Free The Deed by Lynsay Sands Page B

across the room, well out of his hearing. As he watched in amazement, a few soft
     words from her had the entire hall moving as people set about their business. Those who
     should have been on guard returned to their posts. Those who worked the kitchens headed
     there. The rest seated themselves quietly at the table to break fast. All of them gave
     Amaury a wide berth as they did. Another moment, and then servants were bringing food and
     ale from the kitchen.
    Amaury simply stood, feeling slightly forlorn as he watched his wife set their castle to
     rights. He hardly noticed when Rolfe and the bishop passed him, throwing him odd looks,
     before moving to a table for a tankard of ale. His thoughts were wholly focused on his
     feelings of being an outsider once more. It was a feeling he had experienced often as a
     child. Being the bastard of a high-ranking noble, he had been excluded from his fathers
     familys ranks, and yet also had been set apart from the other children in the village he
     had been born into.
    When his fathers wife had tired of seeing him in the villagea live reminder of her
     husbands infidelity and had insisted he be sent away, his father had sent him to squire
     with another lord. A kindness that. His father could have simply banished him. And yet he
     had still been an outsider in his new home. A bastard son squiring among so many
     legitimate ones. He had become a strong, skilled fighter through necessity, defending
     himself from the attacks of these other squires who delighted in taunting him. Blake had
     been one of those squires at first, but they had only fought once. They were an equal
     match, and had fought
    until they both collapsed from weariness. On regaining themselves, they had awakened side
     by side to become fast friends. That friendship had gone a long way toward his being
     accepted by the other squires they trained with, so that the scuffles had ceased there.
     But there was always someone ready to call him bastard and battle him; squires of other
     lords they met at tournaments, or simply on travels. Even later, once they were both
     knighted, there had been other knights who had been happy to remind him that he did not
     belong.
    Amaury had always thought that if he had a home of his own, this sense of being an
     outsider would leave. He would finally belong somewhere. Yet instead, he stood in the
     center of his own Great Hall experiencing those very same feelings again as his wifevery
     deliberately he suspectedignored him as punishment for his temper and arrogance and set
     about making his friend more at home than Amaury had ever felt anywhere.
    For one moment his temper rose, and he nearly began bellowing again, but then he reigned
     his temper in. Perhaps this was little more than he deserved. He was a bastard. The son of
     a duke and a village girl. And last night he had treated his wife most sorely. True, it
     had been out of necessity and from lack of time. Still, realizing that Bertrand was
     following, he should have insisted they take care of the bedding directly after the
     ceremony was over so that he might give his new bride the attention and tenderness she had
     deserved. Besides, had he not dallied on his journey here, they would have been wed and
     bedded an entire day earlier, and there would have been time for him to treat her with the
     care she had deserved, he thought.
    Sighing, Amaury turned away from the pleasant scene of his wife talking and laughing with
     Blake as he broke his fast, and walked out of the castle. Ignoring his own hunger pangs,
     he stalked to the stables to retrieve his horse. He intended on riding through the woods
     surrounding the castle. Hopefully it would improve his temper somewhat... and allow his
     wifes irritation with him to ease a bit. Mayhap then he could start again. He always
     believed one should start out as they meant go on, but this morning was not one he wished
     to