An audible gasp greeted the soft taunt. The onlookers edged closer.
Calvert blanched. He cast a hurried glance at Hugh and then quickly returned to his tirade. “Do not twist my words, my lady. ‘Tis a fact that flame-haired women are known to possess shrewish tempers.”
“I have heard it said that although Hugh’s temper is difficult to arouse, ‘tis akin to the darkest of storms once it is raised,” Alice murmured. “Surely a man who possesses such a temper of his own need not flee a lady’s ill humors.”
Calvert sputtered furiously. He seemed to be having great difficulty finding words.
Hugh decided the combat had continued long enough. The monk stood no chance against Alice.
“You have the right of it, madam,” Hugh said easily. “Furthermore, I would have you know that there are other parts of me that can be aroused and raised up with far less effort than it takes to coax forth my temper. I trust that you will discover those parts to be far more entertaining.”
Laughter flowed through the crowd.
Alice scowled with confusion. Clearly she did not immediately comprehend his meaning. Then she turned a pretty shade of pink.
“Really, my lord,” she muttered repressively.
Calvert, meanwhile, turned an interesting shade of purple. For a moment Hugh wondered if the man’s bulging eyes would literally pop out of his head.
The monk glowered at Alice in outrage and then whirled toward Hugh. “Beware a woman who will not submit herself to the guidance of men, my lord. Such a woman will cause naught but trouble in your household.”
Hugh grinned. “Do not concern yourself, monk. I do not fear my betrothed’s tongue. Indeed, I find her speech … interesting”
More chuckles sounded from the villagers.
Calvert was not amused. He shook his staff at Hugh. “My lord, attend me. I speak as your religious counselor. If you would marry this woman, you must first learn to govern her. I tell you, your life will become a hellish existence if this lady is not taught to conduct herself in a proper and fit manner.”
Alice rolled her eyes toward heaven.
Hugh looked at her and raised his voice so that all could hear him. “Be assured that I am willing to take my betrothed lady exactly as she is. Indeed, I look forward to doing so at the earliest opportunity.”
There was another round of laughter, mostly male this time. Hugh thought he saw Prioress Joan suppress a grin. Most of the nuns gathered behind her were smiling broadly. The exception was Katherine. Hugh doubted if anything could alter Katherine’s eternally solemn countenance.
It was Joan who moved to divert everyone’s attention. She raised a palm. Silence descended on the villagers.
“Welcome, my lady,” she said to Alice in a clear, calm voice. “I am the prioress of this convent. The well-being of this religious house is linked to the well-being of this manor. I am pleased to know that the new lord of Scarcliffe has taken steps to ensure the future of these lands.”
Alice slid off her palfrey without any warning. She was on the ground, walking toward Joan, before Hugh realized her intention. He dismounted slowly, wondering what she was going to do next. Alice would never be predictable, he thought.
She went straight past Calvert as though the monk were invisible. Then to Hugh’s and everyone else’s surprise, Alice knelt gracefully in the mud in front of Joan.
“Thank you for your gracious welcome, my lady,” Alice said. “I ask your blessing on Sir Hugh and myself and on all the inhabitants of these lands.”
Hugh heard the murmur of appreciation from those around him.
Joan made the sign of the cross. “You have my blessing and my promise to assist you in your new duties to this manor, Lady Alice.”
“Thank you, madam.” Alice rose with complete disregard for the mud that now stained her traveling cloak.
As he went forward to take Alice’s arm, Hugh saw Calvert’s face contort into a mask of fury. The monk had been unmistakably rebuffed in front of one and all by the new lady of the manor.
Alice’s triumph was complete. She had made it clear that so far as she was concerned the person who held true religious authority here on Scarcliffe was Prioress Joan. That fact would not be lost on anyone present.
Joan looked at Hugh with a measure of concern in her gentle eyes. “Will you return the green stone to its vault in the convent, my lord?”
“Nay,” Hugh said. “The task of protecting the stone is mine. I shall take it to Scarcliffe Keep, where I can make certain that it is secure.”
“An excellent notion, my lord.” Joan did not trouble to hide her relief. “I am delighted to see the green crystal given into the care of its rightful guardian.”
Hugh took a firm grip on Alice’s arm. “It has been a long journey. I must take my lady to her new home.”
“Aye, my lord.” Joan moved back to the shelter of the gatehouse.
Hugh handed Alice back up into the saddle and then he remounted his own horse. He raised his hand to signal the company to set off toward the keep.
“That was very nicely handled,” Hugh said for Alice’s ears alone. “The prioress is the one person on these lands in whom the villagers place some degree of confidence. She and her women have seen to many of the basic necessities around here while the previous lords have come and gone.”
“I believe that I shall like her very much,” Alice said. “But I cannot say the same for the monk. He may be a man of God, but I find him extremely annoying.”
“You are not alone. I don’t believe Prioress Joan cares much for him either, although in her position she must tolerate him. Calvert does possess a certain zeal for lecturing women on their duties and frailties, does he not?”
“Bah. I have met his kind before. He is not concerned for the salvation of women’s souls. He is merely frightened of females and seeks to weaken them by suppressing their spirits with remonstrations and sour speeches.”
Hugh smiled. “Aye, no doubt.”
Alice frowned in thought. “You seem to have satisfied your people with the manner in which you carried out the terms of the legend, sir.”
“Aye, a nuisance, but ‘tis finished.” Hugh was cheered by that fact. “Now I can get on with more important matters.”
“A nuisance, my lord?” Alice’s brows rose. “I am crushed to learn that. I would remind you that had you not been obliged to search for the green stone, you would not have encountered me. I was under the impression that you were quite pleased to find yourself such an efficient and convenient betrothed.”
Hugh winced. “I did not mean that the way it sounded. I was referring to the business with that damned crystal, not you.”
“Then I am convenient and efficient, after all?” Mischief flashed in her eyes. “I am vastly relieved to know that. I would not want to think that I had failed to uphold my end of our bargain.”
“Alice, I do believe you are trying to bait me the way a small hound teases a bear. I warn you, ‘tis a dangerous game.”
She cleared her throat discreetly. “Aye, well, be that as it may, there is a question concerning the local legend that I have been meaning to ask you.”
“What is that?”
“You said that in addition to protecting the green stone, the true lord of Scarcliffe must discover the rest of the treasure.”
“Aye, what of it?”
“You obviously satisfied your people that you were able to guard the green stone. But how will you go about locating the missing Stones of Scarcliffe? Do you have any notion of where they are?”
“I doubt that they even exist.”
Alice stared at him. “Then how will you find them?”
“I am not concerned with that part of the legend,” Hugh said carelessly. “‘Twas the recovery of the green stone that was most important. Now that I have brought it back to Scarcliffe, the villagers will assume that eventually I shall fulfill the rest of the prophecy. There is no great rush to do so.”
“Eventually someon
e will notice that you have not succeeded in finding the stones, my lord.”
“Once this manor is plump and prosperous, no one will care about those damned stones. If I am ever required to produce a small chest of costly baubles, I shall do so.”
“But how?”
Hugh raised his brows at her naivete. “I shall simply purchase them, of course. I can afford to do so if necessary. ‘Twould be no more costly than a few chests of spices.”
“Aye, mayhap, but they will not be the true Stones of Scarcliffe.”
“Think upon it, Alice,” he said patiently. “No one living today has ever seen any of the so-called Stones of Scarcliffe except the green crystal. Who will know the difference between a bunch of gems purchased from a London merchant and the stones of the legend?”
Alice regarded him with an odd expression, a mix of awe and admiration. Hugh discovered to his surprise that he rather liked it. He basked in the warmth of it for a moment.
“My lord, only a man who is himself a legend could be so casually arrogant about fulfilling the terms of one.”
Hugh grinned. “You think me arrogant? Only a woman who is unafraid of the power of legends herself would dare to strike a bargain with a man believed to be one.”
“I told you that I do not have much faith in legends, sir. I am, however, much impressed by a man who is clever enough to invent whatever he needs to fill in the missing bits and pieces of his own.”
“Thank you. Always pleasant to be admired for one’s wits.”
“There is nothing I admire more than keen wits, my lord.” Alice broke off abruptly to stare straight ahead into the mists. Her eyes widened. “By the wounds of the Saints, is that Scarcliffe Keep?”
Hugh steeled himself. He gazed at the great stone edifice that was emerging from the gloom. “Aye. ‘Tis Scarcliffe.” He paused to give weight to his words. “Your new home, madam.”
“For a while,” she said absently.
“One becomes accustomed to it,” he assured her.
“Indeed?” She studied the keep with curious eyes.
Hugh tried to view it objectively. He had been born in Scarcliffe Keep but he had no memories of the place.
After his beloved daughter had swallowed poison, Hugh’s grandfather had taken his infant grandson to live with a widowed aunt in the north. The old man had lost all heart for the task of managing Scarcliffe. His thoughts had been focused only on revenge. Upon his death, Scarcliffe had fallen into other hands. A great many of them.
Scarcliffe had continued to decline under the succession of greedy, negligent lords.
The keep itself was a dark stone fortress that projected outward from the cliffs that loomed over and around it. It was said that the original owner had intended the structure to last until the crack of doom and it showed every possibility of doing just that.
The walled keep had been fashioned of an unusual black stone. No one whom Hugh had questioned had known where the ashlar had been quarried. Some said the great blocks of onyx-colored stone had been hewn from deep inside the maze of caverns that were etched in the cliffs. Some said it had been brought from a distant land.
“Who built this keep?” Alice asked in a voice that was soft with wonder.
“I am told he was called Rondale.”
“An ancestor of yours?”
“Aye. My mother’s grandfather. It was he who is said to have lost the Stones of Scarcliffe. The legend claims that he hid them in the caves and then was unable to find them.”
“What happened to him?”
“According to the tale he went into the caverns many times in search of the treasure.” Hugh shrugged. “On the last such occasion, he never came back out.”
“‘Tis a most unusual keep,” Alice said politely.
Hugh gazed at it proudly. “A fine, stout fortress that can withstand any siege.”
“It reminds me of the magical castles one hears about in the troubadours’ poems. The sort of place that the knights of the great Round Table were always happening upon in the middle of enchanted forests. It certainly has the aspect of a keep that has been under a sorcerer’s spell.”
She hates it, Hugh thought. The knowledge weighed heavily on him.
The following morning Alice dusted off her new desk and seated herself behind it. She gazed around her with a sense of satisfaction.
The chamber she had chosen to use as a study was located on the highest floor of the keep. It was spacious and filled with a surprising amount of light. There was even a certain grace to the proportions of the room. It was a chamber that would lend itself well to investigations of natural philosophy.
Her books and chests of stones, the tray of dead insects, and her alchemical apparatus had been unpacked and carefully arranged on the nearby shelves and work-tables. The astrolabe was on the windowsill. The green crystal sat on the corner of her desk.
Alice felt curiously at home. In all the months she had lived at Lingwood Hall she had never once known this feeling. She could be happy here, she realized. All she had to do was accept Hugh’s offer to make their betrothal genuine.
All she had to do was marry the man they called Relentless.
All she had to do was wed a man who clearly valued efficiency and convenience far more than he valued love.
She was not at all certain that Hugh even believed in love.
Memories of her mother drifted through her head in silent warning. Helen had once believed she could teach a man to love, Alice thought sadly. She had been wrong.
Alice knew her mother had once been a warm and vibrant woman, a woman passionately in love with her husband. But Bernard had managed to kill that love by treating it callously and by refusing to return it.
Helen had married a man who had never learned to love her. She had paid a steep price. And so had her children.
Alice glanced at the handbook her mother had written. Sometimes she almost hated the thing. It contained much knowledge and the results of painstaking study and correspondence with learned people all over Europe. But Alice and Benedict had suffered a great deal because of it.
Toward the end of her life the handbook had absorbed more and more of Helen’s devotion and attention. There had been very little left for Alice and her brother.
Alice got to her feet and went to the window. The stony cliffs of Scarcliffe brooded over the keep in what could be perceived as either a threatening or a protective fashion.
Yesterday she had been startled by her first view of the forbidding black fortress. There was a bleak strength in it that certainly offered the promise of protection but there was no evidence of warmth or softness in the stark edifice. It suited its new master well, Alice thought. Hugh and his keep had a great deal in common.
But what of Hugh’s heart? Was it as hard and cold as the stone walls of this great fortress? Or was there some hope that she could find some gentleness in him?
Such insidious, seductive thoughts were dangerous to her peace of mind.
She turned away from the window, aware that her own heart was in grave jeopardy. The fact that she was even contemplating the notion of making the betrothal real should have sent a shaft of grave alarm through her.
Aye, she could be happy here, Alice told herself. But the odds were against it.
Best to maintain a certain distance. Best to hold herself apart. Best to keep her emotions safely locked inside.
She must not make the same mistake her mother had made.
Three days later Hugh looked up from his desk to see his new household steward hovering in the doorway. “Aye?”
“Sorry to dis-disturb you, m’lord.” Elbert, a lean, awkward young man possessed of what Hugh perceived to be a very anxious disposition, swallowed several times in an obvious attempt to gather his courage. And to find his tongue. Elbert had an unfortunate tendency to stutter whenever he was in Hugh’s presence.
“What is it, steward?” Hugh put aside his abacus and waited impatiently.
Privately he admitted
that he knew little of the qualifications that were desirable in a household steward. But whatever those qualifications were, Hugh was convinced that Elbert lacked them all. The man was clearly terrified of his new master and was inclined to stumble over his own feet whenever Hugh was in the vicinity.
On top of his other faults, Elbert’s skill at managing the household was not impressive. Although he had seen to it that the chambers were cleaned, the midday meals had been harrowing experiences. Food had arrived from the kitchens cold and poorly spiced. There had been an insufficient number of bread trenchers to serve everyone. The crash of falling ale mugs and overloaded platters had created an unpleasant din.
Hugh was not looking forward to his next meal.
Alice, he noted grimly, had been spared the ordeal. She and Benedict had taken their meals in the chambers that she had claimed for their personal use. Special instructions had been given to the cooks. Hugh had a strong suspicion that she was eating far better than he.
The only reason Hugh had not dismissed Elbert from his new post within an hour after he had been appointed was that Alice had been the one who had chosen the new steward. She had agreed to do so only after Hugh had specifically asked her to assume the task.
He had thought that she would take charge of the entire household. Instead, she had simply selected Elbert, as requested, and then she had returned to her own chambers.
Things were not going according to the stratagem Hugh had so carefully worked out. He was more than willing to give Alice all the responsibility and authority she wished but she did not seem eager to claim it. He was baffled and irritated by the failure of his plan.
“Well?” Hugh prompted when Elbert simply stared at him, openmouthed.
Elbert hastily closed his mouth. “A messenger, m’lord.”
“A messenger?”
“Aye, m’lord.” Elbert straightened his red cap with an awkward gesture. “He arrived a few minutes ago with a letter for you. He says he’s to stay the night.”
“Send him to me, steward.”
“Aye, m’lord.” Elbert backed hurriedly out into the corridor and managed to trip in the process. He caught himself, whirled, and ran down the hall.