Never If Not Now - Madeline Hunter Page 0,8
her. His thoughts darkened, however. Hugo of York had his daughter working as a servant to others, it seemed.
She had always known him well, and now her sharp gaze read his thoughts. “It helps a little. He was hurt, and can no longer take service with a lord. He serves as a gate guard for Lord Morris, but that does little more than keep us in bread. So I do this to feed us.”
“Could he not do something more, to feed you better?”
“He is a knight. Other than his skill at arms, what would he do?”
Zander could think of many things Sir Hugo could do to spare his daughter this lowly labor. Teach arms to youths. Counsel in strategies. If Hugo could not find a position such as old or maimed knights typically secured, there were other ways to earn his family’s keep. Hell, he could clean dung out of stables if it came to it.
“It is not seemly for you to take in mending, Elinor. You are a lady born.”
“That is what he says.” She leaned toward him and spoke lowly, with belligerence in her eyes. Her closeness and her scent sent desire climbing again. “I would rather ply my needle for pay and have stew on the hearth than refuse to lower myself and eat only thin broth.” She turned back to her plate. “I am no longer the girl you knew, Zander. My circumstances are different now.”
He reached over and took one strand of her hair between his fingers. He slid them down the silken length. “You are very much still the girl I knew, Elinor. And whatever change time has wrought in you, it has done far more in me.”
Another platter came. Boar this time. The priest beside her could not be bothered with a knife, but simply tore a hunk of the rich meat off the joint with his hands. Elinor glanced over at that, appalled, before carving neatly and passing the platter on.
They talked about simpler things then. He told her about the borderlands, and how Lord Jean’s household knights kept busy fighting skirmishes with Scots looking to steal cattle and horses. “He is a marcher lord, much as there are in the west. He has great power as a result because he is the only law there.”
“Is he a good man? If he has such power, I would hope so.”
“He is a man, Elinor. Sometimes good, sometimes not. Like most of us.”
“True, but . . . even with the mix, a person is either essentially good or not, don’t you think?”
The priest, whose conversation with the woman on his other side had waned, interrupted to agree with her. Elinor and the priest then shared their views on the matter at length. Zander did not mind. Courtesy required they not ignore their tablemates. He turned his own attention to the woman on his right, Lady Judith Tremain. She worked her wiles on him, but half his mind remained on Elinor, and the bits of her conversation that reached his ears.
By the time the meal was ending, Lady Judith had let him know where she slept in the castle and suggested he visit her so they could continue their conversation.
“That was bold.” Elinor’s voice murmured beside him.
He turned and saw her mouth pursed in disapproval.
“Nor did you decline,” she observed.
“A knight is always courteous.”
“Was that courtesy? It sounded like a man leaving a door ajar.”
He laughed lightly. “You are no longer a girl. By now, you know how these things go.”
“How is that?”
He looked into her eyes, amused by her scold. “Sometimes, a man beds the woman he wants, and sometimes, he beds the one who is available.”
Elinor wanted to sniff and turn away at Zander’s bawdy lesson. Instead she could not take her gaze off him. His own had locked hers in place as if he controlled her will. She discovered a rare exhilaration in being captured.
They remained like that, the connection deepening. She could smell the spring flowers in a garden, and feel lips pressing hers softly at first, then with a startling passion.
“Daughter!” The voice boomed as if from a distance. She vaguely recognized it as her father’s. “Alexander! Churl! Coward!”
That jolted her out of her reverie.
Zander looked down the table. Her father stood at his place, glaring in their direction.
“Here we go,” Zander muttered.
Her father threw back his chair. He came toward them, eyes blazing and eating knife in hand. Zander merely turned away and drank some ale.
“Daughter, you should have