On the edge of laughter, she said, "We've pennyroyal and rue and one thing and another, not to fear." She stretched, wiggled a little to settle herself deeper into the hay, anda"not by chance, Joliffe was surea"let her gown fall more away from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which she lifted toward him with an arching of her back while she added, "The trouble is keeping enough for us, what with my lady wanting so much for herself."

Even as he leaned forward to take the invitation of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Joliffe wished she had not said that. He kissed where she wanted him to, but his mind was going somewhere else, and regretting his curiosity even as he gave way to it, he began to work his way up her throat with more kisses, asking between them, "Does . . . Sir Edmund . . . know . . . she . . . wants . . . no more . . . children?"

Sia bent her head back to take his kisses as she breathed, "Who knows what Sir Edmund knows."

"He doesn't take his pleasures elsewhere?" Joliffe whispered back, making it plain with his hand under her skirts where he meant to take his own pleasure.

Sia writhed, and answered on a gasp, "He doesn't." She found her hand's way into Joliffe's short braies. It was his turn to gasp as she whispered, "More's the pity for Lady Benedicta."

Holding to a last shred of curiosity, Joliffe forced out, "There's no love lost between them, then?"

"None . . ." Sia's hand was making use of all it was discovering and Joliffe groaned. ". . . that I've ever noted." Without warning, she pulled her hand out of his braies, instead slid it up under his shirt again, making a small torture of pausing his pleasure even as she moved against him, urging him onward to her own. He caught her hand and tried to force it back where he wanted it to be. She brought his hand, instead, to where she wanted it, saying into his ear, her breath cool over his heated flesh, "I won't get with child if you have me. I promise. With all the men whose longings I've eased and no child yet . . ." Satisfied as Joliffe began to pull her skirts altogether up, out of his way, she began to work at loosening the drawstring of his braies, finishing, ". . . I do know what to do."

He had no doubt she knew what to do, in several senses. She was too excellent at her chosen sport for him to doubt that, and he asked, to add to their sport along with his pressing need to have their clothing out of his way, "How many men has it been? So I know who I have to rival to keep your favor."

"You don't want to hear about my other men."

"Believe me, it won't cool my desire in the least." He began to kiss his way from her throat to between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to prove it. She writhed most satisfactorily, her back arching with pleasure even as she made wordless moan, demanding more. Returning the small torment she'd given him, he withheld that more while he asked, "Is Master Amyas someone whose *longings' you've eased?"

Hand behind his head, drawing him toward her, Sia said, "No. He's Avice's." And went on, between kisses set hard on Joliffe's lips, "Except . . . he hasn't . . . been . . . interested . . . in her."

Joliffe drove his own kiss against her mouth, pressing her down into the hay; but when he finally relinquished her lips and drew back, leaving her gasping for breath, he had another question, come from his not-quite-extinguished curiosity. "What about Mariena's other betrothed? The one who died?"

Sia moaned, whether with memory or with pleasure at what Joliffe's hand was presently doing to her, he couldn't tell, but he went on doing it, asking in her ear, "What about him?"

"Him," Sia gasped. "Yes. He was . . . so . . . ready . . . we shared him . . . Avice and I . . ."

A drawn-out moan and a great writhe of pleasure took her body. She twisted, first toward him, then away, and at last with a long, satisfied sigh went slack, eyes closed, lips parted, one arm thrown out to the side, her other hand holding to Joliffe's shoulder as if to make sure he was still in her reach.

Joliffe's need was far from slacked or satisfied, but knowing it would take time to bring her back so he could go on, he curbed his need, settled himself as best he could beside her, began to stroke her thigh, and said softly, "So. About Mariena's late betrothed. Did she know what he was doing?"

Sia giggleda"at him as much as at the question, he thought. Not opening her eyes, her voice still slow with satisfaction, she said, "She couldn't have or we'd have heard about it. Or he would have, surely. What's hers is hers and n.o.body else better try to have it, too."

Joliffe slipped his hand to a warmer place than Sia's thigh. She was quickening to his touch already, her hips beginning to move in response to his touch, proving she was fully a wanton in the most delightful sense of the word. Her hand on his manhood was returning the favor, almost distracting him from asking, "She wanted him, then?"

"Or wanted him to want her, anyway. Always touching his hand and leaning herself toward him so he could see a little down her dress to what he'd be getting." Sia shifted her own b.r.e.a.s.t.s, letting Joliffe know they were still on offer. As he obligingly began to kiss them, she murmured, "She likes being desired, does Mariena."

And so did Sia. She slid her hand from his shoulder to take hold on his hair and pull his head gently up so they were face to face. Softly she asked, "Did you come here only to talk?"

Joliffe widened his eyes in wholly feigned innocence. "Could I dare hope for more?"

Sia laughed at him, slipped her hand around to the back of his hips, rolled onto her side, and pulled him toward her. "There's no dare about a certainty."

And certainly no more wish for words by either of them. Taking her mouth in another long kiss, Joliffe pushed her to her back again and himself on top of her. But only for half of a completely insufficient moment, before someone called up the ladder with a desperate need different than their own, "Sia! You're wanted! You have to come!"

They both went still. Then Sia went limp under him and called back with irk and disappointment, "Avice, go away!"

"You have to come! Mariena is sick and vomiting and we're needed!"

Joliffe tried to say something about Sia being needed here, too, but she was already wiggling to be out from underneath him and he rolled off her. She sat up, muttering against Mariena and saying there'd be another time between them, not to worry.

"Sia!" Avice called again, impatiently.

"I have to lace my gown again, don't I?" Sia yelled back.

"I'm coming up."

"You're not! I'm coming down."

Sia bid him farewell with a quick kiss that landed vaguely near his mouth. He kept his hands to himself and let her go, much though he wanted to seize her and finish the business. Going down the ladder, she waved once and blew a kiss at him. He waved back, then she was gone, and when her voice and Avice's had faded as they hurried from the cow byre, he rolled over and buried his face in the blanket, his sorry certainty of loss made the worse by knowing his own curiosity had helped to spoil it. If he hadn't taken time with question-asking . . .

Mariena had seemed well enough at supper. How did she come to be suddenly so sick?

Another question without likelihood of any easy answer.

Thwarted of body and curiosity both, he gathered himself up, dressed again, hung the blanket on the peg when he'd taken the lantern in hand, and went down the ladder, to return through the wet dark to the cartshed.

There, he was grateful to find no one awake to make jibes or question him and that Rose had left his blanket hanging over the frame beside the fire, to go warm to his bed with him. It wasn't so warm as Sia would have been but it was better than no comfort at all, he told himself, uncomforted.

Chapter 11.

In the morning, once Ba.s.set had been helped up and some of the stiffness rubbed from his joints, he and Ellis were ready with the jibes there had not been last night, the two of them taking turns asking if Joliffe had had enough "sleep" last night, had he slept "warm" enough, had he . . .

Joliffe cut them off by telling of Mariena's sickness.

In the instant pall thrown by that, Ba.s.set explained to Gil, "There's never need for players at a funeral." He pointed at the water buckets and added, "You and Piers fetch those full and see what you can hear from any servants at the well."

Both boys went, and with them out of hearing, Ba.s.set asked of Joliffe, "Did you learn aught else?"

Joliffe paused over his answer, considering what he had learned. Other than about Sia. Slowly he answered, "There's either layers of secrets here or else there's none."

"Thank you," Ba.s.set said dryly. "But if you think I'm looking for a scholastic debate about the nature of Truth, you're wrong. Certainties, my fellow, certainties."

"I'm thinking," Joliffe protested.

"Don't. Just report," Ba.s.set said.

Obeying, but aware that Ellis and Rose were watching them strangely, Joliffe said, "Lady Benedicta is seeing to it she bears no more children. It's uncertain Sir Edmund knows that or if he thinks he still has chance at more sons. The servants say there's no love lost between him and his wife but that he doesn't take his pleasure elsewhere, so far as they know."

"And they would," Ba.s.set said.

"Probably," Joliffe hedged. "Lady Benedicta has taken her pleasure elsewhere, but it was a long time ago and the man is dead."

"How?" Ba.s.set asked.

Joliffe had wondered that, too. "It's something to be found out. I think it's said to have been only a few years ago, though. The thing is that he was John Harcourt's father."

Ba.s.set said something curt and crude.

"Yes," Joliffe agreed. "So about him I'd like to find out more, but no one has said there was anything suspicious about his death."

"Any more than anyone here seems suspicious about John Harcourt's death," Ba.s.set said. "Nor that anyone was openly objecting to him marrying Mariena."

"She at least was willing to it. Very willing, from what Sia said." Or maybe Mariena was just very willing generally, he added to himself.

Like echo to that thought, Ba.s.set said, "It hasn't stopped her being willing to this one, too. What about Harcourt? Was he willing?"

"I've not heard otherwise. In truth, the only thing I've heard about him for certain is that while waiting for his marriage he was heartily availing himself of what else is on offer here."

"What else . . ." Ba.s.set started, then caught Joliffe's meaning and lightly mocked, "Your Sia isn't only your own?"

"And wasn't I taken aback to find that out," Joliffe said dryly back at him, then took a tragic tone and added, "Alas, no, she has been other men's, nor was she Harcourt's only swiving-partner here."

"Not the daughter," Ba.s.set said, firmly ready to disbelieve that.

"No." With an eye sideways on Ellis, he added, "Just with every servant girl who offered herself, I gather. And there's several of them that offer themselves readily."

Ellis knew that jibe was meant for him and took it with a glare since Rose had her back to him, collecting the dried hosen from the drying frame so he didn't have to pretend he didn't know what Joliffe meant.

Ba.s.set held to the point. "What about this Amyas Breche? Does he take his pleasure among the servant wenches, too?"

"No."

"So there's a difference there between them," Ba.s.set said, considering.

"That, and that there's been no talk linking Lady Benedicta to any of his relatives."

Rose turned from the drying frame, her hands full of hosen, and demanded, "What are you two talking about?"

Ba.s.set refuged instantly in earnest simpleness. "Just talk, my dear. To pa.s.s the time until we go to break our fast."

"Just talk," Rose mocked back at him. "I hardly think so. What's this about?"

Joliffe and Ba.s.set traded looks, and Joliffe lifted his shoulders slightly, giving the problem over to Ba.s.set, who sighed and said, "Lord Lovell has doubts about the man Harcourt's death and is somewhat uneasy about this Breche marriage. Since we were going to be here anyway, he asked us to learn what we could."

"It's because Joliffe was too sharp-witted last summer. That's the root of it, isn't it?" Ellis said, hot with accusation. "Lord Lovell wants him to find out trouble the way he did then, doesn't he?"

"He wants me to find out there's not trouble," Joliffe defended.

"That's no more than word-play," Ellis scoffed.

"It's not as if I had choice, is it? Not once he *asked' it of me."

"You had choice last summer, before you put your nose in where it didn't belong," Ellis snapped.

"Joliffe did what needed doing," Rose said with her rare sharpness. "It was probably even because of it Lord Lovell took note of us." She looked at her father, who shrugged and somewhat grimaced, acknowledging the likelihood of that; and she finished at Ellis, "So it better suits us to help than make trouble over what can't be changed."

Her glare defied Ellis to disagree and he did not, although his, "I can see that, yes," was given grudgingly, his truer feeling about it showing through the unwilling acceptance.

"We're none of us happy about it," Ba.s.set said, to soothe. "But it's as Rose says. We've little choice, do we?"

"When did you mean to tell us what was a-foot?" Ellis asked, an edge of his anger still showing.

"We'd hoped never to have to tell you," Ba.s.set answered. "We hoped to see the thing through to a quiet end and no one else troubled about it."

Rose, the hosen set aside, came to Ellis' side and slipped her arm through his and smiled up at him. "They didn't do it simply to anger you, you know," she said gently.

As always to her slightest sign of affection to him, Ellis eased back from his anger. He made a small, accepting gesture at Ba.s.set with his free hand and said, "I know." He pointed at Joliffe and added, only half-jesting, "But I still think he did it just to cross me."

Joliffe raised his shoulders in a high shrug. "There has to be some benefit to it."

"Children, children," Ba.s.set said. "Let us not quarrel. All we're truly doing is hearing what we can and making of it what can be made, and when Lord Lovell comes for the wedding, we'll pa.s.s everything on to him. There's hardly trouble in that."

Probably even Ellis would have granted that, but they were interrupted by Piers' approaching voice, loud and happy beyond the carpenter's shed, and Ba.s.set said, "We'll keep it from Piers and Gil, though, I think."

"If we can," Ellis muttered as they all turned to be doing something else than talking when the boys came into the yard, Will with them.

He looked surprisingly cheerful for someone whose sister had been deathly ill last night, and Ba.s.set greeted him with, "Master William, we've been grieved to hear about Mariena. She's better?"

"She's all well," Will said with disgust. "My father says it was all trouble over nothing."

"She was very bad, though, wasn't she?" Joliffe said, determined his trouble and the alarm weren't going to have been for nothing.

"She was vomiting and everything," Will said. He had a small boy's delight at that. "The servants were kept scurrying most of the night with it. She was so bad for a while that Father Morice had to come to confess her. But she wouldn't!" Will seemed as enthused for his sister's defiance of the priest as for her being ill in the first place. "She said she wasn't going to die and she wasn't going to confess. So now Father Morice is upset about that, and Mother is angry at her, and Father went to see Mariena this morning, now the vomiting and all has stopped, and he takes her sidea"he always doesa"and says Mother made much out of nothing and he's angry at her for it, and he's told Father Morice to read the banns today, just as planned, and don't make fl.u.s.ter where there doesn't need to be."

Will was forced to pause to take a deep breath, which he let out with a sharp sigh of satisfaction at having said all that.

"Amyas must have been as sick with worry that Mariena was that ill," Joliffe ventured.

"It was something she ate," Will said cheerfully. "Or ate too much of, Mother says. Amyas wore himself out with pacing back and forth along the gallery outside Mariena's chamber until he was told she was better. Then he went to bed. Harry was there, too, but he didn't pace; he just leaned on the railing, looking glum and keeping him company. Amyas told him to go back to bed. He said no point, what with his wife gone to help with Marienaa""

"How are you this morning?" Rose interrupted.

"Me?" Will sounded surprised at the question, as if yesterday's fall had never happened. "I'm well. I didn't eat whatever she did." He turned his heed to Ba.s.set, Ellis, and Joliffe. "I almost fell on the floor laughing at you all last night! May I watch you practice today? Are you going to practice today? What are you doing tonight? I want to laugh like that some more."

"Tonight will be something more in keeping with the marriage banns being first read," Ba.s.set said. "Something"a"he tipped a wink toward Will's open disappointmenta""only almost as much to be laughed at. And, yes, we'll practice today, but as for watching us, won't you be at lessons again, now Father Morice is no longer needed to clerk the marriage talks?"

"He's going to be busy fair-copying the agreement out several times over. He has the best hand on the manor, my father says," Will said. "With that and going to the village to say the banns, he'll be too busy for me most of the day." Will's face fell. "You don't want me to watch you, do you?"

That leap to expected disappointment seemed to come from nowhere, and Ba.s.set laid a hand on his shoulder, saying, smiling, "After we've broken our fast, you may watch us rehea.r.s.e all morning if you want."