Chapter Twenty-three
Count
and Countess of Oloron
Talon
Talon woke without the familiar jab of
his daughter’s foot in his belly, filling him with a strange mix of
elation she’d finally slept the night through in her crib, yet also
fear that she’d slept in her parents’ bed for the last time. Of
course, his fear likely had to do with Lara waking up in the middle
of the night, crying out Isabeau’s name and reaching for their
daughter between them, panicking when Isabeau wasn’t there. Talon
had showed her Isabeau sleeping peacefully in her crib, then he’d
held Lara and whispered soothing endearments into her hair until
she’d calmed and fell back to sleep, as he had so many nights a
lifetime ago.
Today was the summer solstice, two
years to the day since Lara had stood him off in the river with
Wolf. Two years since he’d chased the thorny wildcat down and kept
her captive in his chamber. Two years since she’d captured his
heart and soul, and eight months since they’d married and become
the Count and Countess of Oloron.
The Abbot Rogert had returned to
Crossroads Keep with them after marrying them and christening
Isabeau, bringing with him the abbey’s book of records, which
proved Lara the legitimate daughter of Isabeau Midered and Harald
Rousell, and rightful heir to Oloron Manor. Nithard and Ravenna had
fled the province the day after Talon had ridden in and discovered
the two new graves under the oak, leaving no other Midereds in the
province to contest Lara’s inheritance.
The people of the valley had welcomed
their new count and countess with great cheer and hope. Both of
which Talon and Lara were determined to deliver on. Their first act
had been to declare Crossroads Keep their home, for neither of them
wished to live in Oloron Manor, which would remain the county seat
and where Talon held Mallus the first Saturday of every month. The
very first Mallus he’d presided over, with Lara at his side, they’d
pledged a living wage for the field workers and promised that no
person would go hungry through no fault of their own.
Phillipe stayed at the keep as the
captain of Talon's personal guard, which consisted of Oswald, Tree,
and Dardinel. With Oloron Manor to maintain as well, they installed
Anglbert and Berta as stewards, where they would live until Isabeau
was of age to claim her birthright. Though they lost Berta as head
cook for the keep, Enid gratefully took over the position with
Marta as her helper.
Marta and Denys lived in the new house
built over Sophie’s old house, a gift from Talon for Denys’s ploy
with the goats, which had, no doubt, kept Nithard from searching
for Lara after he’d burned her out. For her part, Lara had deeded
the land and Shadow over to them and continued to teach Denys the
healing arts as they tended the valley’s people
together.
Twenty of the brood mares’ bellies
were thickening with foals, the orchards were ripe with summer
fruit, and the fields green with grains to be harvested come the
fall. The miller who’d come to the valley with them from Tours was
so busy, he’d hired three new helpers, and kept his axe sharpened
and on his shoulder every time Phillipe came around his
daughter.
All in all, Talon and Lara’s first
eight months as count and countess had gone well, though Talon
wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the title. Thankfully, his men
still called him Captain, and Isabeau had called him Papa for the
first time seven days ago. Mama and Woof, it seemed, had a new word
a day, and she’d even taken her first shaky steps on her own before
plopping down on her backside with a grin to match her proud
parents’. And last night she’d slept the entire night in her crib.
A crib she still slept soundly in.
“Wake up, wife,” he
whispered into Lara’s ear. “Wake up and kiss your husband before he
has to leave you for the day.”
She buried her face deeper into his
pillow and he took a strand of auburn hair and gently pulled it
down to the lower edge of her shoulder blade.
“Are you measuring my hair
again?” The pillow muffled her sleep-softened voice.
“Aye, wife.” He kissed her
cheek, flushed from sleep. “I am.”
She rolled over and gave him a sly
grin. “I’m thinking of cutting it again.” She ran a hand back
through the tangled mass. “It’s so much easier short. You men don’t
know how good you have it.”
“I know exactly how good I
have it,” Talon told her. “And I don’t want to lose a single inch
of it.”
“No?” Her sly grin turned
impish.
“No.” Talon pushed a curl
back behind her ear, trailing his finger along her jaw and cupping
her chin. “Not one inch.”
She sat up and leaned back against the
headboard, exposing her bare breasts. “I suppose a wife should obey
her husband about such things.” Her grin was anything but
servile.
“I do remember hearing
something about that whilst kneeling before the abbot.” He rubbed
his short beard. “Besides, if you cut your hair, I can stop cutting
my beard.”
“Oh no.” Lara shook her
head and her curls bounced over her breasts. “No husband of mine is
going to let some scraggly, nasty beast grow from his chin.” She
raised an eyebrow and leveled her gaze as Talon lifted his from her
breasts. “You are my husband, are you not?”
“Aye, wife.” He sighed. “I
have been these eight long months passed.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Eight glorious months?” he said with a grin calculated to make her
laugh, but she gasped and clutched at the empty space between them
where their daughter had been every other morning of their life as
lord and lady of the keep.
“Isabeau.”
“Shhh.” Talon put a finger
to his lips and nodded toward the crib. “She’s sleeping
safely.”
“Oh.” Lara grabbed her
chest as she laid eyes on her daughter. “Oh thank God.”
“What did you see in your
dream last night?”
“She was gone,” she
rasped. “In my dream, Issy was gone. She was just…
gone.”
Talon rubbed up and down her arm. “It
was most likely your body reacting to her absence from our bed,” he
soothed. “This is a good thing. We may get to have our bed back to
ourselves for entire nights at a time.”
“It was rather pleasant to
sleep the night through without your greedy little monkey waking me
to nurse.”
“Well.” Talon feasted his
eyes on Lara’s full breasts. “I can’t say as I blame her for
that.”
He gave her a lusty grin, remembering
the short time they’d shared a bed before he’d left for Saxony,
before Isabeau’s birth, when they would spend the mornings wrapped
up in each other. He leaned in and gave her a kiss, sweet and
tender as those lazy mornings had been at first, then growing with
need and intensity as something else grew.
“See,” he whispered
hoarsely, wrapping her touch around his erection. “See how proud I
am to be your husband?”
She laughed, low and throaty. “Would
that all husbands were so proud.” She squeezed, then kept her
movement slow and sure.
He pushed his cock in rhythm, groaning
with anticipation, when a knock came at the door.
“What?” he snarled.
“Dawn’s breaking,
Captain,” Phillipe called.
“I’m up.”
Lara covered her laugh with the hand
that had been stroking his cock a moment before.
“Sorry.” Talon could have
sworn he heard Phillipe chuckling. “Your orders.”
“I’ll be down
shortly.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Captain,” Talon grumbled
as he rose from the bed and pulled his tunic on. “Would that I were
still only a captain. Then I wouldn’t be leaving my comely wife’s
bed to sit through a day’s worth of complaints.”
“Says the captain who
swore to follow his king’s laws to the letter,” Lara reminded him.
“And the king’s laws say that the count of a province must rule
over Mallus. And so, you will leave your wife’s bed to go do your
duty, sir Count.”
“So I will.” Talon pulled
his breeches on over his disappointed cock, then glanced at Isabeau
asleep in her crib. “Unless you wish me to stay?”
Lara followed his gaze. “No. I’m sure
you’re right. My dream was me reacting to her absence from our bed.
It’s the first time she hasn’t slept part of the night beside me
since her birth.” She gave Talon a tremulous smile that told him
she too had mixed emotions over this milestone. “Besides.” Her
smile brightened. “What would you do all day at Marta’s with a
gaggle of women and babies? Even Denys is fleeing with Willem and
Wyatt to Tent Town for the day.”
“Maybe we’ll ride with
them into town then.” Talon strapped on his belt. “Willem may know
something of this tinker’s complaint against the silversmith in
Tent Town. I’m to hear their case today.”
Tent Town was the name given the field
outside of Oloron Manor where the tents of traders and tinkers and
tradesmen had sprung up as word of the new count and countess had
spread through the lands of western Gaul. They’d come looking for a
chance at fair work and trade and had brought with them new
commerce as well as new problems.
Lara rose up onto her knees and
smoothed his jerkin. “I know you prefer to be prepared for your
battles, Captain. As I know you do just as well when meeting them
head on. I have faith you’ll figure it out and deal with them
fairly, though I will say I’ve heard the silversmith called an
honest tradesman by more than one person in the valley.”
Between her smile and how the bed
linens pooled at her knees, Talon was sorely tempted to make
Phillipe and the others wait. After all, being count had its
advantages. Mallus couldn’t start without him. He started to
unbuckle his belt when Isabeau let out a lusty cry, letting the
world know she was awake and ready to start her day.
“Damn.” He planted a kiss
on Lara’s lips. “Until tonight, wife. I promised Anglbert that the
men and I would stay for supper after Mallus. I think he misses our
company, though he’d never admit it.”
Lara smiled as Isabeau started to
fuss. “Until tonight, husband.”
Talon gave Wolf a hearty thump on the
chest. “Keep a watch out, old man. I’ve got to go be
politic.”
***
Lara
Lara sat at the table along with
Berta, Enid, Patience, and Doralice under the shade of the old oak
and handed Marta the package wrapped in linen, grinning in
anticipation as Marta unwrapped her present.
“Oh Lara.” Marta rubbed