Runaway Lady, Conquering Lord. Carol Townend

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ fitting?’ Her steps were brisk and jerky and Emma was unaware that she was still muttering to herself until Henri patted her cheek and tried to make her look into his eyes.

      ‘Mama? Mama angry?’

      ‘Yes, sweetheart. Mama is very angry.’

      Henri’s face fell, his hand dropped.

      ‘Oh, not with you, sweet, not with you.’ Emma made her voice light. ‘It is that man I am angry with, that bone-headed, patronising man.’

      ‘Sir Rich?’

      Emma gave a humourless laugh. ‘You are not daft, are you, my lad?’ Saints, she must guard her tongue with Henri; he might not have seen three summers, but he understood far too much of what went on about him. ‘Sir Rich about sums him up.’

      ‘Mama? Smile?’

      Sir Rich, indeed. But as far as she was concerned he was singularly unhelpful. Forcing a smile, Emma marched down the street. What next? Where next? Panic was churning inside her.

      ‘We need work,’ she said. ‘Somewhere to live.’

      ‘Yes, Mama.’

      Sir Richard must have known his steward would not have any work for her, he must have known she would be turned away. He had humiliated her. Clearly, Sir Richard disapproved of her working as a laundry maid. Not fitting for a lady, oh, he had never stated it quite so baldly, but he thought it. She had read it in those cold grey eyes. Not fitting, indeed. And here she was leaving the castle with nothing, because the count’s boy, Geoffrey, had left her with the steward, who couldn’t be bothered to find her ‘suitable’ work. What was suitable? she fumed, reaching Westgate and turning towards Market Street. What did the man expect her to do?

      ‘Henri, you are growing so fast, I swear, you are heavier than one of Gytha’s grain sacks.’ Setting her son on his feet, she took his hand and swept on.

      ‘Suitable work? Hah!’ What was suitable for someone of her station? Neither lady nor peasant due to her—she glanced at the top of her son’s head—supposed mistake. A mistake, Emma gritted her teeth, that she would never regret as long as she lived.

      At the corner of Staple Street a woman with eggs in a basket caught her eye. Eggs. Emma’s mouth watered; she had not eaten an egg in an age. But, of course, the days were growing longer and with the longer days, the hens would be coming into lay. In her other life, when she had been a thane’s daughter at Fulford, Emma had loved hunting out the first eggs of the season. A wave of longing took her and she missed a step.

      ‘Fresh eggs, mistress?’

      She cleared her throat. ‘Later, perhaps.’

      The Staple lay in front of her, a wattle-and-daub building that was almost as large as her father’s meadhall. Its thatch was dark with age, and smoke gusted from louvres in the roof ridge. The Staple was the most popular tavern in the town, and this morning the door and shutters had been flung wide to admit the air, the spring sunlight and, of course, the customers. Emma had friends inside. Not powerful ones, but friends none the less. Perhaps they could help her.

      Emma stepped over the threshold, holding fast to Henri.

      A huddle of merchants were haggling over the finer points of a deal around the central fire, a band of off-duty troopers were drinking at one of the trestles. Other than the tavern girls, there were few women present. Hélène and Marie were in the shadows at the far end of the room, filling clay jugs with wine from a barrel. Behind the women stood the wooden screen that concealed the doorway to the adjacent cookhouse. To one side, against the further wall, a stairway led to the communal bedchamber that—following a design brought in by the Norman invaders—had been built under the eaves.

      Several heads turned as Emma made her way towards Hélène and Marie. There certainly were plenty of pests from the garrison here today. Emma found herself swishing her skirts out of the way of more than one grasping hand. Reaching the trestle under the loftchamber, Emma took a place on a bench and let out a sigh of relief.

      ‘How goes it, Hélène?’

      Hélène stuck a stopper in one of the jugs and smiled. ‘Fine.’

      ‘I have a couple of favours to ask,’ Emma said.

      ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’

      Henri tugged his hand free and skipped behind the wooden screen, lured by a mouthwatering smell of fresh bread.

      ‘Hello, Henri.’ Hearing the voice of Inga, the tavern cook, Emma relaxed. Inga would keep Henri safe. ‘Are you hungry?’

      ‘Yes!’

      Leaning her head against the white was hed daub, Emma closed her eyes. She had been humiliated, Sir Rich—ha!—had humiliated her. Telling that boy of his to make sure she had ‘fitting’work, when he must have known that the steward would give her short shrift. The steward’s lips had curled as he had said, no, he did not think there was any work in Winchester Castle for a lady like her. And his tone…

      ‘All right, love?’ The bench creaked as Hélène came to sit next to her.

      Emma opened her eyes while Marie drifted into the main body of the tavern and began flirting with a young archer. ‘I confess it, I have been better.’

      ‘Someone call you nithing again?’

      To be called nithing was to say that you did not exist, that you were lower than the low. Which, Emma thought bitterly, she was. An outcast. She had been a lady and she had had a child out of wedlock. Would she ever be able to hold her head high again?

      Again she sighed. ‘Not this time, although that has been cast in my face in the past.’

      Hélène patted Emma’s knee. ‘Not by anyone Iwould let through these doors, dear, rest assured. You are no more nithing than I am.’

      ‘My thanks.’ Emma gazed earnestly at Hélène. ‘I would have you know that your friendship means much to me.’

      Dark colour washed into Hélène’s cheeks. ‘You value my friendship? You know what this tavern is…what the girls…’ she all but choked ‘…and yet you value my friendship?’

      Henri emerged, smiling, from behind the screen with a slice of bread dripping with honey clutched tight in his fist. Emma laid her hand on Hélène’s. ‘You must know I do. This is the only place, apart from the mill, where Henri and I are accepted, fully accepted. You and Gytha are dear to me, you let me be…myself. You don’t judge me.’

      Hélène snorted and her wave took in Marie, now sitting on the lap of the archer, whispering in his ear. ‘Judge you? Running this place does not give me the right to step into a preacher’s shoes. Not that I would want to…’

      ‘No, of course not. But you understand me.’ Emma reached out to wipe a trickle of honey from the corner of her son’s mouth. ‘You know how life does not turn out quite as one expects it to and unlike some—’ a brief image of cold grey eyes flashed into her mind ‘—you accept me for what I am.’

      ‘Of course I do. Tell me, what was it you wanted to ask?’

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ