hugh’s jovial bluster and agreed with them that they must go; she had even found a smile from somewhere and the will to be interested in what they intended.
