Juliana looked about her, her gaze lingering on the bright frescoes and marbled pillars. “You have a beautiful home,” she observed.
“’Tis usually a home with more life in it than this.” He inclined his head. “Mayhap you could liven things up with a song?”
She shook her head. “I do not sing.” She paused. “Do you?”
“Only when I am well into my cups.”
The young serving wench returned with a flask of wine and a tray of sweetmeats which she carefully placed on the table before them. She bobbed a curtsy, but Tristan held up a hand to stop her from leaving.
“Will you carry a message to my mother and Miss Mirabel?”
The girl nodded.
“Tell them we await their company in the great hall.”
“Aye, milord,” she whispered, before scurrying away.
“They will not come,” Juliana observed, lifting a goblet of wine to her lips.
He lifted his own goblet and cradled it in his large hands. “Why would they not?”
“Because they do not like me.” Juliana drank again, her eyes fixed on his.
“You are very upfront about this.”
She settled the goblet on the table and sat back in her chair. “I tell the truth as I see it. Your mother is grateful to me and regrets her initial show of displeasure at my arrival. But she will be happy to hear of my departure. Mirabel has never trusted me.”
The ways of women were mysterious to Tristan. He pursed his lips and gazed into his goblet “Surely she will trust you now that you have healed my father. He is, to all intents and purposes, her father too.”
Juliana’s eyes laughed at him as she reached forward for a sweetmeat. “Nay, she will not. I spoke to her earlier, whilst you were resting in your chamber. She was polite. In fact she has the makings of a great lady. But she could not hide the fact that she does not trust me.”
Tristan shook his head, puzzled. “She does not trust you with what, exactly?”
Her reply was swift. “With you.”
Once again, a laugh rumbled through his belly. “Juliana, you have this all wrong. Mirrie is like a sister to me.”
She met his gaze with her eyebrows raised in challenge. “I am very rarely wrong.”
“Believe me.” He lifted his goblet in a toast. “You have naught to fear from Mirrie.”
“Oh, I do not fear anyone,” she assured him, raising her goblet to meet with his.
He leaned closer towards her. “Nor do I.”
Aye, he was flirting again. And he had met his mark, he was sure of it. Her body language, the path of her eyes, the way she leaned towards him, all told him that Juliana would be ready and willing to share his bed this night.
And why should he not avail himself of such warmth and pleasure?
But despite the heady temptation, something was troubling Tristan, and after a moment’s thought, he realised what.
It was that the path of his thoughts kept circling back to Mirrie.
Unaccountably so.
Mayhap this was due to Juliana’s continued insistence that Mirrie did not like her. Did nottrusther. How could that be, he wondered, when Mirrie always looked for the best in everyone?
But when he next raised his eyes from the platter of sweetmeats, he saw that Juliana, for all her foresight, had been wrong on at least one point. Mirrie had come down to the great hall and was even now making steady progress towards them. Her hair was pinned elaborately on the top of her head and she wore a beautifully cut gown of pale blue laced with tiny pearls.
