The Baron's Quest Read online

  It was regrettable, perhaps, that Gabriella Frechette should be in such a tenuous position, but that could not be helped. He had done his best to compel her to leave, and she had refused. She would have to face the consequences.

  He sighed, then reminded himself that he should be giving his attention to the documents before him.

  Nevertheless, in another moment, Etienne was distracted by Philippe’s scornful voice, Donald’s serious tones and George’s pleasant intercession, no doubt trying to solve a conflict. Before he could figure out what they were talking about, their voices dropped. Apparently George had managed to circumvent trouble again. One day George was going to make some lucky woman a fine husband, if the indifferent fellow could ever be persuaded to make such a decision.

  A woman’s laugh wafted into the solar, and he recognized it as Josephine’s. She had found plenty of things to do since their arrival, and quite happily had seen to the decorating of the hall and bedchamber. He understood she was busily working on a new tapestry for their bedchamber, which was now as comfortably furnished as any man could wish, a delight for the eyes as well as the succor of the body.

  He surveyed the solar, noting with pleasure the carved lintel and the rain splashing against the glass windows. To be sure, such decorative measures were extravagant, yet he was fast coming to believe that the pleasure was worth the price. Within reasonable limits, of course.

  Chalfront, looking like a whipped dog, sidled into the solar, yet more parchment scrolls in his hands.

  Etienne was beginning to understand why someone would dislike Robert Chalfront. He had all the personality of a limp rag, and was so obsequious, the baron was often tempted to shake him. He never ventured an opinion, but seemed to expect to be told everything. It was a wonder he could find it in his power to decide how to dress each day! On the other hand, he was responsible and meticulous, working as diligently as if this estate was his own.

  Nevertheless, Etienne had to subdue the urge to scowl. Really, the fellow had no need to look so browbeaten. Perhaps had the bailiff possessed a more forceful personality, the late earl might not have been so exploited by his tenants.

  With a slight sigh, Etienne reached out for his chalice of wine before glancing at the bailiff, who sat on the opposite side of the long trestle table at Etienne’s gestured invitation.

  Etienne drank deeply of the delicious wine, thinking that he would have been very pleased if the earl had laid in a larger store of the beverage before his death. “You have certainly documented everything thoroughly,” he remarked, making his words a compliment instead of betraying any hint of his frustration. “Just tell me, how many villeins are ad censum?”

  “There are twenty-two who pay rents in cash, my lord,” Chalfront replied eagerly. “David Marchant the miller pays the most, fifty shillings a year, and John the Smith pays the least, two farthings. The rest are listed here.” He indicated another closely but neatly written parchment.

  “And these?” Etienne waved at the following group of names on the same parchment.

  “Those are the villeins ad opus. Beside their names, you will see that I have noted what work is expected of them per week and per annum, my lord.”

  Etienne gave the bailiff a brief nod and the list an even briefer glance. “You seem to enjoy making lists, Robert.”

  “I enjoy having things neat and orderly, my lord,” Chalfront replied respectfully. “I would draw your attention to my notes regarding the mill rate and pannage, my lord, and—”

  “My head aches,” the baron said truthfully, silencing the bailiff. He picked up a document with an elaborate seal, and another one with a smaller seal. “This is my Charter of Extent,” he said, indicating the former, “detailing the lands, services and rents I am supposed to receive, and this is the Charter of Custumal, the obligations and rights of the tenants, that I found among the late earl’s papers. I want you to examine them and tell me if everything is in order.”

  The bailiff’s pale blue eyes widened. “You would trust me with this responsibility, my lord?” he marveled.

  “Yes,” Etienne replied, only then considering that perhaps he was not wise to give this fellow such a duty. “For the present. My steward, Jean Luc Ducette, will be arriving in a fortnight. He will examine the records when he arrives. He had better be able to confirm what you have to tell me.”

  The bailiff nodded enthusiastically.

  “What are all these other lists?” Etienne asked, gesturing vaguely toward another pile of papers.

  “I thought you would wish to have certain information before the tenants swear their oaths of loyalty. Here are three new men who have yet to pay their gersum for becoming your tenants,” Chalfront said, pointing to a group of names on the topmost document. “This man needs to pay the merchet before his daughter weds next month. These two men have died since the earl, and no one has collected the heriot. And finally, my lord, I really think you should decide about the pannage.”

  “What did the earl usually ask for the privilege of letting pigs roam in his forest?”

  Chalfront named sums that would have been appropriate in the last century, and Etienne said as much. “No wonder the earl found himself penniless,” he added. The baron eyed Chalfront shrewdly. “Why did you not inform the earl that he was not demanding nearly enough?”

  “I did, my lord,” Chalfront said with great humility. “He refused to listen, even when I made it clear that he had set himself and his family on the road to ruin. He was a man who wanted very much to be liked by his tenants. Too much, perhaps, but it is certain that they all genuinely mourned at his death.”

  If Etienne needed any additional confirmation that the late earl was a man of misplaced priorities, Robert Chalfront just provided it. It was not important that one’s tenants liked their lord; it was important that they respect him, obey him and make him a wealthy man. “I see.” Etienne ran his gaze over the unprepossessing man sitting across from him. Would a man like that truly dare to upbraid his master? Would he have the courage to make the consequences of the earl’s misplaced generosity apparent? Or would he mumble and stutter and try to follow the lord’s instructions somehow?

  “Forgive the intrusion, my lord.”

  Etienne recognized the rarely heard feminine voice immediately and looked toward the door. Gabriella wore the same simple, golden brown homespun garment she always did. Apparently it was none the worse for wear after its soaking the other day, when it had clung so tantalizingly to her body.

  He noticed that she looked pale and tired; however, her eyes still gleamed with a defiant light to which he was becoming accustomed. Etienne was quite used to seeing contempt in a person’s eyes when they spoke to him, and if seeing that in these particular eyes troubled him, he was well able to subdue the reaction.

  Nevertheless, he would have given much to know what she was thinking as she stood there watching him dissect what had been her father’s estate, although he thought he could make a good guess. She probably wished him at the bottom of the millpond with the new grindstone tied around his neck, and with the same intensity that he wished she was waiting for him in his bed.

  God’s wounds, such ruminations would avail him nothing! “What is it?”

  “The reeve, the hayward and the woodward are here as you requested,” she announced deferentially. Obviously his little demonstration the other night had partly achieved its goal: she had managed to modulate her tone to one of humility.

  “Bring more wine for me, and ale for the reeve and the others, Gabriella,” he ordered.

  She bobbed a curtsy in acknowledgment before turning away. As he watched her lithesome figure pass out the door and into the hall, he wondered where Philippe was, and if he was watching her with the greedy look in his eyes that Etienne had seen before. “Take these things away, Chalfront,” he ordered, then rose and stretched his arms over his head, wishing his head didn’t throb so much. He very much wanted to be alone, away from his men and Josephine and especially
Gabriella Frechette.

  Unfortunately, it was necessary that he meet these men and have them swear their loyalty before the rest of the tenants. He had put it off for three days as it was, for what he considered a very good reason, especially after word had reached him of the disgruntled reaction of the villagers to his treatment of the former lord’s daughter. He had decided to see if they would do more than complain.

  They had not.

  Adjusting his garments and smoothing out the folds, Etienne leaned back in his chair and waited, assuming his most imperious manner while Chalfront scrambled to gather up the parchments. He finished and bowed his way out of the solar as three men entered, pulling the soaking caps from their heads as rivulets of water ran off their wet cloaks.

  The tallest of the three was also the obvious leader, for he walked a pace ahead of the other two. He was a towheaded, square-jawed fellow, with massive forearms and broad shoulders. The other two men were both dark haired, and of smaller stature. There was a complacency about them that wisely disappeared as they approached the baron.

  The tall man knelt on one knee. “I am William, the reeve, my lord,” he said in a deep, gruff voice before tugging his forelock.

  “I am Osric, the hayward,” said the stockier of the two dark-haired men as they also knelt.

  “And I am Brian, the woodward,” said the last.

  “Because you are leaders of the village, I have summoned you to give your oaths of loyalty first: ” How easy it was to flatter these rustics, he thought, as superior glances passed from one to the other. ”I assume you are willing to do so.”

  Before the reeve could speak, Gabriella entered the solar with a tray bearing a chalice and three mugs. She made her way gracefully toward them as if she had been doing this all her life.

  She set the tray upon the table and, keeping her eyes demurely lowered, handed the baron his wine first. She went to give the reeve his ale, but before he accepted the mug, he rose.

  “My lord,” William said with a distinct lack of respect that immediately angered Etienne, “I have no objection to swearing my oath of loyalty to you. One Norman is much like another, to my way of thinking. But this isn’t right.” He gestured at Gabriella, who shook her head slightly in a futile warning.

  Etienne could not believe the effrontery of the peasant. Who did he think he was addressing, Robert Chalfront? Then to look to Gabriella. Frechette—and for her to try to silence him! They all had best find out who was in command here.

  And Gabriella needed to learn something more: that she had misplaced her allegiance by deciding to stay. These men, these fine leaders of the villagers she held in such apparent esteem, had had ample time to come to him about her plight and suggest a means to alleviate it. All they had to do was offer to pay her debt, which, considering how little they had paid the earl in rents, should not have been a difficult thing. However, they had not—and now they dared to imply that he was a despicable man!

  Gabriella started to back away from the table, but he reached out and grabbed her arm “No, Gabriella. I did not give you leave to go.” Even as he spoke, he couldn’t help noting the warmth of her flesh against his. “Are you presuming to question any of my decisions, reeve?” he asked calmly as he slowly ran his gaze up Gabriella’s slender arm to her breasts straining against the fabric of her bodice before glancing sharply at the reeve.

  William, who flushed an even deeper shade of red, swallowed hard and quickly averted his eyes, which had also been trained on Gabriella’s breasts. “Well, my lord, we all think it isn’t right that she should… suffer,” William offered weakly.

  “How, pray tell, is she suffering?”

  The reeve looked taken aback. “Well, my lord, she’s a noblewoman, isn’t she, and, well—”

  “And now she is doing the kind of work your mother, your wife or your daughter might be expected to do.” Etienne lifted Gabnella’s hand, deliberately not looking into her face, and turned it over. With his other hand, he stroked her palm, inadvertently noting the blisters there. “Are you concerned that she is unfit for such service? That this delicate hand will become callused and hard? She was the one who made the choice to become a servant. It was she who refused to go. If she suffers, it is her own fault. Besides, I see no reason to call honest labor ‘suffering.’”

  Again he glanced swiftly at the men, and again caught them staring at her. Judging by their expressions, they were imagining having Gabriella a servant in their own households.

  They were men, after all, and she no longer had social position to protect her from their lustful thoughts. They wanted to think him evil, yet he did not doubt that each one of them was envisioning Gabriella in his bed. She must be made to see that, too; to realise that she should depend on no one for aid, and that she would have been wiser to leave when she had the chance.

  He continued to hold her hand and smiled coldly. “Her virtue is quite safe, I assure you, at least from me and the men under my command.”

  The feel of her hand in his, the softness and heat of her flesh, moved him more than he would ever have suspected, especially with an audience, belying his words. He was suddenly aware that he lusted after this wench as he had not done in many a long year, for many a more beautiful maiden.

  What kind of foolish weakness was this? He did not need her, and she clearly did not want him. It was not necessary for him to engage in a futile quest for this poor, landless, and not exceptionally beautiful wench.

  The men glanced at each other uneasily. The hayward looked about to speak but apparently thought better of it.

  “If anyone is to blame for the situation Gabriella Frechette finds herself in,” the baron continued, meaning his words for her as much as the men, “it is not me. It is she herself, and it is you and the other tenants, for exploiting the generosity of the late earl.”

  He paused for effect, not because he was surprisingly reluctant to make his next offer. “However, there is a way you can help your former mistress. Perhaps one of you will offer to pay her debt and set her free?”

  Chapter Five

  With a hopeful smile, Gabriella turned to the reeve, who colored and stared at the stone floor, then the hayward, who suddenly found the table an object of fascination, then the woodward, who blushed and stammered, “My lady! I have no money to spare, as you well know and—”

  With sudden horrible certainty, Gabriella realized they were not going to help her. Despite all her father had done for them and their families. After all her kind care and worry for them, they were not going to help her!

  Her gaze went to the baron’s unreadable face, down to his battle-hardened, slender fingers that had stroked her hand so gently—and as if she were only another of his whores- Couldn’t William and the others see the precarious nature of her situation? Couldn’t they find the money somehow?

  “There is another way,” the baron noted dispassionately in his cold, deep voice. “There may be someone among you who would be willing to make her his wife. I would be happy to demonstrate my generosity by excusing her debt under those circumstances. Then she will be able to stay in the village, as seems to be her fondest wish.”

  “What?” Gabriella gasped.

  “My lord!” Chalfront said, appearing immediately in the doorway as if he had been lingering outside listening all the while. “My lord! I will marry her!”

  That she should be offered up like some kind of baggage was the final insult “I would rather die!” Gabriella snapped. Only the continuing awareness of Baron DeGuerre’s scrutiny stopped her from fleeing the room. She would not give him the satisfaction of thinking he had successfully humiliated her again.

  “Gabriella!” Chalfront protested, spreading his hands in supplication, as if she were the one at fault here.

  The baron held up his hand to silence him and there was the hint of a smile on his handsome face. “It would seem, Chalfront, that the wench would rather be my servant.”

  He laid a slight emphasis on “my” that made Gabr
iella turn her glare onto him. He appeared to be implying she would… she would… she would do what Josephine de Chaney had done! Is that what he believed beneath that impassive exterior? Had he let her leave his bedchamber unmolested only to toy with her more, convinced by his arrogant vanity that she would eventually submit? Never!

  “Is there no one else?” the baron inquired. Sweet mother of God, he made it sound as if he would auction her off to the highest bidder. “Since no one de. sires you for his wife—”

  “There is no one here I would choose,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “You shall have to remain a servant here until all your family’s debt is repaid,” he said, her opinion obviously counting for nothing. “Now you may leave us, Gabriella.”

  She glared at him, then hesitating, looked at Osric, the poacher, who did not meet her eye. Perhaps if she hinted to the baron about what she knew concerning his previous illegal activities, Osric would find the necessary money. Then she thought of the penalties for poaching and decided not to speak. She would not purchase her freedom at the price of a man’s fingers or eyes.

  The baron ignored her and spoke to the reeve kneeling before him. “William, it is your right to refuse to swear an oath of loyalty to me, provided you are willing to leave my estate and try your luck elsewhere. What do you wish to do?”

  William stared at the floor as he said, “I swear to be loyal to the Baron DeGuerre.”

  The baron turned his cold, impartial eye onto the others as Gabriella went to the door, her heart filled with bitterness and, beneath it all, dismay that no one had offered to help her. She moved slowly, hoping that William and the others would yet change their minds.

  “And I, my lord,” said the hayward. “I so swear.”

  “My lord, I so swear,” said the woodward.

  “I thought you might,” Baron DeGuerre replied as Gabriella left the room. “You can inform the rest of the tenants that tomorrow, I raise the rents.”