An Honorable Rogue (6 page)

'Lady Alis,' Rozenn murmured, heart sinking to the floor. 'The pretty one."

The stable boy's grin was knowing. He spoke through the straw in his mouth. 'Aye, that's the one.'

The muscles in Rozenn's face seemed to have gone stiff, and for the life of her she was unable to smile back. Since she had decided to marry Sir Richard of Asculf, she should not care--it was no business of hers who Ben Silvester tumbled in the hay. And since she already knew what Ben was like, this was scarcely a surprise. But unfortunately, this was one time she could not walk away and pretend to be unaware. This time the Countess had commanded her to fetch him.

How embarrassing.

Tucking the hem of her skirt into her girdle so she would not trip. Rozenn gripped the ladder and started to climb. Halfway up she paused, glanced down at the grinning stable boy and said. 'Thank you, Ivar, you may go." No sense the whole world knowing....

Ivar picked up a nearby shovel and ambled out into the sunlit bailey.
'Hola,
Denez!' Ivar called a greeting, his voice fading as he engaged in conversation with Count Remond's captain and walked with him towards the barns.

As Rozenn neared the top of the ladder, hay rustled. Clenching her jaw, she forced herself up another rung. A low murmur reached her.

'Don't say I didn't warn you.'

Yes, that was Ben's voice. Rose felt sick, she actually felt sick. Then came a feminine giggle that tied knots in her belly.

'Let him think what he likes,' the woman hissed back. 'He will learn the truth when he marries me.'

Another rung. Another. Rozenn's feet were lumps of lead and her heart was thumping so loudly she could no longer hear the guards drilling in the bailey nor the horses stamping in the stalls below. Another rung and she was at the top.

And there he was, Benedict Silvester--that coal-dark hair was unmistakable, though his face was hidden since he was wrapped round Lady Alis FitzHubert, pinning her to the straw-strewn boards with his body. One of his long legs...

Jaw clenched, she stumbled on to the platform.

Ben lifted his head, and blanched. 'Rose!'

He was surprised to see her, that much was plain. Pushing away from Lady Alis, he shoved his hair out of his face with that characteristic gesture that betrayed his unease more than words ever could. So he used to look when, as a young boy, he first fought his natural shyness to entertain the old Count and his household.

''Hola,
Ben,' Rose said. The careless words she had prepared stuck in her throat; the loft blurred and wavered in a pointless rush of tears. Turning away, she blinked like a mad thing and fought for control. When she had composed herself, Ben and Lady Alis were both sitting up and he was picking straw from her back while she was placidly replaiting her fine blonde hair.

Rozenn tried to ignore the straw stuck in Ben's hair. 'Up to your old tricks, I see,' she managed. 'It didn't take you long.'

Ben's eyes met hers, and for a moment he looked as uncomfortable as she could wish.
Good.
She was glad she had interrupted them.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he grinned. 'You wanted me, Rozenn?" His voice was low, deliberately suggestive.

Damn the man! How was it that his responses were invariably laced with
double entendres?
Not that it would ever matter to her, she was far too sensible to be interested in a wastrel like Benedict Silvester, not in that way at any rate.

He pressed a swift kiss to Alis's cheek and, shifting away from her, patted the straw invitingly. 'Come on, Rozenn, you know you want to...'

Grinding her teeth at his effrontery, Rozenn stepped blindly towards him. In that moment, she wanted to clout him into next week.

Ben rose to his feet in one lithe movement and. reaching for her hand, drew her away from the edge of the platform. 'Careful, little flower, we don't want you tripping over that pretty gown, do we'?' Gallant as any knight, may the devil blast him, while he gripped her hand so hard she could not free herself without making a scene.

Alis sat where Ben had left her, unconcernedly tidying herself. Taking her time about it. She had a contented smile on her lips, and a satisfied glow to her cheeks. She looked well and truly... Rozenn sought for a word... Loved sprang to mind, but it was easy to dismiss. Loved...by Benedict Silvester? A wandering minstrel who had more than his share of women in every town and castle in the Duchy?

The object of her anger nudged Alis gently with his boot. 'I'll see you later,
cherie.'
He swung Rozenn's hand to and 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 Chateau sat at the junction of the Isole and the Elle, like a boat anchored midstream. It was at this point that the two rivers became the La'ita 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. Quimperle. 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 Chateau where she had been brought up, she felt hemmed in and restless. In short, she didn't feel like herself. Quimperle, 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 Quimperle, 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?'

Ivona lifted her shoulders. 'Everyone knows that boy doesn't have a faithful bone in his body. But then...' Ivona shot Ben a meaningful glance '...he's paid to sing well, perhaps that helps him infuse the song with meaning.'

Rozenn found herself shifting away from Ivona, towards the Countess. 'Don't, Mama." she muttered, at a loss to know why she felt compelled to rush to Ben's defence. She had never been able to fathom it, but in recent years Ivona seemed to hold Ben in dislike. 'It's not his fault everyone adores him.'

Her stepmother sniffed and picking up a hank of primrose-coloured wool, began winding it into a ball. 'It's his fault he acts on their adulation, though,' Ivona went on in an undertone. 'Particularly with the young women. Benedict Silvester has had more lovers than the whole of the garrison put together.'

Not trusting herself to comment, especially after what she had witnessed in the stables only that morning, Rozenn turned to the Countess to help her pick out some more thread.

The love song was finishing, which was a blessing because, oddly, it felt as though Ben had been directing it at her.

'Rozenn, dear?' Countess Muriel gave her a strange look, a look that said she'd already addressed her and Rozenn had missed what had been said.

'Comptesse?'

'You really ought to move back into the keep. I hear there were disturbances last night. It's not safe for a young woman to live alone in the town.'

Rozenn stiffened. Not this again. Ever since Per's death, both the Countess and Ivona had been asking for her return. But, like Ben, Rozenn had no particular liking for sleeping in common. She had enjoyed the privacy her marriage with Per had given her; it was rare and precious and she was
not
about to give it up. And, in any case, it would not be for much longer.

'With respect,
Comptesse,
Hauteville is perfectly safe.' Countess Muriel looked down her nose at her in the way she always did when she was displeased. 'Why is it, Rozenn, that when you answer me with one of your "with respects" I have the suspicion that you do not respect my views in the least?'