“He will see me eventually, Elinor. It cannot be avoided.” He lifted his goblet and drank.
Oh, how calmly he spoke. How unconcerned. Elinor imagined her father’s face when the two of them met again. Nothing would stop a challenge then. Honor would demand one man issue it, and the other man accept.
Zander leaned in. “Do not allow your worry for him to ruin your meal. It would be a shame if you did not taste the delights the castle cooks can conceive.”
“How can you think about delicacies when we both know—”
“I know nothing. Nor do you. If you are thinking to ask me to spend the next week watching my path so I avoid Hugo, know now that it will not happen.”
Just then a page set a wooden platter onto the board. Smells wafted to her. Delicious ones. She peered at the various fowl covering that board. Her mouth watered.
Zander speared a hunk of meat with his eating knife and deposited it on her plate. A real plate, made of metal. She glanced to the lower tables and saw that even everyone there had such a disk. How rich was their host that all his guests could eat from plates instead of trenchers? It would take twelve servants all day to wash them. Where did a man gain such wealth?
“It is swan,” Zander said.
She removed her knife from her cinture, poked it into the swan meat, and tasted. She closed her eyes in a little sensory swoon at the delicious flavor of sauce and fowl. Savoring every moment, she chewed slowly.
She appeared a woman in ecstasy while she ate. Eyes closed, expression astonished, face transformed. A saint seeing heaven might look like that. A woman well pleasured definitely did. A priest sat to her left, and her sensual moan drew his attention. He flushed and looked away.
The saints did not interest Zander. The image of Elinor naked beneath him, her head thrown back like this, her expression luminous with amazement, took hold instead. Desire started its sly burn, tightening his body. When she finally swallowed, he fed her another morsel so his mind could take her even if his body could not.
Another swallow and she held up her hand. “No more. It is too delicious. Sinfully so.” She looked at him. Perhaps she saw what was in him, because she quickly looked away, flustered.
“Have you been much in the town?” she asked.
“I arrived three days ago, so I know it well already.” If she wanted to talk about small things, he would let her. He would agree to most anything right now while they fed their normal hunger. As for this special one he harbored now, he could bide his time.
“I am in need of good thread, finely spun and well dyed. Do they have such a merchant? I do not trust the itinerate peddlers on the field.”
“There is one place that probably has what you need. I think he has purchased better goods at the fairs in anticipation of the tournament.” He told her how to find the shop after passing through the wall. “Are you making a new gown?” She looked lovely in the one she wore, but even his unpracticed eye could tell it was well used.
She picked at the blue fabric. “I am sewing something else. Mending, actually. I do it for coin.” She smiled, embarrassed. “It is better than being a washerwoman, no?”
Since she meant it as a joke, he laughed along with her. His thoughts darkened, however. Hugo of York had his daughter working as a servant to others, it seemed.
She had always known him well, and now her sharp gaze read his thoughts. “It helps a little. He was hurt, and can no longer take service with a lord. He serves as a gate guard for Lord Morris, but that does little more than keep us in bread. So I do this to feed us.”
“Could he not do something more, to feed you better?”
“He is a knight. Other than his skill at arms, what would he do?”
Zander could think of many things Sir Hugo could do to spare his daughter this lowly labor. Teach arms to youths. Counsel in strategies. If Hugo could not find a position such as old or maimed knights typically secured, there were other ways to earn his family’s keep. Hell, he could clean dung out of stables if it came to it.
“It is not seemly for you to take in mending, Elinor. You are a lady born.”
“That is what he says.” She leaned toward him and spoke lowly, with belligerence in her eyes. Her closeness and her scent sent desire climbing again. “I would rather ply my needle for pay and have stew on the hearth than refuse to lower myself and eat only thin broth.” She turned back to her plate. “I am no longer the girl you knew, Zander. My circumstances are different now.”
He reached over and took one strand of her hair between his fingers. He slid them down the silken length. “You are very much still the girl I knew, Elinor. And whatever change time has wrought in you, it has done far more in me.”
Another platter came. Boar this time. The priest beside her could not be bothered with a knife, but simply tore a hunk of the rich meat off the joint with his hands. Elinor glanced over at that, appalled, before carving neatly and passing the platter on.
They talked about simpler things then. He told her about the borderlands, and how Lord Jean’s household knights kept busy fighting skirmishes with Scots looking to steal cattle and horses. “He is a marcher lord, much as there are in the west. He has great power as a result because he is the only law there.”
“Is he a good man? If he has such power, I would hope so.”
“He is a man, Elinor. Sometimes good, sometimes
