“But the master holds strong feelings for you and missed you, though he cursed you more than he sang of your bountiful beauty. Father Cramdle will speak wondrous fine words for your ceremony.” He paused and added, “Don’t mind the master. He’ll get used to the idea once it seeps into that thick head of his. Aye, ’twill be fine.” Crooky gave her another bow and took himself off. She was left standing alone in the small clearing.
Crooky’s words had sounded to her like an attempt to convince himself. Well, perhaps Crooky’s master didn’t love her, but at the moment Philippa didn’t care. But she did feel discomfort that she was nothing more than a waif, not a coin in her possession, her only clothes those Lady Kassia had sent her. Once she and Dienwald were wedded, she would dispatch a message to her father. He would have no choice but to send her possessions to her. She knew little about marriage contracts, dowries, and the like, but it seemed that there had been none for her, so how could her father complain? He’d had no intention of forming a grand alliance with another house of Beauchamp’s stature. She no longer brooded on his reasons. Indeed, she no longer cared. Beauchamp seemed a lifetime ago, and surely that was another girl who’d had servants attending her every whim and clothes to suit her every mood. That girl had had a mother who didn’t like her and a sister who carped constantly at her. Both the pleasant and the unpleasant were gone, forever.
St. Erth. She liked the sound of it on her tongue, the feel of it in her blood. St. Erth would be her home and Dienwald would be her husband. Her father could bellow until all Beauchamp trembled and his nose turned purple, but it wouldn’t matter. Sir Walter had told her that her father had needed coin. She didn’t believe it for a moment. However, she didn’t know what to believe, so she left off all thought about it and consoled herself with the fact that even that repellent toad de Bridgport wouldn’t want a bride who’d been bedded by another man. She smiled and sang a tuneless song as she prepared to return to her home with the man who would be her husband.
Her smile remained bright even when she faced all Dienwald’s men, for they knew now that she would be the lady of St. Erth and there would be no more vile cursing from the master because he wanted to bed the maid. Now that he had, he would do what was right. She smiled until she was riding in front of Dienwald. She didn’t turn to face him, not because she didn’t want to but because his destrier, Philbo, took exception whenever she moved, cavorting and prancing, sending shafts of pain up her arm. The miles passed slowly and her arm throbbed.
“You cry again and I’ll kick you off my horse. God’s teeth, wench, you have me now. What more do you wish?”
“I’m not crying,” she said, and stuffed her fist into her mouth.
“Then what are you doing? A new mime for Crooky’s benefit? I suppose you’ll tell me your arm pains you again?”
“Aye, it hurts. Your horse likes not my weight.”
He snorted and stared over her shoulder between Philbo’s twitching ears. “It’s true you’re a hardy wench and an armful. Still, Philbo hasn’t bitten you—aye, methinks even he approves you for the mistress—so cease your plaints. You wanted me and now you’ve got me. I suppose your woman’s ears beg to hear rhyming verses to the beauty of your eyes? That’s why you’re crying.”
She shook her head.
“ ’Tis too late to woo you, wench. You’ll be a wife before you can congratulate yourself on your tactics, and then ’tis I who will show you that I am master at St. Erth and your master as well. I will do just as I please with you, and there will be none to gainsay me.”
“You’ve always done precisely as you wished with me.”
That was true, but Dienwald said nothing. His ill humor mounted and he sang out his own grievances. “Aye, I will wed you, and with naught to your name or your body save the clothes that Lady Kassia sent you. Your damnable father will likely come to St. Erth and demand my manhood for the insult to the de Beauchamps, since I am not of his importance or yours. You’ll cry and carp and wail, and he’ll lay siege, and soon—”
“Be quiet!”
Dienwald was so startled that he shut his mouth. Then he grinned at the back of her head. He fought against raising his hand to smooth down her wildly curling hair, and merely waited to see if she would continue. She did, and in a very loud voice, right in his face as she whirled about.
“I never cried, never, until I met you, you wretched knave! You are naught but an arrogant cockscomb!”
“Aye,” he said mildly, and tightened his arms about her to keep her steady, “but you want to bed the cockscomb, so you cannot continue to carp so shrewishly.
“Should you prefer to be my mistress rather than my wife? Would you prefer being my chattel and my slave and my drudge?”
She jerked back against the circle of his arms and slammed her fist into his belly. Philbo snorted and reared on his hind legs. Dienwald grabbed Philippa, pulling her hard against him. He was laughing so hard that he nearly fell sideways, bringing her with him. He felt Northbert pushing against him, righting him once again.
“Take care, master,” Northbert said. “The mistress isn’t well. You don’t wish her wound to open.”
“God’s bones, I know that. But the wound isn’t in her arm, ’tis in her brain.” He leaned against her temple and whispered, “Aye, and between those soft thighs of yours, deep inside, where I’ll come to you again tonight. Think about that, wench.”
She lowered her head, not in defeat at his words, but because she wanted to strike him again, but both of them would probably crash to the ground if she did so.
Dienwald said nothing more. He enjoyed baiting her, he admitted to himself. For the first time in his adult male life, he enjoyed talking, fighting, arguing—all those things—with a woman. Well, it was a good thing, since he would be bound to her until he shucked off his mortal coil.
He looked sideways at Northbert and saw that his man was frowning at him. Curse his interference! He said curtly, “No sign of de Grasse?”
Northbert shook his head.
Dienwald cursed. “You’ve got the men in a line behind us? At intervals, and hidden?” At his man’s nod, Dienwald looked fit to spit. “The man’s a coward.” He cursed again. “I’ve wanted him for a long time now.”
“Why?”
“Ah, you deign to speak to me again, wench?”
“Why?”
“I got a letter supposedly written to me by Kassia, but ’twas from him. He captured me when I went to see her, and I ended up in Wolffeton’s dungeons. Kassia saved me, but not before the bastard had broken several of my ribs and killed three of my men. I owe him much. More than enough, since he took my son. Soon now I will repay him.”