In Bed With A Stranger(50)

“I see.” Anne stared at the girl but she winked, clearly content with her lot.

Ginny tried to take the sheet but Helen shook her head. She returned to smiling. She even hummed some springtime melody.

“Nay. I pulled the covers back, so the sheet is mine to hang from the window.” She offered Anne a firm look. “There will be no gossip. I’ll lay my hand on the altar and swear to yer purity myself. Every one of these maids comes from family that has served this house for generations. I selected them carefully.”

Pride rang in her voice but it also shone from the faces of each girl. It was the same at Warwickshire. Even in the face of Philipa’s sour personality, the staff was loyal. Their parents had served the Stanford nobles and the generations before them. It was an honor that even a surly mistress could not drive them away from. To argue against your place was to question God’s will in putting you there.

The shutters were opened wide, fresh air sweeping into the chamber. It took the scent of candle wax away, leaving the first traces of spring. It also carried the smell of Brodick’s skin away. She’d never noticed that men smelled attractive. Yet Brodick did. Lifting one hand, she found a trace of it lingering on her skin. Her passage was sore, marking where he’d been. It was a moment she’d been raised to think of as sinful, yet it felt very right. As though she had been made for him.

“I told ye that ye’d be lamenting sunrise.” Helen smiled with the same sort of superiority her own mother had often aimed at her children when she knew that their youth was preventing them from understanding one of life’s realities.

“I am going to fly this sheet. ’Tis a moment I’ve looked forward to.”

Helen knotted one corner of the sheet through the shutter just above the thick iron hinge. She threaded the opposite corner through the shutter on the far side of the window, making sure it was tied tightly. She pushed the length of the sheet through the open window.

A few moments later the bells along the walls began to ring. First only the one nearest to them, but as it sent its sound into the morning, another rang out and then another until the sound echoed up and down the long length of walls.

She blushed but her heart swelled too. She hadn’t shamed him.

Brodick was worthy of purity.

The emotion caught her off guard. It was so very tender that she covered her mouth with a hand. She liked him too much. In sooth, she enjoyed the duties of a wife far too much.

You should have no objections to being used…

Yet was it being used? Taken, aye but she had enjoyed it full well.

Her temper suddenly lit. Philipa had been left far behind her. With everything else that she needed to worry about, the woman’s ill words were not among them.

“Come now, mistress, a good meal will help place strength in ye. Ye’ll need it when the lord’s babe begins to grow inside your womb.”

The color drained from her face. Icy dread locked its grip around her heart.

His babe.

Bonnie had said she would have it.

“Och now, look at ye. Such worry in one so young.” Helen laid a motherly arm around her shoulders, hugging her firmly.

“There’s no need for losing yer color. Ye heard Agnes yerself. Ye’re strong and sturdy. A babe will be no trouble at all.”

Helen swept her out the door. The maids all followed while the bells quieted.

If only it were as simple to still the ringing of dread inside her head.

It was not.





Chapter Eight


She did not suffer inactivity well.

Before noon, she was pacing for want of something to do. Every maid in the castle seemed intent on feeding her until she burst. The well-meaning girls and women bore trays to her, all of them carefully laid out to please not only the palate but the eyes as well. It was the women who were harder to send away with their dishes unsampled. Lady Mary was spoilt enough to slash others’ effort without a care, yet Anne knew what it was to heat an iron on the coals. She herself had carefully smoothed the wrinkles from linen napery in preparation for it being laid on a tray for the head table. Extreme care had to be taken to ensure that no soot marred the fine fabric. She’d burned her fingers a few times when the cloth wrapping the handle of the iron slipped or was too thin.

She was not callous enough to reject such offerings but her stays were growing too tight to bear.

She froze as she turned to face yet another lowered head. Deception or not, she was finished acting contrary to her nature.

“I believe it’s time for me to meet the cook.”

The maid lowered herself. “I’ll fetch her straight away, Mistress.”

“Nay, no. I believe the woman should be busy, what with the noon meal so close to serving. I will follow you to the kitchen.”