So far, she had managed to avoid the fellow, except for seeing him at a distance or across a market square, but Granny was full of stories about him, none of them flattering, and nothing Bella had seen was inclined to make her doubt them. He was full of his own importance, unremittingly cruel in enforcing the laws against poaching, arrogant and clearly convinced he was the most desirable man in the city or out of it.
He granted her a long, leisurely view of his magnificence as he made his way down the ridge, and it was true that if it had not been for the faint sneer on his lips and the arrogance of his carriage, he could be thought of as handsome. Without his mask, the chiseled features, the fine head of sable hair and the muscular body displayed to advantage by his closely laced leather tunic and trousers probably caused susceptible hearts to flutter. But Bella did not in the least like the set of his chin, nor the speculation and anticipation in his cold blue eyes. Another girl would have been intimidated. Bella knew she had the protection of her rank — but even if she hadn’t, she was not going to back down to this bully.
“Poaching, eh?” he said as he drew within a few paces of her.
“Scarcely,” she snapped back. “Not everyone out in the woods is a poacher, and if I were, I would not be so stupid as to trudge about openly on the path to Granny’s Cottage.”
She startled him; obviously he was not expecting a mere woman to stand up to him. His eyes narrowed, and his lips compressed into a thin line. “Well, we’ll just see about that,” he snarled. “Turn out that basket!”
“And just who are you to order me about?” she retorted, holding the basket close to her body when he made a grab for it. She had begun angry; now she was furious, and that fury drove out any vestige of fear.
“Woodsman Eric von Teller!” he barked. “Now turn out that basket!”
Anger did strange things to her. It made her think more clearly, and her thoughts moved faster than usual.
He was trying to intimidate and humiliate her. Very well, she would give him a taste of his own arrogance right back.
“Oh.” She sniffed derisively, looking down her nose at him. “The Gamekeeper.” He reddened as she opened the lid of the basket and turned back the cloth so he could see that there was nothing more sinister in there than ham and beef. “There. No snares, not so much as a pheasant feather nor a tuft of rabbit fur.” He made to grab for it, anyway, and she pulled it away.
He smiled nastily; whatever thoughts were going through that head of his, he still hadn’t realized that he wasn’t dealing with a peasant or some little servant girl. “So, woman, playing the coy with me? Do you want me to come take that basket from you?” He made a grab for her arm, but she evaded him. She thought about kicking him, but decided against it. She didn’t want to goad him into retaliating physically.
He swore as he stumbled over a rock in the snow, and whirled to face her. “Little vixen! I think you need a touch of taming down, and I am just the man to do it!”
Her cheeks flamed, but with rage, not with embarrassment. She straightened her back. “I generally find that a man who bullies women is one who is a coward before men,” she said cuttingly. “By all the saints, Gamekeeper, you should be tied to the tail of my horse and whipped for your insolence!”
He started again, suddenly realizing that she was not what she seemed. She glared at him. “I am Master Trader Henri Beauchamps’s daughter, and I am not to be trifled with. You have seen that I have not been poaching, now be on your way, and be grateful that I am too busy today to bother with punishing your insolence!” She raised her chin and stared down her nose at him, aping Genevieve at her most superior. “Your manners leave a great deal to be desired. You had better mend them and learn your place before you encounter someone less forgiving than I.”
He started again at her father’s name, and his eyes darkened further with anger at her threat. But he backed away, and made a sketch of a bow.
“I beg your pardon, Mistress Beauchamps,” he said, making a pretense of groveling. “I thought you were a peasant wench — ”
She thought about giving him a tongue-lashing there and then. Thought about ordering him to take her to his master so she could report his behavior.
But on second thought, doing either of those things would do no good and potentially much harm. She knew he wouldn’t dare raise his hand to her, but he would take out the anger such a dressing-down would build in him on the next helpless creature that had the misfortune to cross his path. So instead, she continued aping Genevieve. The insults would get under his skin like screw-thorns.
“Be off with you,” she said, haughtily. “I do not care to waste more of my time with your foolishness than I already have.”
He bowed again, and slunk off into the forest. She stood there for a moment longer, still shaking with anger and taking long, deep breaths to calm herself down. Only when she was certain of her own temper again did she continue her journey.
Granny’s Cottage was at least as old as the oldest building in the city, but rather than showing its age, what it displayed was just how comfortable and cozy one could make a little building when one had several hundred years to improve it. The thatch was probably as thick as Bella was tall, the tiny windows all had glass in them, the floor was closely laid slate covered in cheerful rag rugs. There were four rooms, opening into one another: Granny’s bedroom with a canopied bed big enough to sleep four, a workroom and stillroom where she made her medicines, the kitchen and a sort of parlor. The gray stone walls had long ago been sheathed on the inside in lath and plaster. Pretty little bits of embroidery had been framed and hung on them. The settle in the parlor where Bella sat was piled with cushions and draped with crocheted and knitted blankets made up of a motley assortment of odds and ends.
Granny herself was of a piece with her cottage: tidy, compact, efficient; a little shabby, but one should never equate shabby with dirty. She had snow-white hair piled up under a spotlessly white cap, a white apron over her patchwork skirt and brown linen shirt. She moved lightly, and surprisingly quickly.
“Oh, that wretched, beastly man,” Granny said, arranging honeycakes on a plate, putting the plate on a tray with two mugs and pouring tea into the mugs as Bella stretched out her feet to the fire. “Why Duke Sebastian continues to keep him, I do not know.”
“Well, he tried to maul me at the Wool Guild masked ball last night,” Bella replied crossly. “He didn’t know who I was, of course — I imagine he thought I was a servant in my mistress’s castoffs. I managed to give him bruised ribs and an equally bruised foot. If I hadn’t been at such a disadvantage in the snow today, I would have given him a black eye to match. Hasn’t anyone ever complained about him?” she continued, still flushing a little with anger.