Suspending his scratching excursion, David stared in astonishment. "But I itch!"

"My lady says a n.o.ble knight takes care not to wipe his nose while eating."

"Everybody knows that!"

"He never overindulges in drink."

Remembering the first time Alisoun had seen him, David cackled. "How I must have shocked her."

"And he never scratches his body."

Trying to understand, David said, "His crotch, you mean."

"Nay, not any part of his body."

David stared at Eudo. "That's nonsense!"

"My lady is very exacting in her manner."

"Well, she'll just have to learn better!"

Looking troubled, Eudo was about to speak, then visibly stopped himself. Lowering his head, he muttered, "Aye, Sir David."

Defensively, David demanded, "What's wrong with that?"

Glancing at him from the corner of his eyes, Eudo said, "I saw you this morning."

"This morning?"

"Kissing my lady."

"Oh." David started toward the stable. "Is that also something my lady speaks against?"

"Nay. That is, I don't know." Eudo followed closely, anxious to impart his wisdom. "She hasn't discussed kissing with me yet. But it looked as if you liked kissing her."

A glimmer of comprehension broke through David's indignation. "It was enjoyable."

"Philippa said my lady doesn't kiss casually. That if she kissed you, it was a very serious thing."

David relaxed as he strode into the dimness of the open stable door. The rain outside made the hay smell almost moldy, and that, mixed with the odor of curry brushes and manure, combined to produce the odor of heaven. If he couldn't be home, he'd rather be here, lingering to examine the horseflesh of Alisoun's stables. Horses were contrary, rude, and given to senseless fits of jealousy. He understood them much better than he understood women.

He eyed Eudo's skinny back as he skipped ahead. "Kissing my lady was a very serious thing to me. Do you understand, as my squire, that my secrets are sacred and not to be told?"

Eudo nodded.

"I want to court her."

"I thought so." Now Eudo turned and, walking backward, looked David over as carefully as David had previously examined him. He might have been Alisoun's father, sitting in judgment of a suitor. After one very long moment, he made his decision and nodded. "If you listen to me, I can help you."

One of the first things a mercenary discovered was that information from a source inside a beleaguered castle could shorten the siege perceptibly. Now David had found such a source, and he could scarcely contain his excitement. "I'm depending on you."

"It's very difficult to court my lady." The lad was solemn, even when he tripped on a rake and fell over backward.

David picked him up and dusted him off, then held him in place. "What does she like?"

"Like?"

"What makes her happy?"

"Happy." Eudo pondered that. "I don't know if my lady is ever happy. She likes it when I don't scratch. She likes it when I say my prayers every night without being reminded. She likes it when I write my grandparents without being reminded. She likes it when I bathe in the spring without being reminded."

"What does she like for herself?"

Tilting his head, Eudo stared at David in puzzlement. "She doesn't like anything for herself. She's the lady."

"She never laughs aloud?"

"Nay!"

"Nor ever smiles?"

"Aye, she does that!" Eudo's features softened and took on a distant expression, like that of a man in love. "When she does, she looks all pretty." Then he grew stern. "But men don't make her smile, because she only likes men who work and do their duty without complaining. She says there aren't very many who do that."

David opened his mouth to deny this but found he couldn't. "Perhaps not."

"She says men try to claim more than their rights, and tell her how to order her house and plant her fields and sell her goods, when she knows more than ten of them."

"I wager she does."

Eudo had obviously considered David's tactics well, and with a wisdom beyond his years, he said, "I think she'd like it if some man respected her and washed his face every day and did what he was supposed to without being told."

"I think you're right."

"And maybe-" Eudo sounded shy, "-you could kiss her like you did this morning?"

David thought about that. "I think I might have to hold my kisses in reserve."

"Huh?"

"For an emergency," David explained to the puzzled lad. "For when she really needs it." Turning Eudo, he marched him between the stalls. "But I'll have you trim my hair straight and shave me, and if you see me scratching-"

"Aye, sir?"

"Take the strap to me."

8.

"You summoned me, my lady?"

Sir David's broad shoulders blocked out much of the sunlight which came through the open door from her solar. Nevertheless, Alisoun finished tracing the number on her account books before she acknowledged his presence. "I did." She pointed across the narrow table. "Sit there."

His red tunic and berry blue surcoat smelled from the smoke of the great hall's morning fires, and he appeared both warm and well fed as he stepped inside. He looked around the tiny, windowless room with interest. "What do you do here?"

"I settle my accounts," she replied. "And it is for that reason I have summoned you."

"It's chilly and dark as a tomb." He patted the loosely tied leather bag he carried, then swung one leg over the top of the stool and settled on the hard surface. Squeezing himself between the long, st.u.r.dy table and the wall, he observed, "Too small, too."

"The chill and the dark encourage me to do my work faithfully and not linger," she answered.

Leaning his back against the stone wall behind him, he stretched his long legs out so they reached the wall beside her and settled the bag on his lap. "I know monks with better cells."

Disgruntled, she ignored his comment. Of course he would think that. He slept in the best guest's chamber, ate her finest meals, instructed her villagers to watch for strangers, and patrolled her estate, looking for...for...looking for nothing. Since his arrival a month ago, there had been no threat, no danger.

His knee nudged hers, and she looked down. He had placed his legs so they blocked her exit, but that in no way intimidated her. He hadn't mentioned his crazy scheme to wed her since that morning in his bedroom, and she thought he had forgotten-although forgetfulness seemed unlikely. More likely he had taken a taste of her in that kiss and found her repulsive.

He hadn't behaved as if he found her repulsive, though. He'd been polite. Painfully polite. A true chevalier in every manner.

Opening the box of gold before her, she counted the coins and held them out. "Your second month's wages in antic.i.p.ation of work well done."

The cool gold warmed beneath her touch as she pa.s.sed it from her hand to his. He fondled the money between his fingers, tracing the moldings on the coins, then looked deep into her eyes and smiled. "I take Eudo and ride your estate every day, looking for possible trouble, but I've found no sign of any malicious activity. Other than that, I've done nothing. Nothing at all."

His pleasant voice revealed no impatience. His well-shaved chin showed a cleft in the middle. He'd just taken another bath-one she had managed to avoid observing, but whose results she appreciated. And with a jolt, she realized he was angry.

Looking closer, she saw the way his jaw flexed when he clenched his teeth, the lines between his brows, the insincere curve of his lips. Aye, he was angry, but why? Evaluating him, she said, "You've done much. You found the place where the archer hid."

"Not I, my lady." He stacked the coins on the table. "A lad of eleven did that. Maybe it would help if I truly knew what kind of threat I faced."

"Nonsense." Inwardly she winced at the heartiness in her voice. "You've done much without knowing. What good would knowing do?"

"It would help me plan for an attack."

"You already strengthened the defense around the castle."

"Aye, that I did, and so successfully that your unnamed intruder has quietly slipped away without a whimper."

Startled, she realized he complained because he'd done nothing. She hadn't thought about it, but perhaps inactivity grated on him. Perhaps he wanted to answer Sir Walter's constant little taunts with more than the mockery he usually served. Perhaps he was thinking of leaving-and that she could not allow. Utilizing the tone she reserved to encourage her homesick fosterlings, she said, "That is as I wished. You have kept danger away from George's Cross."

Placing his hands on the table between them, he spread the fingers wide. "With these hands have I done this."

"With your mere presence."

He curled his fingers into fists, and he rapped his knuckles sharply on the wood. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Oh, nay!" She placed her hand over his, trying to encourage him with a brief touch. "You're not stupid at all. I suspect you're feeling used and useless, but in sooth, there was a threat and it has disappeared, but only for the moment, I fear."

He stared at her hand, resting on his, and his gaze sharpened with something that looked like...compet.i.tion? Hastily she began to withdraw it, but he whipped his hand free and slapped hers flat on the table. He smiled a lopsided smile. "I like to be on top."

She tried to slide her hand out from underneath, but his grip tightened. Not cruelly, but firmly. Her long fingers peeked out from his palm, but his hand swallowed most of hers. His calluses sc.r.a.ped her skin, making the simple act of hand-holding into a sensuous adventure. It had been difficult to linger over the brief contacts when he helped her onto the bench to dine or shared her trencher, but now he held her, and she waited, hanging by her expectations, for him to speak, or...whatever.

"Sir Walter proclaimed when I arrived he had no need of my help, and it appears he told the truth." Leaning forward, he turned her hand.

A squeaking noise came from somewhere close. She glanced at the floor, expecting to see a mouse, but nothing skittered over the floor. Then, with his fingers, David traced the length of her palm, and she forgot the noise. While he was touching her in an unusual manner, no one could call it intimate. No one except an aging virgin like her, tantalized by a mere contact. "If Sir Walter told you that, he is not the man I believed him to be."

"Most people are not," he conceded.

Her fingers were so long that she always thought they looked freakish. As he stroked the length of each one, she cloaked her embarra.s.sment with hasty words. "But people are formed by their place in life and their duties, so a wise woman knows what to expect and how to handle it."

The movement of his hand on hers ceased and he searched her face with his gaze. "If that were true, all villains would be the same, all kings would be the same, all knights would be the same."

The amus.e.m.e.nt and insight in his eyes made her want to squirm. In the turmoil of his life, had he learned something she hadn't? Surely not. She'd lived her life by her beliefs, and a very successful life it had been. He had no reason to undermine her confidence.

He c.o.c.ked a brow at her silence. "Why do some born to poverty remain there, and others rise above their births to become something greater?"

Was he talking about himself? Had he risen above the circ.u.mstances of his birth? And if he had, was it possible for her to sink from the pinnacle of hers? David's babblings seemed to make the chamber close in on her. That, and the way he cupped her hand as he would a sacred vessel.

"What of rebellion?" he asked.

She didn't think he spoke of a political thing. She'd watched him this last month, and every day had been a rebellion against the formality of life as she knew it. Every day he spoke to the common folk. He'd charmed and encouraged them, and in the waning and waxing of one moon, she'd observed the results of his interference.

In sooth, it had been odd to have old Tochi answer her questions about her garden with such confidence, but she hadn't truly minded. Tochi did know more than anyone on her estate about growing herbs, so why shouldn't he beam when he showed her the sprouting seedlings?

"What of laughter?" David asked.

She'd pretended not to notice as he mocked Sir Walter's pomposity. She blamed Sir Walter for the death of her cat and for Edlyn's abduction almost as much as she blamed herself. Blamed him, because he had been derelict in his duty. Blamed herself because the responsibility for the safety of George's Cross was ultimately hers, and she had failed to notice how complacent, even insolent, Sir Walter had grown.

David's voice deepened, little twinkles lit the darkness of his brown eyes, and a whimsical smile tugged at his lips. "What of dreams?"

"Dreams?"

"Aye, dreams." Lifting her hand, David placed it on his lips and enunciated clearly, as if to communicate through touch as well as sound. "Dreams are the forms in your mind where you dance to the tune of what may be."

She knew that to be nonsense. "Dreams are a waste of time," she said firmly.

"I possessed my dreams ere I possessed truth." He watched her with something that looked like pity. "I was nothing but a younger son, turned out into the world with a shield and sword. I won King Louis in my first French tournament, and I never looked back. I only looked forward, trying to see that place where my dreams would take shape."

If she had ever dreamed a man and hoped to have him, the man she dreamed would be David. It was as if he had somehow ascertained everything she admired in a man and distilled it within himself.

"Radcliffe is that place, and now I dream of the day it will be as prosperous as-" he looked at her hand at rest in his, "-as George's Cross."

Funny thing, though. She rather missed his crude humor and honest reactions, and for that she scolded herself. She wasn't a silly miss who knew nothing of her own needs. She was the lady of George's Cross. "I don't have dreams."