A Whisper of Rosemary Read Online Free PDF Page B

by a blazing fire. The serf who tended the fire during the night slept curled on his pallet in the corner, near enough to tell if the flames lowered.
     
    “ Papa!” she exclaimed softly, aware of the pallets for the men-at-arms that lay just on the other side of a screen of blankets. “What are you doing, still awake? You should be resting,” she lectured. Nevertheless, she was relieved and delighted to see him.
     
    “ Daughter,” he looked up from a chessboard. “I’d begun to worry about you, but Father Abraham’s servant sent to me that the birthing was difficult.”
     
    Maris lowered herself into her mother’s chair and gratefully took the chunk of bread her father offered her. “Aye—’twas two babes. Two boys. They are well and squalling, and overjoyed to be in this world.”
     
    “’ Tis good work you do, Maris. You are good to the people here, and I’m proud of you.”
     
    She felt herself swell with pride at her father’s words, and tears glinted at the corners of her eyes when she saw the smile on his face. “Thank you Papa. You know that I love Langumont, and its people, above all—save you, of course.”
     
    Merle shifted in his heavy chair. “Maris, I nearly didn’t live to see you again,” he said, returning his gaze to her. “I was sorely injured, and were it not for the grace of God and the assistance of another man, I should have been left on the field to die. ’Tis why my return was so delayed.”
     
    “ But Papa, why did you not send word? I would have come—”
     
    He smiled, patting her hand. “I know you would have, daughter, and I couldn’t have had a better one to nurse me back to health than you. I didn’t send word because I didn’t wish to worry your mother.” He sighed and released her hand to stroke his beard. “As I lay there, determined to live, I realized that had I perished, I should have left you and your mother alone and unprotected. And Langumont unprotected.”
     
    Unease crept over her. What was he trying to say “We wouldn’t be unprotected, Papa. Sir Raymond is here, and….” She trailed off and folded her hands in her lap, looking at herb stained skin and scratched fingers. The hands of a maidservant, not a great lady.
     
    “’ Tis time you were wed, Maris,” he told her quietly, but with a firmness in his voice that brooked no disobedience.
     
    Her gaze snapped up to him as horror shot through her. “But I do not wish to wed, Papa!”
     
    “ I know that,” he responded, his words steady, “but wed you will, Maris. And by Christ’s Mass next.”
     
    “ Nay!” The denial sprang from her lips in a whisper.
     
    He appeared not to hear her. “I’ve sifted through the many suitors that have inquired for your hand—”
     
    “ You misspeak yourself, Papa, they inquire not for my hand but for my lands . Nothing more than that,” Maris said wryly, swallowing back the heavy lump in her throat. “Would that you had heirs other than me, that I could choose my husband.”
     
    He gave a short laugh. “If you were to choose your husband, that occasion would never happen!”
     
    “ But Papa—”
     
    Merle’s bushy eyebrows furrowed and he raised a silencing hand. “You’re the heiress to Langumont, Maris. Lady of Firmain and Cleonis. You cannot disown your heritage, and your husband must be worthy of you.” He leaned toward her, his blue eyes serious. “I have made certain that you are lady of the lands in your own right. ’Tis writ, and I would not wish to see you lose that power. You will rule in your own right, just as our queen yet does—but a husband is needed to ensure that you remain able to do so.”
     
    “ Papa, have you not allowed me to learn to ride and hunt as well as a man? Have you not insisted that I learn to read and write so I can keep my own accounts? Yet you feel that I am not able to retain hold of my own lands without a husband.” She looked imploringly at her father, her small hand resting over