All had plenty to eat and too much to drink. Now they wanted their lord and lady to join in the dance. Such was not unknown to Lothaire who had years ago given himself to the dizzying, unrestrained whirling of the villagers, partnering with many a maiden to celebrate the last of the shearing, but the movements would surely offend a noblewoman.

“Dance with your lady, milord!” This from the shepherd whose skill at shearing exceeded Lothaire’s.

“Dance with her!” Called the buxom wife of a worker from the village of Thistle Cross whose flushed cheeks told she would not care to rise from bed on the morrow. “See, she is willing.”

Lothaire followed the jut of her chin to where his wife had stood in the midst of other women who had not participated in the last dance. Now she moved toward him with a hand outstretched—just as he imagined the young Laura would have done.

He straightened so abruptly from the tree against which he leaned that many laughed.

“Your lady is a bold one! Dance with her, milord!”

Wishing the lowering of day were farther along so the lengthening shadows concealed the warmth traveling up his face, Lothaire strode forward to meet Laura halfway.

She slid her hand in his. “Too bold?” she said, smile so teasing he wanted to kiss it open.

As those who had brought their instruments to the celebration began to pluck at and blow upon them, he said, “As long as it is my hand in yours…” He drew her nearer, slid an arm around her waist. “…my arm around you…” She settled hers against his broad back. “…my eyes upon yours…my breath upon you…never too bold.”

Sparkles were coming out in her eyes ahead of those of the heavens that would not prick the sky for another hour.

“Are you sure you wish to do this?” he said. “As you have seen, the dances are not only more vigorous but more intimate than those to which you are accustomed.”

She tilted her face higher. “As never have we danced, I am accustomed to none. So pray, accustom me to those of your—our—people.”

“Our people, indeed,” he said and began to move her across the trampled grass dance floor.

As their bodies brushed, pressed, and withdrew, he held her gaze, and though other men spun their women past their lord and lady, he was only vaguely aware of them.

When the tempo increased, encouraging partners to widen the distance between themselves, he was glad it had become so crowded that the steps through which he guided Laura provided an excuse to hold her closer and feel curves long denied him. And she surely felt the planes of his body, her pupils dilating, breath quickening though far less effort was required from her since more often she was off her feet than on them as he lifted and turned her.

This eve, I will make love to her, he decided. I will truly accept her as she is and will become, and together we shall throw the last of the dirt upon the past.

As the dance neared its end, the tempo increased further. Here was where men with sufficient strength and space gripped their partners beneath the arms, lifted them above their heads, and spun them wide. In this instance, Lothaire had enough room, but no other man was going to look upon Laura’s legs.

He lifted her high but planted his feet firm to the ground and tilted his head back to look up at her where she looked down at him with a smile so wide he was certain she would welcome his attentions this night.

As he held her there, the outsides of her thighs pressed against the insides of his arms, she laughed and said, “Should you not be swinging me about?”

“Certainly not.” He eased her down his chest, abdomen, and hips. When her feet settled atop his boots, she pressed upward, kissed his cheek, and spoke three words he thought he must have heard wrong amid the joyous shouts of a dance at its end.

“Say it again,” he said as a dozen dizzy couples dispersed. “I do not think I heard right.”

The curve of her mouth eased, and her eyes flitted down his face.

Had she spoken it? Meant it? Did she now regret it?

Her eyes returned to his, then she leaned in and said in his ear, “Do not let me regret the baring of my heart. There is only one man I have loved. And I love him still.”

He closed his eyes, lowered his face to the place between her neck and shoulder, and wished away the world.

But it was going nowhere, as evidenced by a tug on his sleeve. “May I dance with Mother and you?”

As the musicians began to play another tune, Laura slipped off the tops of Lothaire’s boots and, in her haste to remedy what nobles would think inappropriate, would have lost her footing had he not kept an arm around her waist.

“May I?” Clarice asked again.

Lothaire considered Laura’s daughter—their daughter. “If my lady wife is not too breathless.”

“Say you are not, Mother.”

Laura glanced at him. “Methinks I am no more breathless than my husband.”

Glad they were moving forward rather than struggling through the mire of past sins, he took Clarice’s hand and instructed her to take her mother’s.

Where Lothaire had felt desirous minutes earlier, he felt what seemed happiness as the three danced and Clarice’s antics made them laugh.

As ever when he loosed that sound from his deepest place, he drew the regard of others who surely thought him incapable of such. And he saw in Laura’s eyes what he had seen years ago when she dragged that laughter up out of him—adoration. How he wished he could be alone with her now. Unless he knew her not at all, she would give herself to him without restraint. And they might even make a child.

Since they were far from alone, he attempted to distract his body by shifting his regard to the other celebrants and caught sight of Sebille standing behind a depleted table, beside her the physician who had joined the celebration after setting the worker’s arm. Though they were almost shoulder to shoulder, each time Lothaire looked to them, they were not conversing. And when he followed his sister’s gaze, he was not surprised it rested on Angus. Earlier the knight had danced with several young women, but now he stood back from the revelry, head bent toward Tina who animatedly related something.

Was it truly too late for Sebille and Angus? If the knight asked her to dance, would she accept and, on the morrow, remain at High Castle rather than depart with their mother? Unlikely, but he must try.

When the dance ended, he thanked his two ladies, said he needed to speak with Angus, and assured them he would return shortly.

As Laura watched her husband weave among the dancers, she heard again the three words she had dared speak to him, albeit much of her daring was surely aided by one-too-many cups of wine. Though he had not spoken the words back, they had pleased him.

“Has Lord Soames made you love him, Mother?” Clarice asked.

She shot her gaze to her daughter. “What say you?”

“Has he made you love him as you loved my father?”

Not wishing to lie, she said, “I do love my husband, and I am glad to be his wife. And you? You are glad to be his daughter?”

“I like him better every day.”

“That makes me happy.” Laura kissed Clarice’s brow. “This is our home now.”

Her daughter drew back. “Do we belong as you wished us to, Mother?”

Nearly so, she thought. “Assuredly, you are of Lexeter, Clarice Soames.” Lothaire’s surname nearly stuck in her throat for how often she could now speak it—more, her husband’s Christian name.

Clarice gasped. “A game of ball!”

“Go,” Laura said, but already her daughter was on her way to being gone.

As Laura stepped off the heavily trodden grass, Tina appeared. “My heart smiles to see ye and yer husband dancin’ and smiling as if never were an ill word spoken between ye. Methinks this the best day I have spent in yer service.”

“’Tis a good day, and I pray for many more, Tina. Now what of you? I have not seen you dance.”

A grin spread the woman’s lips. “Sir Angus did ask me to join hands with him on the dance floor. Had not your lord husband wished to speak with him, we would be there now. But mayhap afterward.”

Laura considered Lothaire whose expression and that of his man seemed too serious for a day like this, especially now the sun was all but sunk, the last of it sweeping golden-orange light up the trees beyond the shearing shelter. As she pondered the black of the night to come, she wondered how the moon and stars would look across the lake’s surface.

“Tina?”

“Milady?”

Warming at the thought that would have delighted her younger self, Laura said in a rush, “I wish you to do something for me which will also be of benefit to you should Baron Soames’s conversation with Sir Angus not soon end.”

“Already it sounds agreeable, milady.”

“In a quarter hour, regardless if my husband has yet to yield your dance partner, tell him to meet me at the lake.”

The maid frowned. “Surely ye do not mean to venture there alone?”

“It is not far, and I shall reach it well ere night falls. You saw the great willow near the shore?”

“I did, but—”

“Tell my husband he shall find me there.”

“I do not like this, milady. Though Lexeter seems peaceful, ’tis a great worry for a woman to go unescorted across the land. And dark soon falls and things happen in the night that do not in the light.”

“You concern yourself where you need not,” Laura gently chided. “A quarter hour, hmm?”

Tina sighed. “I shall be nibblin’ and pickin’ at my nails, but aye—a quarter hour and not a second more. Tsk, ye and yer love of water!”

“And keep watch over Clarice until my husband and I return.”

“I shall, milady, even if I have to share my dance partner with her.” Tina wagged a finger. “Ye keep good watch yerself, hmm? Does anything ill happen to ye, the Lord shall have to stand between me and yer husband’s wrath.”

“Be assured I shall.”

A quarter hour, Laura mused as she stole away as inconspicuously as possible lest she catch Lothaire’s eye. Time aplenty to reach the lake ahead of her husband, though if he rode rather than traveled on foot he would reach it soon after her.

On foot, she hoped, of a sudden nervous now she had committed to swimming and bathing with Lothaire and whatever came after.

* * *

Not as planned.

The one who watched the Lady of Lexeter slip away winced, then grunted over a pricked conscience. Whatever happened to Laura Middleton—now Soames—she had only herself to blame. And all the more so if this foolery of hers proved a tryst. And that might never be known did she find herself in the path of those soon to ride upon Thistle Cross to which the day’s wool had been transported for storage. Certes, that was the direction the lady headed.

An instant later, something occurred that should have sooner, making the watcher curse as that one rarely did since the devil liked to slip into one’s cracks and pry those thin places wide.

Raisa knew that, had learned it from Ricard.

Sebille knew that, had learned it from Raisa.

Angus knew that, had learned it from Sebille.

Accommodating women knew that, had learned it from Angus.

Father Atticus knew that, had learned it from those repentant women.

Then there was the physician, but from whom had he learned it? A good question deserving more thought.

As for Lady Laura, she also knew of the devil’s penchant for cracks, surely having learned it from the man she had allowed to plant a babe in her.

Accursed Queen Eleanor! A pure bride Lothaire deserved, not this one who seemed intent on cuckolding him a second time.

The watcher searched out that lady. Finding her gone and wondering how long gone, a third curse opened another crack as what had belatedly occurred only to drift away now returned.

A sign the mind was slipping? Nay, there was much to occupy it, especially with the pieces of the plan screeching and grinding against one another. They would fit, providing Lady Laura’s cuckoldry did not ruin it.

Those hired twice now must not be distracted by a pretty woman crossing their path. Hopefully, the men would take the first road on the far side of the lake though the going was rough compared to that which wound around the side nearest the celebration. Only necessary, of course, if Lady Laura ventured as far as the lake. And she might, but were her husband told she had slipped away—

Too late. If he departed the celebration, he might happen on men he would likely recognize as those who failed to end the lives of Lady Beata and her husband. And if he fell to them, the one who saw coins pressed into their greasy palms would ever ache over his loss. All that was done would be for naught.

“Please Lord,” the watcher whispered, as ever seeking His understanding of what had to be done. “Let that faithless woman not cross their path.”