After supper at the keep, Phillipewalked Lara up to her and the captain’s chamber.They drank wineand played Shah, and she managed to capture one of his blackknights before he took her white queen and king.
“Tomorrow night, then?”Phillipe asked now they were done and he prepared to leave.“I’llgive you a chance to capture both my knights.”
“The captain will beback,” Lara reminded him.
“He can play winner nexttime.”Phillipe threw her a wink and a grin.
Lara grinned back, looking forward toit.Shah was a game of strategy and constant planning; she couldsee why the captain liked it.If she’d learned anything about him,it was that he seldom did anything without a plan.“I’ll bakepies,” she told Phillipe.“Strawberry for the captain and peach foryou.”
She may not have known what she wasgoing to say to the captain when he returned, but she could bakehim his favorite pie.Sweeten his ear.
***
Lara marked the measuring stringaround Patience’s belly and studied her friend’s face, noting thedeepening hollows of her freckled cheeks and the dark circles underher eyes.“The babe is growing bigger whilst you are growingthinner.”
“I did the same withWyatt.”
“No, you weren’t this thinwith Wyatt.Nor this tired.”
“I didn’t have athree-year-old to chase after then.”Patience smiled indulgently asher son burst into the house from his father’s workshop.Willem andPhillipe had gone there to discuss Phillipe’s order for a saddlewith stirrups like the one Willem was making for thecaptain.
“Papa said… Papa saidbwing him and Phiwip dwink, pease.”Each freckle on the lad’scheeks mirrored his mother’s, only somehow more chaotic as hejumped in place.Lara beamed down at her godson.
“Tell Papa we’ll be rightout with their drinks, thank you,” Patience told Wyatt, who turneda full circle and ran back out of the house.
Wolf looked up at Lara, tongue lollingand tail wagging.
“Go.”She waved him off,and the hound loped after Wyatt.Patience started to push herselfup off her stool.“You sit,” Lara ordered.“I’ll get the mead.”Shefilled two cups from the pitcher on the kitchen table and set themdown on the small table beside Patience.“There’s something I wantto ask you.”
“Ask.”Patience offered aquizzical brow.In all the years they’d known each other, they’drarely couched their questions.But that was part of Lara’sproblem: she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.“Lara?”
“Do, ah, do you know whothe captain’s wildcat is?”
Patience’s brows arched.“Aye.”
“Is it… It isn’t Ravenna,is it?”
“Ravenna?”Patience saidwith a laugh.“No, it isn’t.”
“Oh.”Lara let her breathout in a rush.“Good.”
“What made you think it’sRavenna?”
“She bought three vials oflove potion from Sophie and made sure to tell her all three weremeant for the captain.”
Patience flicked her handdismissively.“From what I know of the captain, he’d rather drinkthe Black’s piss than a love potion from Ravenna.”
Lara dropped her jaw.“I can’t believeyou said that.”
Patience shrugged.“It’s thetruth.”
She eyed Lara and laughed again,making Lara feel like a fool.She was acting like one too, not justup and asking Patience who the wildcat was.Yet she was suddenlyskittish of hearing the answer.Maybe she was better off notknowing.Besides, it really wasn’t her business.The captain andhis troop would be leaving the valley sooner or later, and shewould be staying here, unless she hadn’t paid off her debt and hetook her with him, in which case she should’ve been happy to sellRavenna a dozen vials of love potion, triple strength.
“Mama, Mama, Mama.”Wyattran back in waving his arms in wild circles.“Capin’s here, Capin’shere, an he bring Papa a buck wif big aners an Granmama peasants tocook.”
“Peasants?”Patiencelooked from Wyatt to Lara, who peered out the window to see thecaptain’s two geldings tied to the post, one packing a buck and abrace of birds.
“Pheasants,” she toldPatience, who shook her head with a giggle.
