The Mistress of Normandy. Susan Wiggs

let the offense pass. “Aye, my sister did sing well.”

      “Perhaps there’s hope for me, then. I could send to Abbeville for a music master.”

      He shook his head. “The feeling, p’tite, the passion, cannot be taught. It must come from the heart.” He glanced pointedly at Lazare, who seemed to have discovered something fascinating in the bottom of his goblet. “You have the skill. One day, perhaps, true music will come.”

      She pretended to understand, because the duke wished her to. But in sooth she knew better than to suppose that passion would improve her singing. Unless... The blinding radiance of Rand’s image burned into her mind. The scene in the great hall receded, and she saw only him, her vagabond prince. The memory of his gentle touch and caressing smile filled her with a sharp, plaintive yearning that she likened to the ecstasy of an inspired poet. Nom de Dieu, could such a man teach her to sing?

      * * *

      “Sing the one about the cat again,” cried Michelet, tugging insistently at the hem of Rand’s tunic. The boy’s younger brothers and sisters chorused a half dozen other requests.

      Rand grinned and shook his head. He set aside his harp and reached down to rumple the carroty curls of little Belle. “Later, nestlings,” he said, stooping to aim the baby’s walker away from the hearth. “I must not neglect my men.”

      In the adjacent taproom, Lajoye and the soldiers discussed their forays, filling their bellies with bread and salt meat from the Toison d’Or and wine from a keg the brigands had overlooked. Some of the men vied, with lopsided grins and faltering French, for the attention of the girls.

      Rand had avoided his companions since late afternoon. He was too full of unsettled emotions and half-formed decisions to act the commander. Meeting Lianna had left him as useless as an unstrung bow. One hour with her had threatened everything he’d ever believed about loving a woman. Before today, love had been a mild warmth, a comfortable, abiding glow that asked little of him. But no more.

      The arrows of his feelings for the girl in the woods had inflicted a ragged wound, a heat that burned with a consuming, continuous fire. He felt open and raw, as if an enemy had stripped him of his armor, left him standing in fool’s attire.

      Bypassing the taproom, he walked outside, looked around the ravaged town. Wisps of smoke climbed from a few chimneys. In the rose-gold glimmer of early evening, a woman stepped into her dooryard to call her children to table, while a group of men with their axes and scythes trudged in from the outlying fields. The town was beginning to heal from the wounds inflicted by the brigands. The woman waved to Rand, and he realized with relief that he was now looked upon with trust, not fear. An excellent development. If the Demoiselle de Bois-Long resisted his claim, he’d need to secure the town to use as a retreat position.

      He followed a familiar, muffled curse to the paddock. His horses and those of his men occupied the stalls, Lajoye’s livestock having been taken by the écorcheurs. A bovine shape caught his eye. “Jesu, Jack, where did you find that?”

      Jack Cade looked up from the milking stool. “Lajoye’s youngsters need milk,” he said. “Spent the king’s own coin on her, down in Arques.” The cow sidled and nearly overset Jack’s bucket. “Hold still, you cloven-footed bitch.” He grasped a pair of fleshy teats and aimed a stream of milk into the bucket. “I made sure Lajoye knows the milk’s from our King Harry.” Leaning his cheek against the cow’s side, he gave Rand a brief accounting of the events of the day.

      “Godfrey and Neville ran down a hart and brought it back to Lajoye. Robert—er, Father Batsford, that is, went a-hawking. Giles, Peter, and Darby found the brigands’ route and followed it some leagues to the south, but the thieves are long gone, dispersed, probably, after dividing their spoils.”

      Rand frowned. “I did want to recover the pyx from the chapel. ’Twould mean much to the people.”

      Jack’s eyes warmed with affection. “Always trying to win hearts and souls, aren’t you?”

      Rand smiled. Was he deluding himself to believe chivalry could achieve such an end? “Always skeptical, aren’t you?” he countered.

      Jack shrugged. “Take them by the balls, my lord. Their hearts and souls will follow.” Wearily he rotated his shoulders. “I worked like a goddamned swineherd today. And yourself, my lord? Any luck?”

      Rand swallowed and stared at the dust dancing in a ray of golden twilight. The rhythmic, sibilant splatter of milk against the sides of Jack’s bucket punctuated the silence. Presently Jack finished his task and straightened. “Well?”

      “I met...a girl.”

      The milk sloshed in Jack’s pail. Too late, Rand realized his voice had betrayed the feelings he’d kept folded into his heart since he’d watched Lianna run off toward the castle.

      Eyes dancing with interest, Jack set down his pail, picked up a stalk of hay, and aimed it at Rand’s chest. “Has Cupid’s arrow found a victim? Welcome to the human race, my lord.”

      “Her name is Lianna,” Rand said in a low voice. “She lives at Bois-Long.”

      “Better still,” Jack exclaimed, rolling the hay between his fingers. “Surely it’s a sign from above. Merry, my lord, perhaps life won’t be so disagreeable with a ready wench at hand.”

      Rand shook his head. “The married state is sacred. And I’d not dishonor Lianna.”

      Jack laughed. “Knight’s prattle, my friend. Your commitment to the demoiselle is one of political convenience. No need to be good as gold on her account.”

      Rand turned away. “If gold rusts, what would iron do?”

      Jack tossed a forkful of hay to the cow and picked up the bucket. They walked out of the paddock. “I for one,” said Jack, “intend to grow right rusty wooing Lajoye’s hired girl. She’s got a pair of—”

      “Jack,” Rand warned, drowning out the bawdy term.

      “—to die for,” Jack finished.

      “I’ve forbidden wenching.”

      “Only with unwilling females,” said Jack. “But never mind. When do we go to Bois-Long?”

      “King Henry insists on proper protocol. A missive must be sent, and the bride-price, and Batsford must read the banns for a few weeks running.”

      “Still in no hurry.” Jack grinned. “That hired girl will be glad of it.” He walked back to the inn.

      Caught in the purple-tinged swirls of the deepening night, Rand left the town and climbed the citadel-like cliffs above the sea. A nightingale called and a curlew answered, the plaintive sounds strumming a painful tune over his nerves.

      Staring out at the breaking waves, he pondered the unexpected meeting and the even less expected turn his heart had taken.

      Lianna. He whispered her name to the sea breezes; it tasted like sweet wine on his tongue. Her image swam into his mind, pale hair framing her face with the diffuse glow of silver, her smile tentative, her eyes wide and deep with a hurt he didn’t understand yet felt in his soul. She inspired a host of feelings so bright and sharp that it was agony to think of her.

      There was only one woman he had any right to think about: the Demoiselle de Bois-Long.

      The nearness would be hardest to bear. To see Lianna’s small figure darting about the château, to hear the chime of her laughter, would be high torture.

      End it now, his common sense urged, and he forced his mind to practical matters. The Duke of Burgundy was at Bois-Long, but his retainers were few. Clearly he did not plan a lengthy visit. Jean Sans Peur could ill afford to tarry with his niece when his domain encompassed the vast sweep of land from the Somme to the Zuyder Zee.

      Aye, thought Rand, Burgundy bears watching.

      But even as he hardened his resolve around that decision, he knew he’d go back to the