A fortnight gone. A sennight to come. Then she would be Lothaire’s wife, would each night fall asleep in his bed, each morn awaken in it. And before the sleeping and after the awakening…

Staring at the gown Tina and she fashioned out of Eleanor’s material, Laura’s heart sped so fast she nearly pressed a hand to it. For this—fear of intimacy that had once been beautiful expectation, time and again she distracted herself from vows that would grant her husband the right to do with her body as he pleased. Were it the Lothaire of her youth and had she not learned by violent means what it meant to be possessed by a man, all would be different.

Laura replenished her breath, fingered the gown’s heavily embroidered bodice. “’Tis beautiful, Tina. You must have arisen ahead of dawn to complete it.”

“Aye, with yer daughter.”

While on and on Laura slept. But no more. As she was to be the lady of the castle, a position of responsibility that reflected on its lord, no longer could she while away the morn that had made her days easier to face.

“Henceforth, I would have you awaken me at first light, Tina.”

There was so much approval in the maid’s smile Laura was ashamed she had not asked it sooner. “Even if I must drag ye out by yer heels, milady?”

“Even if.”

“I am glad, milady.”

Laura inclined her head. “After breaking my fast, I will return and help set the gown’s sleeves.”

Tina smiled and lowered to the chair drawn before the windows to allow summer’s light to guide her needle.

Shortly, Laura stepped off the stairs into the hall she would make great again once she was Lothaire’s wife.

When a sweep of the room did not bring her daughter to light, she tensed. As reward for good behavior three days past, she had agreed Clarice could leave their chamber ahead of her mother providing she went directly to the hall for her morning meal. So she had, and here Laura had found her. Might she have yielded to curiosity over Lothaire’s absent mother and ventured to the uppermost floor?

She pivoted.

“Lady Laura!”

Peering across her shoulder, she saw it was Lothaire’s man who called to her. “Have you seen my daughter, Sir Angus?”

He halted before her. “She is with the baron. He instructed me to tell you he has collected on the favor owed by Lady Clarice.”

“Favor?” she said, then remembered her daughter’s bargain for another game of chess. That same night, Laura had awakened to find herself abed and Lothaire leaning over her. Not until morn had she been discomfited by the realization he had carried her from the hall—and more by words spoken between them she could not recall but must have been adversarial since he had grown cooler since.

“Your daughter aids my lord in moving the eastern flock to the stream where they will be washed ere shearing,” Sir Angus said.

Laura frowned. “What aid can a nine-year-old girl give?”

“No aid.” This from Lady Sebille whose appearance made Laura startle and the knight stiffen. “Indeed, she will cause my brother more work.” She raised her eyebrows. “But unlike her mother, she expressed an interest in the barony’s greatest source of revenue, and since Lexeter is to be her home until she weds, my brother did not discourage her.”

Concern for Clarice diluted by shame over her avoidance of Lothaire that closed her mouth against questioning the work that rarely saw him returned ere sunset, Laura said to the one whose presence was almost as rare as her brother’s, “I appreciate Baron Soames’s consideration and sacrifice, and I agree it is a burden he ought not carry.” She looked to the knight. “Once more I require your escort, Sir Angus. I shall collect my daughter.”

He inclined his head. “My lord said that if you insisted, I should do as bid.”

“I insist.”

“As would I if not for tidings from Wiltford,” Lothaire’s sister said and raised a parchment whose upper edge bore the remnant of a wax seal.

Laura frowned over the name of Wiltford, recalled a remark made by one of Lothaire’s men en route to Lexeter—that the journey would be hours shortened were his lord permitted to pass over that barony without Wiltford’s lord taking offense. And now that offended baron sent word to a man he distrusted.

Sir Angus thrust a hand toward Lothaire’s sister. “My lady,” he said with censure as if she overstepped in reading the baron’s correspondence.

Lady Sebille slapped the parchment in his palm. “As you are too scrupulous to read it ahead of my brother, I shall tell its tidings so you may make all haste to deliver it. Baron Marshal writes that—”

“Worry not,” Lothaire’s man spoke over her, “I will be of good speed.” He slid the missive in a pouch on his belt, looked to Laura. “You will accompany me?”

“She will not.” Lady Sebille again. “Lady Laura’s place is here, readying the donjon to receive Baron Marshal and his wife whilst I prepare Lady Raisa.”

The knight caught his breath. “He is found?”

As Laura bit her tongue to keep from asking who was found, Lady Sebille said in a choked voice, “At last, they return him to us.”

Sir Angus reached as if to touch her arm but drew back. He looked to Laura. “As my lord will likely ride to High Castle immediately, yours would be a wasted journey, my lady.”

At Laura’s hesitation, Lady Sebille said, “Better you direct the servants in making the hall presentable should your betrothed’s enemy enter here.”

“Baron Marshal is your brother’s enemy?” Laura said. “For what? And who does he return to you?”

“My lady,” the knight began, “methinks it best—”

“Go, Sir Angus!” Lady Sebille said. “The Baron of Lexeter will not thank you for dawdling.”

Nostrils flaring, he turned on his heel. As he strode across the hall, Laura caught sight of the physician whose presence often surprised, and not for the first time she wondered if his stealth was purposeful. Had Lady Raisa tasked him with being her eyes and ears to report on Lothaire’s betrothed?

“Lady Laura?”

She returned Lady Sebille to focus. “You will explain about Baron Marshal?”

“’Tis not for me to do.”

“Nor was it for you to tell me of your brother’s first wife,” Laura said. “Just as it is not for me to direct the servants until I am their mistress through marriage to their lord.”

Lothaire’s sister looked ready to refuse, but her eye was caught by the approaching physician, and she called, “I believe the Lady of Lexeter is in need of her medicinals, Martin,” then she motioned Laura to follow. Once ensconced in an alcove distant from the eyes and ears of others, she said, “’Tis a private and cruel matter. You know our father disappeared over twenty years past?”

“I know. Lothaire told he was but six.”

“I was nine.” The lady drew a shaky breath. “With the passage of time, we came to accept his life was forfeited. Now we know it as fact—that he was slain by the Baron of Wiltford.”

Laura gasped. “He who comes to High Castle?”

“Nay, that baron is long dead, his title recently passed to Durand Marshal through marriage to the murderer's cousin, Lady Beata.” Lady Sebille swept up her prayer beads, began to pick her fingers over them. “On the morrow, Baron Marshal and his wife shall return our father’s remains so he may be buried in consecrated ground.”

“For this they are Lothaire’s enemy?”

“That is some of it. The rest, methinks, is that ere my brother tried to return Lexeter to prosperity through marriage to you, he sought to do so by wedding Lady Beata against the queen’s—and the lady’s—wishes. Hence, you who were to be his first wife will not be his second but his third.”

Laura was grateful for the shadows upon her face. Not only had she been unaware of Lothaire’s second marriage, but his sister made it sound as if he had forced Lady Beata to speak vows. It did not seem possible, and yet…

She recalled her audience with Eleanor who insisted Lothaire remain among Laura’s suitors. She had said it would allow him to right another of his wrongs. This the other wrong?

“You are saying Lothaire forced Lady Beata to wed?”

Lady Sebille snorted. “She had incentive enough.”

“But—”

“He was angered and had cause to be.” She harrumphed. “Of course, since the marriage was quickly annulled so our queen could wed Lady Beata to her favorite, Durand Marshal, ’tis worth mentioning so you understand how uncomfortable the morrow will be. Not only are our father’s bones to be returned, but Lothaire will face Lady Beata and her husband. Thus, I would not have shame over the state of the hall make it more difficult for him.”

Laura glanced across her shoulder at the room.

“You are thinking ’twas not made ready for you, his betrothed,” Lady Sebille submitted.

“I am not.”

“I would have you know that as much as possible it was prepared in accordance with my brother’s instructions sent ahead of your arrival. Unfortunately, I was occupied with Lady Raisa. Though Sir Angus knows well how to direct men in defense of his lord, he is fairly useless in ordering servants—believes a room is presentable if no bones are visible among the rushes.” She raised her eyebrows. “Lady Maude taught you the duties of the lady of a castle?”

Laura hesitated. She had been trained in keeping a household, but little practice had she before her life toppled and none since. Just as Maude had undertaken the task of mothering Clarice, she and her stepson’s wife had ensured the donjon was comfortable and the business of feeding the castle folk economical, efficient, and palatable.

Lady Sebille gave a grunt of disapproval when the big dog, Tomas, drew alongside and pushed him away. “Your silence bodes ill, Lady Laura.”

“As you must know, I have had little experience, but Lady Maude did instruct me.”

“Then see to it.” The lady released her prayer beads and stepped from the alcove.

“Lady Sebille!”

The woman turned.

“Will Baron Marshal and his wife require a chamber? If so, I will have to do some shifting to accommodate them.”

“Nay, they will not pass the night at High Castle. Our hospitality does not extend that far to the family responsible for the murder of a beloved father.”

Laura inclined her head. “I understand.” And she did mostly. Though the baron and his wife had not murdered Ricard Soames, their presence would likely pick at the scab of a twenty-year-old wound. Were the Marshals to pass the night here, that scab might be torn off—if not by Lothaire, then his mother who was not as infirm as her daughter believed and could attempt to do worse to those of the barony of Wiltford than what she had done to Laura.

“If possible,” Lady Sebille said, “I shall return belowstairs to aid you. Much depends on how the Lady of Lexeter receives the tidings.” Her brow furrowed. “Lest she requires calming, I must alert the physician.”

He who was no more receptive to Laura and her daughter than when they were first introduced, continuing to exude such disapproval that Laura's prayers for Clarice’s continued good health had become lengthier.

Laura watched Lothaire’s sister go from sight, then considered enlisting Tina’s aid, but the woman’s time was better spent on the wedding gown—that which would be removed on the nuptial night that too rapidly approached.

She pulled her thoughts back, looked upon the hall with an eye to setting it aright for Lothaire whom she would not have shamed amid the grieving to come.

* * *

“This one we call Grandmother.”

Clarice frowned. “Grandmother?”

“She is the matriarch. First we deal with her, then the others follow.” Lothaire smiled. “Fortunately, she and I are of an understanding.” It was an overstatement, for the old ewe had tried his patience and bruised him many times, but he appreciated the challenge, poor substitute though it was for the heft and swing of a sword.

The girl took a step back that placed her to the left and behind Lothaire. “She glares at me.”

“Heed her well, Lady Clarice. Just watch, hmm?”

She snorted. “I have no intention of going nearer. She is so filthy I can smell her stink from this distance.”

“Hence, our purpose in moving the sheep here.” He jutted his chin at the clear-water stream temporarily dammed to form a pool, this portion chosen for its considerable width and graveled bottom that aided in cleaning the sheep without introducing more dirt stirred by the muck found farther downstream.

“It seems a lot of trouble when you could wash the fleece after ’tis sheared,” Clarice observed as did many who did not understand the business of wool.

“It would save some time and effort,” Lothaire allowed, “but this way there is less waste—meaning higher yield and greater revenue.”

The girl wrinkled her nose. “If I watch, my debt is paid?”

“Watch and learn. What we do here keeps food in your belly and shoes on your feet.”

“What of gowns?”

He glanced at the one she wore. It was too fine for the work of wool—even if only in the capacity of observation—but when he had suggested she change into something simpler, she told this was her least favorite since she had nearly outgrown it. It was tight and showed more of her ankles than would be permissible were she older. Hence, all the more reason not to waste good coin on expensive fabric for the garments of a rapidly growing child.

“Aye, gowns as well, Lady Clarice, though I warn you the cloth will not be as fine as you are accustomed to.”

Her brow lined. “I like pretty things.”

As did Lady Raisa whose indulgences following the disappearance of her husband were largely responsible for Lexeter’s decline. “I imagine that is a taste acquired from your mother. Her gowns are exceedingly fine.”

Clarice shook her head. “She hardly cares, though ever she pretended she was pleased with Lady Maude’s gifts so she did not hurt her feelings.”

Eager as Lothaire was to lead the workers in cleaning the sheep, his impatience slowed to a crawl. “Your mother does not like her finery?”

“I believe she likes it, but I do not think she would be terribly bothered were she reduced to homespun cloth.”

Choosing his words carefully, he said, “I am sorry there is strife between the two of you. I am guessing the loss of Lady Maude has been difficult for both.”

She heaved a sigh. “Lady Maude was as a mother to me. Now she is gone, all is changed. I have lost my home and my friend. For it I have gained a mother who tries too hard to replace Lady Maude, and you who I do not believe is truly pleased to become a father to me.” She raised an eyebrow. “Nor to wed my mother.”

He ought to like that she was so frank, providing insight into the Laura he no longer knew—had he ever—but it made him feel as much a fraud as she believed her mother to be. “Like many a noble marriage, ours will be of great benefit to our land and people, but that does not mean affection will not grow from our union, nor that I am incapable of caring for another man’s child.” Those last words he had not carefully chosen, but he contained his dismay—blessedly, for the girl watched him with the eyes of one more mature than her years.

But then she rolled them. “Donnie is right. ’Tis good I am misbegotten so I may choose love over affection.”

Lothaire frowned. “Donnie?”

“My friend, the son and heir of Lady Maude’s eldest stepson, Joseph D’Arci.” She lowered her lashes. “Actually, more than a friend.”

Lothaire did not like the conversation’s turn. Ignoring the men and women who waited for him to escort Grandmother into the stream, he said, “I am sorry you lost your friend. How old is he?”

“Near on twelve. Though I did not see him often once he was fostered away from Owen for his squire’s training, we spent time together when he returned home, and more this last visit ere my mother determined she must seek a husband.”

He clenched his teeth to keep from prompting her, remembering how his own mother’s prompts had roused suspicion and resentment, causing the youth he had been to close up. And still he closed up when Lady Raisa pressed him.

“Methinks she became jealous, and that is why we had to leave Owen.” Clarice’s eyes widened. “The argument you happened upon our first day at High Castle was of Donnie.”

“For that you raised a hand to your mother?” Even to Lothaire’s ears his disapproval was rampant.

She flushed. “I would not have struck her.”

“Aye, you would have. I felt the force in your arm, Clarice.” Though he longed to ask what had caused her to strike her mother later, he determined not to speak of it lest she believe Laura had revealed the assault.

She groaned. “I know ’twas wrong, but she frustrates me.”

“You will have to learn to control your frustration. I will not tolerate disrespect of your mother.”

Anger flashed across her face, slid off, and in a defeated tone, she said, “I fear I will not see Donnie again, that he will find other girls to…” She blew breath up her face. “…talk to.”

It was more than talk, but Lothaire kept his tongue. And waited.

“So Lord Soames, show me how you persuade Grandmother to bathe.”

Was it a kiss the almost twelve-year-old Donnie had filched from a nine-year-old girl? For certain, it was not jealousy that caused Laura to seek a husband she did not want for the home required to remove her daughter from a boy moving toward manhood faster than a girl moving toward womanhood.

“My lord?” said the shepherd, an outspoken commoner who did his job too well to begrudge him impatience that oft matched Lothaire’s.

“Watch, Lady Clarice,” Lothaire said. As he strode down the rise where the old ewe stood upon the bank, he was struck by the feeling it would not be enough for the girl to observe. But perhaps he merely cast her in the mold of a young Laura who had sat still only the one time he was first introduced to her in the company of Lady Maude and Lady Raisa.

To lessen the ewe's alarm, he led it backward, but once its hooves met water it began to struggle. Lothaire pressed onward and, thigh-high in the pool, gently tipped her. As she tried to get her legs beneath her, he pulled her to the center of the dammed stream where she came right side up and floated. Immersed up to his chest, he began loosening the dirt and other foul matter from her fleece. Once she abandoned her efforts to swim back to the bank, the workers led other ewes into the stream.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lothaire watched Clarice draw nearer, sometime later heard her screech when a ewe’s thrashing wet the skirt of her gown. But the wetting of her hem was of her own doing.

An hour later, she who liked pretty things was nearly as drenched and fouled by the dirt coming off the matted fleece as the rest of them. Standing in the water, she aided a young woman given charge of year-old lambs who had accumulated enough wool to make the cleaning and shearing worthwhile. And scattered across that bank were dozens of ewes whose much brightened fleece dried in the sun.

As Lothaire pushed a ewe back to the shallows where it dug its hooves into the gravel to heave its water-logged fleece out of the stream, laughter brought his head around.

The voice was more childish than that of the one to whom he had first been betrothed, but it sounded of Laura, just as her daughter’s smile summoned remembrance of the young woman he had senselessly loved.

In disposition, Clarice was more like her mother than she could know, she whom he should have fathered.

The pound of hooves and a shout turned Lothaire toward Angus whose appearance portended ill.

Soaked through, Lothaire stepped from the stream, strode between the dozing sheep, and halted atop the rise.

Angus swung out of the saddle and extended a missive. “Word from Wiltford, my lord.”

Lothaire stared at what remained of the wax seal—doubtless, broken by Sebille who, more than Lothaire and their mother, ached for the tidings likely inked by Baron Marshal.

He reached but drew back the hand over which dripped water from his tunic’s sleeve. “You will have to read it to me.”

Minimally proficient in letters, Angus grimaced as he unfurled the parchment. He cleared his throat. “Baron Soames, by this missive know the answer long awaited is given,” the knight melded the sounds into words and stiltedly strung them together to form a sentence. “That which your family lost has been found, placed in a casket with due respect and…ceremony, and shall be returned forthwith. As my father-in-law has taken ill, my lady wife shall accompany her lord husband to the barony of Lexeter. I trust you will receive us and our…entourage with good will. This missive travels a day ahead of our nooning arrival at High Castle.” The parchment rustled. “Baron Marshal signs his name.”

Lothaire stared at the dirt darkening about his feet as water ran from his clothes. Though glad his father could be properly interred, he almost wished the old baron’s return further delayed. It would be better for Lexeter to receive its lost lord when the disparity between its prosperity of twenty years past and now was not as great, and this was too near the wedding. Not that his marriage would be a joyous event, but it would be further dampened by the burial to take place only days before. Or perhaps it would not.

Lothaire ground his teeth. Sebille would not like it, nor their mother who would not be averse to her son's marriage being more overshadowed by mourning. However, this day a grave would be dug in the cemetery of the village of Thistle Cross so Ricard Soames could be laid to rest shortly after Baron Marshal and his wife arrived with an entourage Lothaire did not doubt would be sizable and well armed lest they were not received with good will.

“My lord?”

Lothaire met Angus’s gaze. “Ill timing,” he said. “Hardly am I returned from court and now this.”

The knight peered past him. “I will aid in cleaning the sheep so you may—” He blinked, nearly smiled. “There is a young lady washing the sheep, my lord.”

Lothaire looked across his shoulder at Clarice who had an arm hooked around the neck of a lamb the village woman bathed. The girl’s face was near the animal’s, and she appeared to be chatting with it. Then she laughed and kissed the top of its head.

He fought imaginings of Laura doing the same. And failed. She would have, even at the expense of a gown finer than her daughter’s. But no longer. She was too changed, surely by abandonment of the one who had made a child on her. And, dare he hope, regret over her betrayal of the one who had loved her? He had believed that last when he returned to her in the garden at Windsor and found her weeping, but after seeing her with Michael D’Arci and the more he learned of this older Laura from her daughter who believed her sorrow a result of being parted from her lover…

“I am thinking her gown is ruined,” Angus said, “but she does not look to mind.”

“She is much as her mother was,” Lothaire spoke aloud his thoughts and grunted when the knight narrowed his eyes. Not that Angus was unaware of what had gone between his lord and the lady. He had served the Soames family since his squire’s fostering at High Castle and been knighted by Ricard only months before his lord’s disappearance.

Years later, Angus had trained Lexeter’s heir in arms after Raisa refused to allow her son to earn his spurs with a fostering lord. Just as Lothaire had protested her decision, so had this knight who believed the loss of a father made it more imperative Lothaire be fostered—and all the better were he accepted by the Wulfriths. But Raisa had been determined to keep her son under her control, citing he might otherwise be led astray, becoming no better than her faithless husband.

How she missed the power she had once wielded, though it had almost been the ruin of Lexeter. Not that she acknowledged what she had wrought, ever blaming Ricard and now those responsible for her husband’s death—even Lothaire whose efforts too slowly revived the barony.

“Your betrothed did ask that I deliver her to you that she might retrieve her daughter,” Angus said.

Lothaire frowned. “As instructed, you were to comply.”

“I agreed, but your sister insisted the lady take charge of the household to prepare for the Baron of Wiltford’s arrival.”

Whilst Sebille prepared Raisa to receive her husband’s bones, Lothaire knew.

“I shall take your place so you may return to High Castle,” Angus said.

Lothaire considered the offer but saw little benefit in returning early. “I am sure Lady Laura has all in hand. Thus, my time is better spent here.”

“As you will, my lord. Should I deliver Lady Clarice to her mother?”

“You may ask her, but I believe she will decline.”

“Might she have wool in her blood?”

That possibility made Lothaire ache. He would wish it of a child he had fathered, but one whose veins carried the blood of the man who had lain with Laura? He had brought Clarice here to acquaint her with the workings of Lexeter and further assert his authority soon to be granted as her stepfather. It was not his intention to foster an avid interest in wool best passed to his heir. He wished her to respect it and be conversant enough that when she was of an age to acquire a husband, she would draw more suitors willing to overlook her unfortunate birth in exchange for one learned in what was increasingly regarded as England’s greatest source of wealth.

“In her blood?” he said. “Methinks she is merely bored and will soon tire of the novelty and bemoan her soiled gown.”

Once more Angus cast his regard her way, then strode down the rise. He soon returned. “She prefers to wash sheep.”

“To which I myself must return,” Lothaire said.

Angus set a hand on his shoulder. “Regardless of the ill timing, I am glad your father shall soon be laid to rest.”

Lothaire inclined his head. Then he instructed his man to pause at Thistle Cross to make arrangements with Father Atticus to conduct the funeral mass at High Castle followed by burial in the churchyard, send word across Lexeter that work be suspended in honor of the old baron, and inform his betrothed of the morrow's plans that he himself would reveal to his mother and sister.