Page 70 of A Knight’s Vengeance

“He is handsome,” the matron said with a wistful sigh. “A rogue indeed, but most pleasing to the eye.”

“Mildred.”

The matron shrugged. “I may be old, but I am not blind.”

A blush stung Elizabeth’s face. “This chatter is pointless.”

Planting her feet on the weed-choked path, Mildred turned around. “I am trying to understand our day of toil. Mayhap you had a reason for your actions last night of which I am unaware.”

Elizabeth threw up her hands. “I did not try to seduce him.”

The healer grinned. “As you claimed before.”

“Do you believe that I could... that I would seduce him?”

Mildred seemed to mull the question, then nodded. “I think you would do whatever you must to stop him from harming your father, or reclaiming Wode.”

“You place a great deal of faith in my abilities as a temptress.”

“Milady, you are as sweet and ripe as a summer rose. More than ample temptation for any buzzing bee or hornet.” With a swish of her skirts, Mildred spun and walked off down the path.

Elizabeth blinked. She was still struggling to find a suitable retort when Mildred dropped to her knees beside a leafy plant with yellow flowers.

“Rue.” The matron pointed to the spiny-looking plant nearby. “Rosemary. This must have been the herb patch.”

Elizabeth crossed to Mildred and knelt in the carpet of coarse grass. Stringy weeds with pinkish flowers blocked her view, and she tugged at the stems to remove them.

The matron brushed her hand away. “That is sage. A healthy bunch too.”

Sighing, Elizabeth sat back on her heels. “They all look like weeds to me.”

“If you clear the path,” Mildred suggested, “I will tend the herbs.”

Reluctant to walk back and fetch the spade, Elizabeth tugged on a vine growing over the path stones. It did not budge.

Bracing her foot against a crumbling rock wall, she took the vine in both hands. She gritted her teeth, yanked, and yelped as the roots tore free. She landed on her bottom.

“Milady!” Mildred leapt to her feet. Her mouth gaped, and Elizabeth started to giggle. She could not help it. She must look a sight, sitting in a most unladylike position with her bliaut scrunched up around her knees. Filthy knees, too.

The matron’s cheeks turned pink, and then she too laughed.

Geoffrey wiped sweat from his brow and urged his destrier under the teeth of Branton Keep’s wood and iron portcullis. As he emerged from the gatehouse’s shadows, he waved to the sentries calling to him from the wall walk. He had dreaded taking a preliminary tally of the harvest soon to be carted from the demesne fields, but as Dominic had assured him, the rains several days ago had been lighter here than on the roads near Wode. The drying crops had sustained little damage. The yield would be higher than expected.

Before leaving the keep, Geoffrey had dispatched Troy to Tillenham with the ransom. He had also sent missives to the few knights under his command, telling them that he would require their military services.

Soon, very soon, he would have vengeance.

Shrugging stiffness from his shoulders, Geoffrey glanced at the guards posted outside the garden gate. They acknowledged him with a nod. He thought to inquire after the damsel when a sound reached him. He frowned, reined in his horse, and listened for the noise that had been dimmed by the bridle’s clink.

Laughter. It came from the garden.

Geoffrey had not expected Elizabeth’s merriment, but he did not mistake her voice, bright, musical, and as alluring as a summer breeze. It held none of the caution she used when she spoke to him, and he regretted being denied the pleasure of her laughter.

His fingers tightened around the leather reins. Elizabeth meant naught to him, and he did not care whether she laughed or cried. He had given her a day of work so foreign to a pampered lady she should have wilted from exertion hours ago.

Instead, she laughed.

A maidservant strolled past, carrying a basket covered with a linen cloth. She curtsied to him and approached the guards.