A Whisper of Rosemary Read Online Free PDF Page A

daughter?”
     
    “ Aye, my lady. I’ll fetch her.” Widow Maggie’s wrinkled face had smoothed a bit, and relief glowed in her eyes.
     
    “ Oh, my lady, thank’ee for coming.” Thomas was at her feet, tugging profusely at his forelock. “My lady, thank’ee for my sons.”
     
    “ Two strapping boys they’ll be,” Maris said with a smile, and made a mental note to send three chickens and a calf to them from her own stables. “What a good help to you in the shop. But your wife will be poorly for some time. Take care not to work her until Maggie gives the word. Keep the smith’s daughter for a wet nurse as long as you need.”
     
    Then, because the dark room with its stench of blood had finally begun to close in on her, Maris had to get out. She said her last farewells and slipped from the close, smoky hut.
     
    It was dark—Maris looked up in surprise at the moon and stars. She’d spent nearly the whole day in that tiny room. Weariness washed over her, followed by a burst of exhilaration at the realization that she had helped two new babes into the world.
     
    Surely God would rather that she spend her time doing such things, rather than embroidering or even praying on her knees in the chapel—which was what many ladies such as her own mother preferred to do.
     
    Maris’s feet crunched in the snow as she trudged along, considering this n. Clutching her pouch in one cold hand, she tucked the other inside her cloak. The moon was bright in the clear sky, lighting her way almost as if it were day.
     
    The gate to the bailey was just ahead, lit invitingly with torches. Surely Papa would be in bed—and if he weren’t, as his healer, she’d have something to say about that. Thus, tomorrow would be soon enough for them to speak on whatever he meant to tell her.
     
    All at once, Maris was jolted from her thoughts as a huge horse appeared from nowhere. He was coming too quickly down the narrow, deserted throughway, and Maris shrieked, holding up a hand to shield her face.
     
    “’ Sblood, woman!” cried the rider, jerking back frantically on the reins of his mount as soon as he saw her shadowed figure. “Do you not open your eyes when wandering at night?”
     
    Maris’s initial fright turned to anger. No one spoke to the Lady of Langumont in that manner. She turned her face up to meet the eyes of the rider, drawing her shoulders back and lifting her chin haughtily.
     
    The man was a stranger to her, but he was obviously one of high rank. He wore chain mail and rode a horse as valuable as her father’s. Even in the instant of her anger and fright, she took in the details of his appearance: he was tall and broad-shouldered with thick, shadowed hair curling wildly at the nape of his neck. One big hand waved his helm angrily at her while the other fought to keep his mount under control.
     
    “ It was your good fortune that I could stop Nick before we trampled you,” Dirick snapped, altogether too grateful that he had, in fact, seen her slender shadow before it was too late. His heart was thudding in his chest as he realized how close he’d come to trampling the wench.
     
    Christ’s teeth, she’d been walking in the shadows of the narrow throughway, and it was only by luck that a silver of moonbeam had caught at something metallic in her hair, glinting and alerting him to the movement.
     
    Looking down, he noted her dirt streaked face and sagging hair. In the bright moonlight, he could see her eyes flashing at him—rather like his mother’s cats when they were angry: spitting and hissing. Yet, despite her bedraggled appearance, the woman had an air of affront that did not befit a simple peasant wench.
     
    A comely one, she would be, however, if she were cleaned up a bit, he realized suddenly, allowing his gaze to do a leisurely sweep over her from head to toe. Mayhap that was just what he needed after these days’ journey ahorse…and mayhap that was why she walked on the road alone so late at