The Kadin - Bertrice Small [183]
“Yer not eating?”
“I’m waiting for Marian to bring me my coffee maker. I think she may hesitate to invade our privacy.”
“Nonsense,” snapped the little woman bustling through the door. “I have simply been too busy fending off the lady Anne.”
“Jesu! Is she here?”
“Was, madame. Was. I have sent her packing in a fine huff.”
“What in God’s name has possessed Anne? She has visited my tower only once since I arrived Why now? Why this morning?”
“Because, m’lady, she knows ye bathed last night and this morning she caught Dumb Jock hauling water up here again. Then, too, no one has seen my lord Hay since last night She is suspicious of ye.”
“She is envious of me! How did ye get rid of her?”
“I simply told her ye were bathing, and she could not go in. She was very angry.” Marian chuckled
Janet couldn’t help but chuckle back. “Thank you, old friend”
Marian sniffed and placed the coffee making equipment on the table.
“I’ll do it” said Janet “Go back, and guard my door from that dragon.”
“Is that Turkish coffee?” asked Colin when Marian had left them.
“Aye. My friend Esther Kira sent it to me.”
“Can ye make two cups?”
She nodded “Where did you learn about Turkish coffee?”
“I’ve done my share of traveling about the Mediterranean. Being born into the lesser branch of the family meant that I had to acquire money on my own. Each time I married I married richer, and wi’ each dowry I mounted a trading expedition to the East Like you, madame, I am very wealthy.”
“Didn’t ye love any of yer wives?”
“Moireach, my first wife was a colorless and dull little thing who died bearing me my equally dull and colorless daughter, Margaret Margaret is a nun. She visits me regularly every two years, sighs over my way of life, my current mistress, and the state of my soul. She goes away promising to pray for me which I am quite sure she does.
“I killed my second wife, Euphemia, when I found her in bed wi’ my head groom Insatiable little bitch! Fortunately there were no brats.
“I came closest to loving my last wife, Ellen. She was a sweet gentle, kind woman who kept my house, and my life, in perfect order. She gave me my two sons, James and Gilbert, and never complained about my mistresses providing I was discreet—which I was. She died five years ago in the winter.” He turned to her. “And you, my dear. Did ye love yer lord?”
For a moment there was perfect silence in the room, and then Janet spoke one word. “Yes.”
“Just yes?”
She struggled to gather her thoughts. “I loved my husband more each day he lived. When he died I would have died, also. Had my son not called me back from the brink of the grave, I should not be here now.”
Reaching over he took her slim hand in his own great paw. Their eyes met “If you could gie me but a hundredth part of that love, my dear, I should be well satisfied.”
She smiled and handed him a tiny enameled cup of steaming coffee. “Ice, m’lord?”
He took a piece from the bowl she proffered, and dropping it into the coffee drank it down.
“Now, my lord, before Anne forces her way in and causes a painful scene—”
He grinned at her, and standing up walked over to Ruth who had come in and was busying herself by the sideboard. “Make sure the dragon isna lurking about luv.” He patted her backside. Giggling, she slipped from the room.
“Yer a most outrageous man,” laughed Janet “Ye hae both Marian and Ruth eating out of yer hand. Especially my dearest Marian, who I thought would nae forgive me if she found I had taken a lover.”
“Was she with you from the beginning?” he asked.
“Not the first year. My husband gave her to me as a gift when he learned I was to bear him a child. He bought both her and her husband.”
“What was his name?”
“Marian’s husband? Alan Browne.”
“Yer husband,” he said quietly. “You always refer to him as ‘my husband’, or ‘my lord’. Ye never use his Christian name.”
“No,” she replied. “I don’t”
Their eyes met and then he said, “Yer