The Mistress of Normandy

It was not so much her maidenly beauty that called to him, but the expressiveness in her features. Her eyes held a deep intelligence yet seemed haunted by shadows in their silver depths. Her mouth was full and firm, yet the way she worried her lower lip with her small white teeth hinted at vulnerability.

Years of celibacy faded beneath the onslaught of vivid desire. Rand laid his big hands on her cheeks, letting his thumbs skim in slow, gentle circles. “I’ve never seen a face like yours before, Lianna,” he said softly. “At least not while I was awake.”

Alarm flared in her quicksilver eyes. She drew back. “You are not from around here. You speak like a Gascon.”

He smiled. His father’s legacy. “So I am a Gascon, at least part of me is. And you are from around here. You speak like a Norman.”

“Are you a brigand? Do you burn, pillage, and rape?”

He chuckled. “Preferably not in that order. Are you a poacher?”

She stiffened. “Certainly not. I’ve every right to hunt the lands of Bois-Long.”

Suspicion shot through Rand. “You hail from Bois-Long?”

“I do.”

Sweet lamb of God, Rand mused, she’s from Longwood. He had to duck his head to hide a flash of curiosity. A gunner’s daughter, she’d said, yet she’d have to be of noble birth to hunt. Despite her homespun garb, her speech and manners marked her as no one’s servant.

“Your father was a gunner,” he said slowly. “Was he also a man of rank?”

“No.” She eyed him warily.

“You’re well spoken.”

“I am well schooled.”

“What position do you hold at Bois-Long?”

“I am...companion to the chatelaine.”

He nodded. “I see. It’s common enough for a gentlewoman to surround herself with younger girls, common for those girls to learn polite accomplishments.” One eyebrow lifted. “Gunnery is hardly a polite accomplishment.”

“But far more useful than spinning and sewing.”

“And far more dangerous. Does your mistress know of your experiments with guns?”

A small, tight smile. “Certes.”

“She approves?”

A regal nod. “Most heartily.”

Rand loosed a long, weary sigh. What manner of woman was his bride-to-be that she’d let this girl, clearly little older than a child, dabble in weaponry?

Lianna was staring hard at him. He sensed his questions had aroused her suspicions and so left off his queries. Instinctively he’d kept his identity from the girl. Now he was glad. Soon enough she’d learn he was Enguerrand Fitzmarc, the English knight come to claim the demoiselle and the château. Until then he merely wanted to be Rand to her.

“You’re trespassing,” she said matter-of-factly, pointing to a line of blazed poplars in the distance.

“So I am,” he replied, looking at the boundary of trees. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. Her hand felt small but strong and seemed to fit his own like a warm little bird in a nest.

“Come,” he said, “I want to be certain your gunshot didn’t frighten my horse all the way to Gascony.” Dropping her hand, he bent to retrieve her cloak and apron. The weight of the apron surprised him. He peered into the pocket, then stared at Lianna. “I don’t know why I expected to find winter stonecrop blossoms in here,” he said. “You’re a walking arsenal.”

She picked up her gun and stood while he tied the apron at her waist and draped the cloak about her shoulders. He let his hands linger there. “Your mistress is wrong to allow you to venture forth with a gun.” Silently he swore to stop Lianna once he took possession of the castle.

“My mistress understands the necessity of it.”

“Necessity?”

Her little wooden sabots kicked up her hem as she walked by his side. “We’ve had no peace since Edward the Third crossed the leopards of England with the lilies of France.”

What a curious mixture of innocence and worldliness she was. At once fragile, forceful, and forthright, she awakened powerful desires in him. She looked like a girl immortalized in a troubadour’s lay, yet her behavior contradicted the image. Jussie, he recalled, had never concerned herself with affairs of state.

“France is more at war with herself than with England,” he said. “King Charles is drooling mad, and the noble houses bicker like fishwives while the peasants starve.”

“And will subjecting ourselves to Henry’s usurpation improve our lot?”

“Better a sane Englishman than a mad Frenchman on the throne,” Rand said.

She stopped walking, whirled to face him. “Under whose banner will you fight? What cause do you champion?”

He swallowed, then affected a rakish grin. “Widows and orphans, of course.”

She sniffed. “A convenient reply.”

Discussing intelligent subjects with a woman, he thought, was not altogether unpleasant. “You speak ably of affairs that most men know nothing of.”

“I’m not one to hide myself away and pretend ignorance. ’Tis exactly what the English god-dons would like, and I’ll not oblige them.”

It’s not what every English god-don would like, he thought, watching the sunlight dance in the silvery mantle of her hair.

They found his horse grazing placidly on salt grass in a glade of water beeches. Nearby stood a weathered stone marker, its four arms of equal length marking it as St. Cuthbert’s cross. The horse looked up, ears pricked. His dappled flanks gleamed in the heatless light of the March sun.

Lianna stopped walking to stare at the hard-muscled percheron, then at Rand. “I think you should explain who you are,” she said. Her gaze slipped from the top of his blond head to the spurs on his mud-caked boots. “You are simply dressed, yet that horse of yours is no plowman’s rouncy.”

Inwardly he winced at the distrust in her tone. She was too straightforward to be easily deceived. “Charbu was a gift.” His hand strayed to the lump created by the amulet beneath his mail shirt. Henry had given him Charbu as one of many gifts and another thread in the web of obligation he’d woven around Rand.

Lianna set down her gun and approached the horse. “Charbu,” she said softly, stroking the handsome blazed face. “A fine, strong name. Tell me, Charbu, about your master. Does he hail from Gascony, as he claims? Does he ride you on raids with a band of écorcheurs?”

The horse whickered gently and tossed its head. Momentarily captivated by the sight of the small girl with her cheek pressed against the horse’s neck, Rand stood speechless. At length he found his voice and strode forward. “If you think me a brigand, why aren’t you fainting or screaming?”

“I never faint,” she replied smugly. “And rarely scream. And you’ve not answered me.”

“I am a...traveling knight, Lianna. I swear to you I do not ride with brigands. But I would like to ride with you. Let me take you to Bois-Long.”

“No,” she said quickly. “I think it best you stay clear of the château.”

Why? he wondered. Did the chatelaine treat trespassers harshly? God, did she mistreat Lianna? He touched a strand of her hair; it felt like spun silk. “Is Bois-Long such an inhospitable place?”