“Not yet, my lord, sir,” Maloren said. She bustled over to his clothes chest and threw open the lid with so much force it banged against the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“My lady’s ordered that all your clothes are to be washed and mended.”
He instinctively looked down at his rumpled breeches and the shirt still in his hand.
“Not what you’re wearing,” Maloren said. “Those’ll be taken care of on the morrow.”
With that, she headed for the door, carrying his one other shirt, his extra tunic, two pairs of breeches and some stockings in her thin, wiry arms. Ranulf thought of stopping her but decided against it. His clothes could stand to be cleaned, and he had something more important to do than argue with Maloren.
He had to talk to Bea.
He quickly washed and finished dressing and hurried to the hall.
Where he discovered pandemonium. It seemed like a hundred servants were busy there. Some were sweeping the old rushes into a pile near the door. Others were scattering new ones, followed by children sprinkling herbs and getting nearly as many on themselves as on the rushes. The hounds were tied in a corner, apparently too occupied by the bones they were chewing to mind their restraints. Another group of servants, with buckets and rags and what looked like pots of beeswax, were at work cleaning the furniture. More, on ladders, were sweeping away the cobwebs from the beams and corners. The tapestries were missing, and a large fire crackled in the central hearth. Torches burned in cobweb-free brackets on the wall, illuminating the chamber so that it was nearly as bright as on a sunny day.
This had to be Bea’s doing, too.
“Oh, there you are, Sir Ranulf!” he heard her call out and then saw, to his shock and chagrin, that she was one of those standing on a ladder, where she’d been brushing away a spider’s web with a small broom.
He immediately had visions of her plunging to her death, lying on the flagstones with her neck broken.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded as he strode toward her ladder. “Get down from there!”
Mercifully, she didn’t hesitate to obey. She climbed down quite nimbly, which didn’t excuse her taking such an outrageous risk.
Once on the ground, he saw that she was dressed no better than a peasant in a gown of simple doe- brown homespun, with a square of plain white linen on her hair. She had a smudge of dirt on her nose, too.
Yet she’d never looked more beautiful. Or kissable. Or desirable. And although she was dressed like a peasant, he was still very aware that she was nobly born, worthy to be a lord’s wife, and the chatelaine of any castle in the land.
What he would not give to have her chatelaine of this castle—as long as he was castellan. To be with her every day and see her leading his servants like a pretty, merry general.
What he would not give to have Bea for his wife…except that he had nothing to give.
He mentally gave his head a shake, for such thoughts could avail him nothing—and she’d put herself in dangeragain. “You could have fallen and broken your neck, and then what would I tell Constance and Merrick?”
“That I had been behaving in a most unladylike manner and it was not your fault,” she replied with a disarming, devilish little grin.
Why wasn’t she still angry with him? She ought to be. He’d said terrible, hurtful things to her yesterday. “I’m serious,Beatrice. You shouldn’t be doing that. And you shouldn’t be working like a servant, either.”
“But I like it,” she answered cheerily. “And have I not heard you say more than once that a good commander doesn’t shirk any tasks he asks his men to do?”
Her eyes sparkled as her tone grew gently wheedling. “Besides, isn’t your hall more pleasant and comfortable when it’s clean?”
He fought to hold on to his necessary anger. “The fact remains that you shouldn’t have been climbing on a ladder. It’s much too dangerous.”
She raised a golden brow. “Whereas you never do dangerous things?”
“I’m a knight. It’s my duty to take risks.”
“And it’smyduty to get this hall into a livable condition.”
“You were supposed to be leaving.”
“We can’t go in the rain—or haven’t you noticed the weather?”
“I have.” He recalled the other reason he should be angry with her. “But if I hadn’t, it might have been because somebody put something in my wine to make me sleep last night.”
