A Knight to Remember by Christina Dodd Page B

matter. She gave me a great gift.” Hugh took a breath.“She proved to me all my parts are functioning and I am going to live.”
    “Women are good fer that, at least,” Wharton agreed. “Ye’ve been up longer tonight than last night, and last night longer than th’ night before. Shouldn’t ye rest now?”
    “My strength returns every day tenfold.” Cautiously, Hugh pushed himself away from the table and lifted his arms. The skin pulled but not unduly. Edlyn had taken the stitches out the previous day, and even she had seemed stunned by his improvement. “Let us not forget, Wharton, Lady Edlyn’s herbal skill brought me back from the dead.”
    “Don’t say that, master.” Wharton shivered. “’Tisn’t natural.”
    “I remember,” Hugh insisted. “I was lying there behind the oven. I couldn’t open my eyes. I could barely breathe. Then I smelled something, and it smelled like…like the odor of a fresh destrier before battle, or like chain mail when it has been oiled. I wanted to breathe it in. I wanted to grow strong on the odor.” He clenched his fist, and his gaze grew distant. “Then the bandage became soft and warm, like well-rubbed leather, the kind I have my gauntlets made of.”
    “Ye were dreaming, master.” Wharton’s assurance faded as Hugh turned his glare on him. “Weren’t ye?”
    “I know a dream, and I know reality, and this…this was both.” Hugh considered. “Or neither. But it was real.”
    “Aye, master.” Wary and confused, Wharton asked, “What else happened?”
    “Taste. I could taste it.”
    “Taste what?”
    “Taste her.”
    “Lady Edlyn?” Wharton scrambled backward.“She thrust herself into yer mouth while ye were sleeping?” He thought. “Or whatever ye were doing?”
    “Of course not, you dolt. It wasn’t like that at all!” Wharton was a loyal servant, but sometimes his ignorance amazed Hugh. Yet trying to explain seemed hazardous at best. “Flavor burst on my tongue, a flavor such as I’ve never tasted before. I wanted to savor it. I wanted more and ever more. And I knew it was the flavor of Lady Edlyn.”
    Wharton shivered. “’Tis ungodly what ye’re saying. Has she bewitched ye?”
    Slowly, reserving his strength, Hugh moved toward the door. “For what purpose?”
    “Ye say ye will wed her.”
    “So I will.” Hugh caught the jamb and swung the door wide to let in the night.
    “’Tis not necessary. Ye can have her fer less than that.”
    Jolted, Hugh remembered how Edlyn had doubted men and their honor. “What is your thought?”
    “There’s none here t’ compete fer her. Just take her!”
    Carefully, so Wharton would never suggest such a thing again, Hugh turned to his man. “That would be the act of a knave, indeed, and I will slit the throat of any man who suggests I am a knave.”
    Wharton’s eyes bulged, and he audibly gulped. “Of a certainty, master. I meant that ye have no competition, so ye may wed her as ye wish.”
    “I thought you meant that.” Hugh smiled, but he kept his gaze level and icy. “Although there is no competition for her, the lack of competition doesn’t lessen my appetite.”
    “But…why her?” Wharton couldn’t hold in his cry of frustration, right from his wizened heart. “Why do ye wish t’ wed her?”
    After due consideration, Hugh decided Wharton deserved some explanation. “She is in desperate straits here, and I feel a sense of responsibility.”
    Wharton freely gave the benefit of his advice. “Give her money.”
    “But I need a wife.”
    “A young wife,” Wharton countered.
    “An experienced wife, one who can manage my estates with a sure hand until I have learned everything a mercenary knight needs to be a noble lord.”
    “Aye, a wife should be of use to her husband.” Wharton easily comprehended that. “But she talks ugly t’ ye.”
    “I will sweeten her disposition with myself.” Indeed, Hugh looked forward to that.
    “She doesn’t want t’ marry ye.”
    “So you