Conquering William (5 page)

William wrapped his arm about her waist and tugged her flush to his side. “I understand Tarnwych has had no lord for some time and you have grown accustomed to certain ways.” A polite smiled crossed William’s face but stopped short of reaching his eyes. “As such, I am sure your entering our chamber unannounced, twice, is an unfortunate oversight.”

“I—”

“We will see you in the hall.”

Sister took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. “I will assist Lady Alice to dress.”

“No need.” William pressed a kiss to Alice’s temple. “I am here now.”

William considered himself a reasonable man with rather ordinary needs. For certain, he enjoyed his creature comforts, but he could content himself with the simpler delights in life. Breaking his fast, however, was one of those needs he could not overlook. His mother assured him that even as a babe, he had woken hungry and squalling for his first meal of the day.

The mess in the bowl before him could not tempt even a morning appetite such as his. Alice he had left to dress herself. He’d shocked and shaken her enough for one morning. The woman puzzled him, challenged him to put together the pieces. During the long night he’d lain sleepless on that frightful bed, he’d decided to woo his wife.

This morning’s surprise peek at her delicious curves had buttressed his decision. Oblivious, Alice had stood by her washstand, the firelight rendering her nightrail almost transparent. Barely tall enough to look over the sill of the casement, but shaped for the appreciation of a man’s eyes and hands. And William aimed to appreciate.

God knows, she might kill him with her relentless prudish piety, but he had a plan to rid her of that. Behind her bristling exterior lay the intriguing parts of Alice. Her vulnerability plucked at him, made him want to protect and shelter her. The stark hunger on her face as she spoke of having a child. The wistfulness when she told him of her previous husbands. He would wager she remained unaware of those emotions within her. Aye, she hadn’t loved the men, but she regretted their shortened lives. When his father first presented him with the match, it had occurred to him that Lady Alice had amassed and lost a suspicious number of husbands before him.

Unless she dissembled like a master, or his judgment of people had failed him, he could not suspect her of having taken matters into her own, delicate hands. That nun, on the other hand, chilled his blood, and she might snarl his plans of conjugal amiability. He doubted the woman had experienced a friendly moment in the last twenty years.

The lower level of the keep had been quieter than he would have expected. His boot heels rang on the bare flagstones and echoed through the abandoned hallways. At Anglesea people abounded at this time in the morning. His family had wished him well the night before, and left shortly thereafter. Alone, well and truly alone, and without his family for one of the few times in his life.

The chill in the hall snatched his breath away. Eight hearths and only two of them lit with a beggar’s fire. By December they would have to scrape his frozen carcass off the floor. He caught the eye of the kitchen drudge who had brought him his bowl. “Bring more wood for the fires. And light the others while you’re at it.”

The woman blinked at him, tired eyes in her thin face. “Sir William?”

“Wood.” William repeated the word slowly. “Bring wood and get the other fires burning before we all freeze to death.”

“Aye, my lord.” The woman shuffled off, head bent and muttering beneath her breath.

Trestle tables stood in stacked rows against the plain walls, leaving the lord’s table alone on the dais. Not even a hall dog dozing before the fire. Leaving him to break his fast alone, or almost alone.

Sister Sunshine squatted at the table several places from him, spooning gruel as if someone would rob her of it. She might as well slow down. He wouldn’t give this mess to the Anglesea beggars. Did the rake-thin nun live, or did they dig her out of the family crypt, dust her off, and put her in his path to irk him? After her second interruption this morning, he was disinclined to break the harsh silence with conversation, but his mother would box his ears for his poor manners, and he craved answers to his growing list of questions.

“Has the rest of the hall broken their fast?” William arranged his features into pleasant lines.

“We break our fast early at Tarnwych,” she said.

William poked at the runny gray goop in his bowl. “With this?”

“Pottage.” Sister Sunshine placed her spoon beside her empty bowl, frowned, and then made a small adjustment and straightened it.

“Pottage?” His empty belly growled, but he could think of many things he would eat before this. Straw perhaps. With meals like this, he understood the woman’s waspish disposition. William had eaten better camped at siege. No honey or fruits to add flavor to the pottage lay on the bare wooden table before him. No meats, or even bread. Not even a mug of small beer to wash the mess down.

A man starts as he means to go on, and William stood. He had not come all the way north, married a woman whose children would inherit her father’s lands, to freeze or starve to death. Thus far, his introduction to Tarnwych had his temper simmering low beneath his skin. He motioned the serving girl over. “Kitchens?”

Her gaze darted between him and Sister Sunshine before she pointed. “Back of the hall.”

“My thanks.” William nodded to Sister Sunshine and strode toward the kitchen.

The serving girl pattered along behind him.

“The men?” He spun about so suddenly she skidded to a halt and avoided plowing into his back. “Where are the men?”

“Men?” She blinked at him.

“Guards, men-at-arms, drudges.” He enunciated his words. “Have they already broken their fast?”

Shuffling back, she shrugged. “I do not ken.”

Was the girl the keep idiot? She did not wear a vacant expression, merely bit her lip and pleated her skirt between her fingers. “Did you not see them in the hall at their meal?”

She gaped at him. “The men do not take their meals in the hall.”

“Why ever not?” Come to think of it, no males had moved through the keep this morn.

Crossing herself, she leant closer. “Fornication.”

“Eh?”

“The men do not eat in the hall because of fornication.”

Mind empty, William knew he stared, but he had no response. “The kitchens?”

Sister Julianna left the hall, stopped and watched them for a moment, then hurried on. A pity she had decided against following them into the kitchens.

Heat from the cooking hearth hit him before he rounded a bend into the enormous kitchen. Three scrubbed wooden tables dominated the center. At the first, a lone woman sat with an earthen bowl before her. She rose, her apron spotless around her waist.

“You are the cook?” And the first cook he’d met with no spare flesh on her bones.

She nodded and placed herself between him and the hearth, where a flaxen-haired boy played on the floor with wooden blocks.

“Could I trouble you for some honey?” He gave her his most winning smile.

Cook tucked her thumbs into her apron, fanning her fingers above her sunken bosom. “No honey.”

“Ah.” Not the best of beginnings. He glanced behind him at the serving girl.

She shrugged. “No honey.”

“Does that mean there is no honey, or you will not get it for me?”

“We have not had honey here since spring.” Cook rocked on her heels, tapping her fingers against her apron. Her hands appeared as clean as her apron, nails cut short.

“Fruit?” His winning ways seemed to have no effect on the residents of Tarnwych. “Or cream?”

“Walter!” Cook shouted and an older boy, also flaxen, slid into view. “Get Sir William some cream.”

A tiny chink in Cook’s battlements, but a beginning nonetheless. William set his bowl on the table and slid onto the bench. “Have you been at Tarnwych long?”

“All my life.” Cook sidled closer to the child by the hearth.

“Would you have some bread?”

“Only yesterday’s.” Cook’s bellow bounced around the cavernous kitchen. “Walter, bring bread with that cream.”

William shook his head and cleared the ringing in his ears. Cook had a powerful set of pipes on her. He had scant knowledge of running a household, so he took care with his next question. “Do you not bake every day?”

“We bake when the bread is all eaten.”

The older boy appeared with a small basin of cream and set it before him. From under his arm, he produced a quarter loaf and placed it beside the cream.

“My thanks.” William smiled at him.

The boy flushed and scuttled back into the pantry.

William poured the cream into his pottage. It went from steel to light gray, and his stomach clenched. Good God, he had to exert muscle to break the crust on the bread. It would bounce off the walls he’d wager.

“Cook.” He rose. “The fare at Tarnwych is somewhat wanting.” Bloody awful seemed a little strident, but closer to the truth.

Cook stiffened, her face growing a dull red. “I’nt my fault.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I cook what I gets given. You can’t make a banquet from scraps.” She sucked her cheeks.

Their conversation drifted into awkward territory. Running a household, something he knew next to nothing about, but even he knew that much about cooking. “Are you saying the larders are wanting?”

“Wanting?” Cook jammed her fists on her hips, and stuck her chin out at him. “Bare as a babe’s ass is what they are.”

“Cook?” Alice stood in the kitchen doorway, frowning. “Is there aught amiss?”

“His lordship do not like his meal,” Cook said.

Alice’s frown deepened. “But we always break our fast with pottage.”

“That is not pottage.” William pointed at his bowl.

Alice walked closer and peered at his bowl. “It looks like pottage to me.”

“Pig swill.” Cook threw her hands in the air. “That’s what that is.”

William couldn’t have said it better. “Then why prepare it?”

“Told you,” Cook said. “Do the best I can with what I have.”

“We have harsh winters here.” Alice picked up his spoon and stirred the pottage. “We do not like to force people to give food to the keep that they do not have.”

William hadn’t considered that.

“Crops.” Cook jerked her head toward the casement. Her round cheeks flushed and shook. “Dunstan tells me the villagers hide their crops from the keep.”

It was far too early in the morning for him to bend his brain to this, but with Alice looking confused and Cook looking bellicose, he didn’t see any option. He faced Cook. “I think you should explain.”

“Sister Julianna abhors waste and gluttony.” Cook uttered the nun’s name as if it tasted bitter on her tongue. “Therefore we only have enough to feed the mouths we have.”

“Or not quite feed.” A pattern formed and one William had no patience for. Incredulity prickled, that he—a man and knight—was having this conversation. “Have you enough stores for today’s baking?”

“Aye.” Some of the steel in Cook’s posture softened. “But that will leave me short for the morrow.”

“I tell you what.” William tried another smile. “You bake and I will concern myself with tomorrow.”

Alice gasped. “But Sister orders the provisions.”

Sister kept herself busy it would appear. Why had Alice not stepped into her role as chatelaine? Lady Mary oversaw every part of her busy keep. “Not you?”

Alice blushed and dropped her gaze. “I…”

Answer enough. William asked Cook, “Do you have a bailiff I can speak with?”

“Aye.” Cook averted her gaze and busied herself tucking a strand of flaxen hair beneath her kerchief. “Do you want him?”

“Please.” William restrained his dwindling patience. “But before then, I would like to break my fast.” He nudged the bowl across the table. “And not on that.”

“I have some mutton from the wedding feast.” Cook’s eyes gleamed. “And a spot of cheese left, if that will do.”

“That will do nicely.” At least he had managed to choke down the mutton yesterday.

Cook crossed her sinewy arms. “What will we eat this evening?”

“What do we have?”

“Nothing.”

God grant him strength. “Do the men not hunt for the table?”

“That lot.” Cook snorted and rolled her eyes. “They collect from the village and spend the rest of their days on their asses around their fire.”

At least the men had fire. Pain throbbed behind William’s eyes. All he wanted was something to put in the aching maw of his belly. He held out his hand for Alice. “Will you join me?”

She slipped the tips of her fingers into his grasp and took a seat. She dropped her hand as soon as was polite. “I will eat the pottage.”

“Nay.” William snatched the bowl and handed it to Cook. “You will share my meal. I have an inkling we have a long day ahead of us. You will need your strength.”

Cook ordered poor Walter off in twenty directions at once. His stomach took note with a happy rumble.

Alice perched at the table like a rabbit waiting to bolt.

William kept his tone gentle. “Has Sister Julianna always run the keep?”

A snort from Cook cut off any response Alice would make and she merely nodded. “My father brought me here when I was younger. Sister took care of me.”

It would appear Sister still had the reins firmly in her grasp. “I will send to Anglesea to replenish the stores,” he said.

Cook whirled about from carving mutton and charged at him. “You would never.”

Alice shrunk back.

William stared at Cook. Clearly, he had erred in some way.

“Take handouts from those southerners.” Cook sucked in her cheeks. “We northerners fend for ourselves, not like them soft southerners.”

William took a pinch of comfort from the implication that he was not one of ‘them soft southerners.’ “Just until we can restock our larders.”

“We can stock our larders.” Cook slapped both hands onto the table and leant toward him. Her carving knife clattered against the wood.

It was a large knife, more cleaver than dagger, and Cook wielded it with some skill at the mutton. “It would appear not,” he said.