Chapter Seven

T heir uninvited guests left soon after sunrise. They took with them supplies for the journey, skins of wine and great hunks of freshly-baked bread, but were in too much of a hurry to break their fast at Rossfarne Castle. Kitty stood at the small window in her chamber and watched them leave, the clatter of their horses' hooves ringing through the dense castle walls.

Thank goodness, she thought. Her skin still burned with shame as she recalled the way Lord Ulric had so casually announced that he would spend the night with her. As if she were worth nothing. It had taken all her self-restraint not to flee from the table, but she'd known a real servant would stay in the great hall until she was dismissed. Fear, though, had knotted her stomach. The Earl of Darkmoor was an old man, his hands trembled and his cragged face was creased and lined, but he was a warrior still. His toughness was apparent in his every move. Despite her youth, she would have been no match for him in strength. And his son positively burned with energy and might. ‘The Feared One' Agnes had called him, downstairs in the castle kitchen. Then she had nudged Kitty's arm and said she was sure she'd feel no fear in his arms. Cook had shaken her wooden spoon at the both of them, even though Kitty had played no part in Agnes's smutty talk.

The Earl of Rossfarne had saved her.

It was an unexpected twist. The man she thought would ruin her honour had in fact defended it. What should she make of that?

Kitty worked through her morning chores, deeply lost in thought. What concerned her most of all was how her eyes had instinctively flown to him for help. She had known, somehow, that he would not let Lord Ulric near her. She had felt protected in his presence, more so when he bade her to bolt her door from the inside. Was he a man of integrity, after all? She shivered a little at the memory of how he had jumped up from the table, anger flashing from his dark eyes. "She is mine," he had said. And even though that sentiment flew scarily close to the secret truth, her heart had gladdened at his words.

She had never thought to have such a handsome protector.

Kitty leant her sweeping brush against the wall and put her hands to her flushed cheeks. What fresh madness was this now? She had no time for such flights of fancy.

The big castle kitchen always knew a moment of quiet directly after luncheon. Cook would sink into an overstuffed chair pulled near the fireplace and close her eyes. Agnes would slip outside to meet Gwen the laundress, and Kitty, up until now, would retire to her narrow bedchamber and pace the floor in a flurry of nerves. Not today though. Today begged to be different, especially after the conflicts of yesterday.

Kitty ached with desire to leave the restrictive, grey castle walls. She longed to feel the sun on her face and sand between her toes. For almost a week her every waking thought had been consumed with recovering Rosalind's jewels, but her focused efforts had gotten her nowhere. The jewels were not secreted in the solar. She'd been able to overturn every inch of the room over the last few days. The castle did not have vaults, and her discrete enquiries had failed to uncover where the silver and coin chests were stored. Surely there must be a room dedicated to them? But for as long as she had known, the earl had always been a single, unmarried man with no family. Mayhap no stash of treasure was kept here? Mayhap that was why the new earl had been so keen to get his hands on her family's remaining jewels?

Kitty pushed such thoughts from her mind. She would grant herself a short break from all jewel-related worries and wonderings. For the next hour, until the belltower tolled, she would remember what it was to be something other than a chambermaid in the Castle of Rossfarne.

Katherine. Her real name was Katherine. As a child she had worn elegant gowns and travelled in a carriage. She had a tutor who had taught her music and praised her singing. A maid had combed her unruly mop of hair and told her she was pretty.

Kitty hung her apron on the hook by the pantry door and stretched her tired arms above her head. Hours of scrubbing, carrying and helping in the kitchen had left her sore and aching. What she would love to do would be to soak in a tub by the fire. She remembered how Alfred would stoke the flames and Lizzie would fetch them hot water. Those days were gone now.

Not gone, she corrected herself. She would return to her old life and the people who loved her just as soon as she found the jewels.

She shook her head in amusement. Despite her best efforts, it was impossible to stop her thoughts circling back to the real reason she was here.

She was about to walk outside when her name was called down the servant's staircase.

"Kitty."

The voice was masculine and harsh. One she couldn't fail to recognise. Her heart sank.

"I'm here."

She walked steadily along the stone-flagged passageway until she could see up the stairs. Thomas peered down at her, his face made even more querulous with a deep frown.

"His lordship wants to see you, in his solar."

"Now?" She couldn't help herself. The request baffled her.

"No, on midsummer's eve." His voice dripped with sarcasm. "Of course, now. What are you waiting for?"

Should she re-tie her apron, tidy her hair? Kitty had been preparing to walk on the beach and look for pretty pebbles, not go in front of an earl. But Thomas's snarl made it clear there were to be no further delays. Hastily wiping her hands on her woollen skirts, Kitty ascended the stairs and followed the manservant through the great hall.

"I know the way," she couldn't resist stating as Thomas ushered her past the vast stone fireplace, their footsteps echoing through the empty room which bore no traces of last night's feast. The trestle table had been pushed back against the wall and the grate was dark and empty.

Thomas didn't respond, not even with a darkening of his expression. Kitty knew she shouldn't tease him, but her days were long with little to break the monotony.

"Why do you think he wants to see me?" she asked. Her impish question hid genuine curiosity. She had felt safe in his presence yesterday, but would that have changed with the morning light?

This time he turned, his face thunderous. "Why would any earl wish to see a chambermaid alone?"

His words winded her, but she wouldn't let him see. "To complain about my work, maybe?" she suggested innocently.

Thomas made a noise that sounded like a horse grunting, before knocking gently on the solar door and flinging it open with a flourish.

"Thank you, Thomas. You may leave us now," came the earl's voice.

Thomas's face turned a darker shade of red, but he turned without a word and stalked back through the great hall, his boots clumping against the stones.

"Kitty, close the door behind you, please."

Her composure had left along with the manservant. Kitty did as she was told, her hands trembling, then stood quietly in the corner awaiting further instructions.

The Earl of Rossfarne was sitting at his desk by the window. The afternoon sunlight cast a golden glow all around him, almost like a halo. She remembered his fingers closing around her wrist and the unanticipated pull of attraction in the pit of her stomach. He had willingly ascended the tower steps to find her dropped broom, despite being stooped with pain. The earl was injured, yet none of his household knew. Who was tending to him?

How, in fact, had he come by such an injury? She recalled the low-cut sumptuous gowns secreted in his solar and shuddered. Perhaps a jealous husband had sliced him with a sword.

Such a jumble of thoughts crowded her mind that she couldn't hope to sift through them. This was a man the villagers feared, albeit as a consequence of his bloodline, but there was no escaping the fact of his sordid wager with her father. She should despise him. But he had also shown her glimmers of something else. Honour and maybe even kindness. He'd conversed with her almost as an equal, despite thinking her nothing more than a servant. And yesterday he had saved her from the unwanted attentions of Lord Ulric. What did that mean?

More pressingly, what did he want with her now?

Her heart jumped in her chest like a bird beating its wings against a cage. The palms of her hands grew hot as the silence stretched between them. Still the earl sat at his desk, head down, writing. Seemingly absorbed in his task. He must be a man of learning. A dazzling haze of light obscured his chiselled features, but she could see his long, ink-stained fingers holding the quill. Fingers that she had felt against her own flesh.

She bit down on her lip. She could bear it no longer.

She cleared her throat. "You asked to see me, my lord."

He looked up sharply. "Where did you train as a servant?"

His words took her by surprise and her mind unhelpfully went blank. She could hardly reveal that she had learned all she knew by watching Lizzie at Shoreston Manor.

"A housekeeper helped me," she said at last.

"A housekeeper in which establishment?" He looked back down at the parchment as if her answer hardly interested him.

"A minor manor far from the coast. You won't know it, my lord."

Immediately he looked back at her, and she shrank backwards under the scorching force of his gaze. Dark eyes boring into her soul. Did he recognise her deception? Was he about to claim her as his own? A prize won in a game of dice, witnessed by many.

She is mine, he'd said last night. Did he actually know this for a fact?

Dread circled around her stomach, and she half closed her eyes against the inevitable shame.

"Try me," he said.

Her heart pounded as she reached desperately into the recesses of her memory for a name. "It was near Belford," she said weakly. "After the crossroads."

She had no idea if there were crossroads at the village of Belford, but the detail seemed to convince him.

"They do things differently there, no doubt." His dark eyes roamed over her face. Looking for what? But he merely pursed his lips and added, "Just as we do here."

"Here, my lord?" She realised too late that her voice rang out across his solar with the clarity of a lady.

He put his head to one side, watching her. "You will have noticed, Kitty, that we keep meagre staff."

Her mind raced again. Was this a challenge? Compared to Shoreston, Rossfarne Castle positively teemed with servants.

She lowered her eyes. "'Tis not my place to notice." She deliberately altered her speech patterns to match those of her fellow servants below stairs. She would have to try harder to mirror all of their ways. How else did she readily give away her true identity?

The earl sat back in his high-backed chair and opened his arms expansively. "Come now," his voice was encouraging. "We have no guards, no musicians, no entertainers." He marked them off with his hands. "No lady's maids of course, for there are no ladies."

He had found her out. Kitty felt the world spin around her.

"Life here is very different to life at Answick Castle, for example," he added.

Her knees sagged. She waited.

"Would you not say?" he prompted when she didn't respond.

"I wouldn't know, my lord." It was hot in here. Too hot. She felt a flush rising through the wool of her dress up her neck and a log crackled in the grate as if to mock her plight.

"How did you pass your time in your minor manor at Belford?"

She clutched her hands together until the blood left her fingers. "I'm unsure of your meaning."

"In the evenings." He rose from his desk and walked towards her like a wolf approaching its prey. "How did you pass your time in the evenings, when all your work was done?"

Was he going to come all the way over to her? He was so tall, his shoulders so broad, that he made her feel small and insignificant. A chambermaid to be trifled with.

Kitty lifted her chin. "A servant's work is never done, my lord."

She spoke with all the authority of her mother's daughter and as soon as the words left her lips, she recognised her mistake. But the earl's expression did not change.

"Much like a knight," he suggested, pausing by the fireplace and glancing down into the flickering flames. "All the more reason to seek pleasure in our rare moments of repose."

The sun passed from behind a cloud, illuminating him with renewed colour. Kitty noticed a flash of sorrow in his eyes. His face, she realised, was quite beautiful. His thick eyelashes curved upwards and a faint covering of dark stubble served to emphasise his jutting cheek bones. So he was a knight. Her mind reeled with this new knowledge. The image did not sit with her old views of the Earl of Rossfarne, but it chimed well with the man keen to protect her from a lecherous guest.

His injury must have been caused in battle. Her eyes widened as she made the connection. Not a drunken brawl or a spat over a woman. An honest battle fought under the king.

"You served King Edward?" she asked, the words leaving her mouth before she could think better of them.

His dark eyebrows lifted a notch. "For many years."

She bit down on her lip. That had been another mistake. Servants didn't ask questions. It would be best to lower her gaze and simply wait to hear his reasons for summoning her.

She was safe, surely, with a knight of the realm?

He had served the king for many years. But how many, she wondered? The earl was older than she, that much was evident. How much older? The depths of his gaze suggested a type of wisdom only acquired with age, yet his hair was as back as night, not streaked with grey. Thirty, she guessed. He could not be less, for men of more tender years rarely had such formidable bearing.

Silence, thick and heavy, enveloped them. Kitty began to feel drowsy with heat from the fire. A fire that was surely unnecessary this far into spring? She longed to relax in the overstuffed chair which sat invitingly just feet away. For all her hard work at Shoreston Manor, she realised now that she had never truly understood what it was to be a servant.

Kitty gave herself a little shake to banish the weariness and found the earl gazing directly at her. His head was lifted with all his usual authority, but his eyes were curious, questioning. She could withstand his customary ferocity, but not this quiet consideration. It made her feel false and deceitful.

What would happen if she simply told the earl the truth about who she was and why she was here?

As if reading her mind, he straightened up, impressing upon her again the sheer size of him. His dark blue tunic clung to his powerful shoulders and once she had noticed, she found it hard to look away. She recalled how she had paused on the beach and pictured his muscular calves wrapped around the belly of his horse and a blush rose to her cheeks. He stood before her, clad in riding breeches which underlined every bulging muscle in his long legs. He was a giant of a man. A warrior. What manner of opponent had managed to fell him?

"It is customary, I believe, for a man in my position to be offered entertainment."

His statement jolted her, and her lips parted in surprise. "I know little of such things."

"No?" His eyebrows raised, questioning her or mocking her? She couldn't decide. "Have you never heard of musicians, jesters?"

Relief washed through her. Kitty's mother had often recounted tales of brightly-lit occasions at Answick Castle, when the duke and his family were diverted by the likes of musicians and jesters. For a moment she had feared the earl might list out other, more scandalous forms of entertainment. Her mind twitched again to the low-cut dresses in the wooden chests, and her pulse sped up.

He was still waiting for her answer. "I believe I have, my lord."

Her words pleased him. He looked at her closely, capturing her in his dark eyes. "Do you sing, Kitty?"

Her heart seemed to stop. "Sing?"

"Sing," he confirmed mildly.

Kitty loved to sing. Since she was a small child, she had burst into a song at a moment's notice. At Shoreston, she sang while she rolled out pastry and beat the rugs, but since arriving in Rossfarne Castle she had deliberately stayed quiet.

Except for that one time, here in the solar. Had he heard her? Dread pooled in her insides.

"I don't, my lord," she answered firmly, despite the sting of heat in her cheeks. Ladies sang in parlours to appreciative gentlefolk, but she was sure that servants did not.

"I should like to hear you try."

Her eyebrows shot up towards her hair. What was happening here?

"I don't believe…" She swallowed, searching for the words. "I don't believe that singing is usually considered part of a chambermaid's duties."

Something flickered in his expression. She wrenched her eyes away from his, conscious once again that she had spoken out of turn.

The earl pursed his lips as if considering the idea. "But you served at the table last night, did you not? Such a thing is also not a typical duty of a chambermaid. Anyway, my castle, my rules."

She blanched as a new wave of heat travelled through her body. He was testing her. That was it. But how should she answer him?

Like a servant, that was how. She bobbed her head, conscious of her hair springing free of her white cap. "If it pleases you, my lord."

"Excellent." He rubbed his hands together. "Return here later this evening and we shall see how a chambermaid's duties may be further amended."

*

What should she do?

Kitty was distracted by that question all afternoon. Her attention wandered so far from her chores that Cook had to speak to her severely to prevent her burning the sweetmeats.

How could she go alone to the earl's solar and sing for him? The very idea was preposterous, yet it was what he had asked of her. And she was a servant in his employ. Again and again her thoughts returned to the conclusion that a genuine servant would have no choice but to comply. Twice she nearly blurted out her problems into Cook's kindly ear, but to do so would invite further conversation which might risk revealing her true identity—and with it, the fact of her father's wager.

She simply couldn't do it. Her shame was too great to say the sordid words out loud.

"Kitty, are you listening to me?"

She dropped the soup ladle in shock. "Sorry, Cook."

"You're away with the fairies this eve," Cook tutted.

"I'm sorry." Kitty bent to recover the ladle then placed her palms down on the scrubbed pine table to centre herself in the room.

"I was asking if you wanted to join Agnes and myself on a trip to the market tomorrow."

Cook's words made no sense to Kitty's tormented mind.

"It's our half day," the older woman reminded her gently. "And market day over in Rossfarne."

Market day in Rossfarne. The notion was from another life entirely. A life she dared not step back into, not yet. What if she saw someone she knew?

Kitty gathered her wits. "It's kind of you to offer, but I must use the time to do some mending." It was true enough. Her stockings were full of holes.

Cook shrugged. "Suit yourself. If you're finished with the soup you can take it up for Thomas."

"No need, I'm here." The earl's manservant shouldered past Kitty in his haste to pick up the tray and be gone from the kitchen.

"I don't think he likes me very much," Kitty remarked as his heavy footsteps resounded up the servants' stairs.

"Thomas likes no one," Agnes stated, spinning a rolling pin between her sticky hands.

"He's devoted to his lordship though," Cook said conversationally. "He served him all through the Welsh wars. It seems neither of them are enjoying life away from the battlefield."

Kitty stopped slicing bread and listened closely. So it was true. The Earl of Rossfarne was a knight.

"He'll be gone as soon as the old man's affairs are in order," Cook concluded.

Agnes shuffled closer to both of them and checked over her shoulder to ensure they were alone. "Gwen told me he'd been robbed."

"Robbed?" Cook wiped her hands on her apron. "Where did she hear such a thing?"

"Thomas told one of the grooms." Agnes swiped a sweetmeat from the platter which Kitty had carefully arranged.

"I told you before, I want no gossip in my kitchen."

Agnes held up her hand. "But it affects us all. If his lordship can't pay his tithes to old Longshanks, we'll all be looking for a new position."

Kitty held her breath. Was this why the earl had need of her family jewels?

"Nonsense." Cook resumed her work. "That Gwen is filling your head with fanciful tales. I thought better of you, Agnes."

Agnes merely shrugged. Kitty had observed before how Cook's scolding washed straight over her.

"How are you getting on with the marzipan?" Cook demanded.

"Terrible." Agnes pursed her lips. "I haven't the knack for it. Mayhap Kitty should try?"

"Aye, mayhap she should. Go on then, off with you, Agnes. Kitty, come here and help me."

Kitty was conscious of time passing. The earl would be expecting her upstairs at any moment, but she had no choice but to follow Cook and take over the rolling of the marzipan, which Agnes had made such a terrible mess of.

"She's a wily one," commented Cook as they both gathered up the sticky dough. "She thinks I don't know what she's about."

Kitty looked up in surprise, and Cook gave her a wink.

"Agnes can dress a cake with marzipan as well as you or I, she just pretends to have no knack for it so she can retire early."

Kitty cut a neat circle of marzipan and spread the cake with jam to make it stick. "It's a fine idea," she commented, biting her lip as her mind started to whirl.

"Fine indeed, but cunning as a fox." Cook sighed. "Thank goodness for you, Kitty. You're a good worker and honest as the day is long."

Kitty hid her flush of shame by concentrating hard on trimming the excess marzipan with a blunt knife. She spun the cake around to check all was level and was grateful when Cook finally bustled off to the pantry.

Alone in the kitchen, she straightened up and carefully positioned the knife on the sideboard. Cook had embarrassed her, but also given her the beginnings of an idea.

The earl had instructed her to sing for him, but that didn't mean she had to sing well. Kitty licked her fingers, liking her plan. She would attend his solar, as requested, but she would make sure he never made such a request again.