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skinny, no bosom to speak of, noted Jessamine, and her dress was faded and patched.  Why, Jessamine’s own mother wore better quality garments, and Martha’s headdress was better starched than the Lady’s well-washed linen.
    “My Lady,” said Georges, bowing low, “my most humble apologies.  The oxen…”  He launched into a long explanation of his delays.  Why, Jessamine couldn’t understand.  Why bother ingratiating himself with a woman such as this?
    The Lady cut off the carpenter mid-sentence.  “Yes, yes, my good man, I’m sure your work is all it’s reputed to be.  I saw the stable you built for the duke last spring, and I’m perfectly content to allow you free reign with the design.”  She smiled a small, tight smile.  “Let’s get you settled in some lodgings, and out of this hot sun.”
    “Thank you, my Lady.  Would you allow me to introduce my family?”  He beckoned to them.  His wife and son went quickly enough.  Jessamine took her time, using the chance to allow the man at the gate a good look at her slender white calf as she climbed down from the cart.
    “This is my wife, Martha, and my son, Albert.”  Albert was fifteen, and he bowed awkwardly and blushed.
    Jessamine took her time to stroll the short distance from the cart to the head of the ox team where the rest of her family waited.
    She was very aware of the way she walked, hips swaying beneath her gown.  She knew the slow, mesmerizing rhythm would draw the gaze of practically every man in the courtyard.  Including the man at the gate.
    Her father was destroying the brim of his straw hat.  Jessamine had often told him off about the annoying habit, but it made no difference.  “Come on, girl, we mustn’t keep the Lady waiting.  This,” he said, as proud as a showman saving his best goods until the last, “is my daughter, Jessamine.”
    Jessamine dipped a perfunctory curtsey.
    “Do your family work with you?” asked the Lady.
    “My wife and son do, my Lady,” answered Georges.
    “Work will be found for your daughter, in that case.  There’ll be something in the kitchens she can do to help, I’m sure.”
    “Thank you, my Lady.  Of course, my Lady,” answered her fool of a father.  Something in the kitchens, indeed!  Jessamine would see about that.
    “There’s a cottage free,” added the Lady, “and the ostler will show you where you can graze the oxen.”
    The carpenter bowed again.  Jessamine cringed to see her father grovel so before this backwoods woman who barely deserved the term ‘noble’.
    A cottage, indeed.  A two room hovel, no doubt, where she’d be sharing a bed with her brother yet again, and fending off his creeping hands in the middle of the night.  Not for long though, she swore.  She’d find out where that man slept.  Then things would change.
    “All of you,” Lady Berenice cried out to the waiting crowd, “There’s work to be done!”
    Jessamine licked her lips with her small, pink tongue, hoping the man was watching.
     

CHAPTER SIX
    Chattering like a flock of geese, the women and children went back to the gardens, Robert and the kitchen hands returned to the kitchen, and the ostler and the stable hands came to unhitch the cart and put the oxen out to pasture.  The brief moment of excitement was over.  Everyone went back to work.
    Except for the troubadour.  He was still standing by the gate, idly swinging his hammer.  Berenice walked towards him, intending to tell him to follow the example set by the others.
    She could feel him watching her as she approached him.  She held her head high, determined he wouldn’t see how aware of herself he made her feel.  Or was it just that, after seeing the carpenter’s daughter swaying seductively with every step, Berenice now felt stiff, and tense, and about as graceful as one of those oxen?
    Why should it suddenly matter to her?  She’d walked the same way for most of her twenty four years.  Nothing had changed, nothing at