He was suddenly struck with inspiration. “No one will kill you. I will taste your food.” He beamed at her. There was a wide space between his two front teeth. He habitually cleaned between those teeth with his tongue. “No one can poison you if I taste your food before you do.”
She sighed and turned away, saying over her shoulder, “I am with child, Beamis. You wish my child to die as well? Lord Fawke’s grandson?”
He cursed, spat in a mud puddle, kicked a roving chicken, and cursed some more at Gilbert the goat, who was chewing on a long strap of old leather. He wanted to strangle that goat with that leather strap. But the goat gave milk. Hastings would need the milk so the child would remain healthy in her womb.
He plowed his thick fingers through grizzled black hair. “I would be undone. Lord Severin would kill me were he to find out. And how would
he not know? You would be gone from Oxborough and so would I. The roads are dangerous. There are more outlaws between here and the southern coast than men guarding King Edward. I could not sufficiently protect you. Besides, I would be dead because Lord Severin would kill me.”
Hastings didn’t believe Severin would precisely kill Beamis, but what could she say to that? She would have to travel alone. But she didn’t know where Rosehaven was.
? ^ ?
She patted Beamis’s arm as she said, “You are right. I did not think this through. I will not ask you again. It was not fair of me.”
Beamis wasn’t stupid. He had known Hastings since she was a child. He’d watched her grow up. He looked thoroughly alarmed. “You will not go by yourself, will you, Hastings? By Saint Albert’s toenails, promise me you’ll not go to this Rosehaven alone.”
“How could I? I have no idea where Rosehaven is.” Well, she did know that it was near Canterbury, but that was all. There was probably quite a lot near Canterbury.
He looked vastly relieved. “No, you do not.” He even looked skyward and she imagined he was giving thanks to God.
She found Severin with Torric the steward. There was no longer any distrust between them since Torric had told him about Rosehaven. Sev-
erin looked up, recognized that stubborn look on her face, and sighed. He left Torric, took her arm, and walked beside her outside the keep into the inner bailey. “You wish to apologize to me? You wish to kiss me again in front of our people and Gilbert the goat? Mayhap you could caress me with your hands?”
Severin rather thought she would do none of these things. She looked more likely to spit in his eye. She said, “You know that it is not safe for the Sedgewick people to return yet. It is another sennight, at least, to be safe.”
“Aye.”
“I know you do not wish to leave Lady Marjorie. Thus I would ask that you allow me to take some of your men and travel to Rosehaven. I will find out who is living there and what hold there was over my father.”
“Why would I not wish to leave Lady Marjorie?”
“Because you doubtless love her.”
“I do not love any woman, Hastings. You know that. I would have given my life for her at one time, but I was only a boy. I have not enjoyed her for many years. Aye, then she was a boy’s dream.”
He had joined to her when he had been just a boy? Before he had gone
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to the Holy Land? “Do not lie to me, Severin. There is no need. I merely wish to leave. You can seat her in my place and give her my gowns. She can sleep with you in my bed.”
“I can do that with you here. No. You will remain at Oxborough and see to your duties. When I decide we will go to Rosehaven, then we will
go-”
He turned from her and walked back into the keep. She didn’t think,
just picked up a stone that lay near her feet and hurled it at him. It missed him, but not by much, loudly striking the stone wall of the keep and cracking in two. He turned more quickly than she believed a man could move. He already held a knife poised in his hand. He stared at her, stared down at the stone that had come close to striking him in the back.