Chapter Thirteen

There he was.

Astoria had been waiting for him. Dressed in her finest, as Lady Isabel had asked of all of her ladies, she was standing near the hall entry with Davina and Helen and Primrose. The four of them were greeting the men as they entered and directing them to tables. The rest of the ladies were at the dais, making sure cups of wine were full and generally seeing to the management of the hall. Lady Isabel would not allow them to wander amongst the soldiers’ tables, but they were allowed to be on the outskirts of the room and to dance with the men provided they kept a safe distance from them.

This evening, the rumor that Lord de Honiton’s son was in attendance had been flying from mouth to mouth. Ines and Marceline, Primrose and Theodora were all atwitter about it. It seemed that the loss of Douglas de Lohr was quickly forgotten with the idea of fresh meat in their midst, so they were all quite eager for a glimpse of Raymond de Honiton.

But Astoria saw him first.

And she would put her plan into action.

Now, it was more than simply getting even with Mira. It was more than punishing her for taking Douglas away. After Douglas told Lady Isabel about the broken necklace that afternoon, Astoria was going to get even with Douglas, too. It was clear that he’d been turned against her before she’d even had the chance to entice him, and that made him her enemy. The whole situation was veering out of her control and she was struggling to gain the upper hand on everything.

This was her chance.

Now, the very man who was going to unknowingly help her exact her petty revenge was in front of her. Without a word, she broke away from the group of young ladies and made her way to Raymond as he entered the hall. He stepped in, taking in the miasma of smoke and warmth and hum of conversation, and she blocked his path before dropping into a deep curtsy.

“My lord,” she said. “I hope that you would remember me. I was here when you were a page at Axminster. My name is Astoria de Luzie.”

Raymond was annoyed that the girl had nearly tripped him in her haste to introduce herself, and he looked at her impatiently.

“Nay, I do not remember you,” he said. “Where is my father?”

That was a stab to Astoria’s ego, but she pushed it aside. Instead, she pointed to the dais. “Over there,” she said. “He is with Lady Isabel and Sir Eric and Sir Douglas. He is also with Lady Mira. Surely you remember her.”

Suddenly, Raymond didn’t appear so impatient. “D’Avignon?” he said. “Mira d’Avignon?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“She’s still here?”

“Aye, my lord,” she said. “She is in the market for a husband these days, though she is rather old. And she remembers you, because I heard her say that she hopes for a dance with you tonight.”

In a few short seconds, Raymond went from annoyed to interested. Years may have passed since he was last at Axminster, years of training and warfare, but other than getting bigger and stronger and more experienced as a warrior, he was still the same Raymond. The core of the lad that once was had never changed. Truthfully, he’d never even thought of the fair Mira d’Avignon when he arrived, assuming she’d long since moved on, so this bit of news was most surprising.

And encouraging.

Perhaps it would be a pleasant night after all.

“Is that so?” he said after a moment. “Is she still pretty?”

“Some say so, my lord.”

“Good,” he said, pushing past her. “I’ll see for myself.”

As he headed off toward the dais through the crowded hall, Astoria watched him go, a pleased expression on her face.

“What trouble are you up to?”

The question was whispered in her ear, and Astoria turned to see Helen beside her. As the woman eyed her suspiciously, Astoria’s smile vanished.

“No trouble at all,” she said. “But I remembered, long ago, that Raymond was rather fond of Mira. I thought he might like to see her again.”

Helen scowled. “Fond of her?” she said. “I remember him pinching her and trying to force himself on her. Lady Isabel was going to send him away when his father mercifully sent him to Kenilworth. The man is an animal!”

Astoria shrugged. “That is of no concern to me,” she said. “But it will be a concern to Mira. I wonder what Douglas will think of her when someone like Raymond shows her attention?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Astoria pretended to be uninterested in the entire conversation. “Nothing,” she said. “Or everything. Mayhap he’ll see Mira for the whore she is.”

Helen grunted, shaking her head in disgust. “If you do not stop your harassment of Mira, not only will I tell Lady Isabel, but I will also tell Mira,” she said. “I saw Douglas scold you today. You’ll get far worse than that if you start something.”

Astoria whirled on her, yanking the braid that was draped over her shoulder. “You’ll do no such thing!”

Helen gasped at the pain of the tug, retaliating by stomping so hard on Astoria’s toes that the woman howled in agony. That brought Davina running to separate them.

“Stop!” Davina hissed. “Stop or Lady Isabel will send you both out of here and punish you for embarrassing her in front of her visitors. Behave!”

Astoria was already limping away, removing herself from Helen and Davina, who were not on her side. But it didn’t really matter anymore. She did what she’d set out to do.

The wheels were in motion.

The night was about to get interesting.

*

Clad in a gown of green silk that was nearly the color of her eyes, Mira was combed and braided, her hair wound like a crown upon her head and the cross pendant from the necklace pinned to the bodice. Even if she couldn’t wear it as a necklace at the moment, she still wanted to honor Douglas by wearing it, so she and Helen had pinned it carefully at the base of her neckline. It was in the same location it would have been had she worn the necklace. With some of Davina’s rose perfume behind her ears and gently daubed on her hair, she presented a magnificent picture.

Funny how she’d never put a huge amount of stock in her appearance. Of course, she was always neatly dressed and clean, but doing anything elaborate was something she had never been particularly adept at. But tonight, it was different. In a few short days she had gone from an unattached woman to a lady with a suitor. That was new territory for her, but one that left her giddy with delight. In fact, Mira wasn’t sure she could eat a bite tonight because her stomach was in knots, but not bad knots.

On the contrary.

She was very much looking forward to the feast.

The night at Axminster Castle had settled into a cool but brilliant evening. A smattering of stars brushed across the sky and night birds could be heard in the distance as the soldiers walked the walls with torches in hand, staying vigilant while a great feast went on in the glowing hall. Lord de Honiton had only brought about twenty men to the feast with him, leaving the rest out in the central bailey cooking their supper over an open fire, but the hall was packed with Axminster, de Lohr, and some de Winter men.

It was a full house.

Somehow, Mira couldn’t remember an evening so beautiful. Food smelled better and the light and warmth from the hall was somehow brighter than it had ever been. She’d arrived early to ensure that the visitors were taken care of, but Lady Isabel was already there, so Mira simply made sure the dais was properly set.

She’d never met Lord de Honiton, and as she stood at the edge of the table making sure everything was in order, she couldn’t help but watch the man as he spoke to Isabel. He seemed happy, and congenial, and nothing like the son Mira remembered. Somehow, as the years passed, she had built Raymond up in her mind to be something akin to a monster. She honestly didn’t remember much about him, only the apprehension she’d felt every single day as she went about her duties when he was around.

For quite some time, that had been a nightmare.

But it hadn’t always been that way.

When Raymond was young, he hadn’t been so bold. He was younger than Mira was, a little slip of a boy with a wild crown of dark hair and enormous brown eyes. He was almost angelic looking when he first came, but that quickly changed when his behavior began to come to light. He hadn’t been there more than a few months before he decided Mira was meant for him.

That was when the assaults began.

At first, they had been benign. He was a young boy, so he didn’t have the grasp of a more mature man when it came to wooing a woman. His attempts had amounted to nothing more than leaving her bunches of wilted field flowers or bringing her an egg or something of that nature. Mira had been polite at first, and that had been her mistake because he’d taken that as a sign of interest when there was none. His little gifts had gone on for a year or two, and her second mistake had been keeping any of them. She should have simply given them all back, but she didn’t.

As he began to mature, the situation grew worse.

Mira remembered the first time he pinched her on the behind. She had been so startled that she hadn’t reacted other than to yelp. He had grinned devilishly at her, thinking it was a game or perhaps even that she liked it, and her third mistake had been not stopping that behavior immediately. At first she simply ignored it, and when that didn’t work, she politely told him to stop. He ignored the request and continued pinching her any chance he got. She finally had to tell Lady Isabel, who had to see it for herself before she took action. When the punishment began, that was when the situation turned positively ugly.

The pinching became vindictive. When that wasn’t enough, he graduated to groping her at any opportunity. He would wait for her in the shadows of the keep, where the pages were not allowed, and when she walked by, he would reach out and grab any piece of flesh he could. Sometimes it was her stomach, sometimes just an arm. But there had been times, more than once, when he’d managed to get a handful of her breast. Lady Isabel, who hadn’t been entirely pleased with having the boy around anyway, took the opportunity to force her brother to send word to Lord de Honiton with the threat that the lad would be sent home if he couldn’t behave.

Lord de Honiton had ignored her. It was the worst it had ever been the last year Raymond was at Axminster. Mira hadn’t told Douglas just how bad because, frankly, she was embarrassed that it had gotten so terrible. Raymond, who by this time had gotten quite big and was growing strong, would wait for the opportunity to grab her from behind. More than once, he had pulled her into an alcove and held her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe while one hand wandered over her breasts and moved down between her legs. He never actually went under her skirts, but he would grope her through the fabric. The first time he’d done it, she screamed and Raymond was badly punished, but after that he grew smarter. He would grab her and try to put his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t yell. She took to carrying a dagger with her everywhere she went and finally had cause to use it one night when he grabbed her in the hall and she stabbed him in the hand.

That was when Raymond was no longer allowed in the hall or the keep. Thankfully for all of them, his father sent an escort to Axminster about that time with the news that Raymond would be moving to Kenilworth Castle to be trained by the master knights. It had been quite fortuitous, and the timing could not have been better because Mira was quite certain that she was going to have to kill the man to keep him off her.

And then he was gone.

Nay, she hadn’t told Douglas about any of that because, as she suspected, he was a man who was serious about the defense of women, and in particular any woman who meant something to him. Douglas was chivalrous to the bone, so she didn’t tell him the depths of Raymond’s debauchery because she thought Douglas might simply go after the man and kill him for those offenses he’d committed those years ago. She didn’t want Raymond’s death anymore, but she did want him to leave Axminster as quickly as he could.

But she had to get through the night first.

Still, Mira felt very safe with Douglas in the hall. He gave her the courage to attend, to be in the same room with a man who had assaulted her in the past. Quite truthfully, had Douglas not been there, she would not have even got into the hall at all. But he was there, and she knew that nothing bad could happen to her as long as he was around. Given that she’d only known him a total of six weeks, it was a remarkable and unique feeling.

But one she wholly embraced.

Douglas had shown up to the hall with Eric just as most of the men were arriving. In fact, Lord de Honiton arrived about the same time, and the three of them walked to the dais together. Lord de Honiton was friendly, and good conversation, and he settled down with Douglas and Eric at the head of the table as servants provided them with the fine Burgundy wine. Mira hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Douglas since he arrived, as the man was clean and shaven, his long blond hair neatly combed and flowing free, and he wore a dark blue tunic that emphasized his muscular arms and chest.

Of course she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

Why would she even want to?

But she didn’t speak to him because he was entertaining Lady Isabel’s guest and she didn’t want to interrupt. She had been trained to be a perfectly good hostess, and in Lady Isabel’s world, women were seen but not heard. Therefore, Mira remained mostly in the shadows, watching the head table as well as the room to ensure that everything was running smoothly.

Unfortunately, that had been a mistake.

“Lady Mira?”

Mira heard her name, turning just in time to see Raymond nearly upon her. Startled, she gasped and stepped away, feeling the familiar terror flooding back. Those years of being able to push it aside and eventually forget were gone in an instant as he smiled at her, his brown eyes glittering.

“I knew it was you,” he said before she could answer. “I was told you were still here. I did not believe it, however. Surely some man would have married you by now. But here you are—and more beautiful than I remember.”

That voice. It sent chills of terror through her. Mira backed up, trying to stay out of arm’s length.

“W-welcome to Axminster, my lord,” she said. Quickly, she indicated the dais. “Your father is waiting for you. Lady Isabel has ordered the fine wine brought forth, so I hope it is to your liking.”

She was moving away from him already, but he reached out and grasped her by the arm. In a panic, she yanked her arm free and whirled on him.

“Don’t touch me,” she spat. “If you do that again, I shall scream and bring the entire hall running.”

He looked at her as he had no idea what she meant. “I was simply going to ask if you would sit with me,” he said. “I’m told you’ve not forgotten me. I’ve certainly not forgotten you. Mayhap I can convince my father to stay another day or two while we come to know each other once again.”

Mira’s heart was beating painfully against her ribs, her throat tight with fear. “That will not be necessary, my lord,” she said. “Please come with me.”

“Mira?” Raymond asked pleadingly. “Whatever is the matter? What have I done?”

She stopped to look at him. Knowing that Douglas was only a scream away fed her bravery. What have I done? As if he didn’t know. It was a question that brought rage because he sounded so innocent.

It inflamed her.

“How can you ask that question?” she said, her voice trembling. “I had hoped I was well rid of you, but here you are again. I’d hoped you would have at least matured during your years at Kenilworth, but still, you grab me when you should not. Mayhap you have learned nothing at all, so I will tell you plainly. I spent years being terrified of you.”

He looked at her as if shocked. “What?” he said, incredulous. “What did I do to frighten you?”

Mira looked at him as if he was daft. “Grab me,” she said. “Pinch me, fondle me, kiss me. You were horrid and incorrigible. I want you to go to the dais and sit down and leave me alone. We have no friendship to rekindle.”

He wasn’t as daft as he was pretending. He knew why she was behaving this way. A lazy smile spread over his lips. “I thought you’d forgotten all of that,” he said. “It was just child’s play.”

“Child’s play?”

“Of course,” he said. “I was a young man. Young and foolish. Can you not understand that?”

Mira didn’t believe for one moment that he’d changed. She could tell by looking at him that he was still the same Raymond. With nothing to say to him, she simply turned for the dais.

“If you will come with me, please,” she said, struggling not to tremble, “I am obligated to show you Axminster hospitality.”

She approached the head table, and Raymond remained where she left him for a brief moment before following. Mira avoided eye contact with him and made sure to stay several feet away as he sat down next to his father. A servant provided him with the special wine, and after that, Mira’s job was done. She moved back into the shadows to observe and manage. But Raymond kept his eye on her.

It wasn’t over as far as he was concerned.

None of it.

*

“Something terrible is going to happen tonight,” Helen said.

She and Davina were still by the entry door to catch any stragglers who entered. Lady Isabel liked order, and if any more de Honiton men entered, she wanted to ensure they were properly directed.

So far, however, the entry doors remained closed and the hall was quite full. A layer of blue smoke hung up near the ceiling even though the fireplace had a chimney, but there was a crack somewhere that let the smoke out. The food was beginning to come from the kitchens, with great hunks of boiled beef placed on the tables along with slabs of bread, butter, and bowls of beans and carrots. For the dais, the servants brought forth roasted birds that had their feathers restored to create the illusion of living creatures.

In all, it was a glorious display, befitting Isabel’s reputation.

Even at a moment’s notice, she could produce the finest feast in all the land. While she joined those at the dais and her ladies were relegated to a table just below the head table, Helen and Davina were still near the entry. Helen’s words echoed in Davina’s ears.

“Why would you say that?” Davina wanted to know. “What is going to happen?”

Helen was watching Astoria, who was where she wasn’t supposed to be—mingling with the soldiers. She had servants with her, and together, they were handing out food and ensuring the men had enough to eat and drink, but Helen knew it was a ruse.

“Astoria,” she said simply. “She is up to something.”

Davina caught sight of her, too, speaking to some of the soldiers as she handed them food. “She is going to get her ears boxed by Lady Isabel,” she said. “She knows Isabel does not like us to mingle with the men.”

Helen shook her head. “It is more than that,” she said. “Did you see Raymond come in earlier?”

“Aye,” Davina said. “I saw Astoria speaking to her.”

Helen sighed heavily. “I heard what she said,” she muttered. “She told him that Mira still spoke fondly of him and would like to dance with him.”

Davina’s eyes widened. “She said that?”

Helen nodded. “She is trying to cause trouble with Mira,” she said. “But she is playing with fire by telling Raymond that. You remember what he used to do to Mira.”

Davina nodded solemnly. “I do,” she said. “Oh, I do. We must tell Lady Isabel right away.”

Helen shook her head. “Astoria will only deny it,” she said. “I fear that something must happen before her wicked scheme will be discovered and she can be disciplined without question. Astoria is out for blood. Mira’s blood.”

They continued to watch Astoria as she finished helping with the food, but that didn’t stop her from remaining to chat with the men. A lone lutist began to play over near the hearth, a man who lived at Axminster and whose sole purpose was to play at mealtimes because Lady Isabel loved music. The man was old, but he was very good, and this was a steady job for him. Everyone at the castle knew him. But neither Davina nor Helen were paying attention to the music. They were watching Astoria, who was speaking to the men and, once or twice, pointed to the dais.

The warning bells were going off in Helen’s head.

“Mayhap I should tell Mira,” she said. “I think she should go to our chamber and stay there for the night. With Astoria on the loose, she should not be here.”

Their focus inevitably moved to Mira at the dais. She had been seated between Lady Isabel and Eric because everyone had been served food and she could take the time to eat, but that had been short-lived. She was up again, managing the servants at the edge of the room. Davina had the same opinion as Helen did. They didn’t trust Astoria—no one did—but other than what Helen had heard, they couldn’t prove that Astoria did say it. As Helen said, she would only deny it.

Still…

“I do not know if we should,” Helen said. “It may make things worse, and we will be blamed.”

Davina grunted. “How?”

Helen pointed to the dais. “Because Lady Isabel has guests,” she said. “She will never forgive us for causing trouble whilst she has guests.”

Davina knew that. The experience that guests had at Axminster was paramount to Isabel, and two whining young women, complaining about another young woman, would not go over well. Even if there was a good reason behind it.

Heavily, she sighed.

The pendulum to warn Mira was now swinging in the other direction.

“Then all we can do is keep an eye on Astoria ourselves,” Davina said. “If it looks as if she is going to harm Mira, then we will stop her.”

Helen nodded firmly. “And do it so Lady Isabel does not notice and become angry with us.”

Davina couldn’t disagree. “Is there any way we can simply remove Astoria from the hall?” she said, half jesting and half not. “She is the problem, not Mira. Mayhap we can lock her in the vault and forget she is there.”

Helen looked at her. “That may not be a terrible idea,” she said. “What if we can lure her to the vault and lock the door?”

“Then she will cry to Lady Isabel and we would be punished.”

“Not if we deny it,” Helen said. “It would be our word against hers.”

“Our word and the word of anyone who saw us drag her down to the vault,” Davina pointed out. “Nay, Helen. I believe the thing to do is to watch Astoria and protect Mira if we can. Anything else will cause too much trouble and we will end up being punished—not Astoria.”

Helen nodded in resignation. “We will take turns watching her, then,” she said. “I told Mira I would help ensure that the kitchens continue to run smoothly, so I must go there for a while. Will you stay here?”

Davina had her eye on Astoria still speaking with the men. “I will not let her out of my sight.”

Helen knew she meant it, too, but the situation was frustrating at best. When they should be practicing their chatelaine skills, they were forced to keep an eye on a woman who was intent on creating havoc. Maybe. The unpredictability was the worst part. Would she… or wouldn’t she?

God help them, no one trusted Astoria.

At this point, it was a waiting game.