The Maiden Bride (23 page)

Chapter 20

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E
leanor knew that she hardly looked the lady of the castle at the moment, with mud and water weeds stuck to her kirtle and in the sopping ends of her hair, but that couldn't be helped.

She'd barely gotten through the portico and into the deserted great hall when she heard from the hearth a rudely growled, "You there, girl."

Girl?
Oh, bloody fine. There were three men in a clump: Arundel to be sure, stocky and graying and frowning; a younger man of light good looks; and a swaggering fellow. Dernbrook—the churl who had called her "girl," and was now looking down his lumpy nose at her.

"Yes, milord?" she said, dipping a chambermaid's curtsy. Let him think he was leading a stealthy raid against an unprotected widow. "Can I help you?"

"Name's Dernbrook. Sir David Dernbrook. Torryhill Manor, as I've told at least three people in the last ten minutes. Where is your lady?" He was gruff, disdainful, and as sneering as his little green fox.

Hmmmm…
Where, indeed? "Which lady would you be meaning, Sir David Dernbrook, Torryhill Manor?"

He cleared his throat, spat the leavings into the fire, and then raised his volume considerably, as if a peasant was obviously deaf to a civil tone. "Eleanor Bayard, the Lady of Faulkhurst. She was supposed to be coming in from her fields to meet with us."

"Oh! Well, sir, she's been busy at the fish weirs. That storm came on suddenly. I'm surprised you weren't drenched by it." This was a marvelously sweet place to be sitting just now—this crumb-on-the-table proximity to the man who sought to cheat her because she was a woman.

She crossed the remaining distance to the hearth, stopped directly in front of Dernbrook with her hands posed as she'd once seen Edward's queen do when she meant to flatten her opposition with a single glance, then said in her very finest "milady" voice, "Welcome to Faulkhurst, Sir David. And you as well, my lord Arundel. I am Eleanor Bayard."

"You?" Dernbrook wrinkled his nose, sputtered. "Are who?"

"Lady Eleanor. Lord William's widow. I'm sorry for the chaos, but I do welcome you all." She put out her hand to him as any lady ought, but Dernbrook made a caustic face and drew himself up.

"What is this trickery?" He looked to his fellows. "Arundel?"

But the earl was already nodding a respectful bow in her direction. "Good day to you, Lady Eleanor," he said, a hand to the shoulder of the young man standing beside him. "This is my nephew, Percy."

"My lady." The young man was good-looking and gallant as he bowed over her hand. A few years her senior, but wholly unpracticed at hiding his dismay at the sight of a lady with grime edging her fingernails. Still, he had tried.

Arundel's civility only seemed to make Dernbrook bluster even louder, no doubt scandalized that his current archnemesis should be so mud-drenched, so peasant-filthy.

"I've never heard of such a greeting!"

"I do apologize for my appearance, my lords, but we're dreadfully short of hands here for all the work that needs doing. None of us at Faulkhurst escapes the blisters or the mud or the backaches that come with hard work. I'm sure you find the same to be true at Torryhill Manor, Sir David. Especially these days."

"I—I—I— By God's teeth, Lady Eleanor. This was damn unsporting of you. Letting me believe—"

"I understand, sir." She picked a large chunk of sedge off the point of her elbow. "I often believe only my eyes and not my common sense. I'm sorry that I wasn't here in the keep to receive you."

"And well you should have been. Your constable detained us like we were criminals. Damned impertinence! I'd have that boy whipped if I were you."

And you would be eternally sorry for that, Dernbrook.
A cold, assessing resolve slipped through Eleanor's veins. "But you're not me, Sir David, are you? I'm afraid my constable is new at his post and overeager to protect me."

"That's no—"

"Ah, my lady, you've been out in the fields plowing again, haven't you?" Hannah came scolding out of nowhere to set a tray of cups and a ewer of new wine on a nearby table, and handed Eleanor a warm towel. "You look a fright."

"We nearly lost the lower fish weir, Hannah. But we rescued it." Eleanor scrubbed her face with the towel, ignoring Dernbrook and his harrumphing, uncertain how to judge Arundel's quiet observation.

Hannah nudged her and nodded toward Dernbrook. "Any of these fellows be a pantler, my lady? Could use one, you know. And a good sauce man, too."

"Ah, no. Gentlemen, this is our cook, Hannah. Will you be staying the night with us? You're certainly welcome to."

"That depends, Lady Eleanor," Dernbrook said over the rise of his crossed arms and his barrel chest, "upon your cooperation."

"I pride myself on cooperating, sir. That's the only way we can get things done at Faulkhurst. Hannah, be a dear and bring a loaf of your sweet nutbread for our guests." She handed Hannah the dirt-streaked towel and the woman scurried off. "Now, sir, if you'll tell me how I can help you—"

"You know damned well how, Lady Eleanor. Unless you haven't read my—"

"Your writ?" Eleanor wished that Nicholas would hurry along, wished most of all that he was standing by her side, grumbling his opinions
into her ear. "Oh, yes, I have read it, sir. But it made no sense to me at all."

"Well, of course it didn't, my lassie." The man seemed to take her admission as some kind of validation of his cause. His eyes rounded in fatherly kindliness. He smiled crookedly and laughed as though he'd been holding in the goodness of his nature. "There, you see, Arundel? I told you the girl was out of her league. At least she knows it. Now then, my lady, hurry along and send me your steward, then. I'll deal with him."

Eleanor felt the tips of her ears go steamy hot as Dernbrook calmly shucked his gloves and sat down in her barrel chair, poured himself a cup of her wine, and made himself excessively comfortable in her great hall.

You thin-witted, insufferable little toad.

"You'll deal with me, my lord. I am the mistress here, responsible to the last grain of barley that is ground to meal. I insist upon attending to the affairs of my household without any man's counsel, unless I seek it."

Dernbrook laughed still. "You'd best seek it now, lassie. Come, come. We haven't got all day."

Her blood near to boiling, Eleanor planted herself firmly on the table edge as she'd often seen Nicholas do, and clasped her hands together in her lap to keep them from shaking in outrage. "I think, Sir David, that I'll do nothing at all until you tell me exactly why you believe I have stolen away your tenants."

He blustered and waved a finger in the air. "Because seven of mine have disappeared."

"Did you perhaps eat them?"

He thumped his fist on the table and stood. "How dare you make light of this!"

Behave yourself, madam.
Though Nicholas's warning was only inside her head, she felt him close by, watching from somewhere.

"I make light of it, sir, because your claim against me is unfounded and ridiculous—as I shall prove it to you and to His Lordship."

"Those tenants are mine, lass. And there are probably more hiding somewhere on your estate." The man stood and hitched his thumbs into his belt, then strutted to the screens and peered into the hallway as though she'd hidden them from him. "I'll have them back, or you'll be in mercy to the court and to me for more than you can bear."

"What do you think I did with your people? Kidnapped them? Do I hold them for ransom?"

"As good as. I've heard of your tales of gold-paved streets and freeman's wages." He
strode back toward her, throwing the silent Arundel a conspiratorial nod.

"And how many buckets of gold did you pick up on your way through the village?"

"There, you see, Arundel? Not the least bit aware of the trouble she's in. I know for a fact that until six weeks ago, Faulkhurst was an abandoned ruin. And now it's—" He fluttered his hand in the direction of the bailey.

"Flourishing," was Arundel's imperturbable reply.

"Thank you, my lord." Eleanor dipped the man a curtsy, surprised at his support. "But we flourish only because we've been blessed with one miracle after another, Sir David. And because we've worked each day until our fingers bled."

"Ballocks, Lady Eleanor. You've defied the king and stolen laborers from me."

"Mind your tongue to the lady, Dernbrook." The earl's nephew looked suddenly fierce and red-faced. His uncle caught up the young man's elbow as if to restrain him from entering the fray.

Dernbrook sank in on himself for a moment, turtlelike. "Yes, yes, of course, my lord Percy. But her untruths will catch her up—which is the very reason that I brought along not only records from Torryhill to prove my claim absolutely, but also, my lady Eleanor, the earl to stand surety for me."

"To warrant your debate only, Dernbrook," the earl said evenly.

Eleanor nodded her gratitude for that clarification, still unsure what was going on between the earl and his sulky, excitable vassal. "I'm very pleased that we can take care of the matter out of court. Frankly, I dislike the idea of the king taking his fees every time two of his subjects have a dispute."

Dernbrook snorted, obviously surprised that a mere lass would have such a logical opinion on a matter of law and commerce. "At least we are in agreement on that point, Lady Eleanor."

"And on others, I hope." Her account books were sitting on the side table, as they always did in the midst of a busy day, ready to be consulted or added to at a moment's notice. She carried one of them to the large hearth table. "How large is Torryhill Manor, Sir David?"

Dernbrook looked as though she had accused him of lacking the full allotment of male rigging. "At three thousand acres, Lady Eleanor, Torryhill is my least substantial manor. I have seven in total. Torryhill is well fortified, and held by me directly from my cousin here."

A cousin to the earl? Oh, blast.

"Then you must have hundreds of tenants to keep track of. I have not nearly as many. But here is my accounting, as current as the rains of two hours ago. Now, shall we get down to the matter of your missing 'one saddler, two smiths, a carpenter, and three reapers—'"

"Damned right."

"Then let's compare my records against yours, Dernbrook. Name for name, craft for craft." She opened to the roster of tenants, grown so long and so broad that it made her smile in spite of her outrage. "Where do you wish to begin?"

"With my two smiths. I can't run a manor without them."

"Ah, yes. Here are the forge records—from the weekly nail and hinge production to cook-pot repairs to the craftsmen themselves, penned in my steward's hand. Are you by chance missing a Hugh McDowell?"

"McDowell?" Dernbrook muttered the name as he ran his finger down his own list, squinting.

"Hugh has been at Faulkhurst not quite three weeks, as you see here. He came from Scotland. Has quite a burr."

"There's no McDowell in your books, Dernbrook." Percy reached across and tapped the Torryhill page with his finger, having taken up a position at her shoulder.

"That proves nothing," Dernbrook said, comparing the two pages against each other. "Could be the same man. Names can be easily falsified."

"Our Hugh is blond, your height, and he's missing the top of his right thumb."

"Hardly evidence. Who else, Lady Eleanor?"

"We have two other blacksmiths here at Faulkhurst, Sir David. Douglas Anders and Wallace Feeney. Are either of the men yours?"

There was more mumbling as Dernbrook compared Faulkhurst's books to his own and came up shaking his head, harrumphing. "The saddler, then."

"We haven't one."

"Then the carpenter?"

"Well, there's Fergus. But he couldn't possibly be your carpenter."

"Fergus, did you say? We had a Fergus! See it here, Arundel: John Fergus— Oh, Ferguson. Could have changed his name; likely has if he's on the run." Dernbrook pointed to his book. "A strapping lad, if I remember—"

"Then he couldn't be our Fergus. He's seventy if he's a day, Sir David. I'm sure he's not in your book. He and his wife Hannah lived all their lives in Berwick. Besides—" she cupped a secret hand toward Dernbrook and said so that all round the table could hear
"—
Fergus isn't really a carpenter. He's a nightman."