The Noble Servant Page 6

  Steffan could not kill Alexander after promising the priest he would only kill in self-defense. But his cousin did not have to know that.

  He had to be wise, to wait until he had proof before making his claims known to the world.

  His cousin continued to the stairs and soon was gone. Was he going to Steffan’s father’s bedchamber? Was Alexander sleeping in Steffan’s dead father’s bed? Heat rose to his forehead as he itched to chase after him and strangle him for his insolence.

  He took a deep breath. It was not enough. He dragged in another and another. Finally, his breathing had calmed enough to allow him to proceed quietly down the hall to Lady Magdalen’s chamber.

  Attempting not to make a sound, he tried her door. The handle did not even creak as he turned it. Ever so slowly, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  No one screamed. In fact, he did not see anyone in the room at all. Had he gotten the wrong door? But then he heard voices from an adjoining room. The door between the two rooms was partially open, enough for him to see and hear two women talking, probably Lady Magdalen and her maidservant.

  He took a step toward them, intent on telling Lady Magdalen the truth and taking her away from here. But something made him stop. He shifted until he could see the two women better.

  The servant was wearing the usual white kerchief and blue sleeveless overdress. She was brushing Lady Magdalen’s hair while the lady sat on a stool. Lady Magdalen was instructing the servant on how she wanted her hair braided for her night’s sleep.

  “Yes, Lady Magdalen.” The servant put down the brush and started to braid.

  The woman’s hair seemed somehow different from Lady Magdalen’s, and when she turned her head to look at the maidservant . . . the eyes and the mouth were all wrong. Even the shape of her face was wrong.

  That woman was not Lady Magdalen.

  His mind raced as he took a step back. The two women had not seen him, so he kept moving backward as quietly as possible as he let himself back into the corridor.

  He raised a hand to his head. “What is happening?” he whispered. He shook his head. There was no reason to save the lovely and interesting Lady Magdalen from his dim-witted cousin because this woman was not her.

  “Ho, there,” a guard called from the other end of the corridor. “What are you doing in front of Lady Magdalen’s door?”

  “Oh, I am looking for Lord Hazen.” Steffan walked toward the guard. “He asked me to come and—” Steffan struck the back of the man’s neck at the base of his skull, knocking him to the floor. Then he ran as fast as he could down the stairs, taking them three at a time, and leapt for the back door.

  He ran outside, then locked the door with his key. He walked at a normal pace toward the menservants’ barracks.

  His heart was pounding, partially from his encounter with the guard and from running down all those stairs, but also because of his thoughts.

  Who is that woman who was kissing Alexander, and where is Lady Magdalen?

  Magdalen herded her gaggle of gray geese down the side of the hill to a large meadow Katrin had told her about. It was too late in the summer for flowers, but she imagined this green grass would be covered in wildflowers come spring.

  She had devised a plan. She would send a letter to Avelina, the wife of the Margrave of Thornbeck, and ask for her help. Magdalen could make a pen out of a goose feather. But how would she find ink and paper?

  She did not like asking for Lady Thornbeck’s help. Avelina had just given birth to her first child, and she did not need to be bothered with Magdalen’s problems. It would also be humiliating to admit what had happened. Not to mention that it was partially her own fault—Magdalen could not even inspire loyalty in her household servants.

  And yet . . . she needed help. She had no power, no money, no friends or family who knew of her problem. Her mother would be outraged, but she hardly had a contingent of soldiers hanging about Mallin waiting to rescue Magdalen from her embarrassing situation.

  The geese were ambling about the meadow, making their contented noises—little half honks that sounded like laughter—while they grazed in the tall grass.

  They looked safe, so she covered her face with her hands. “Oh Lord God in heaven, I don’t know what to do.” Her voice was muffled and low, but God could hear everything. “I am afraid. I have no one to help me, except Lord and Lady Thornbeck, and I don’t know how to ask them. They are so far away. I need Your help.” What else could she say? “I might ask more specifically, God, for help, but I don’t even know what to ask for. But I assume You know what to do. You are God, after all. So please help me.”

  Her way of praying to God was not the usual way, and perhaps it was not the prescribed way, but she had started praying as if she were speaking to her father when she was a child. She would never pray this way if anyone could hear her.

  There seemed to be nothing else to do but write a letter to Lord and Lady Thornbeck. And she must write to her mother as well. As humiliating as it might be, they would send help and restore Magdalen to her rightful place.

  Now she just needed to figure out how to get paper and ink—and messengers to take the letters.

  The sounds of the geese broke into her thoughts. Being alone with them in this open field reminded her of the long walks she used to take. Sometimes she would sneak away so she wouldn’t have to hear her mother’s disapproving words about a baron’s daughter “climbing up and down the rocks like a mountain goat.” And when she went with her father to visit the mines, Mother would say nothing—until she came back.

  “Disgraceful for a baron to take his oldest daughter to the mines around those rough peasants,” she would say. “Your father wishes you were a boy.”

  “Father, do you wish I was a boy?” she asked him the next time he took her with him.

  “No, of course not. You are perfect as a girl. Besides, what need have I of another boy? I already have one.” Then he smiled and patted her on the shoulder, as he was wont to do. But her brother had died not long after her father. Would Father have wished she were a boy if he’d known his only son would die?

  Father rarely ever spoke to Mother with affection, and Magdalen secretly believed Mother was jealous of her relationship with her father. Magdalen sometimes felt ashamed for thinking her mother could be guilty of being jealous of her. But Mother had sneered contemptuously at Magdalen too many times for her to believe her mother loved her.

  When her father died of an attack of the heart, her sense that she was deeply loved had died with him. Emptiness and loss plagued her for many months afterward, and her grief had been assuaged only when she comforted her younger sisters.

  She pulled her hands down from her face and stared at the geese. “What would Mother think if she could see me now, climbing up and down the Wolfberg Castle mount with a bunch of geese?”

  “Pardon me.”

  Magdalen screamed and spun around. “You frightened me nearly to death.” She could barely speak, she was breathing so hard.

  The man she had seen in the dining hall, the new shepherd, stood gazing down at her.

  Had he been listening to her prayer? He had certainly heard her speaking aloud.

  “I thought I was alone.” She stood and took a step away from him, as he was standing rather close, and picked up her stick.

  His countenance changed as he stared at her face, his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

  Steffan was staring at Lady Magdalen. But how could it be? Why would the baron’s daughter be tending geese when she was supposed to be marrying the Duke of Wolfberg? But then again, he was tending the sheep.

  “Do I know you?” she asked.

  Was he ready to tell her that he was the duke she had met in Thornbeck? What if his eyes were playing tricks on him and she was not Lady Magdalen? He certainly wasn’t ready to reveal to this servant girl that he was the duke.

  “I don’t know. Do you know me?”

  “I don’t know any shepherds.”


  If she was Lady Magdalen, should she not recognize him? Perhaps his disguise worked.

  “You should have made your presence known,” she went on, “instead of sneaking up on me.”

  “I did not consider myself sneaking. You are not very aware of your surroundings, are you?” He couldn’t help staring at her while leaning on his shepherd’s staff. Just as her delicate beauty had struck him when he’d met Lady Magdalen at Thornbeck, this goose girl’s strawberry-blonde hair, green eyes, and perfect mouth and nose made it hard to look away.

  Her eyes narrowed, as if she did not appreciate him speaking to her as if she were only a goose girl. “What is your name?”

  “What is your name?” she countered.

  “Steffan. But I asked you first.”

  “It is not my name, but you may call me Maggie.”

  What game was this? He might as well play along. He rubbed a hand over his bearded chin as he continued to study her. He had intended to speak a greeting to the girl and then herd his sheep away from her and her geese. He did not like geese, and one was wandering closer and closer to him.

  Finally, he said, “Do you always graze your geese here?” If so, he would need to stay away from this meadow in the future.

  She looked behind him and seemed to notice his sheep.

  “I was told I might graze the geese here.” She lifted her shoulders and looked him in the eye.

  He wanted to stay and talk with her, possibly find out if she was truly Lady Magdalen. But geese were evil, and even Lady Magdalen herself could not convince him otherwise.

  Chapter Eight

  A worried wrinkle formed between the shepherd’s eyes as he stared at her geese, and Magdalen had that sudden thrill of wondering, again, if he was the Duke of Wolfberg. But how could the duke allow himself to dress like this and take care of animals while someone else took his place?

  He could ask her the same question.

  “You do not speak like a peasant or a servant,” he said.

  “And who do I speak like?” She lifted a brow.

  He had a rather large nose, and as she recalled, the Duke of Wolfberg also had a slightly larger-than-average nose. This man had a forehead much like the duke’s. His hair was dark brown with a pleasant wave on top. And this man had the same brown eyes as the duke.

  “I don’t like geese,” he said, the wrinkle in his forehead getting deeper, giving him the same vexed look he’d had when she saw him in the dining hall. “The sheep don’t like them either.”

  She sighed as he spoke to her as if she were a fellow servant, just like everyone else. She had been foolish to think he could be the duke.

  “I shall allow my geese to go where they like.” She turned her back on him. “They want no part of you and your sheep.”

  She walked over to the nearest goose, sat down, and started stroking its back. It didn’t even make a sound, just kept on eating.

  “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be touching that bird.” His voice was different, high-pitched and nervous.

  She turned to look at him. “There are only two or three ornery ones. I can attest to their bite.” She showed him her forearm where the bite was still scabbed over and healing. She wasn’t sure why she was speaking with him, except that she had been alone with no one to talk to every day for a week.

  “Dastardly creatures!” The man scowled quite ferociously. “You should be careful that doesn’t fester.”

  “Thank you for your concern. I shall.”

  It was perversely enjoyable to speak in such an impertinent and saucy way to a young man, to not worry about being polite or well spoken. She sat on the ground, keeping her back to the shepherd. Finally, she lay down and gazed at the trees farther down the side of the hill, listening to the strange roaring sound in the distance.

  He had said his name was Steffan. Too bad she did not know the given name of the Duke of Wolfberg. She might come right out and ask him if he was the Duke of Wolfberg, at the risk of him laughing her to scorn, but how could a duke who was forced to watch sheep possibly help her regain her place as a baron’s daughter?

  “How close are we to the sea?” She turned in the direction where he sat, not even sure if he was still there.

  He actually had a book in his lap, and she wished she had the courage to ask him where he got the book.

  “The sea is just beyond those trees.” He nodded below them. “Are you not from Wolfberg?”

  “No.” There didn’t seem to be any reason not to tell him. “I am from Mallin.”

  His gaze grew sharper. “What brings you to Wolfberg?”

  “That is a strange tale, and you would not believe me if I told you.” She stood. “Will you watch the geese? Only for a few minutes? I want to see the ocean.”

  “Have you never seen it before?”

  She shook her head.

  He stood and tucked his book in a leather pouch. “I shall walk with you. There is a steep cliff just beyond the trees. If you aren’t careful you can fall over the edge.”

  “Will the geese and the sheep be well if we leave them alone?”

  “Truthfully, I know very little about sheep, and only slightly more about geese, besides the fact that they are fiendish creatures. But I can’t imagine they will wander off if we are only gone a few minutes. But I would understand if you do not trust me enough to go with me where you have never been before.” He bowed to her, a gallant and humble gesture.

  “I have a gift for reading people’s intentions.” She looked him in the eye, searching his face. “And you, I believe, are an honest person without evil intentions.” Truly, she did not know if she had a gift for reading people’s intentions. But she wanted to say something equally magnanimous.

  He bowed again. “You are safe with me, my lady.”

  His words made her mind race back to the ball at Thornbeck Castle. She looked askance at him, but he was glancing back at the sheep and geese.

  “Let us go. We shall return before they can have moved far.”

  They walked down the hill and into the coolness of the thick stand of trees.

  “The roaring sound is getting louder. I feel as though I might be walking to my doom.”

  “The sea is no danger to you if you do not plunge into it.”

  She had no intention of plunging into it, and she’d be sure to watch her step as they drew near to the edge of the wooded area. A bright patch of blue-and-white sky lay ahead, and something else quite blue. Was that the sea?

  She walked carefully as they stepped on sticks and rocks under and among the leaves. Finally, they moved out of the trees onto a narrow strip of land.

  “Oh.” A bright expanse of water stretched out before her, and . . . it never ended. It seemed to meet the sky a long way out, as if there were nothing else on the earth except sky and water.

  “Be careful.” The shepherd extended his arm toward her. “The cliff is just ahead, as you can see, and it is a long way down.”

  Her eyes devoured everything in front of her, and yet they did not seem any closer to getting their fill.

  “To the left you can see that the cliffs curve around, and they are white where they face the ocean,” he said. “There is sand at the bottom, where it meets the water.”

  “It is perfectly miraculous. I never imagined it would look like this.” She pressed her hand against her chest, as if to prevent her heart from beating too hard. “The water is so . . . beautiful.”

  Her life stretched out in front of her, just as this shimmering ocean did. She had left her childhood behind and was free of her mother’s suffocating control for the first time. Magdalen’s life could be used for so much more than trying to avoid her mother’s anger. Life could be beautiful, surely, could be worthwhile and inspiring, and she could accomplish good things, for herself and for others.

  Steffan was watching her, a slight smile on his face.

  “Now I see what is making that roaring sound.” She took another step toward the edge and looked down. “Th
e waves crashing against the land.”

  He nodded. His face was expressionless as he stared out at the vast waters.

  She let her gaze roam over the white cliff faces and the sand below. Together with the powerful ocean waves, she suddenly felt as if anything was possible. Though she was in an unexpected and difficult situation, God would empower her to do things she never imagined when she was living a small, insignificant life.

  Steffan said, “I have been blessed to grow up in a place where I am surrounded by both forests and the sea.”

  “Mallin has only mountains and mines—empty copper mines. And we have lakes where the geese love to swim and live.” Absently, she said, “The lake waters must make them feel safe from predators. Too bad the geese at Wolfberg have no lake to swim in.”

  “Speaking of geese, we should get back to our animals.” He took one last look below, then turned and they headed back through the trees.

  His face was difficult to read, especially with that beard and the way his brows drew together. She was just about to tell him how much she loved the ocean and the cliffs when they came out of the trees and into the open meadow. The geese and sheep were intermingling, grazing peacefully together.

  Steffan the shepherd groaned. “Evil birds. What are they doing among my sheep?” He raised his arms. “Shoo, you cruel little beasties.”

  But instead of scaring the geese away from the sheep, his display seemed to spook the sheep who bleated and became even more commingled with the geese.

  Steffan threw up his hands again, starting to walk away.

  Magdalen laughed.

  He turned wide eyes on her. “There is nothing funny about these vile creatures. What if they attack the sheep and send them running? They could all plunge off the cliff to their deaths.”

  “That isn’t likely, is it?” Her stomach twisted at the thought. It was true, the geese could start flapping their wings and honking. They were rather frightening when they did that, and they could bite.

  A grim look on his face, he stepped sideways, placing his body between the sheep and the trees and, ultimately, the cliff.