Johanna Lindsey - Johanna Lindsey When Love Awaits

entertainments at Pershwick on the next feastday. But her anxiety over

the Black Wolf and what he might do next made her decide against any

gathering at her keep. No, she was better off keeping a weather eye on

her neighbor's activities and offering no chance for her people to gather

where there was bound to be drink. They might, she knew, decide to plan

something that could easily rebound on her. No, if her villagers were

going to plot against the Black Wolf, she would be better off if they did so

far from her.

She knew what she had to do. She would have to speak to her people

again, and firmly. But when she thought of dear Alain, banished from his

home, and poor Sir Edmond who had died so that King Henry could

favor one of his mercenaries with a fine estate, then she found it hard to

want peace for the Black Wolf, hard indeed.

Chapter 2

LEONIE handed her soap to the maid and leaned forward so Wilda

could wash her back. She waved away the bucket for rinsing and instead

settled down in the large tub to take advantage of the soothing herb-

scented water while it was still good and hot.

A fire burned in the hearth, taking the chill from the room. Outside, it

was a mild spring evening, but the bare stone walls of Pershwick Keep

created coldness that seemed never to lessen. And the ceiling of her

room, open to join the great hall, allowed every draft to enter.

Pershwick was an old keep, designed neither for comfort nor to

accommodate guests. The hall was large, but hadn't been altered since it

was built a hundred years ago. Leonie's chamber was partitioned off the

dais end of the hall with wooden boards. She shared the room with her

Aunt Beatrix, more boards dividing the room in half to give each lady a

little privacy. There were no women's quarters, and no other chambers

off the hall or above it, as there were in some of the new keeps. The

servants slept in the hall, and the men-at-arms in the tower, where Sir

Guibert also slept.

Rough though it was, Pershwick was home to Leonie, and had been

for the last six years. Since coming here she had not returned once to

Montwyn, her birthplace. Nor had she seen her father. Yet Montwyn

Castle was only five miles away. In that castle lived her father, Sir

William, and his new wife, Lady Judith, who had married him the year

after Leonie's mother died.

If Leonie could no longer summon a kind thought for her father, no

one blamed her. From having a happy childhood and two loving parents

to losing both parents in one stroke was a cruel fate, and wholly

undeserved.

She had once loved her father with all her heart. Now she felt very

little for him. At times she cursed him. Those times occurred when he

sent his servants to raid her stores for his lavish entertainments—and not

only was Pershwick involved, but Rethel and Marhill keeps as well.

They, too, were hers. He never sent a word to his daughter, but he reaped

the benefits of her hard work, taking her profits and rents.

However, he'd had far less success in the last few years as Leonie

learned how to outfox the Montwyn steward. When he came calling with

his list, her storerooms were nearly empty, her hoards hidden throughout

the keep in unlikely places. So also she hid her spices and cloth bought

from the merchants of Rethel, for Lady Judith sometimes arrived with the

steward, and Lady Judith felt she could make free with anything she

found at Pershwick.

Leonie's cunning sometimes went awry when she couldn't remember

all of her hiding places. But rather than give up the plan or confide her

deceit to the Pershwick priest and ask his help, she convinced Father

Bennet to teach her to read and write. That way, she was able to keep

records of her maze of hiding places. Now her serfs no longer faced

starvation, and her own table was full. No thanks were due her father for

any of that.

Leonie stood for the rinsing and let Wilda wrap her in a warm

bedrobe because she would not be leaving her room again that night.

Aunt Beatrix sat by the fire with her embroidery, lost in her own world,

as usual. The oldest of Elisabeth's sisters, Beatrix had long been a widow.

She had lost her dower lands to her husband's relatives when he died,

and hadn't married again. She insisted she liked it that way. She had

lived with her brother, the earl of Shefford, until Elisabeth's death. Soon

after, Leonie was cast on her vassal, Guibert Fitzalan, and Aunt Beatrix

felt it her duty to stay and take care of her niece.

More likely it was Leonie who did the care-taking, for Beatrix was a

timid woman. Even the isolation of Pershwick keep hadn't made her

bolder. Being one of the first children born to the late earl of Shefford, she had known the earl at his stormiest, whereas Elisabeth, the youngest,

knew the earl as a mellow man and a doting father.

Leonie did not know the present earl, whose holding was in the north,

far from the midlands. When she'd reached a marriageable age and

begun to hope for a husband, she had wanted to contact her uncle. Aunt

Beatrix had explained, kindly, that with eight brothers and sisters and

dozens of nieces and nephews besides his own six children and their

children, the earl would surely not concern himself with the daughter of

a sister who had not married well and was now dead.

Leonie, fifteen then and closed away from the world, began to think

she would never marry. But pride soon asserted itself, pride that didn't

permit her to ask for help from relatives who neither knew her nor ever

inquired after her.

After a time she began to think she might be better off without a

husband. There wasn't the usual threat of being sent to a nunnery, and

she was lady of her own keep, independent, answerable only to a father

who never approached her and seemed unlikely to show any further

interest in her.

It was a unique and enviable position, she told herself after those first

longings for romance had been stifled. Most brides did not even know

their husbands before they were wed, and were likely to find themselves

the property of an old man, a cruel man, or an indifferent man. Only serfs

married for love.

So Leonie came to believe she was fortunate. The only thing she

wanted to change was her isolation, and that was what caused her to

venture alone to Crewel to see the tourney.

Having never seen a tourney before, she was impelled to go. King

Henry's policy was to forbid all tourneys except a few held in special

circumstances and with his permission. In the past, too many tourneys

had ended in bloody battles. In France a tourney might be found at any

time in almost any place, and many knights became rich by traveling

from one to another. It was not that way in England.

The tourney at Crewel was exciting at the start. The Black Wolf rode

onto the field in full armor, six knights flanking him, all wearing his

colors, black and silver, all large and impressive men. The seven

opponents were also full-armored. Leonie recognized a few by their

banners as vassals of Sir Edmond Montigny. The Black Wolf was, by

then, their new overlord.

She had not asked herself why the present lord of Kempston would

challenge his new vassals. There were many possible explanations, none

of which interested her. What held her attention was the Black Wolf, and

the lady who rushed onto the field to give him a token. A bold kiss