duty pressing upon him to beget more branches on the tree than Miles had done.
'If I was barren would you divorce me?' she asked curiously.
He left the merlon and walked onwards until they could overlook the river and its bustle of traffic at the toll as boats sought to moor before nightfall . 'Come now,
'I do not suppose it would matter if she bore you half a dozen sons.'
'Kind of you to offer,' he grinned, deliberately misconstruing her words. 'I have the patience to wait on your ripening lust.' She pinched him. He recoiled with a protest, and then suddenly craned forward, narrowing his gaze the better to focus on the distance. 'Visitors,' he said.
Judith came to his side and stood on tiptoe.
Below them, a long barge had just nudged into its mooring and the crew were making her secure.
'Your father!' she exclaimed as Miles stepped on to the wharf.
'Cat among the pigeons,' Guyon said with a thoughtful smile.
'Who is that with him?' Judith bobbed against her husband and a stray tawny wisp of her hair cobwebbed his face.
'My half-sister, Emma. If you remember, she could not attend our nuptials because she was in London.'
'Those girls with her are your nieces?'
'Christen, Celie, and Marian,' he agreed, looking wryly amused.
Judith regarded the group for a moment. The older woman, even from this distance, was obviously lovely, and rich. The white fur lining of her cloak gleamed like silk on snow as it caught the sunlight and her braided hair was the precise colour of a sweet chestnut new-hulled from its case. The girls too were elegantly robed and pristine. Delicately bred, gentle young ladies.
Dismayed, Judith bit her lip, aware that she was wearing her oldest gown and that it was rough with Melyn's moulting fur. Her hair was unkempt and there was nothing prepared to make them a fitting welcome.
'What am I going to do?' she asked.
Guyon turned, looked her up and down from the bird's nest crown of her head to the scuffed toes of her leather slippers and grinned. 'And yet you can face down Robert de Belleme with never a qualm.' He tilted her chin on his forefinger and kissed her nose before whirling her about to face the stairs down. 'Em's all right, she won't eat you.'
'She might if there's naught else on her trencher,' Judith responded.
'My sister has a heart of gold. She'll fold you to her breast like a waif and stray and I'll be the one to receive the scolding. She still thinks of me as a brat of six filching griddle cakes from the bakehouse door and putting headless mice on her trencher.'
Momentarily diverted, Judith flashed him a glance compounded of horror and amusement.
'And things have changed?' she said saucily and ducked adroitly beneath his playful cuff.
'Headless cats now,' he retorted and hugged her.
They had reached the bottom of the stairs. 'I am very fortunate,' Judith said on a sudden, blushing impulse. 'And very grateful. My lord I--'
'Do not set your worth too cheaply,' he said and tugged her braid in an affectionate gesture with which she was now thoroughly familiar.
'Your wife is contrary to my expectations, Guy,' murmured Emma, reaching a well -tended hand to pick up her cup.
Guyon smiled and stretched out his legs to lounge more comfortably in his chair on the dais.
'What did you expect?' He followed her gaze to the fire and the four girls who crouched there, heads close, intent over a game of knucklebones. Christen possessed her mother's chestnut-red colouring. The two younger girls were plain brown like their absent father. Judith's hair sparkled bronze-blonde like the pelt of a young vixen. Christen said something. Judith capped it wittily and her laughter rang.
Emma sipped her wine. 'Well she's certainly not a Montgomery to look upon. I can see her mother's bones, but where on earth did she get those eyes and that hair?'
'From her grandam perhaps?' Guyon said with a shrug. 'Maurice was only a bastard son of the house. By all accounts his mother was a Danish widow out of York.'
'Yes, perhaps. I thought she would be slight and dark ... and less of a child. At her age I was extremely conscious of my appearance and how to use it on men to gain my own ends.'
'Oh, Judith has her ways and means,' he said easily. 'And if I ever had a yen for women who primped and preened, I lost it swiftly enough at court. The difference between those harpies and Judith is the difference between dross and pure gold. No insult to yourself intended, Em. You use your talents with subtlety.'
'Thank you,' she retorted archly. 'I'll treasure the compliment.'
'Christen does not appear to have inherited your discretion,' he added as Christen looked up from the game and slanted a long-lashed glance at one of the youngest knights in the hall .
Emma sighed. 'You have noticed it too? There is a devil in her, Guy and it will destroy her unless it can be exorcised.'
'She is scarcely yet fourteen,' he said, all humour flown.
'And older than Eve.'
'And I hazard part of the reason you were summoned to London and are here now instead of with Richard at court?'
She gave him a sidelong look. 'I had forgotten how sharp you are. It seemed a sound idea to send her to housekeep for her father while my duty kept me here in the marches after Mama died. The girls see so little of him that I thought it would be of benefit to them both.'
Guyon grunted. 'You see little enough of Richard yourself.'
Emma shrugged. 'It is not given that every match should scorch the soul. We are content, Guy.'
'Have you spoken to Richard about her?'
'He says the sooner we match her the better, but I do not know. Perhaps she is merely playing at what she sees the court concubines do and, because she is pretty and men respond, she does it the more, never knowing how close to the fire her fingers are.'
He was silent for a time, considering the circle of girls. A serving lad replenished his cup and moved on. Cadi stirred restlessly at his feet. 'You were right to bring her away,' he said at length.
'Christen has always been swayed by the actions of those around her. Do you remember when she was nine and wanted to become a nun because one of the maids took the veil?'
A pained smile curved Emma's lips. 'And last year the crusade. I caught her sewing a cross on her best cloak, her belongings packed in a travelling bundle and vowing to see Jerusalem or die.'
'So what she requires is a spell of gentle domestic harmony with myself and Judith for examples?'
Emma grimaced at him.
Eyes laughing, he said, 'I thought you had serious doubts concerning my state of grace?'
'That was just irritation at the weakness of all men,' she said impatiently. 'I know why you act the rutting stag at court and you and Rhosyn have long had a private understanding. You handle Christen better than any of us. She might listen to you ... and she might listen to your Judith. There is not so much difference in age and they appear to like each other.'
'It depends upon what you want her to learn in lieu of coquetry,' Guyon chuckled, thinking of Judith's repertoire of dubious skill s. He rose to his feet and, still smiling, left the table. Emma followed him.
His father and Eric were locked in mortal combat over a game of merels beside the hearth and neither paid any attention to Cadi's inquisitive nosings.
'Have you noticed any difference in our father these last few weeks, Em?' Guyon asked in a low voice.
She shook her head. 'Not really. Perhaps a little quieter, but you know how he broods. Before we set out, he spent a long time kneeling at Mama's tomb and then complained that his knees were stiff. Why do you ask?' Her voice sharpened. 'Is there something wrong?'
'No, nothing.' He set a reassuring hand on her arm. 'Just filial interest. 'What he needs is another wife ... or a mistress.'
Emma scowled at him. 'You don't seriously mean that, Guy.'
'Why not?'
