My Lady Midnight

Lord Alain regarded his son solemnly as Guerin stopped below the high table. “That is true,” he said, speaking also in English, “but mayhap next time you will make the magical transformation earlier? You have kept a score of Hawkswell’s hungry inhabitants waiting, my son. A chivalrous man considers others before himself. Next time we will not wait on you.”

Claire struggled to keep her face expressionless as she saw the boy flush with embarrassment. She’d thought at first Lord Alain had answered in English to be polite, but now she saw that he merely wanted her to know the reprimand was for her too.

“I beg your pardon, my lord father,” Guerin said. “I will not let it happen again.”

Holy Mary, why was Alain of Hawkswell always so harsh with his son? This was the second time in a matter of hours that she had seen him wound Guerin with few words! She longed to tell him there were more important things between a father and son than mere promptness at meals, but she knew she could not.

Lord Alain indicated a trencher next to his. “As we have no important guests this even, you may sit next to me,” he said. “Now come and be seated, and the meal will begin.” As the children moved toward the end of the dais to reach their places, Lord Alain clapped his hands, and a young lad moved forward with a towel over one arm, carrying a laver of water.

Automatically, Claire began to follow them, until she heard the first titters of laughter. Then a tall, angular man she would later learn was Sir Gautier, the seneschal, stepped forward to intercept her.

“Nursemaids do not sit at the high table, girl,” he said in thickly accented English. His gaunt face was scornful. “Your place is below the salt.” He pointed a bony finger behind her, to where two trestle tables stretched out at right angles to the dais.

He was right, of course. Her chagrin was so great she wanted to run from the great hall. She was miserably aware of the low hum of amusement as she reversed her direction and headed away from the dais. She knew very well a humble nursemaid did not presume to sit above the salt with the lord and his family, but for that one vital moment she had forgotten her role, and the habit of a lifetime had directed her footsteps toward the high table. As the daughter of the lord of Coverly, she had sat at the high table as soon as she was old enough not to disgrace the Coverly name—except when her father had been entertaining many important guests.

But how could she have made such a stupid mistake when it was vital that she convince everyone at Hawkswell Castle that she was what she appeared to be? She must never allow her concentration to slip again, not even for an instant!

Claire found the last vacant seat at the far end of one of the lower tables. She would be sharing a trencher with a man she recognized as one of the soldiers who had been riding with Lord Alain when she had first encountered him this morning.

“Thought ye were to sit at table with the lord, did ye?” he asked in passable English, grinning, as it became clear she would have to sit there.

“I didn’t know no better—I’ve never served in a castle afore,” she snapped. “There’s no need t’ make sport o’ me!”

He raised a brow. “Rather haughty for a nursemaid, aren’t you, my fair one?”

Quickly reproving herself for answering the grinning fool as he deserved, rather than as a runaway English serf woman would, she ducked her head in apparent humility. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m just ‘shamed of my mistake, ’tis all. Ye don’t mind if I share yer trencher, do ye, sir?”

Her fawning apology apparently convinced the soldier to forgive her, for his grin reappeared and he patted the place next to him.

“Sit down, and welcome, my fair one,” he said magnanimously. “I’m no sir, not being knighted and all. Just plain Hugh le Gros, they call me—that means Hugh the Large,” he explained, winking at her. “’Tis to distinguish me from Hugh la Jaune-Tête, Hugh the Yellowhead,” he added, pointing to another soldier seated halfway down the table, who had a thick thatch of tow-colored hair. “He’s the captain-at-arms. Here, let me give you some coney stew,” he said, grabbing a serving ladle nearby and dipping it into a large bowl within reach of his massive, hairy arms. “’Tis not as fine as the venison they’ll be having at the lord’s table, where ye wanted to go, but I reckon ’tis well enough.”

Claire thought about upending her wooden bowl, now full of the stew, on this grinning lout’s head for reminding her of her humiliating mistake, but controlled herself. She was going to have to grow a thicker skin, she decided. She said, “Thank ye, Hugh. And I am Haesel.”

“Where did ye come from, Haesel?” he asked. As she hesitated, wondering what was safe to tell him, he winked at her. “Confess, my fair one—I hear the lilt of the marches in your speech. Did you live near Shrewsbury?”

If he didn’t stop calling her his fair one, she would pour her bowl of stew on his head, and damn the consequences. Did he fancy himself an authority on accents, as well as irresistible to women? His guess on her origins couldn’t be farther wrong! But it little mattered where this Norman idiot thought she was from, so she let him think he was right.

Pretending to be absorbed in the food, which was humble but hunger-satisfying fare, she avoided further conversation for a while. Every so often she glanced up at the high table to check on the children, but apparently Ivy had taught them well, for they ate quietly and with good manners, wiping their faces on folded squares of linen and sharing their goblet fairly.

Then her eyes strayed to their father, but he seemed determined to remain in deep conversation with the the chaplain on his right. Never once did he look in her direction.

Saints, he was a handsome man, especially now that he had apparently bathed. His hair, that shade of brown so dark it usually looked black, gleamed in the candlelight, which also highlighted the stark, well-chiseled planes of his face. It was a warrior’s face, strong and proud, with nothing coarse about it. How could Julia have dismissed this man as merely swarthy?

“A handsome man, the lord, you’re thinking?” said the buxom, florid-faced woman on her left, giving her a playful jab in the ribs. “I’m Annis, the laundress, by the by,” she added with a friendly grin.

Startled at the familiarity, Claire smiled weakly. “I’m Haesel.” Claire supposed she should be grateful that someone at this table full of servants was speaking to her, besides the obnoxious Hugh, but she found herself blushing at the thought that the woman had caught her staring at Lord Alain. “Yes, I guess ye could say the lord be handsome enough,” Claire said, shrugging as if she couldn’t be less interested, “but I wasn’t staring at the lord. I was looking at the priest,” she lied. “I…I thought he looked like someone I knew, ’tis all…”

“Ye don’t say! Father Gregory hasn’t been the castle’s priest but a fortnight or so, after Father Peter’s sudden dying, so perhaps ye did.”

Father Gregory was a comfortable, rotund man of middle height and age, with a ready, benign smile that he had trained right now at the lord.

“It’s just as well ye didn’t have any ideas about the lord, though. He’s a cold fish, is Lord Alain,” said Annis consideringly, chewing on a crust of coarse dark bread. “Has been ever since that flighty wife of his died of lung fever, God rest her useless soul.” Annis crossed herself but rolled her eyes at the same time.

Claire was still struggling not to give the laundress a sharp retort for her disparagement of poor dead Julia when the woman went on. “He’s not completely unnatural, though. When his lust moves him, he visits my sister, Gylda, in the village, so you see what I mean that it’s no use hopin’ that ye’ll warm his bed.”

“Your sister be his leman?” Claire said, conscious of a sinking feeling within her, and wondering why. It mattered not to her whose bed he warmed!

“That makes it sound more regular than ’tis, but I suppose if any woman is, ’tis Gylda,” Annis said consideringly. “He doesn’t visit near often enough to suit Gylda, though,” she added with an earthy chuckle. “She’s a hotblooded one, but then she’s younger than me, o’ course. Nay, he don’t go there but once a fortnight at most, she says, but when he does get randy, Gylda says he is a good lover…” She winked.

“Well, I wish yer sister joy of ‘im,” Claire said, injecting as much vehemence into her tone as she could. “I got no use for fine lords, myself. Pining for such as him’d be like pining for the moon. I know my place, I do. I’ll just take care of his children and eat his bread, and that’s enough for me!”

“That’s a wise girl,” Annis approved, “but ye’re young, ye know. Don’t be too quick to give all men the cold shoulder. It gets cold when the winter winds whip around these stone walls—ye might be glad of a lusty man whose bed ye can steal away to when yer charges be asleep,” Annis counseled.

Hugh had apparently become tired of being neglected while Claire was talking to the laundress, for as soon as their conversation lagged he touched her hand. “Would ye like some of that cheese?” Not waiting for her answer, he cut off a hunk with the same grease-smeared knife he had used to bring chunks of coney to his thick lips.

Trying not to gag, Claire managed to thank him, and pretended to chew it appreciatively.

“Ah, a hungry little pigeon ye be,” he commented as she took the cheese he’d cut for her with his knife. “Mayhap ye have other hungers too, my fair one? Hungers we could satisfy later, say, with a stroll into the barn? I promise you, I am not called Hugh the Large for nothing,” he whispered, then nuzzled her neck with lips wet with wine while simultaneously placing his hand on her knee.

She recoiled and pushed his hand away. “I’ll not go anywhere with the likes of ye,” she said coldly. “I’ll be busy with the children. And I’ll thank ye not to treat me like a slut, Hugh le Gros.”

Hugh was all loud indignation. “Don’t she put on airs, and her naught but a runaway serf? There’s plenty o’ women who’d be glad of my favors, I’ll have ye know!”

Claire shrank down, aware that everyone at their table was watching the little byplay.

“That’s telling him, Haesel,” Annis said approvingly. “Hugh fancies himself quite the lover, but ye can just ignore him. Stop bothering the girl, Hugh! Can’t ye see she don’t like ye? Now you’ve done it, ye Norman bag o’ wind! The lord be starin’!”

Claire was helpless to prevent herself from looking up at the dais. Sure enough, Lord Alain, who had not spared a glance for the servants’ tables throughout the entire meal, was now looking directly at her. Their gazes locked.

His face was an unreadable mask. What was he thinking? Had he seen his man-at-arms pawing her? More important, had he seen her push Hugh away, or had his attention only been attracted when Hugh raised his voice? Would he think she was a boisterous, troublemaking trollop, unfit to care for his children?

Impaled by those inscrutable dark eyes, she was unable to look away as the sweet wafers were brought in, signaling the last course of the meal. Thanks be to Jésu, she’d soon be able to escape the hall with her charges.

All at once Lord Alain arose, ignoring the wafers that his squire was proffering first to him, and stepped down off the dais. He was heading straight for her!

Hugh became suddenly intent on the wine goblet they had shared.

Holy Mary, was he coming to rebuke her personally? Worse, was she about to be snatched up by the neck of her coarse kirtle and thrown bodily out of Hawkswell Castle? Claire prayed to become suddenly invisible—anything to escape his wrath! But he strode closer and closer, his eyes still upon her. Her heart had begun to thump like a drum.

Claire closed her eyes and waited for the cold lash of his voice. Would he believe her when she protested that she had only been trying to avoid the lecherous Hugh’s advances?

A slight breeze caressed her flaming face, and, opening her eyes, she saw that Lord Alain had swept right on past her without so much as a word.

She was sick with relief.

“Did ye see my lord’s face, Haesel? Like a storm cloud, it was! Hugh, ye fool, I thought he were going t’ snatch ye up and throw ye into the moat—didn’t ye, Haesel?” Annis said with a hearty chuckle, jabbing Claire in the ribs again.

“I—I didn’t know,” Claire managed. “I don’t know the man yet. I thought ’twas me he was angry at.”