Free The Wagered Wench by Georgia Fox

* * *
    “It may seem strange to you, Dominic, but my daughter has this vexing notion that a man should wash his hands, clean his boots and brush his hair, before he comes to woo.” Gudderth tossed another chopped round of wood onto the fire and sparks flew up, hissing in a gold shower, falling to the cold stone where they quickly sizzled and died. “An odd idea, I know, but that is my daughter.”
    Dominic nodded slowly. Yes, he saw she had some grand ideals and it was obvious he did not fit with them.
    “It has not been an easy path for her,” the old man went on, lowering his seat to the bench beside Dominic. “She lost her mother when she was but a child and my own guardianship has not been as strong as it perhaps should have been.” He laughed sheepishly. “I concentrated on my only and beloved son, Edwy, for many years. When he died suddenly I was quite lost. I have been—unwell—since then.”
    Unwell meaning drunk, it seemed.
    “Elsinora struggled to fill her brother’s boots. I believe she came to think she did not need to marry.”
    Again Dominic nodded, looking down at the cloves floating in his cider.
    “For all her beauty, all her fine points, she can be a stubborn, obdurate girl. Untrusting.” Gudderth added with a sigh, “She is her mother’s daughter, aloof to strangers and frosty to those who attempt closeness.”
    Frosty? Hmmm. Not once he thawed her out properly. She already showed great promise in that regard. He pondered the idea of asking Gudderth what he thought his daughter’s “fine points” were exactly. From what he’d seen she was mostly vain and proud, although he suspected this was all on the surface. He had yet to mine for the secrets she guarded.
    He glanced down at his boots, thinking of the stinging nettles he’d found shoved down into them when he pulled them on that morning. And he thought of his saddle bags, emptied out and filled with dung. Someone really didn’t want him there.
    “You will treat my daughter with kindness, I hope.”
    He turned his head and looked at the bent old man beside him. “I swear I shall never harm a hair on her head, nor tolerate any other person to cause my wife hurt.”
    “Good…good…” It seemed as if Gudderth barely heard. He stared into the fire, lost in another world, or memories of the past.
    Dominic had those too, when he let them in. But they hurt. He tipped his head back to drain his cup of cider, flushing that pain away.
    * * * *
    When the day warmed, he took a stroll up to the highest peak and looked out over the churning sea one way and, in the other, to the cluster of homes in the valley. Puffs of smoke belched through holes in the thatched roofs below and then drifted in the breeze, stretching like horse’s tails in mid-gallop. The earth beneath his feet breathed steadily, a living creature awoken fully now from winter. He could almost imagine the new, spring grass curling up over his boots, kissing them with dew as he strode along. There, in the distance, he could see the fields where oxen pulled the plow, churning the earth in rich brown lines. He turned his face up to the sky and sniffed. A faint tint of manure, followed by ash from the fires, competed with the smell of damp mud and fresh grass. From somewhere not too far away, floated a sweet fragrance of early blossom. Then there was the sea over his shoulder. A salty spray that misted the air and seemed to find its way into his skin, seeping into his pores.
    He stopped for a moment and looked out over the sea, then back to the village. This would be the perfect spot for a fortress, he thought. A castle. It would be expensive and time-consuming. It would require much manpower and skilled labor too.
    He should send a message to Mortain for builders and reinforcements. The Count must be wondering where he’d got to, unless no one missed him. That was a possibility—until they needed some heavy work done for which no one else had a taste. Then they’d look for him