Page 69 of A Knight’s Vengeance

Nor did she wish to explain last evening to Mildred.

“Milady?”

Elizabeth cringed at the matron’s suspicious tone.

“Since we will be working together all day, milady, I see no better time for you to divulge all the details. Do you?”

Geoffrey halted outside the garden and motioned to the armed sentries who had escorted Elizabeth to the bailey. “Stand guard at the gate. The women are not to escape.”

The men nodded and trudged over to their posts.

Exhaling a harsh breath, Geoffrey tipped his face up to the sky and willed himself not to plow his fist into the palisade.

He would not let the damsel win.

He had meant to bend Elizabeth to his will, to teach her that although she tempted him, she would never control him or his deeds. He had expected her to toss her hair and stamp her foot like a spoiled child, or burst into tears. Instead, she had walked to the gardens like a woman anticipating a delightful day of picnicking and hawking, even with the spade slapping against her skirt. The lady astounded him.

Admiration and desire battled in his thoughts. He shook his head and strode back toward the keep. Right now, he wanted her out of his sight, rather than sitting within easy glance. He needed a quiet spate in the hall to finalize some important matters, without a black-haired, blue-eyed distraction.

As he neared the forebuilding, Dominic’s laughter greeted him. “Well done, milord.”

“Well done?” Geoffrey crossed to his friend, who helped a boy draw water up from the well. “The lady made a fool of me.”

“Did she?” Dominic’s grin was innocent enough, but the warmth in his eyes proved he knew quite well.

“She will not last. Before the midday meal, she shall be begging to return to her chamber.”

As the lad heaved the filled bucket from the well’s edge and stomped toward the pig’s trough, water splashed onto the ground. The boy could not be more than ten, Geoffrey’s own age when his father had died. When his life had changed forever.

Quelling another surge of fury, Geoffrey looked at Dominic. “My friend, find me a suitable messenger. ’Tis time to send the ransom demand.”

“If I do not stretch my aching joints, I shall be kneeling for the rest of my living days.” With a pained grunt, Mildred pushed up from her place beside a pile of pulled weeds. “I will see what awaits us farther down the path, milady.” Without waiting for a reply, she raised her bliaut’s hem and trudged into the undergrowth.

Elizabeth set down the spade. The earlier breeze had vanished, and now the sun beat upon her back. Her bliaut and chemise stuck to her body like a second skin that chafed. Why, oh why, had she goaded the rogue?

The garden did not offer any hope of escape. As she had discovered during a quick perusal, the only way in and out was through the gate. The palisade was too high to scale or jump. Moreover, the gnarled plum tree did not grow close enough to the fence to use its boughs to climb over.

“Will you come too?” the matron called. “Spare me from the ticks, snakes, and red-eyed rodents? I recall you once questioned my sense of adventure.”

Elizabeth chuckled and started down the path.

As she batted away a bumblebee disturbed by the movement of snarled vines and leaves, Mildred clucked her tongue. “Weeding is not a task for a noblewoman. De Lanceau must be very angry with you for what happened last evening.”

“He is a fool.”

Mildred’s laugh sounded as dry as the browned rose petals that disintegrated in Elizabeth’s fingers. “You told me yourself he thought you tried to seduce him.”

“I know naught about seducing a man.”

A crow cawed from its perch atop the palisade fence. Elizabeth glanced at it, and did not notice Mildred had come to a halt until she almost walked right into the old woman.

Brushing a cobweb from her sleeve, Mildred glanced over her shoulder. “You need but look at a man with your blue eyes, and I vow he is lost.”

Elizabeth felt a strange pang of discomfort, for Aldwin had once teased her with a similar remark. At the time, she had dismissed it as a jest.

“You must know how smitten Sedgewick is.” Mildred sidestepped the anthill in the middle of the path and resumed her steady plod. “I expect Aldwin is too, and there must be countless others of whom you do not even know.”

Loosing a silent groan, Elizabeth wished she had not told Mildred of last night’s events. “De Lanceau is not smitten. The last thing I want is more of his attentions.” She had only to think of his smoldering, heavy-lidded gaze and her belly flip-flopped in an alarming way.