Free At The King's Command by Susan Wiggs

her chattering teeth.
    “Jillie Egan.” The woman bobbed an awkward curtsy. “I’m to be your new lady’s maid.”
    A lady’s maid . Juliana closed her eyes for a moment and surrendered to memories she usually kept locked away. As a girl, she had been attended by no fewer than four maids—all of them pretty as daisies, impeccably groomed, and nearly as accomplished as their young mistress.
    “Milady?” The ogress interrupted her thoughts. “’Tis nigh time for you to be getting to supper.”
    Jillie led Juliana close to the hearth fire and unwound the linen toweling from her hair. The damp locks reeked of strong herbs Stephen had used to kill the lice. Jillie untied the shapeless robe, replacing it with a long, fine shift. The sheer fabric was gossamer to Juliana’s skin, so deliciously different from the coarse homespun of her gypsy garb.
    “Belonged to the first baroness, this did,” Jillie commented, shaking out the scalloped hem of the shift.
    “Lord Wimberleigh’s mother?” Juliana inquired.
    “Heavens, no. That one turned up her noble toes a score of years ago. Lord Wimberleigh’s first wife .”
    Juliana caught her breath. It had never occurred to her that Stephen de Lacey had been married before. A wife. Stephen was a widower. Suddenly the thought colored everything she knew about him: the hooded sadness deepin his eyes, his bitter resentment of Juliana, his long, brooding silences and searing moments of high temper.
    “Where are my own clothes?” she demanded.
    “Nance said they was dirty past washing, crawling with vermin and such. She had them burned.”
    “No!” The shout broke from Juliana on a wave of panic. “I must find them. I need my—”
    “Bauble, milady?” Jillie handed over the brooch. “I spied it pinned inside the waist of your skirt.”
    Juliana went weak with relief; then hope began to warm her blood. The ogress might be someone she could trust. Perhaps the only one she could trust until…She thought of the vurma trail she had left during her journey to Wiltshire, the bits of thread and fabric she had left to mark her way. Hurry, Laszlo.
    Praying her guardian would rescue her from her own foolishness, she closed her fingers around the brooch. “Thank you.” In spite of herself she was beginning to like the big bossy maid. As her tension and suspicion relaxed, she decided to give up her gypsy disguise. Her plan to exhort King Henry for help had failed, but perhaps here she’d find help from Stephen de Lacey. How far would he go, she wondered, and how much would he risk to be rid of her?
    “Jillie,” she said speculatively, “can you do hair?”
    The maid grinned. “Like I were born to it, milady. By the time I’ve done, your new husband won’t know you.”
     
    “Well, Wimberleigh,” said Jonathan Youngblood. “Don’t keep me on tenterhooks like a side of pork. What’s she like?”
    Stephen squeezed his eyes shut, silently cursed Havelock’s wagging tongue then opened his eyes to glare athis best friend. Jonathan sat easily in a carved box chair at the opposite end of the trestle table. Older than Stephen by a decade, he bore the scars of the Scots wars and the ample girth of good living. His bristly gray hair stuck out in spikes around a florid face, and he dressed like a ploughman, for he was never one to bow to fashion. A knight of the old order, Jonathan Youngblood had no use for the perfumed, posturing gentlemen who now dominated the court.
    His warm brown eyes were the kindest Stephen had ever known. Blessed with an even dozen sons, Jonathan had sent Kit to live with Stephen, thinking the lad would fill the void of Stephen’s childlessness.
    If he only knew the truth …Stephen batted the thought away. “I ought to give you no preparation at all,” he declared.
    “Just a hint, then. Otherwise I shall spend the evening gaping like a visitor to Bedlam.”
    Stephen sighed and took a sip of malmsey from his pewter goblet, then set the cup down. The