everin was in close conversation with Gwent, Trist on his shoulder. “Won? This was never a contest, Marjorie. Severin is my husband, not yours. The love potion you stole from my bedchamber did not work. Listen to me. I merely want peace again. I want my husband with me. I don’t even want you dead. I merely want you gone from Oxborough.”
Marjorie was staring hard at Hastings. “I have studied you. You are comely, but no more than that. I am more beautiful than any other lady I have ever seen. Severin wanted me, adored me, gawked at me even. He kissed me, touched me, caressed me until I opened myself to him. Even though you used your body to distract him today, it should not have worked. Oh aye, his crazy mother delighted in telling me that he had taken you into the forest. To frolic, she said, and she laughed at me. He should have gone with me, not you. I do not understand.”
“Mayhap there are qualities Severin cherishes other than just a beautiful face and silvery hair. Mayhap there is honor and caring. Mayhap he got a glimpse of your insides, Marjorie. Did you try to poison me?”
She shrugged, picked up a piece of warm bread, and began to chew on it. “We will return to Sedgewick on the morrow.”
“I will be pleased to see the back of you.”
“Would be that you had drunk from the goblet and not dropped it. Would that the marten had died.”
Hastings was on her knees, pulling weeds from between her lupines and her foxgloves. She was humming. The air was fresh from the storm the night before. The sun was high in the sky.
And Marjorie was gone. Thank the good Lord.
She sat back on her heels, a weed in her hand, shaking it free of rich, black dirt. Severin had spoken quietly to Marjorie before he’d lifted her onto her palfrey’s back.
What had he said to her?
She tossed the weed over her shoulder and gently pushed a stake more deeply into the ground. She tied the iris closer to the stake with a short length of thick wool thread. The columbine was blooming madly, bright yellow flowers. She would begin harvesting them soon. She turned at a soft mewling sound.
Trist moved onto her thighs and butted his head against her stomach. She stroked his soft fur, back and forth, back and forth. “Will you have babes soon, Trist? Severin told me that you had been gone, back to the forest, he believed. Did you find a mate? If so, then why did you leave her?”
He mewled, wrapping his paws around the chain of keys that hung from her waist.
“Your belly is fat again.” She paused, leaning over to gather the marten against her. “I would have been very unhappy if you had died, Trist.”
A shadow fell over her shoulder. She knew it was Severin. She was smiling even as she raised her face to him. He had come to her again. He had known she would be here in her garden.
“Have you come to take me for another walk in the forest? Will you press me against a tree and jerk up my gown as you did yesterday? Then will you lift my legs around your waist and come into me?”
He stumbled, nearly falling over her patch of blooming daisies, all of them with bright yellow centers and stark white ray flowers.
Trist batted a paw at him. He came down onto his haunches, stroking Trist’s chin.
“The forest, Hastings? You wish to do more than take a simple walk?”
She leaned closer to him. “What I truly wish to do is strip off all your clothes, press you down upon your back against the soft green moss, and mayhap then I would recite poetry to you.”
She giggled even as she leaned against him. “I would see the effect of my words upon you.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “After you’d given me your best words, Hastings, I would bring you over me and let you take me. Would you like that? It would free my hands to stroke you.”
She became very still, her eyes steady on his face. “You will stay with me, Severin?”
“Aye, I will stay with you forever. You are my wife.”
She wanted also to be his love, but that could wait, she supposed. One day he would love her. Surely he already admired her insides.
They rode again into the forest.
“Mayhap it will become a habit,” Gwent said to Beamis, shading his eyes with his hand, watching until Severin and Hastings disappeared from view.
“Aye, if the master doesn’t muck it up again. At least the beautiful wench is gone, praise the saints. Lord Severin did not keep her. He will not go to Sedgewick to see her. I know when a man has made a decision.”
“I agree with you and that pleases me as well. The boy shows good sense.”
“I thought you told me once that Hastings threatened to make his bowels watery if he deceived her.”