Coulter, Catherine. Rosehaven / Catherine Coulter.

He felt more relief than he was willing to admit when he saw her on her knees, garbed in an old woolen green gown, sweat between her shoulder blades, working the soil in her herb garden that stood fenced in beside a small pear orchard. All around the fence were blossoming flowers. He recognized the blood-red roses, tall, the blooms incredibly large. And the daisies, with their bright yellow centers and stark white ray flowers. And so many more he couldn’t begin to put a name to. As for her herb garden, it was neatly plotted, the different plants carefully set inside a rectangle, all of them looked healthy, many ready to harvest.

He shook his head. Who cared about her herb garden? The storm had blown itself out. The morning sun was brilliant, the sky clear. She hadn’t heard him. He supposed with all the noise surrounding her nearly every hour of the day, it wasn’t surprising. Ah, but she would learn to hear him. Soon, when he came to her, she would be on her feet, her eyes lowered, ready to curtsy when he drew near enough. Her hair was braided into a thick single rope that hung down her back. He stepped over the protective wooden fence and stood over her, his shadow cast long and dark. She looked to be working furiously.

Hastings loved the damp earth on her hands, the feel of it, knowing her precious herbs would thrive. She sat back on her heels for a moment, looking at her patch of thriving rosemary. The pleasure she felt working in her garden helped just a bit to ease her soul-deep anger at the blow he’d dealt her. It was absurd, this excuse of his that Richard de Luci could somehow sneak into Oxborough and take her.

She heard movement behind her and said without turning from what

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she was doing, “Is that you, Tuggle? Please bring me Marella. I would ride out in an hour or so.”

“I think not.”

She whipped about so quickly, she fell on her bottom. “You,” she said, and if that was too much, she quickly added, “Watch where you step. That is rosemary beside your foot. Don’t crush it.”

He moved away from the rosemary. “I care not about this rosemary. It is a silly name, a female’s name. Why is the rosemary so valuable?”

“It makes your marten’s pork very tasty. If you have a cramping belly, it will ease you. A man should drink it for nine days if he has debilitated himself with venery. Perhaps you would care for some right now?”

“Do not mock me again.” He came down on his haunches beside her. “The other women were days ago. I took you only once. I doubt I’m debilitated. I told you to remain within.”

“I am within. Look about you. There are scores of my people.”

“My people. I am lord here now.”

“Very well. There are scores of people who would yell down the heavens if someone came too close to me.”

She should be safe enough here, he thought, yielding the point, since there was a much meatier bone to pick. “You thought I was Tuggle. You told me to ready your mare. You were going to leave, weren’t you?”

“Aye, but just for a short time and I would have asked Beamis to send several of his men with me. I must go to see the Healer, a knowledgeable woman who lives deep in the Pevensey Forest. I have learned nearly everything I know from her. Even she could not save my father.”

He threw up his hands. “Then send a man to bring her to the castle. Have you no ability to think?”

“She won’t come here. She never leaves the forest. I have asked her

many times.”

“Then you won’t see her for a while.” He reached out his hand and cupped her chin. She stilled instantly. “You will listen to me now, lady. You will remain here, in this garden, or within the keep. You will go no

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place else until I have taken care of Richard de Luci. Do you understand? “Since you are near to yelling, it would be difficult not to.”

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