Ana Seymour - The Rogue

Amazingly enough, it had not even occurred to him that Flora’s death might have been the result of giving birth to a child he had left planted inside her. Just like a man, Beatrice thought, relieved to feel her anger returning.

She reached the pillars and looked to the left at the sound of a horse approaching. Even from a distance, she knew the rider. Baron Hawse was a familiar sight in the neighborhood. His lands surrounded the Hendry estate and he’d never been shy about venturing onto Hendry lands as if he and not the Hendry family were the overlord.

She stopped and waited. She’d not bow her head to him, but neither did she want to be so rude as to turn her back and walk away.

“Mistress Thibault, is it not?” the baron called as he approached. “Did you have some business with the lady Constance?”

Beatrice gave an inconclusive murmur. She couldn’t see how her business was any of the baron’s affair, no matter if he was the most important man in the shire.

“Meself, I’ve come to see the returning prodigal—young Nicholas, home from the wars, hale and hearty, in spite of all the accounts to the contrary. ’Tis somewhat of a miracle, hey?”

“Aye,” she answered simply.

The baron pulled his horse up and peered down at her, squinting. “Mayhap ’twas Nicholas you came to see. He always was a one for the ladies.”

The baron was a big man, overspilling his small saddle, but his size was solid bulk, not fat, and his proportions were manly. The only signs of his age were the fine veins that crisscrossed his somewhat bulbous nose, giving his face a florid appearance against the contrast of his snow-white hair. Though he had never said anything improper to her, his glances always made Beatrice feel as if something cold was creeping over her skin.

“Good day to you, milord,” she said, continuing to ignore his questions.

She turned to head in the opposite direction from which the baron had come, but he danced his horse forward a couple of steps, blocking her path.

“So it was Nicholas you came to see,” he said. “I’d thought the boy preferred lasses with soft curves and empty heads. I’d evidently not given him enough credit.”

His eyes watched her, bright with speculation.

“Excuse me, Baron Hawse. I’m just on my way back to the inn, where I warrant my father will be missing me.”

“As I recall, you’ve not lived here long, mistress. You were raised by an aunt in York, I believe? You came only shortly before your sister’s death. Was it on a prior visit that you made Nicholas Hendry’s acquaintance?”

Beatrice was astounded at the extent of his knowledge of her family’s affairs. She’d often heard that the baron knew in intimate detail the comings and goings of all the neighborhood inhabitants, no matter how lowly. But she hadn’t realized the truth of the statement until now.

“I have nothing to do with Nicholas Hendry,” she said bluntly. “Nor do I expect that I ever shall. Now, forgive me, Baron, but I really must be on my way.”

This time Hawse did not prevent her from turning down the road toward the village. The baron sat still on his horse for several moments, watching her leave. Beatrice Thibault was a rare woman, as spirited as she was beautiful. How convenient that with his acquisition of the Hendry lands, she was now one of his very tenants.

It was not widely known in Hendry that he was to be their new master. He’d refrained from taking active control of the lands in deference to Constance. But her year of mourning would soon be past and she would be his wife at last, after all these long years.

Then he’d have no compunction about exerting his lordly rights over the people of Hendry. And he might just start with the haughty Mistress Thibault. The notion turned up his lips in a sly smile of anticipation.

The great hall of the manor occupied the entire rear half of the bottom floor. It had fireplaces at each end, another of Arthur Hendry’s improvements, and a raised dais along the west wall so that the members of the family and their guests could eat at a table raised from the trestles set out for the servants and lesser visitors.

Nicholas had just helped his mother mount the single step to the long table when there was a commotion at the huge double doors leading into the big room. He turned to see the larger-than-life form of their neighbor, lumbering across the room toward him, arms outstretched.

“I found I could not wait another day to see you, Nicholas,” Baron Hawse said, engulfing the younger man in a hearty embrace.

Nicholas tried not to wince. He’d never liked the baron, even as a boy, but for his mother’s sake, he was determined to be civil. He allowed the embrace, then stepped back. “’Tis kind of you to trouble yourself, Baron.”

“Not at all, boy. With your father gone, I feel it’s my place to be here to welcome you. Back from the dead, hey? Not often a man has a chance to welcome someone back from those nether regions.”

The motley assortment of household retainers who had been milling about finding their places at the lower benches stood uncertainly, not wanting to be seated while their new master remained standing.

“I never counted myself dead, Baron,” Nicholas answered dryly. “Though I felt the spectre’s breath a time or two. You’ll join us for supper?”

“Of course, lad,” the baron boomed. “I should have been here last night for your welcome home meal.” He turned a reproving glance on Constance, who also remained standing by her chair. “You should have sent word, my dear.”

Nicholas frowned as his mother bit her lip in embarrassment.

“As you can imagine, Baron,” he said stiffly, “the tidings that greeted me upon my arrival did not exactly put us in the mood for company.”

The baron gave Nicholas a hearty clap on the shoulder and stepped past him up on the dais. “Precisely, lad. I should have been here to deliver the news of your father’s death. Women are over-maudlin about these affairs. No doubt you had all manner of tears and carrying on to contend with.” Once again he looked at Constance, who dropped her gaze to the floor.

Nicholas struggled to keep his temper, reminding himself that the baron had cared for his mother in her bereavement. “My mother’s heart is too tender not to mourn her husband’s passing, Baron Hawse. I do not count that as a fault.”

He followed the baron up on the dais and began to motion him to the bench on the other side of his mother, but the older man stopped at the center of the table, pulled out the lord’s chair and sat. Nicholas’s mouth fell open in astonishment. The previous evening when his mother had urged him to be seated in the master’s place, it had felt sad and odd, but to have his father’s old chair occupied by a stranger seemed nearly intolerable.

He looked at his mother. Her soft brown eyes pleaded with him not to create a scene. Baron Hawse had occupied this chair before, Nicholas realized. As the baron pulled a trencher forward to share with Constance, Nicholas wondered exactly how much of Arthur Hendry’s former life had already been taken over by his neighbor.

Giving his mother a smile of reassurance, he took a seat on the bench to the baron’s left and pulled his own trencher forward. He’d not share a board with this man.

Once the head table was seated, there was a sudden bustle in the room as the other diners sat and the serving girls began to move among the tables with dishes of stew and plates of roasted rabbit with wild berries.

Nicholas ate in silence, speaking only when the baron asked him a direct question. He scarcely noticed the carefully prepared dinner, which his mother had been supervising in the kitchen much of the afternoon. Watching the baron carve off succulent bits of rabbit and offer them on his knife to Constance’s mouth was making Nicholas lose his appetite.