The child just stared up at her, pale as the bolt of undyed cotton, her blue eyes wide and unblinking.
“My name is Hastings. Come, what is yours?”
The child’s lashes fluttered. “My name is Eloise,” she whispered, her eyes on Hastings’s neck, no higher.
“A lovely name, much nicer than mine, but Hastings is a good name, the name of the firstborn girl in my family since Lord William’s famous battle.”
“I know about that,” Eloise said. “Mama said that Lord William was sent by God to redeem the savage Saxons.”
Hastings had never before heard that particular opinion on God’s use of William. Her knees hurt. She rose and held out her hand to the little girl. “Would you like a cup of milk? Gilbert the goat has blessed us today. And you can taste some of MacDear’s almond buns. They’re quite delicious, you know.”
The thin little girl with large blue eyes just stared up at Hastings and slowly shook her head. Her skinny brown braids didn’t move. “My mama said gluttony was a special sin.”
R ^
St. Osbert’s elbows, what was this? “I won’t let you eat more than just one of MacDear’s almond buns. No, just a small bite of one, all right?”
The child looked very worried. She tugged on her ugly, faded green wool gown that was several inches too short on her, showing small scuffed slippers and baggy woolen stockings that had been mended many times. “I can’t ask my mama if it is all right. She went to Heaven.”
“Aye, I know, and I am sorry, Eloise. I don’t think she would think just one almond bun would be gluttony.”
“Aye, your mama would quickly pronounce it gluttony, and you know it, Eloise. I’ll thank you, my lady, not to tempt the child.”
Hastings turned to the older woman who wore a very ugly black gown, her black hair pulled back in a severe knot at the back of her head. Her face was severe, a black mustache on her upper lip, her expression cold. She gave the woman a look she would give to a servant who had spoken out of turn. “You are? ” One of her eyebrows arched up. That was always a good effect, one her mother had taught her so many years before.
The woman fidgeted. That was a good sign. She fidgeted some more, saying finally, “My name is Beale, my lady. I am Eloise’s nurse and was Lady Joan’s nurse as well.”
“Tliën you will go with Dame Agnes. She will show you Eloise’s chamber. It is small, but no matter, so is Eloise. As for you, Beale, you will sleep with the other female servants.” She nodded and turned back to the child. “Come, Eloise, let us look at MacDear’s almond buns.”
She heard the woman Beale suck in her breath. She waited, but the woman held her tongue.
Severin came into the great hall some minutes later to see Hastings seated at a trestle table, the girl child seated beside her, staring at an untouched bun. Her fingers seemed to crawl toward the tray then stop and back up. The child was pale and skinny. Severin frowned. She was a child, she should be stuffing those buns into her mouth.
fi R
He’d left Sir Alan, his own man, and a good dozen of Trent’s ment-arms at Sedgewick Castle. No. He had to remind himself that they were his men now, every last one of them. They’d all sworn fealty to him the day he’d wedded Hastings. Three days ago.
He’d had his men bring the child and her nurse back here to Oxbor-
ough.
“Let her eat, Hastings,” he said, striding up. The little girl’s fingers
fell away and she seemed to shrink in on herself. Very slowly, as if hoping Severin wouldn’t notice her, she slid off the bench and crawled under the trestle table.
“Eloise, what are you doing?”
There was no sound from Eloise.
.=(*
Hastings frowned at Severin. “How very odd. At first she was frightened of me but at least she didn’t crawl under the table. Did you perhaps yell and rant when you were at Sedgewick?”