Sweet memory #10 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here's memory #10, from Chapter 41 (remember, I haven't revised and cut yet!)

Robert paused, then cupped her hand in both of his and raised it to press a kiss into her palm.

“I have never felt so still as I have these three days, sitting here with you. I understand now what I never comprehended on the manor, how my father bore the discontent I felt simmering in him when I was a boy. Being with her—my mother—quieted his soul. I shall ever be grateful to you, Mae, that for these too-brief days, you have quieted mine. And I shall love you always.”

I hope you’ve enjoyed Rob’s memories! Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to return to my work on the story. Watch for some new Summary Sunday sentences on Sunday!

Sweet memory #9 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here's memory #9. Okay, so this isn’t a very charitable memory for the Christmas season, but Rob really, really enjoyed hitting Kit in this scene. To him, it was a very “sweet memory.” :-) From Chapter 38. (Don’t freak out at the chapter numbers. I’m going to do some cutting in revisions. Really!)

Robert heard the scream of swords scraping free of their scabbards, but all he saw was Kit’s face blurring in a red haze. Robert sprang from a coil he had not realized he had drawn his body into. His fist smashed into Kit’s mouth, then lest Kit’s shuffling feet recover his balance, Robert shoved his shoulder into Kit’s chest to topple him clean over. Robert followed him down to the floor, vaulting both their bodies into a roll. Strode’s guards would not dare strike so long as he kept close enough to Kit to risk their swords hitting the wrong man.

Robert got off another few satisfying punches before the threat from the guards forced him to allow Kit to pivot Robert onto his back.

Sweet memory #8 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here's memory #8. It's another one with Gunthar, because (1) many of Robert’s happy memories with Marguerite are in Marguerite’s POV, (2) good novels are full of conflict and tension, so it’s easier to come up with conflict scenes than it is with “happy” scenes (until we get to “The End”, of course!), and (3) this is a romantic historical, not a romance, which means these scenes with Gunthar are as integral to the plot as the ones between Rob and Marguerite. This is a snippet from a scene where the relationship between Rob and Gunthar has become more comfortable and bantering. From Chapter 30:

“I was not going to snap at you,” Gunthar murmured. “My ears are still ringing too loudly with John’s oaths to leave me with the enthusiasm to summon one myself.”

“I did not think it, sir,” Robert said, resuming his seat on the other side of the desk. “You have not snapped for a fortnight.” Until yesterday.

“And you have exercised an unnatural restraint by not retorting the way you used to.” Until yesterday, lay the unspoken echo between them. “Aye, I say unnatural. If you were not born with a hot rejoinder on your tongue, then I have lost my last wit to judge a man.”

Robert laughed. “My father had a hot temper, though he never turned it on his family. My mother always said I was too much like him.”

“We all of us are, alas. Too much like our parents until someone comes along to steady us a bit. I hope your lass will do that for you, as mine did for me.”

Robert picked up the pen again and resumed his transcription. ’Twas not the first time Gunthar had tried to lure him into talking of Marguerite. As always, Robert dodged. “Tell me the rest, sir. I can finish this while I listen.”

Sweet memory #7 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here is memory #7. This memory isn’t “sweet” to Rob as much as it’s important. What happened between him and Gunthar at this moment changed his life as much as the day he met Marguerite. From Chapter 22:

Robert felt himself unnerved by Gunthar’s touch. He gripped Robert, not shrinkingly, as a noble repelled by a churl, but hard and bracing, the way William might have sought to fortify Robert, or Robert, William. The world had indeed turned upside-down.

Robert stared into Gunthar’s eyes, searching for deceit, but saw only a quiet, almost urgent plea. The barrier between blurred further. He asked one last question, simple and direct. “How?”

Gunthar’s strong mouth tightened, then went slightly awry. “I do not know. But whatever course I decide upon, it will take time. You must give me that time.”

No prevarication, no smooth guarantees. It was that—an honest answer that promised nothing while promising everything—that urged Robert across the gulf of doubt and won the slow nod of his head.

“Your word, then, that you will stay with my guards?” Gunthar said. “Give me that, and I will see to it that you are not bound.”

And that—an exchange of faith for faith—pushed Robert the rest of the way into a wild gamble on Gunthar’s integrity. He spread his hands, knowing he might be walking off a precipice he could never return from, but he heard himself consent anyway. “Very well, my lord. You have my word.”

Sweet memory #6 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here's memory #6. This is how Rob celebrated Christmas in 1213. (And we can all be grateful this Christmas that we aren’t medieval serfs!) From Chapter 9:

 

Robert had spent yesterday’s holy morn attending mass with the other villagers, then stole off to the glade where he had hoped, though not truly expected, that he might find Marguerite. He had known it unlikely that she would be allowed to slip away unnoticed on Christmas Day, and had indeed found the glade empty. To prevent another interrogation from William, whose suspicions had steadily grown as Robert’s absences each day had lengthened, Robert snared a hare and brought it back to the cottage. William had been too grateful for the bracing nourishment it had offered for Lucy’s cold to remind his friend of the dangers of poaching. After they had roasted the hare and dined, Robert built up the fire with some wood he had stolen from the forest along with the hare. That had stretched the limits of William’s tolerance. Though Robert understood William’s fear, it made him impatient all the same. Why waste a woodpenny, he said to William’s chiding, when God could not possibly want some men to freeze only because other men laid greedy claim to what Nature surely intended a benefit to all? Lucy’s alarmed face at their quarrel had finally quieted both their tongues, as it always did. Robert had shifted the conversation to divert her with reminiscences of past Christmases shared with her husband on Beck Manor.

Sweet memory #5 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here is memory #5 from Chapter 17:

That had been the darkest day of Robert’s life after his father’s death, and in some ways it had been worse, for he could not have saved his father, but if he had been more careful, more cautious—if he had thought before he acted—he might have saved Lottie.

Marguerite stood and slid her arms around his neck. “Never again,” she said fiercely.

He held her tight against him and buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair. He had felt a promise of healing once in her kiss. Now her comfort swept all around him. If the guilt and anger did not fully fade, the emotions ebbed back into that bearable corner where he had learned to tamp them down and live his life with energy and optimism, though too often impulsiveness still tripped him into trouble.

Sweet memory #4 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here is sweet memory #4 from Chapter 9 (What can I say? Rob likes reliving all their kissing scenes.)

 

“I think you,” Robert said gruffly, “the most delightful, adorable woman I have ever known. If I was so clumsy that you could not feel my love in those kisses, then I am as contemptible a scoundrel as the Earl of Strode.”

 

That brought Marguerite’s gaze back to his with a glow of hope that was almost painful. Her hands drifted tentatively from her lips. He was grateful for a gusting winter breeze that blew against his cheeks and cooled just a little the blood that still scalded in his veins.

She searched his face. “Do you?” she asked, in softly trembling tones. “Love me?”

He did not think he had assumed his impassive mask, but perhaps the habit had become so second nature that he no longer noticed when he donned it. “You spoke the words first,” he reminded her. “Or did I misunderstand—?”

“No. Oh, no!” She scrambled to her feet.

Another flurry of air glided over him just in time to tamp his blood down another notch before she rushed back into his arms. He pressed her head gently against his shoulder to keep at bay a little longer the temptation to kiss her again.

“You were not clumsy at all.” She sounded suddenly anxious, as though she had left the question hanging unsatisfactorily between them. “I wanted to believe I felt love in your kiss. Could you feel my love in mine?”

“Aye.” And your trust.

Sweet memory #3 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here is memory #3 from Chapter 4. This one is from his childhood and is very sweet to him. If you've read An Epiphany Gift for Robin, you'll be familiar with this lute. :-)

“May I see it?” Marguerite asked.

He removed the lute from its case, and set it in her lap.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “The design of the rose is lovely”

Robert felt a surge of pride at her pleasure in the intricate grillwork over the sound hole. “My father carved it,” he said. “He fashioned the entire instrument for my mother and gave it to her on Epiphany when I was seven years old. I helped him gather the wood late at night while old Lord Simon slept. A minstrel who was passing through the village told us which wood was best: ash for the soundboard, boxwood for the neck, strips of maple for the ribs on the back.”

She had pushed off her hood as he spoke and listened with her gaze flitting alternately between the instrument and his face, but she tilted the lute now to examine its deep, rounded body. He admired the graceful turn of her cheek, the whimsical freckles dusted across her small nose as he continued.

“The minstrel showed my father the thickness to cut the wood and showed him how to bend the ribs to form the belly so that the sound would be the sweetest. Father let me slide the pegs in their places after he had carved their notches before he attached the strings. In truth, my contributions were small, but at the time, I felt for all the world as though I had labored over the gift quite as much as he.”

Sweet memory #2 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. I'm granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel while he waits for me to get back to his story.

Here is memory #2, from Chapter 3 (This is actually from Marguerite’s POV, but it was their first kiss, so you can bet Rob enjoyed it too. :-) )

Gone? Let him go now, when she had only just found him? Heaven could not be so cruel as to ask her to send him away so soon! If it took a kiss to bind him . . .

He must have taken her silence as assent, for he pulled her quickly and firmly against his chest. Marguerite had never been in a man’s arms before. Her heart raced so hard, a pleasurable little buzz of dizziness hummed through her mind and body. He did not look like a man who often hesitated to take what he wanted, and yet when he bent his head towards hers, he checked himself just short of her lips. It was that instant of uncertainty in him, briefer than a heartbeat, that nudged her leap of faith in his honor and lifted her willing mouth and drifted shut her eyes.

And then she felt his mouth on hers, gentle, warm, strong, yet somehow cautious, as if weighing something in her, as if waiting . . . for what? Outrage on her part? Resistance? Oh, heavens! If Marguerite had felt dizzy before, her senses now swam in earnest. She wound her arms around his neck and let her body melt against him and kissed him back as if all her future hung on this one moment.

Sweet memory #1 from The Lady and the Minstrel

My hero, Rob, is locked in the dungeon and I’m not going to have time to write him out before Christmas. (My Christmas, not his.) Still, it’s very cold and damp and depressing in there, so I’m granting him 10 sweet memories from earlier chapters of The Lady and the Minstrel. He and I will share one of them with you each day for the next ten days. 

Sweet memory #1, from Chapter 1

This one face had flitted through his memory again and again o’er the course of the last seven years.

 

No, not this face. The face of a ten-year-old girl who had been playing hide-and-seek with her grandfather in the woods on that day when he might have forfeited all for the sake of a book and a lute.

 

And yet, he thought as his lungs expanded to their normal capacity again, he could easily imagine that child growing up to look very like this graceful, diminutive daughter of a baron. In feature she strongly resembled her mother, with the wide eyes that sat beguilingly in her soft, flowerlike countenance, a small, tip-tilted nose lightly brushed with freckles, and lips that blushed a delicate shade of rose. Lovely, but not beautiful, and cast in a darker mode than her mother, her dusky hair billowing like a cloud from the confines of the fur-trimmed hood that had fallen against her shoulders. Yet her countenance held a sweetness that set her strikingly apart from the gilded haired, equally pretty Lady Valette.