An Honourable Rogue. Carol Townend

fro and would not release her.

      ‘Hmm?’ Alis looked up, her blue eyes shifting from Ben to Rozenn and back again. ‘Oh. You want to talk to Madame Kerber?’ The girl had the gall to sound surprised, but she stood up, made a play of smoothing down her gown and reached for the ladder.

      Rozenn tapped her foot until Alis had made it to ground level and the door of the stables had clanged shut behind her. The shadows deepened.

      Ben eased his grip on her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘I missed you this morning, ma belle.’

      Rozenn snatched back her hand.

      He recaptured it with a grin. ‘You wanted me?’

      ‘Yes! I…I mean, no, I wanted to speak to you,’ Rozenn said, tripping over herself before she saw the laughter spring into his eyes. ‘Oh, you wretch, Ben, you are incorrigible.’

      He gave her one of his disarming smiles, but his eyes were serious. ‘You are all right? Is something amiss?’

      Rozenn shook her head. ‘Countess Muriel sent me to fetch you, she’d like you to play for us in the solar. Immediately. Your usual fee, she said.’

      * * *

      In the solar, Rozenn stood with her back to the south- facing window seat. Here, where the light was strongest, Countess Muriel and the rest of the ladies murmured softly one to another as they sat round the table, working on the vast wall-hanging for the Hall. Some of the figures Rose had sketched on to the canvas had been smudged the previous evening when careless hands had rolled it away for the night. Rose had been re-drawing them, and her fingers were black with charcoal. Absently, she wiped them on her skirts.

      She did not look at Lady Alis, but out of the corner of her eye she noticed Ben dragging a stool to one side of the great fireplace. He set about tuning his lute. The lute had once belonged to Ben’s father, and it had been made to a Moorish pattern. It had a round body like the shell of a turtle, and the wood gleamed with a rich patina that owed much to years of loving use. The pegbox curved back on itself to resemble a leopard’s head. She watched Ben’s long fingers caress the leopard’s head as he plucked each string and adjusted the pegs.

      The fire crackled. It was warm outside the castle, but the fire that burned in the wide fireplace was a necessity. It would take more than a few days’ sun to heat the keep’s thick granite walls.

      Catching Rozenn’s glance, Ben threw her a grin, but Rozenn was nursing her anger with him and she hunched her shoulder and looked out of the window.

      The Isle du Château sat at the junction of the Isole and the Ellé, like a boat anchored midstream. It was at this point that the two rivers became the Laïta before rolling on to the sea. Rozenn screwed her eyes up against a dazzle of sun, but she could still make out the marshes on the left bank. And on the right bank, just behind the port, the steep escarpment rose dramatically. She ran her eyes over the familiar jumble of houses running up from the port to Hauteville, the quarter where she had lived since her marriage to Per. Quimperlé. It was all the world she had ever known.

      Was she wise to consider leaving? With Per dead and Adam gone and Ben hardly ever about, there was little reason to stay. Also, whenever the Countess tried to persuade her to move back into the Château where she had been brought up, she felt hemmed in and restless. In short, she didn’t feel like herself. Quimperlé, much as she loved it, no longer felt like home.

      As far as Rose was concerned, Sir Richard’s proposal could not have come at a better moment. She thought about her adopted mother, Ivona, and chewed her bottom lip. Soon she must tell Ivona about Adam’s wish that they should travel to England. Ivona would hate the idea and Rozenn was dreading discussing it, dreading the inevitable questions that would follow. But why do you want to leave, Rozenn? Why not wait for Sir Richard to join you here? She was also dreading the moment when she informed Countess Muriel of her departure. She frowned. The thought of neither interview filled her with joy, but she could not put them off for ever.

      Behind her Ben began to play. A love song, naturally. The ladies cooed and sighed. Rozenn rolled her eyes.

      Her cheeks burned as she recognised the song. Fighting the impulse to cool them with the back of her hands, she turned and glared at him. Before Ben had left Quimperlé, after his last, fleeting visit—the visit when he had quarrelled with Adam—he had sung this particular song one suppertime in the Great Hall. Those soulful brown eyes had focused entirely on her and she had not been able to think her own thoughts. He was such a flirt.

      Why, the rogue still has a piece of straw stuck in his hair, she noticed, biting hard on the inside of her cheeks to stifle a smile. Dear Lord, why could she never remain angry with him for more than one minute at a time?

      ‘Rozenn, dear…’ Countess Muriel was scowling at her section of wall-hanging ‘…which colour had you in mind for this lady’s gown?’

      ‘I thought the sky blue, Comptesse, since most of the background will be green, but wouldn’t it be best to work the darker wools first, as we had agreed?’

      ‘Oh, yes, I remember.’ Countess Muriel smiled and bent over the coloured hanks.

      ‘Since Emma is working on the grass, you might like to work with that deep red. It would be good for those flowers. Or you could take that chestnut brown and work one of the deer.’

      The solar door slammed and the flames danced in the hearth, as Rozenn’s mother by adoption glided into the room.

      ‘Ivona, welcome,’ Countess Muriel said, looking up from the tapestry. ‘Have you seen the children?’

      Children. Rozenn’s stomach knotted as a wave of longing swept over her. Children. Her marriage with Per had been childless and she worried that the cause might lie at her door. Would Sir Richard think it her fault? Two years married and no children? Would Sir Richard reject her lest she be barren as some in this town had been whispering before Per’s death? A knight must have heirs…

      In that unguarded moment she met Ben’s eyes, and it seemed the link between them was as strong as ever. She read sympathy and understanding in his dark gaze—it was as though Ben understood what she felt, that he could read her mind. Which was nonsense. As children they had been close, but these days Ben was…just Ben…a footloose minstrel…a flirt…a devil who made his way by appearing to sympathise with everyone.

      ‘The children are playing in the bailey, Comptesse,’ her mother said, ‘now that the guards have finished their drill.’

      ‘Good. Here, Rozenn…’ the Countess patted the stool next to hers ‘…come and sit by me. You can help me do the background.’

      Moving round the trestle, careful to avoid Lady Alis, Rozenn squeezed past Ben as he sat by the fire. He made no attempt to move his legs and as her skirt brushed his knees, her stomach fluttered. Brow creasing, she took her place by the Countess, conscious of Ben Silvester at her back, as his voice, his beautiful voice, floated over their heads, singing of true love, of faithfulness, of heroes winning their heroines though all the dice in the world were loaded against them.

      Her heart twisted. She wished he had chosen another song, any other song, and must have muttered something under her breath as Ivona joined her at the trestle. Her adopted mother’s eyes were too weak for close work these days, but she usually came to sit with the other women when her duties as chatelaine allowed.

      ‘What was that, dear?’ Ivona asked.

      Rozenn jerked her head in Ben’s direction. ‘Ben’s song, Mama—don’t you think he’s in good voice?’

      Ivona pursed her lips. ‘“The Faithful Lover”,’ she murmured, repeating the song’s title. ‘Aye, he is—which is a wonder given the subject matter.’

      ‘Mama?’