Unbidden (The Evolution Series) Read Free

own actions, but still?  The order she demanded on her estate came at a high price at times, and she was not always the one paying the toll.
    Her father had told her many times to avoid interference in their tenants’ personal lives . Whether a man abused his family, or a woman wasted her paltry coins on worthless trinkets at a festival, or a child ran about naked and dirty due to his parents’ slothfulness, it was best to not meddle in their private affairs. This was a line not crossed. Was the line the same for her father as a man as it was for her as a woman?  She did not know.
    I t galled her on occasions like this nonetheless.
    She led Denes toward the cask building, relieved to find Bertrand rolling a barrel along the racks . He unbent with a smile, not appearing to be a monster, just tall wiry Bertrand with thinning hair and a slight paunch pushing out the front of his homespun tunic. When she looked closely, she could see the reddish eyes of too much wine and the slightly scabbed knuckles of a well-used fist.
    Yes, it galled her indeed.
    “Have you been able to repair the leaking casks?”
    “Yes, my lady, all taken care of,” he said pleasantly.
    “I am called away on some business. I could be gone for several weeks.”
    His bloodshot eyes widened at the notion of his mistress disappearing during the harvest, but he nodded his head in understanding.
    “I am confident in your ability to make the wine. I only wanted to warn you about the monks.”
    “Yes, my lady, the monks,” he repeated.
    “Their barrels were empty before August and the bishop will undoubtedly come to pester you to fill them. As you know, the wine is not ready,” she said pointedly, hoping he would understand the wine wasn’t ready for him either. “The bishop will try to make you feel guilty and sinful for denying him. You will bow and tell him I have forbidden you to dispense any of the vintage until my return.”
    “No, my lady, I will not dispense any of the wine.”
    “Good. You know I depend on you with the vineyard and the wine, Bertrand.”
    “Yes, my lady.”
    “And you are very conscientious with your work,” she added.
    “Thank you, my lady,” he blustered, delighted with the compliment.
    She should have left it at that and kept her toes behind the imaginary line separating the concerns of Alda from Bertrand’s private life. But she could not swallow the angry lump in her throat.
    “I wish you could be as careful with your son,” she said softly, knowing as his jaw clenched and his mortified eyes rose to meet hers that she had not just stuck a toe over the line. She had leaped foolishly across it with both booted feet.
    And for what?  Her comment would certainly not help Samuel nor further her standing as a woman doing a man’s job.
    She nodded curtly to him as she left, not sorry . She still found it difficult to keep her tongue behind her teeth when vexed. She would have to work on that.

 
    Chapter Three

 
    “David, your prayers have been answered.”
    David regarded Theophilus, his best friend and lord of the town of Ribeauville, with a critical brown eye. Theo dressed the part of a dandy when he wasn’t out killing the Carolingian emperor’s latest enemies. Theo wore the colors of a spring duckling today, tomorrow it might be a summer sky. His dark hair was perfectly trimmed and topped with a slouchy tasseled concoction of fabric you couldn’t even call a hat. David would doubt the man’s masculinity if he hadn’t seen him kill many a soldier with his bare hands.
    Theo turned away to look across the large courtyard within the walls of palace, clasping his hands behind his back . They stood on the tall wooden gallery that ran the length of the palace and connected to the octagonal chapel opposite them. The ground below swarmed with the men who held power in the empire built by Charlemagne. Beyond the outer walls of the palace stood the city of Aix-la-Chapelle filled to bursting with the families and