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to hide their interest!”
    Beresford glanced around the hall. Heads quickly turned away. His already scowling expression deepened, and he muttered something to the effect that people should mind their own affairs and leave his life to him.
    “Oh, I agree,” she said lightly, “but the interest in us is, unfortunately, most understandable, don’t you think? And it’s all the more reason for us to take advantage of looking at them, while they are looking at us. So, then, sire, who might that man be? There, across the hall from us.”
    “That’s Walter Fortescue.”
    “What should I know about him, pray?”
    “That he’s too old for the tourney field.”
    “I can see that, sire,” she said. When no further description of Fortescue was forthcoming, she shifted her gaze and asked, “The man to Sir Walter’s right? Is he known to you?”
    “Roger Warenne.”
    “Roger Warenne,” she repeated, committing the name to memory. “And what should I know about him?”
    “He’s an indifferent swordsman,” Beresford replied. After further consideration, he added, “He’s married to a woman named Felicia.”
    “Ah! I shall look forward to meeting her.” She bit her lip. Her eye next fell on the man she had earlier decided must be a clever one. He was not looking at them at the moment, but she recalled that just before Beresford’s arrival, he had surveyed her through narrowed eyes. “Who is that?” she asked. “The handsomely dressed man standing by the far door? I saw him earlier, just before you arrived.”
    Beresford frowned. “That is Cedric of Valmey.”
    She had to swallow her gasp of dismay. She knew Valmey’s name from the siege of Castle Norham, but she had never seen the man responsible for destroying her life, for he had left to his men the task of gathering the spoils, of which she was a part.
    “What should I know of Cedric of Valmey?” she asked calmly. When her question yielded nothing but silence, she added, with a touch of irony, “And how is he on the tourney field?”
    “Well enough.”
    She interpreted that as high praise. Since she did not think further inquiries about male members of the peerage would produce any comment beyond an assessment of their marshal abilities, she turned her interest to the ladies.
    With her eyes roving, she remarked, “I know, of course, Lady Chester. Yes, there she is. She told me that her husband is very ill. Do you know anything about his condition, sire?”
    Beresford looked as if he were having difficulty remembering her husband. “I believe you must be speaking of Godfrey,” he said at last. “I have not seen him in an age.”
    “Was he not at the feast of Ascension with his wife, the occasion she mentioned to you?”
    The vagueness of his response to this did not encourage her to pursue the question. She said, “Well, I am very sorry for her. Ah, she has just joined Sir Cedric, and they are speaking most intensely! There, you see, I am already becoming familiar with the court. Now, next to them, sire, off to the left, can you tell me who is the woman with the dark hair and green bliaut?”
    Beresford considered her. “I’ve never seen her before.”
    “Well, then, the woman to whom she is speaking— Do you know her?”
    “She looks familiar,” Beresford admitted.
    She tried several more ladies before she received a positive identification. “Oh, that’s Johanna,” he said. “She’s been around forever.”
    Gwyneth laughed, for Johanna was a young and lovely woman. “She is not old enough, I think, sire, to have been around forever,” she said.
    She glanced up at him, and caught an interesting angle of his face. She followed the thick column of his neck up the sharp plane of his jaw to his nose, which was surprisingly straight and well defined in profile, and down to his lips, finely cut but held hard and uncompromising. She wondered fleetingly how he might look with a shave and his hair trimmed. Or even a smile? The thought intrigued