Chapter 24 #2
“Life can be,” Nicholas agreed, “but time will go by just the same. As it does, you gather up the moments that make up that life and there your life is made whilst you’re doing it.
” He smiled. “A walk with your love in the garden, the laughter of your children, a quiet moment when you look up at the stars and find that whilst perhaps you aren’t as grand as you think you are, you are, after all, alive to look at those stars so there must be something to you after all. ” He shrugged. “You make a life.”
Sam took a deep breath. “In a different place?”
“Your brother John lives in France,” Nicholas pointed out. “Your uncle Jake drags his family to every kingdom he can reach. On the other hand, Robin would never leave the lists if he didn’t adore his wife so thoroughly and need to see her at least once or twice a day.”
Sam smiled. “There is truth to that, at least.” He also imagined he didn’t need to point out to his father how well-worn the path was between Wyckham and their home at Beauvois in France, so he didn’t.
“Haven’t you done the same in that Future life of yours?” Nicholas asked. “Traveled to far-flung places, that is.”
Sam chewed on his words for a moment. “Well, I haven’t exactly flown as of yet.”
“Neither have I,” Nicholas said dryly.
Sam smiled at his father. “If you come, I will fête you in glorious fashion, even if that requires flying somewhere.”
“And if you come home, I’ll do the same. Well, perhaps not the flying part.”
“When,” Sam corrected. “When we come home. If she’ll come with me.”
“Sam, I suspect she’ll be the one leading the charge.”
Sam smiled. “I daresay she will.”
Nicholas nodded toward the front door. “Then go to, my son, and win yourself that lovely faery who’s likely scouting out apple blossoms to put in her hair.”
Sam started across the hall, then stopped and turned to walk back over to his sire.
He gave him a brisk, manly sort of hug, refrained from bawling like a bairn, then submitted to having his hair ruffled before he was given a firm push toward the front door.
He smiled to himself as he made his way out to the courtyard, then around to the garden.
He realized that he’d forgotten breakfast, but perhaps something could be had in a moment or two when he hadn’t come to such an ungainly halt in spite of himself.
He leaned up against the footings of the hall to drink in the sight that greeted him. That was fortunate for it gave him a moment or two to get his rampaging emotions under control.
There was the usual litter of children who were too young to be sent to the lists and those children were being watched over by their mothers and his two younger sisters.
His mother and Harriet’s were sitting together on a stone bench under his mother’s favorite apple tree, chatting amicably in what he could hear was a decent bit of French.
And next to her mother sat the woman he was most interested in, looking serene and content to simply lift her face to the sun. At least she was sitting on the end of the bench instead of between their dams, something he thought boded well for his having her to himself.
He took a deep breath, then pushed away from the castle proper and made his way over to that collection of women who were in their own ways as formidable as his father and those he trained with in the lists.
He exchanged a glance with his younger sister Joanna and sincerely hoped she hadn’t taken Harriet out to the lists to show her anything but the scenery.
The lady Petunia stood up and smiled at him. “Shall we do a little sparring here in the garden, Samuel?” she asked brightly.
Sam didn’t mean to gape at her, but … well, he knew he shouldn’t have been at all surprised by the question.
She’d been spending copious time with his own beloved mother who wasn’t at all above picking up a sword and preparing to do damage with it.
Well, and whatever it was Joanna did whilst they were all otherwise occupied.
He hoped his father had not only a good lock on his trunk but on the door to the armory as well.
Lady Petunia laughed, sounding genuinely amused, and reached out to put her hand on his arm.
“I’m teasing you, darling. Here, come sit next to Harriet and we’ll leave the swords for later.
Your mother and I were just discussing the possibilities for a celebratory supper tomorrow night if there’s a need. ”
Sam nodded, then looked quickly at his mother to find her watching him with a small smile. A celebratory supper? As in a feast to celebrate some sort of something that needed to be celebrated?
“Petunia and I were discussing how quickly they may need to return home,” Jennifer said, looking at him with a look that said all the things she couldn’t say aloud at the moment. “I wasn’t sure what your duties elsewhere demanded of you, as well.”
“Why is Uncle Samuel always going off for duties?” asked one of the wee ones.
“Do his duties involve swords, Granny Jen?”
“What is a duty, Mama?”
Sam watched the questions be offered by that collection of his nieces and nephews and decided that his sisters—all four of them there—could take up the duties of coming up with excuses for him. He concentrated on his mother and Harriet’s and made them both polite bows.
“I am happily at your disposal. The faeries who await me will keep for a bit longer.” And by faeries he meant the entire cast and crew in Stratford that most certainly could keep for another day or two.
He glanced at Harriet to find her watching him with a faint smile.
He imagined he would need to translate the sudden babbling that swept over that herd of children at the thought of his consorting with faeries, so he happily took up a spot on the end of the bench next to her and listened to his mother and hers doing a fairly decent bit of explaining liberally laced with misdirection.
Harriet leaned close to him. “Faeries?”
“Joanna’s been slipping you words behind my back, hasn’t she?”
“You don’t want to know all the swear words she’s taught me.”
“You can tell me later when I can write them down for you. In fact, why don’t we take up a spot in my mother’s solar and I’ll see what I can do about a few stanzas as tribute to your gorgeous elfin self before we start on that other list?”
She smiled into his eyes. “You’re still angling for a reward after every verse?”
“Stanza,” he corrected, “though I’m a terrible poet, so I might need encouragement after every word.”
“Self-serving.”
“As usual,” he agreed.
He found himself cheered by the fact that she wasn’t leaping to her feet and bolting, so he made himself slightly more comfortable and wondered how best to encourage that rambunctious brood of children to go inside and pester Cook for something tasty so he could make a bit of headway with his convincing the woman sitting next to him that she might actually want to listen to his poor attempts at rhyme.
Fortunately for the state of his heart, his mother and Harriet’s seemed to have taken pity on him for they gathered the brood together for a round of games on the far side of the garden.
“Oh, Sam, I think I dropped something,” Harriet said, looking around her quickly. She stood up. “Can you help me?”
Sam stood up with her. “What—”
She gave him a look worthy of any medieval miss on a quest to have what she wanted, then took his hand and pulled him behind his mother’s favorite apple trees that was, at the moment, laden with blossoms. He wondered if what she’d dropped had been her good sense, but realized quickly that she had something in mind.
He checked with her silently, had a smile in return, then put his arms around her.
“Devious,” he noted.
“Well, if you’re not interest—”
He kissed her. And the truth was, once he got started with it, he found that he didn’t particularly want to stop.
Whatever sweetness Harriet Delphinium Brewster had brought into his life with her lovely smiles and delicate beauty was magnified exponentially when he had her in his arms.
“I think it’s starting to rain,” she said, at one point.
“We could seek shelter in my mother’s solar.”
“Will you truly write poetry for me?”
“I will,” he said solemnly, “do whatever you want me to do.”
“You just want your rewards.”
He smiled. “I might be self-serving, but I’m also not entirely stupid.”
She smiled up at him. “I like medieval England.”
And he liked her, very much. He offered his arm, then found himself suddenly with the perplexing situation of facing several women who might need to be escorted inside.
The ladies of his family only laughed at him and took themselves off toward the door of the kitchens, leaving him with the woman he most wanted to impress.
She leaned up and kissed him quickly, then smiled.
“Let’s go, Master Shakespeare. I’m interested in your sonnets.”
Well, if she was going to put it that way, what could he do but oblige her?
He was momentarily distracted by a bowl of something shoved into his hands on his way through the kitchens, made all the more distracting by the woman who stood next to him and watched him inhale it, but what could he do? He had wooing to accomplish and needed to keep up his strength.
He was also grateful for a few lads in the great hall who were distracted by children swarming them mostly because it allowed him to escape upstairs with his lady.
If he managed to gain his mother’s solar with only his and Harriet’s dams for company, he could hardly argue with it.
He saw their mothers settled with drinks and warm blankets, built up the fire for their pleasure, then borrowed parchment, ink, and a proper quill to take with his lady into an alcove where the light might be best.
Not for any other reason, of course.
He fetched a stool, smiling his best smile at both his mother and Harriet’s as he did so, then retreated to his preferred roost to take his seat upon that stool and put his mind to the task at hand.