Free Joining by Johanna Lindsey

reached the stairs leading back up to the hall before she shouted back, “Only if ’tis your own tongue you would like served!”

Ten
    “’Tis time, m’lady.”
    “Is it?” Milisant mumbled into her pillow.
    “Aye, look yonder out the window,” the maid said. “The sun rises.”
    “You look yonder, Ena, while I sleep a bit more.”
    “But you never sleep late.”
    The cover was being tugged on. Milisant grabbed it back with a low growl. “I never miss sleep either, but such was the case last eventide, and since I got none then, I’ll have some now. Be gone, Ena. Come back in an hour … or two … or three. Aye, three sounds about right.”
    There was a tsking sound, but then the door closed behind the servant. Milisant sighed and went promptly back to sleep. But it was not long before her cover was being insistently tugged on again.
    “If you do not rise now, you will miss dinner,” she was warned.
    Milisant sat up with a gasp. “Dinner? You let me sleep
this
late?”
    Dinner, the larger of the two main meals of the day, was served a bit before noontime. She had never in her life slept passed Terce, let alone nearly to Sext.
    The servant was giving her a long-suffering look, as if to say, I
tried, but you did not.
Young Ena made an excellent maid, had been serving both sisters for many years now, but she did often have a condescending air, due to her long years of service.
    Milisant ignored her and pushed her way out of the big bed she shared with her sister. Jhone, of course, would have risen at a normal hour and had no doubt been entertaining their guests all morning, one of the many tasks that fell to the lady of a keep. And Jhone was considered the lady of Dunburh, since Milisant had never aspired to that distinction, and there was no other to take it since their mother had died.
    She dropped the bed robe she slept in during the winter months on her way to the garderobe, where she snatched up a clean tunic and braies. She was half dressed when she recalled that she should be dressing in something other than her normal attire today. In fact, she had promised her father. But she quickly shrugged off that thought and continued wrapping the silver cord to cross-garter her leggings. Dress differently just because Wulfric had ordered her to? After the way he had insulted her with that remark about looking like a beggar?
    She snorted to herself before she looked around the chamber for her footwear. Not spotting them, she asked Ena, “Where are my boots?”
    “Under the bed where you left them.”
    “I never leave them there. I leave them at the washbowl. You know I cannot sleep with dirty feet. You heat the water for me yourself.”
    That had been a quirk of hers ever since she had removed the boot from her mended foot those many years ago and had been treated to the stench of it after wearing the boot for three months. Ever since then, she had been unable to get to sleep at night unless she washed both her feet just before getting into bed.
    Ena bent down by the bed and rose with the missing boots in hand and a told-you-so smirk on her lips. “Mayhap that is why you did not sleep last eventide?”
    Milisant blushed. She had been so upset last night that she had forgotten something like that. She recalled wanting, nay, needing to talk to Jhone, but her sister had been fast asleep and she had been loath to wake her. So she had gone to bed without sharing her worries, and thus they had preyed more heavily on her mind.
    Her belly reminded her, loudly, that she had not been kind to it yesterday, so she hurriedly finished dressing, eager to rectify that. When she reached for her thick woolen cloak, though, the maid held out another.
    “If you are not going to dress as your dear papa would like, at least wear this in honor of the guests below,” Ena suggested.
    She was holding out a long mantle better suited to be worn over a bliaut. But it was a fine piece of rich blue velvet trimmed in black fur. Milisant