"I do not doubt that. All I ask, my lord, is that you use some caution in your dealings with Lady Alice. Something tells me that even the stoutest of knights could easily come to a bad end around her."
Hugh nodded to indicate that he had taken heed of the warning but he silently consigned it to the nether regions. This morning he would strike his bargain with the mysterious and unpredictable Lady Alice. He fully intended that the lady, for all her clever ways and proud airs, would discover that she had gotten more than she had expected.
Last night, sensing that he might be up against a more wily adversary than he had first anticipated, Hugh had announced to the crowded hall that he did not do business in public. He had told Alice that he would discuss the bargain alone with her today.
In truth he had postponed the negotiations because he had wanted time to contemplate this new knot in what had become an exceedingly tangled skein.
Hugh reflected that he had received several dire warnings during the course of this venture. But no one had warned him about Alice.
The first clue to her nature had come early in the evening when her uncle had heaved a long-suffering sigh at the mention of her name. The lady, it seemed, was a great trial to Ralf.
Based on what little he had learned, Hugh had expected to find himself dealing with a bitter, petulant spinster possessed of a tongue that could flay a man alive. The only part of the description that proved to be accurate was the bit about her tongue. It was clear that Alice did not hesitate to speak her mind.
Her bold speech aside, the woman who had confronted him in the hall last night had been quite different from the one Ralf had described.
Alice was not bitter, Hugh realized at once. She was determined. He recognized the difference immediately. She was not petulant, she was strong-minded and no doubt a good deal more intelligent than those around her. A difficult woman, mayhap, but definitely an interesting one.
From Ralf's description of his niece, Hugh had expected to find himself confronting a towering creature constructed along the same lines as his war-horse.
He had been in for a surprise.
Lady Alice was very slender and elegantly graceful. There was naught about her to remind him of his war-horse. Her long green gown had skimmed the curves of her supple body, hinting at breasts the size of ripe peaches, a tiny waist, and lushly rounded hips.
Dunstan was correct on one count, Hugh acknowledged. There was certainly sufficient fire in Alice to burn any man and it started with her hair. The flame-colored tresses had been bound in a sparkling gold net that had gleamed in the glow of the hearth.
Her face was fine-boned with a firm nose, a forceful little jaw, and an expressive mouth. Her eyes were huge. They tilted slightly upward at the corners. Delicate red brows arched provocatively above them. Pride and spirit were evident in the set of her shoulders and the angle of her chin. She was a woman who drew a man's gaze not because she was beautiful, although she was far from plain, but because she compelled attention.
Alice was not a woman to be ignored.
If she was embittered at finding herself unwed at the age of three and twenty as Ralf had indicated, Hugh saw no evidence of it. Indeed, he had a strong suspicion that she enjoyed not having to answer to a husband, a fact that might pose a small problem for him. But Hugh considered himself adept at solving problems.
"Lady Alice wishes to bargain with you," Dunstan said. "What do you think she seeks in exchange for helping you find the green stone?"
"Mayhap some books," Hugh said absently. "According to her uncle, she is very fond of them."
Dunstan grunted. "Will you give her one or two of yours, then?"
Hugh smiled. "I may allow her to borrow them from time to time."
He returned to his contemplation of the morning. The air was crisp. The farms and fields of Lingwood Manor lay quiet and still beneath a leaden sky. It was early fall. The harvest was partially complete and much of the land lay stripped and bare, awaiting the fast-approaching chill of winter. He wanted to get home to Scarcliffe as quickly as possible. There was so much to be done.
Lady Alice was the key. Hugh could feel it in his bones. With her, he could find the damned green stone and unlock his future. He had come too far, waited too long, hungered too deeply, to stop now.
He was thirty years old but on cold mornings such as this one he felt closer to forty. The storms inside him blew fiercely, filling him with a great restlessness, an inchoate need that he did not fully comprehend.
He was always aware of the tempests that shrouded his soul but only in the deepest hours of the night or in the gray mists of dawn could he sometimes actually perceive the dark winds that drove him. He avoided such opportunities when he could. He did not care to peer too deeply into the heart of the storm.
He concentrated now on the task that lay ahead of him. He had land of his own. All he had to do was hold on to it. That was proving difficult.
During the past few weeks Hugh had begun to discover why the lands of Scarcliffe had passed through so many hands in recent years.
It was a fact that in recent memory no man had successfully held Scarcliffe for more than a short span of time before losing it through death or misfortune. Some said Scarcliffe was haunted by ill omens, bad luck, and an old curse.
He who would discover the Stones and bold fast
these lands
must guard the green crystal with a
warrior's hands.
Hugh did not believe in the power of ancient curses. He trusted in little else other than his own skills as a knight and the determined will that had brought him this far. But he had a healthy respect for the power such foolish nonsense often wielded over the minds of other people.
Regardless of his own opinion of the irritating prophecy, he knew that the disheartened folk of Scarcliffe believed in the old legend. Their new lord must prove himself by guarding the green crystal.
Since arriving to take possession of the manor less than a month earlier, Hugh had found the inhabitants who now called him lord surprisingly sullen. The good people of Scarcliffe obeyed him out of fear but they saw no hope for the future in him. Their gloominess showed in everything they did, from the lackluster way they milled flour to the halfhearted manner in which they worked the fields.
Hugh was accustomed to command. He had been trained to it. He had been a natural leader of men for most of his adult life. He knew he could coerce a minimal level of cooperation from those he governed but he also knew that was not sufficient. He needed willing loyalty from his people in order to make Scarcliffe thrive for all their sakes.
The real problem was that the inhabitants of the manor did not expect Hugh to last long in his position as lord. None of the other lords had survived more than a year or two.
Within hours of his arrival, Hugh had heard muttered omens of impending disaster. Crops had been trampled by a band of renegade knights. A freakish lightning storm had done considerable damage to the church. A wandering monk who preached doom and destruction had appeared in the vicinity.
To the people of Scarcliffe, the theft of the green crystal from the vault of the local convent had been an event of cataclysmic proportions. It had also been the last straw. Hugh knew that in their eyes it was proof positive that he was not their true lord.
Hugh had realized immediately that the fastest way to gain the trust of his people was to recover the green stone. He intended to do just that.
"Have a care, my lord," Dunstan advised. "Lady Alice is no anxious maiden to be awed by your reputation. She will no doubt try to bargain as though she were a London shopkeeper."
"It should prove an interesting experience."