Bronwyn smiled and leaned back in the chair. She’d very much like to spend the day with this woman. There was something quiet and peaceful about her, something Bronwyn felt she needed right now.
Bronwyn spent the next two days with Lady Mary, and it didn’t take long to grow to love the woman. While Judith was busy with the account books and the worries of managing her own vast estates, as well as Gavin’s, Mary and Bronwyn discovered their mutual love of people. Bronwyn had never been able to interest herself in numbers on paper, but she could tell more about the prosperity of a place by talking with the people than any other way. She and Mary rode across the acres and acres of land and talked with everyone. The serfs were timid at first, but they soon responded to Bronwyn’s openness. She was used to speaking to underlings as equals, and one by one Mary saw the men and women straighten their shoulders in pride. Bronwyn sent people who were ill to bed. She asked for, and was happily given, extra supplies for some families’ children.
But she wasn’t always generous with her bounty. She considered the serfs people and so did not look at them with pity. She found several men who were stealing from their masters, and she saw that they were punished. Some quiet, hardworking, loyal families were put in places of responsibility and position.
On the evening of the first day Judith and Bronwyn spent hours together, Judith listening with admiration to all Bronwyn had to say. Judith realized her sister-in-law’s wisdom immediately and took all her advice.
On the other hand Bronwyn learned a great deal about organization and efficiency, all of which knowledge she planned to take back to Larenston. She studied Judith’s designs for buildings, her garden plans. Judith promised to send a wagonload of bedding plants to Larenston in the spring.
And Judith was a wonder with the breeding of animals. Bronwyn was fascinated by the way Judith had bred and cross-bred her sheep and cattle until she produced more meat, milk, and wool.
When Bronwyn retired for the night, she was too tired to stay awake. Charts and numbers swam before her eyes. A hundred faces and names floated through her dreams.
In the morning she was up early and in the stables before most of the castlefolk were awake. She wore her Highlands dress again, since she found the people responded enthusiastically to the simple clothes.
She swung a light saddle onto the back of a strawberry mare.
“My lady,” came a strong young voice from beside her. “Allow me.”
She turned to see a short, handsome blond man, one of Miles’s men, who’d accompanied her and Mary the day before. “Thank you, Richard.”
His eyes, a dark green, warmed as he looked at her. “I had no idea you knew my name. It is an honor for me.”
She laughed. “Nonsense! In Scotland I know all my men’s names, and they call me by mine.”
He bent to fasten the cinch. “I’ve been talking to some of Lord Stephen’s men who were with him in Scotland. They said you often traveled at night, alone, with your men.”
“True,” she said slowly. “I am the MacArran, and I am the leader of my men.”
He smiled in a slow, provocative way. “May I say that I envy your Highlanders? In England we are seldom led by a woman and never one so beautiful.”
She frowned and reached for the reins of her horse. “Thank you,” she said stiffly and led the animal from the stables.
“What do you think you’re doing?” snapped a man behind Richard.
Richard glanced at the door Bronwyn had used before turning to the man behind him. “Nothing that would interest you, George,” he said, shoving his way past the knight.
George grabbed Richard’s arm. “I saw you talking to her, and I want to know what you said.”
“Why?” Richard snapped. “So you can have her all to yourself? I heard what you and the rest of Stephen’s men said about her.”
“Lord Stephen to you!”
“You’re a hypocrite! You call her Bronwyn and talk to her as if she were your little sister, yet let someone else speak to her and you want to draw a sword. Let me tell you that I for one don’t mean to treat her like anything but the Scots whore she is. No lady would talk to the men and the serfs like she does unless she was after what they carry between their legs. And I—”
George’s fist smashed into Richard’s mouth before he could say another word. “I’ll kill you for that!” George yelled as he went for Richard’s throat.
Richard was able to sidestep the second blow. He clasped his hands together and brought them down across the back of George’s neck. George went sprawling forward, face first into the straw.
“What’s going on here?” Bronwyn demanded from the doorway.
George sat up and rubbed his neck. Richard’s nose was bleed
ing, and he wiped the blood away with the back of his hand.
“I asked a question,” Bronwyn said quietly, watching the two men. “I will not ask the cause of your quarrel, as that is personal, but I want to know who struck the first blow.”
Richard looked at George pointedly.