She wiggled on top of him. “I’m over your body, but it doesn’t feel very dead to me.”
“You’re an i
mpudent wench,” he said, kissing her.
“How shall you punish me?”
He put his hand behind her head and rolled her over, throwing his big leg over hers. “I will wear you out.”
“Impossible!” she said before his mouth came down on hers.
From the trees came a sound of people walking, which, at first, the lovers did not hear.
“Gaby, I tell you this is a bad idea,” came a man’s voice.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I always say,” answered a woman.
Liana felt Rogan’s body stiffen, then quickly he took his short sword from under his tunic and knelt over her in a gesture of complete protection.
Through the trees came Baudoin and a small, plump woman, a little girl in her arms, a basket on her arm, and a boy between them.
Liana and Rogan just stared, not understanding the meaning of this intrusion.
“There you are,” the plump woman said, coming forward. “Baudoin has told me everything. You must forgive his temper. I’m his wife, Gabriel, but everyone calls me Gaby, and these are our children, Sarah and Joseph. I told Baudoin that if we’re going to live with you, we ought to get to know you. My father was a knight, nothing as high as an earl, mind you, but a man of respect. I knew Baudoin was the son of a lord, so I pleaded with my father to let me marry him.” She gave the tall, handsome young man a look of adoration. “And I’ve never regretted a minute of it. Aren’t you cold, my lady, in those wet clothes? The dye’s coming out of your hair and it’s all over your face. Here, let me help you get clean.”
Rogan and Liana, in their astonishment, hadn’t moved. He still knelt over her, knife drawn, protecting Liana beneath him. When the woman Gaby held out her hand, Liana didn’t move.
Baudoin broke the silence. “Go on,” he said. “Everyone does what she says.” The words were mean, but there was a tone of love in his voice. The couple didn’t look as if they belonged together. Baudoin was tall, lean, exceedingly handsome, and angry-looking. Gaby was short, plump, pretty, but far from beautiful, and she looked as if she’d been born with a smile on her face.
Liana took the woman’s offered hand and followed her to the stream. Liana was used to women of Gaby’s class being fearful of her, but ever since she’d come to the Peregrine land, nothing had been as she’d once known it.
“Now, sit there and behave yourself,” Gaby said as she set her daughter on the ground. She looked back at Liana. “I heard what happened this morning. Brothers shouldn’t fight. I always told Baudoin that someday his brothers in the castle would see the light, and I was right. He’s a good man, is my Baudoin, and he’ll do whatever is needed. Look at them. Two peas in a pod.”
Liana looked at the two men standing near one another, not looking at each other, not speaking, the little boy between them just as silent.
“Lean over here and let me wash your hair,” Gaby directed.
Liana did as she was bid.
“Does yours talk as little as mine?” Gaby asked.
Liana was unsure of what to do—whether to be friends with this woman or not. It was odd how clothes affected one’s mind. If she were wearing her best blue silk she would have expected this woman to bow before her but, somehow, while wearing peasant’s wool, she felt almost as if she were…well, equal to this woman. “If I chain him in one place he will talk, but not much,” Liana finally said.
“Don’t give up the fight. He’ll pull into himself completely if you allow it. And make him laugh. Tickle him.”
“Tickle him?” Black-dyed water was streaming past Liana’s face.
“Mmm,” Gaby said. “Ribs. They’re good men, though. They’re not fickle in their affections. If he loves you today, he’ll love you forever. He won’t be like some men and love you today, somebody else tomorrow, and somebody else the next day. There, that should do it. Your hair is blonde again.”
Liana sat up, slinging her wet hair back. “And now we can’t return to the fair. Someone might recognize me.”
“No,” Gaby said seriously. “You don’t want to go back there. There was talk this morning of who the mysterious man was who beat Baudoin. You shouldn’t return.” Her face brightened. “But I have brought food and we can stay here in this pretty spot.”
Gabriel didn’t tell Liana that she’d spent a year’s savings on the feast she’d brought with her. Under Gaby’s happy exterior was a very ambitious woman—but she was not ambitious for herself. She was ambitious for the man she loved more than life itself.
She had been twelve when she’d first seen the handsome, cold-eyed Baudoin and she had decided then that she’d have him no matter what it took to get him. Her father had wanted her to make a good marriage, not to marry some bastard son with no prospects. But Gaby had wheedled and whined and pleaded and nagged until her father at last made an offer to Baudoin’s stepfather.
Baudoin had married her for her dowry, and the first years together had been hard. He’d had many other women, but Gaby’s love was stronger than his lust. Gradually he began to notice her, to come to her for love and comfort, and when the children were born, he found he enjoyed them, too.