Joan smiled. “I am sure I could. This is a place full of gossipmongers.”
“Will you need silver to get this information?”
Joan was shocked. “No, my lady. I will but ask the men.”
“And they will tell you just because you asked?”
Joan was gaining confidence. Her lovely mistress knew little beyond running estates and keeping accounts. “It matters much how a man is asked.”
Judith wore a dress of silver tissue. The skirt parted in front to reveal a wide expanse of deep green satin. The sleeves were large and bell-shaped, draping gracefully from wrist to halfway down the skirt. The sleeves were lined with more green satin. Her hair was covered with a matching French hood embroidered with silver fleurs-de-lis.
Judith sat down on a stool while Joan arranged the hood. “What if a woman wanted to ask something of Lord Walter?”
“Him!” Joan said heatedly. “I would not trust him, though that Sir Arthur who dogs him is not ill-favored.”
Judith whirled to face her maid. “How can you say that? Arthur has such hard eyes. Anyone can see he is a greedy man.”
“Lord Walter is not the same?” Joan pushed her mistress’s head back around. She was feeling rather superior at the moment. “He is just as greedy, treacherous, brutal, and selfish. He is all of those and more.”
“Then why—?”
“Because he is always the same. A woman would know what to expect from him, and that would be whatever suited his needs best. You could deal with that.”
“Then Lord Walter is not the same?”
“No, my lady. Lord Walter is a child, yet a man. He changes with the wind. He will want a thing—then, when he has it, he won’t want it anymore.”
“And this would pertain to women also??
??
Joan dropped to her knees before her mistress. “You must hear me and listen well. I know men as I know nothing else in this world. Lord Walter burns for you now. He is mad with desire, and as long as he keeps that rage inside him, you will be safe.”
“Safe? I don’t understand.”
“He has killed your father and taken your mother and your husband as prisoners only because of this passion of his. What do you think would become of all of you were this fire to be doused?”
Judith still didn’t understand. When she and Gavin made love, no fires were quenched for longer than a few moments. In truth, the more time she spent in his bed, the more she wanted him.
Joan began to talk with exaggerated patience. “All men are not as Lord Gavin,” she said, reading Judith’s mind. “If you were to give yourself to Lord Walter, you would have no more hold over him. To men such as him, the game is everything.”
Judith was beginning to understand. “How can I keep him from me?” She was fully prepared to give herself to a hundred men if it would save the lives of those she cared for.
“He will not force you. He must believe that he has wooed you and won. You may ask a lot of him and he will give it gladly, but you must be clever about it. He will be jealous. Do not hint that you care for Lord Gavin. Let him think you despise the man. Hold the carrot before his nose, but don’t allow him to nibble.”
Joan rose from her knees and gave a final critical look to her mistress’s gown.
“And what of Sir Arthur?” Judith asked.
“Lord Walter will rule him—and if worse comes to worst, he can be bought.”
Judith rose and stared at her maid. “Do you think I will ever learn so much about men?”
“Only when I learn to read,” Joan said, then laughed at the impossibility of such a statement. “Why do you need to know of many men when you have Lord Gavin? He is worth all my men together.”
As they left the chamber to descend the stairs to the great hall, Judith thought, Do I have Gavin? Do I want him?
Chapter Sixteen