Desire

Gareth made no attempt to reason out what it was that Ulrich found amusing. More important matters awaited him.

***

'All of the men and horses are properly settled?' Clare frowned intently as she paced the garden in front of her assembled household.

Her makeshift family, composed of people who had no other home, sat on the stone bench beneath the apple tree or stood nearby.

William, his face still aglow from his first ride astride a real war-horse, was positioned on the bench between his mother, Joanna, and Dalian, the thin, anxious young troubadour.

Eadgar, the elderly marshal of the hall, stood at the end of the bench, his expression one of great uneasiness. He had good reason to be alarmed. As marshal, he was charged with the day-to-day tasks of running the household. He was the one who had to make certain that the kitchens were supplied with the vast quantities of food required to feed the new arrivals. It was also his responsibility to ensure that the servants saw to such matters as preparing baths, mending clothes, and cleaning the garderobes.

It was all a great nuisance, Clare thought.

She was concerned about Eadgar's ability to cope with the crowd.

Although loyal and hardworking, he was nearly seventy and the years had taken their toll on his joints and his hearing.

When Eadgar did not respond to her question, Clare sighed and repeated it in a louder voice. 'I said, are all the men and their horses settled, Eadgar?'

'Oh, aye, my lady. Certainly. Indeed.' Eadgar straightened his stooped shoulders and made an obvious effort to appear in control of the situation.

'I am amazed that you found room for so many. I trust I shall not find any of these great oafs sleeping on the stairs or in my solar?'

'Nay, my lady,' Eadgar assured her earnestly. 'There were chambers enough for his lordship and some of the others on the upper floors. The rest will sleep on pallets in the main hall or in the stables. Rest assured all will be carried out properly.'

'Calm yourself, Clare.' Joartna looked up from her needlework and smiled. 'All is under control.'

Joanna was five years older than Clare. She was a pretty woman with golden blond hair, soft blue eyes, and gentle features.

Married at the age of fifteen to a man who had been thirty years her senior, Joanna had soon found herself widowed and penniless with a small son.

Desperate, she had arrived on Clare's doorstep three years earlier to claim a very distant relationship based on the fact that her mother and Clare's had once been close friends. Clare had taken Joanna and William into the household.

Joanna had immediately begun to contribute to the income of Desire by virtue of her brilliant needlework.

Clare had been quick to see the possibilities inherent in Joanna's talent. The revenues from the sale of Clare's dried flower and herb concoctions had increased markedly due to the fact that many were now sold in exquisitely embroidered pouches and bags of Joanna's design.

The demand had grown so great that Joanna had instructed several of the village women in the art of embroidery. Some of the nuns of Saint Hermione's also worked under her supervision to create elegantly made pouches for some of Clare's fragrance blends.

'Eadgar, inform cook that she must resist the temptation to dye all of the food blue or crimson or yellow tonight.' Clare stalked along the graveled path, her hands clasped behind her back. 'You know how much she likes to color the food for special occasions.'

'Aye, madam. She says it impresses guests.'

'I see no need to go out of our way to impress Sir Gareth and his men,'

Clare muttered. 'And personally, I do not much care for blue or crimson food.'

'Yellow is a nice color, though,' Joanna mused. 'When Abbess Helen visited last fall, she was much struck by being served a banquet done entirely in yellow.'

'It is one thing to entertain an abbess. Quite another to be bothered with a bunch of very large knights and their men-at-arms. By Hermione's sainted sandal, I'll not waste the vast quantity of saffron it would take to dye everything on the table yellow tonight. Saffron is very costly.'

'You can afford it, Clare,' Joanna murmured.

'That is beside the point.'

Eadgar cleared his throat. 'I shall speak to cook.'

Clare continued to pace. The walled garden was usually a source of pleasure and serenity for her. The flower and herb beds had been carefully planted so as to achieve a complex and tantalizing mixture of scents.

Normally a stroll along the paths was a walk through an invisible world of enthralling, compelling fragrance. Clare's finely honed sense of smell delighted in the experience.

At the moment, however, all she could think about was the very unflowerlike, very unsettling, very masculine odor of Sir Gareth, the Hellhound of Wyckmere.

Beneath the earthy smells of sweat, leather, horse, wool, steel, and road dust that had cloaked Gareth, had lain another scent, his own.

During the ride from the village to the hall, Clare had been enveloped in that essence and she knew she would never forget it.

In some mysterious fashion that she could not explain, Gareth had smelled rigfit.

Her nose twitched in memory. There had certainly been nothing sweet-smelling about him, but her reaction had reminded Clare of the feeling she got when she had achieved the right blend of herbs, spices, and flowers for a new perfume recipe. There was a sense of completion, a sense of certainty.

The realization sent a shiver through her. Even Raymond de Coleville, the man she had once loved, had not smelled so right.

'Was the Window of Hell fearfully heavy?' William asked eagerly. 'I could see that the Hellhound let you to carry it all the way to the gates of the hall. Sir Ulrich said that was most amazing.'

'Did he, indeedr Clare said.

'Sir Ulrich said that the Hellhound has never offered his sword to anyone else in the whole world,' William continued, 'let alone allowed anyone to carry it in a procession in front of a whole village.'

'He did not allow me to carry it,' Clare grumbled. 'He more or less forced me to do so. He refused to take it from my hands until we reached the hall. I could hardly drop such a valuable blade into the dirt.'

Joanna quirked a brow but did not raise her eyes from her needlework.

'Why do you think he simply did not resheath it?'

'He claimed he could not get the thing back into its scabbard with me seated in front of him. And he refused to put me down from the beast. He said it would not be chivalrous. Hah. What arrogrance to discourse on the finer points of courtesy when he was, for all intents and purposes, holding me captive.'

Joanna pursed her lips. 'I have the distinct impression that his lordship does not lack boldness of any kind.'

'Sir Ulrich says that the Hellhound is a very great knight who has destroyed scores of robbers and murderers in the south,' William said.

'Sir Ulrich says he showed you great honor by allowing you to carry the Window of Hell.'

'It was an honor I could have done without,' Clare said.

She knew full well why Gareth had politely refused to take back his sword until they had arrived at the very steps of her hall. He had wanted to make certain that everyone along the way, from shepherd to laundress, witnessed the spectacle of the lady of Desire clutching the Hellhound's great sword.

No, the Hellhound had shown her no great honor, she thought. It had all been a very calculated gesture on his part.

'If you ask me, I do not believe he showed you any great honor, my lady,' Dalian declared with passionate