closer inspection of the new bride. “God grant ye health, honour, and joy, milady.”
“God grant you peace and health, milord,” she replied by rote.
Lord Godfrey peered up at Wardieu through eyebrows that resembled nesting squirrels. “Not tupped, were she?”
“My lady finds herself in perfect good health, praise God,” Wardieu responded dryly.
“Mmmm.” The knight looked disappointed, but he nodded. “Good. Good.”
“And your own fair Drucilla?”
A woman with painted cheeks and a rack of teeth broken off to their blackened gums squealed with laughter and tipped a goblet to acknowledge the compliment.
“Bah!” Sir Godfrey spat a wad of yellow phlegm into the rushes and scowled. “A sour old trull she is. Tupp her now and then just to keep my gear well greased, but for pleasure’s sake, I’d ruther swive a sweet wee bit like yours.”
A broad, leering wink sent Servanne shrinking back against Wardieu’s arm, a gesture that was seen and remarked upon by a smiling Nicolaa de la Haye.
“I warrant she might find you a little hard to take, dear Godfrey,” she purred, advancing with the sinewy grace of a cat. Her head was bare and her black hair flowed sleek and loose over her shoulders. More than one appreciative pair of eyes widened as she unfastened her mantle and shrugged the garment into the waiting hands of a page.
“Hard to take? Why, ’tis my normal state,” Sir Godfrey bellowed, grabbing his crotch for emphasis. “I should hope she’d find me so!”
Wardieu was watching Servanne’s face, aware of the tightness growing around her lips and the distinct pallor of aversion draining her complexion as she looked from one guest to another.
“You seem tired, my lady,” he murmured. “It would serve you well to rest and refresh yourself before we sup.”
“I would beg leave of you to rest the night, my lord,” she said. “I … fear I would not make happy company tonight.”
“Of course she must rest,” Nicolaa insisted. “After such an ordeal as she has endured, what can you be thinking, Lucien, to expect her to sup as if it were any ordinary day? Have you chambers prepared?”
The cool blue eyes narrowed as if he might object to being overruled, but the annoyance passed and he signaled to Eduard.
“I would trust you to see Lady Servanne to her chambers. As well, you may remain to see to any necessity she requires.”
“Aye, my lord,” Eduard said, bowing and offering his arm almost eagerly. Equally relieved to be able to escape the smell of stale bodies and sour food, Servanne touched her fingers to his wrist and nodded formally to Lucien Wardieu.
“My lord,” she whispered.
“God’s night to you, my lady,” he replied.
Nicolaa moved at once to place herself between Wardieu and Servanne before the latter had even turned away. The sound of her husky laughter and Lord Godfrey’s garrulous barking followed the two until they had ascended the steps and removed themselves to the relative quiet of the vaulted gallery.
“This way, my lady,” Eduard said, gently covering the lengthy pause she took to fill her lungs with a breath of clean air. He led her to the far end of the gallery and made two wide turns down converging stone hallways before climbing the corkscrew staircase to a private tower. He leaped ahead to open the oak door, then stood aside as Servanne entered a plainly furnished, but comfortably expansive suite of chambers.
The outer room, where the maids would sleep, was fully ten paces square with curtained slumber niches built right into the walls. A second door led into a large wardrobe with whitewashed walls and small painted flowers decorating the stone arched stone ceiling above. A wooden tulip-shaped tub sat on a raised platform at one end of the room; lining the walls on either side were rows of pegs set into the mortar for hanging clothes. There was space for dressmakers to sit and sew, a cabinet where a lady’s most treasured collections of scents and spices could be safeguarded. A small table and chair for the dressing of hair, and a tall, prettily painted cupboard that concealed the bench for the privy completed the furnishings.
Servanne absorbed most of it in a single glance before following Eduard through yet another set of doors, these double-slung and banded in filigreed wrought iron. She found herself standing in a huge solar, half of it squared to fit the shape of the main keep, half of it circular and jutting out over the central courtyard below. There were three enormous windows stretching