“I am tempted to tell you, now that it makes no difference. Graelam no longer cares. Mayhap he would even ask him to take you away again.”
“I am going riding, Blanche.” Kassia turned and walked quickly from the hall. She nodded to the men she met in the inner bailey, noted a scattered pile of refuse in a mud puddle from the brief shower the night before, and called to one of the servants to clean it up.
She raised her face to the bright morning sun. Even now, she thought, unhappiness searing through her, my father is gazing upward, just as am I. The sun is warming his face. She thought of Blanche’s odd words about Graelam, and knew them to be true. If she rode out and never returned, he would not care.
To her utter surprise, the stable groom, Osbert, a feisty old man with grizzled hair and a hook nose, shook his head at her request. “Forgive me, my lady, but my lord said ye were not to ride out, not without him.”
“When did he give you this order, Osbert?”
“Yesterday, my lady, again. He told me he’d stretch my neck if I bowed to your . . . pretty face.”
Pretty face! She wanted to laugh. “Where is Lord Graelam?”
“Here, my lady.”
She spun about, paling as she saw him leaning against the open doorway, his arms crossed over his massive chest. She ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips, her eyes falling to the strewn hay at her feet.
“You wish to ride out?”
She wanted suddenly to demand where he had spent the past two nights. But when she raised her face, she saw that he was frowning at her, his dark eyes narrowed.
“Aye,” she said. “If it pleases you, my lord,” she added, hating the pleading in her voice.
He straightened and nodded toward Osbert. “Ready her mare. You may come with me, Kassia.” She forced herself to stand quietly as he approached her. “Guy will ride with us,” he said. “That is certain to please you.”
Guy! She blinked, thinking absurdly that she was a bone, and two dogs were fighting over her. “Aye,” she said, tilting her chin upward. “That would please me.”
He made a growling sound deep in his throat, and wheeled away from her. “I will await you outside,” he said, and left her.
There were six men in their party. Rolfe told her they were to visit the merchant Drieux in the newly chartered village of Wolffeton. To Kassia’s surprise, Graelam said nothing when Guy reined his destrier beside her.
Guy smiled at her gently. “I was telling my master,” he said, leaning toward her in the saddle, “that the jakes are no longer offensive to the nose.”
“Lime,” she said shortly.
“The duke will be pleasantly surprised,” Graelam said, looking back toward Wolffeton. “Have you finished cushions for him?”
She nodded.
“His old butt will be well content,” Guy said, laughing.
“You have done well, my lady,” Graelam said.
She felt herself flushing with pleasure at his unexpected praise.
“Gallop with me, Kassia,” he said, and slapped the flat of his gloved hand to Bluebell’s rump.
She laughed aloud with pleasure, feeling the soft summer breeze tangling through her hair. She breathed the salty sea air deeply.
When they slowed to a walk, Graelam turned to her. “I had intended that you come with me this morning. Now that your cheeks are red and your eyes bright, you do not look so ill.”
“I am not ill,” she said.
“Tell me his name, Kassia.”
She felt a deadening pain in her chest. “I asked Blanche,” she said, “but she would not tell me.”
“Blanche!” His hands tightened on the reins, and Demon snorted, dancing sideways.