The lady was so thin that even at Laura’s slightest she might have appeared heavy alongside Lothaire’s sister.

Laura rose from the hearth where she had sat following supper the past two nights. And just as Lothaire and his sister had been absent from the meal last eve, so they had been this eve. Now the latter appeared, and she looked almost starved. Too, though she was only a few years older than her brother, she appeared ten or more.

“You must be Lady Sebille.” Laura curtsied as the woman halted before her. “I am—”

“I know who you are.” Lady Sebille glanced across her shoulder at the girl who sat at a small table with the young squire persuaded to join her in a game of chess. “And that is your child.”

“Aye, Clarice.”

“The daughter who should have been my brother’s,” the lady said low. “Now alas, by default she is his responsibility.”

I ought not be surprised I am no better liked by her than I am by her mother, Laura mulled, then said, “Most unfortunate, our sovereign gave us little choice.”

The lady stepped past her, lowered into a chair, and motioned to the one from which Laura had risen. “We must needs speak.”

When the two faced each other, Lady Sebille leaned forward. “Are you as marked by Lady Raisa’s violence against you as she is by yours?”

Laura nearly choked. “She told you?”

“Her rendering, which I know to be pocked with exaggeration—likely even lies.”

What had Lady Raisa said? And would she reveal it to Lothaire though she said she would not if Laura did not speak of it?

The lady moved her eyes to the braid that was mostly for Clarice’s benefit. “Pray, show me, Lady Laura.”

She wanted to refuse, but she confirmed Clarice’s back remained turned to her and swept aside the braid.

“The cream lightens the bruise but does little to conceal the swelling,” Lady Sebille said.

Laura dropped the braid. “’Tis improved over this morn. Your mother is stronger than she appears.”

“She is not, my lady. I nearly had to carry her to her chamber. I am sure she but caught you unawares.”

An act, Laura silently countered.

“Though I am quite certain she must have provoked you,” the lady added with something just short of apology.

Laura frowned. “What makes you think that?”

“I know her, mayhap better than she knows herself—though that may be as she would have me believe.”

Just as she wished her daughter to believe her terribly infirm, Laura thought.

“Regardless, I allow she is difficult, not surprising for one who sees her life as mostly wasted, Lothaire her only worthy contribution. Thus, she is fiercely protective of my brother. As am I.” She sat back, fingered a string of dark beads on her girdle, the shine of which indicated they were handled often. “What matters to me is that you succeed where Lothaire’s first wife failed.”

“I know little about her. How did she fail?”

Lady Sebille raised her chin higher, peered down her nose. “I am not surprised he has not told you, and though ’tis not my place, I will tell it. Lady Edeva failed him the same as you.”

Did she mean the woman had cuckolded Lothaire? If so, not the same.

“A terrible blow,” the lady continued, “especially since he believes he failed himself.”

“How?”

“Whereas Lady Raisa could be blamed for choosing you, it was Lothaire who decided on the lady—he who determined she was suitable and pure. A lie.” She sighed. “But she is dead and in the past. So the question remains, Lady Laura. Now you are no longer a fickle, indiscriminate girl, can you make Lothaire a good wife?”

It was impossible not to take offense, but since the sister was more tolerant than her mother, Laura answered as levelly and honestly as she could, “It seems where Lexeter’s prosperity is concerned, I am capable of being a good wife, but beyond that, I fear not.”

The lady’s face pinched, then a smile plucked at the corners of her mouth. “Your fear gives me hope.”

“What say you?”

“Does it not mean you would like to be a satisfactory wife beyond what the queen and king promised my brother?”

“I would like that, but he thinks ill of me—does not trust me.”

Barely present eyebrows rose. “You betrayed him in the worst way.”

“Did I?” Laura said and regretted the impulsive response, an unwanted side effect of her awakening. Were she to keep peace in the home where she was to raise her child, her words would have to tread more carefully.

“Are you saying you did not betray my brother?” Lady Sebille glanced at Clarice, whom she believed evidence of that betrayal.

This time Laura suppressed the impulse to speak what was best left unspoken. Though a part of her she had not realized was so lonely strained toward the possibility of friendship with this lady, she must also subdue that. Perhaps she and Lothaire’s sister would eventually enjoy each other’s company, but not until Laura secured her place upon Lexeter. And that was not possible until the removal of Lady Raisa.

Hopefully, when Laura sat down to write the missive postponed to provide Lothaire time to avoid the queen’s wrath, his mother would be gone.

“You do not answer me, my lady.”

Laura recalled the question of her betrayal. “I can but assure you I am not the evil your mother names me. I have made mistakes, but those I shall not repeat.”

“I am glad to hear it. If you at least strive to be a good wife, you will have my support. If you do not…” She turned up her hands. “I will protect my brother as best I can.”

Another threat, and yet it was not quite that. There was too much pleading for Laura to take great offense. “Noted, my lady. Now I must ask, do you intend to tell your brother I slapped your mother?”

“That is not for me to do, and methinks Lady Raisa will not speak of it if you do not reveal she retaliated.”

“I will not, though he is aware I…” Laura’s smile felt bitter. “…took a fall that did injury to my face.” She stood. “I bid you good eve, Lady Sebille.”

The woman also rose, and the prayer beads attached to her girdle fell halfway down her skirt to settle amid the folds. “I am glad we spoke, and I hope to know you better in days to come.”

Laura opened her mouth to agree, closed it at the sound of booted feet.

Lothaire emerged from the kitchen corridor alongside Sir Angus. Head tilted toward the slightly shorter man, he chuckled at something the knight said and lifted a hunk of bread over which he paused when his eyes found Laura’s.

She noted he appeared fresher than when she had drawn him away from mending fences—and not only his hair that was now tightly bound at his nape. Had he washed his garments in a pond? Also bathed there? Imagining that as she should not, she recalled how once she had wanted to swim and bathe with him out of doors—and had believed they would when they wed. Now it seemed so sinful a thought her face warmed.

“Another missed meal,” Lady Sebille said low. “He works too hard. I hope your marriage changes that.”

“Once we are wed,” Laura said, “his income will increase, providing more leisure time.”

“Ah, but will it be soon enough for him to recover his dignity?”

Laura had sensed he had not liked her seeing him reduced to the labor of one born to the land, and yet she had also sensed the responsibility did not ride his back as heavily as those of the privileged class might think—that despite the hard work, he was fairly comfortable beneath its yoke.

“It seems one good thing has come of your presence here,” the woman said. “My brother may appear the lowest of villeins, but he washed away most of the day’s filth ere returning to the hall.”

As verified when Sir Angus and he halted before the ladies.

“Lady Laura.” Lothaire dipped his head, and his cool eyes warmed when they moved to the other woman. “Sister.”

Lady Sebille nodded. “How fares the demesne?”

“Well, though there is much work to be done. How is Mother?”

Her hesitation made him frown. “A difficult day, but she sleeps it away. On the advice of the physician, she is not to be disturbed.”

“I shall visit her on the morrow.”

“I would not. The physician has ordered several days of rest to allow her to regain her strength.” She looked to the bread he held. “That is your supper?”

“More of a dessert. Sir Angus and I filled our bellies in the kitchen.”

She clicked her tongue. “Do you not sit at high table on occasion, Lexeter’s people may forget you are their lord.”

“I shall make a greater effort on the morrow.” He leaned down, touched his lips to her brow. “I am pleased you and my betrothed are becoming acquainted.”

“We have something in common.”

He raised his eyebrows.

She smiled, and though the expression did not turn her pretty, it lessened her severity. “You.”

He looked sidelong at Laura. “I am a topic of conversation?”

“You are,” Lady Sebille answered. “A worthy one.”

“Now I am curious, Lady Laura,” Lothaire murmured.

Blessedly, an outburst saved her from satisfying that curiosity. Not so blessedly, it came from Clarice.

“But the game is not finished, Squire Aland. And I am winning!”

“I am sorry, my lady.” The young man pushed upright. “Now my lord is returned, I must resume my duties.”

“I will see the game to its end, Lady Clarice,” Lothaire called as he closed the distance between them. To his squire, he said, “See the solar is made ready. I shall be up shortly.” He dropped into the chair vacated by the young man, and the dog Clarice had befriended rose from alongside her chair and set its chin atop the Baron of Lexeter’s forearm.

Lothaire patted the beast, said, “Whose move, my lady?”

Clarice looked like Laura felt—a bird wishing to spread its wings and flee, though in Laura’s case she would do so with her fledgling lest the one who told he would correct her daughter made good his threat.

“Your move, Lord Soames,” Clarice said cautiously, then less so, “but be vigilant, for I plan to take your queen. And there is little you can do to prevent it.”

“Perhaps.” He bent his head to study the board.

“I have not seen him play a game in years,” Lothaire’s sister said, returning Laura’s gaze to her.

“As I have not seen you play one, Lady Sebille.” This from Sir Angus, causing both women to startle, evidence his silence had rendered him invisible.

Lady Sebille’s laughter was false and abrupt. “You know me, Sir Angus, never one for games.”

“True. For such you have no time.”

“As preferred.” She dipped her chin. “Good eve, Sir Knight, Lady Laura.” She crossed to her brother, who introduced her to Clarice. Then the lady continued to the stairs the physician ascended ahead of her—he whom Laura had not realized had returned to the hall following his departure at meal’s end.

“I should have kept my mouth closed,” Sir Angus said and gave Laura a sheepish smile. “I should still, but as you are to be her sister-in-law, there can be no harm in you knowing now what you will otherwise learn in time.”

Laura felt pulled between this suddenly sorrowful knight and the chess game, but she held his gaze.

“I was very fond of the lady once. She was fond of me.” He sighed. “But not enough. So I did the unforgivable. I loved others—or as near to love as I am capable. And with that, I shall leave you, my lady.”

She watched him cross to the sideboard where he poured a tankard of ale.

“Oh!” Clarice exclaimed. “I did not see that.”

Laura swung her gaze to the two with the board between them, saw it was Lothaire who removed his opponent’s piece. It seemed there was much he could do to prevent Clarice from taking his queen.

“The next time you will see it,” he said.

Grateful her daughter rarely cried over such losses, Laura returned to the chair to await the game’s end when Clarice and she could depart together. Though she had instructed the girl not to venture to the third floor lest she disturb Lothaire’s ill mother and Clarice had agreed, as Laura now knew, Lady Raisa did not confine herself to that floor.

It took longer than expected to name the winner of the chess game. And it was not Clarice.

Laura stood, started forward.

“Another game, Lord Soames?” her daughter entreated.

Before Laura could warn against further imposing on him, certain it was rest he required not another game that could last an hour, he looked around and said, “That is for your mother to decide.”

She halted, wondered if his words were calculated to give her control over her daughter that he believed—with good cause—she lacked.

How was she to respond as a parent should? Though disinclined to agree, eager as she was to retreat abovestairs, she was moved to consent to please her daughter who asked so simple a thing, especially considering how well Clarice had earlier contained her disappointment over being given little time amongst the sheep. She had protested when Laura ordered her back into the saddle, but that had been the end of it. Or mostly.

“Lady Laura?” Lothaire prompted.

She looked from him to her daughter whose teeth were pressed into her lower lip. If not that Lothaire must long for bed, the answer would be easy since it was early enough Clarice would likely while away an hour ere gaining her own night’s rest.

What would Maude—rather, what had Maude done with Laura in such circumstances?

She set her shoulders back. “I am well with it, Clarice, but only if Lord Soames truly does not mind. We must be considerate of one who has labored harder than we and will likely rise early again come the morrow.”

Her daughter’s lip popped from between her teeth. “We shall make it a quick game, Lord Soames. No more than a thirty count per move, hmm?”

Feeling his gaze, Laura looked to him. Had she failed? Did he think worse of her?

He gave a barely perceptible nod she hoped was of approval and turned back to Clarice. “A quick game, though you will owe me a favor.”

“What favor?”

“To be named when I need one. Agreed?”

Her nose twitched, but she said, “Agreed.”

As she set about returning captured pieces to the board, Laura moved to regain her seat.

“Lady Laura?”

She looked to Lothaire.

“If you are of a mind to seek your bed, I will escort your daughter to your chamber.”

“I shall wait.”

This displeased him, as told by his frown, but she was not ready to grant him the role of sire. That would take time and assurance his means of correcting Clarice was acceptable. Now if only she were certain of what acceptable was…

Within a quarter hour, Laura was easy enough with the bits of conversation overheard between the two and the occasional laughter and chuckle that she eased into the chair’s depths. Shortly, she dropped her head back and watched them through narrowed lids.

And from time to time lowered her lids to rest her eyes.

* * *

“So much she likes her sleep, she can be difficult to rouse.”

Lothaire shifted his gaze from Laura to her daughter who straightened from her attempt to coax her mother awake. “She likes her sleep?” he said.

“Indeed.”

Not the Laura he had known. She had seemed never to rest, during his visits to Owen ever at table ahead of him to break her fast, rarely dozing as he had done when they lay on their backs in the grass, always begging for another half hour—then another—at day’s end.

Clarice sighed. “I do not think she has ever risen ahead of me—or Lady Maude who was always saying, Let her sleep, let her sleep. Her nights are so very long.”

“Long?”

“Aye, restless. For that I mostly slept in Lady Maude’s chamber.” Her eyes moistened. “I miss her.”

“Then you spent much time with the lady.”

“I did, more than with…” She lowered her voice further. “…my mother. Lady Maude loved me very much.”

Because the girl was the child of her stepson, Michael D’Arci? He let his mind replay the embrace witnessed at Castle Soaring. But only once. Jealousy’s bite was sharp.

“I am sure your mother also loves you deeply.”

Clarice shrugged, rubbed the shoulder of the big dog who sidled near. “She says.”

He looked back at Laura whose cheek rested on her shoulder, lashes threw shadows toward her nose, lips parted enough to permit a glimpse of pretty teeth he hoped his heir would have. His were not unsightly, but neither were they as straight or bright as hers.

In that moment, he acknowledged how much he had missed her smile these ten years—recalled how often it was followed by beautiful laughter and how that smile had felt against his own. Would he see it again? Or was it lost to him forever?

“Methinks you will have to carry her,” Clarice said, making him jerk with surprise—more, the longing to fill his arms with Laura as done too briefly when she collapsed before the queen.

“Certes, you look strong enough, Lord Soames.”

More than strong enough. And Laura weighed very little.

“Is it not permissible?” Clarice pressed. “You are to wed. And what fun when she awakens and knows not how she came to be abed.”

“I do not believe your mother will think it fun.”

“Mayhap, but better than finding herself rumpled in a chair come morn.”

The solution was to make a greater effort to awaken her, but he was strangely loath to do so. And he did have the excuse it was her daughter who suggested he carry her.

He considered the girl who had kept him from his bed for not one but two more games, having persuaded him to continue when she saw her mother slept. Despite Clarice’s disrespect for Laura, he almost liked her as he had not expected of one whose father had reduced him to a cuckold, and was further inclined to like her when her disappointment at being bested at the first two games proved she handled defeat fairly well. Thus, he had allowed her to win the third game. The years until she wed at fourteen—perhaps fifteen—might not test him as much as feared. Providing Laura did her part in training her up into a lady.

“You will have to defend me if she takes offense,” he said.

He saw Laura in her smile. “I will tell her I insisted.”

“But I would not do it if you insisted, Clarice. As your mother is not yours to command, neither am I.”

She had the grace to look chagrined. “At my request, then.”

He slid an arm around her mother’s back, one beneath her knees, and lifted her.

Laura did sleep as if she might never awaken, and in that moment he was grateful, for he held her nearer than necessary, gazed less guardedly upon her, knew if she looked as near upon him she would see what he did not wish her to see—that he so vividly remembered what he had felt for her he could almost believe it was not all memory.

“You are glad you shall wed her, are you not?”

Berating himself for thinking it safe to leave his face open, Lothaire shuttered his expression. “Methinks it will be a satisfactory marriage.”

Clarice wrinkled her brow and nose, then her face smoothed. “Do you make her fall in love with you as she loved my father, ’twill be better than satisfactory.”

Jealousy knelling through him, he said low, “Did your father love her in return?”

“Surely I would not be here if he did not.” She leaned forward and continued in a conspiratorial whisper, “For love and loss of him, I have only known her to be sorrowful—a shadow of herself, I heard Lady Maude tell her stepson.”

She swung around to lead the way across the hall. Had she not, he might have failed to contain the emotions flaying him as he once more recalled the embrace between Laura and Michael D’Arci. Unobserved, he let jealousy run rampant, then shoved it to his depths, ordered Tomas to remain in the hall, and followed Clarice to the chamber shared with her shadow of a mother.

I care not what she felt for her lover, he assured himself as he strode into the room.

I care not that she so soon forgot me, he told himself as Clarice entered the garderobe and closed herself in.

All I require of her is King Henry’s tax break and an heir. He lowered her to the mattress. And fidelity. Above all, fidelity.

As he slid his arms from beneath her, she narrowly opened her eyes. “Lothaire?”

Though she no longer filled his arms, he did not straighten from where he bent over her. “’Tis I.”

She lowered her lids, raised them a bit higher. “Did I do well?”

“Well?”

“In allowing her another game?”

Grudgingly moved by her concern over what he thought of her mothering, he said, “I am hardly acquainted with parenting. Still, it seemed an appropriate response.”

She closed her eyes, breathed, “I am awake now.”

Hardly, he mused.

“I will make it right, Lothaire.”

“It?”

She did not answer, but he was fairly certain she referred to becoming the mother she had not been to Clarice.

He started to straighten, but seeing her braid had fallen back from the bruise she claimed her daughter had not dealt, he drew it over that side of her face. Then he pulled the covers atop her and crossed to the door. As he stepped into the corridor, Clarice exited the garderobe.

“I thank you for the games, Lord Soames,” she called low.

He inclined his head. “We will play again.”

“What of the favor I owe?”

“I shall think on it. Good eve, Clarice.”