girls into the stables at one time or other, mostly when he was sheep-drunk after a night in the tavern. A knee in the groin and a threat to scream were always enough to send him reeling off to find other company. But she was pretty sure it would take more than that to drive Master Raffaele away.
The sun beat down hard on Elena's bent head, scorching her skin despite the cloth she had wrapped around her hair to keep out the dust. Master Raffaele lumbered across the courtyard ahead of her.
Even for a man he was unusually tall, with great long limbs out of all proportion to his body. Elena's mother, Cecily, had said that when he'd first returned from the Holy Land with Sir Gerard, Raffaele had been by far the best-looking man in the shire. There wasn't a woman in Gastmere, young or old, who hadn't dreamed of being bedded by him. With his heart- shaped face, delicate beardless chin and head of luxuriant blue-black curls, he seemed to have stepped straight out of the painting of the Annunciation on the church wall, a living, breathing Archangel Gabriel, clothed in flesh as soft and fragrant as a virgin maid's.
'Who wouldn't want to feel that between your legs?' Elena's mother had sighed wistfully.
And Master Raffaele was better than any heavenly messenger for he was, as everyone knew, a gelding, so unlike the Archangel Gabriel there was no danger of him leaving you with a bastard in your belly.
It was not uncommon for men to lose their testicles through getting injured in a boar hunt or having them cut off to relieve the agony of a hernia, and there were many whispered speculations about just how Raffaele had come to mislay his. Nevertheless, all the women were agreed on one thing: no other geldings of their acquaintance were blessed with such a wickedly tempting body as Master Raffaele possessed.
But it is impossible for the young to imagine their parents' generation could ever have been the objects of desire, for Master Raffaele was now approaching forty summers, so rumour had it, and old enough to be Elena's father — not that he could have fathered any brat. Even Elena's mother could scarcely believe she once lusted after him, for his angelic beauty had long since faded. His cream-soft skin was now scarred by battle and tanned to leather by sun and wind. His hair, though still thicker than most women's, was the colour of old lead. His belly, hips and backside were covered in sagging wads of fat, making his ridiculously long limbs appear even more gangling and spindly. To Elena he looked like a bloated spider.
She shuddered, feeling sick as she imagined those long fingers groping into her flesh. He wouldn't, surely he wouldn't. No one had ever said he'd forced himself on a woman. Quite the opposite in fact, for the alewives whispered that if he was capable of getting his prick up, which most of them doubted, his desire would surely be for the bull and not the heifers, for how else would you account for the hours he and Sir Gerard spent alone together? Besides, isn't that what you would expect from a grown man who had the voice of a little boy?
They were approaching the stables and Elena's stomach tightened, but Master Raffaele strode on past and entered the small, dusty inner courtyard leading to the great house. Elena was following so closely behind him that when he stopped and turned, she almost fell into his arms. He stared down at her, then reached out his great hand towards her. She flinched back, but he merely tugged the rag mask from her face.
'Brush the dust from your kirtle, girl. The Lady Anne wishes to see you.'
Elena stared at him in horror. 'Master Raffaele . . . the wine, I didn't mean ... it was an accident... I swear.'
He frowned at her as if she was babbling in a tongue he didn't recognize.
'Wine? This has nothing to do with wine.'
The expression in his hard brown eyes suddenly softened. He squeezed her shoulder and she shrank under his grasp. He spoke more gently.
'No need to be frightened. The mistress is pleased with what she hears of you, a good modest girl, mannerly. She's a mind to take you into the house, as one of her tiring maids.'
Elena gaped at him. She couldn't believe that the Lady Anne even knew of her existence. She had seen her often,