Dream of Me/Believe in Me

back to the manor,” Krysta said softly. “It didn't sound to me as though you were saying that I
had
to go back.”
    He was shaking his head before she had finished. “You know perfectly well I expected you to return to the manor. Why didn't you?”
    Krysta took a breath, willing herself to be calm. He didn't look angry, just surprised. He was also very tired. Her heart twisted as she thought of him laboring through the night. The possibility of adding to his travails by disappointing or displeasing him wrenched at her.
    Softly, she said, “I really wanted to help, to be part of this. Hawkforte is to be my home and these my people. It did not seem right to me that I should sit at leisure while everyone else was laboring so hard.”
    He blinked at her once, twice, and leaned a little harder on the scythe. “You look worn out and you're very dirty.”
    “Well, I'm sorry,” she said with some asperity, “but you might want to take a look at yourself.”
    “That's different.”
    “Why?”
    He shot her a skeptical look, as though she couldn't possibly be so obtuse. “Because I'm not a lady.”
    That anything so blatantly obvious needed to be pointed out made Krysta laugh despite her fatigue. “Well, I guess not.” She was silent for a moment before she said quietly, “Perhaps I'm not either. Or at least not your idea of a lady.”
    Tired though he was, Hawk's battle senses were not dulled. He realized at once that this was important. It was just that his poor, fogged brain couldn't figure out why. Loath though he would be to admit it, he was dog tired. It would be many a day, if not forever, before he looked at peasants scything a field with anything less than utter respect.
    “I guess you're not,” he said slowly. His sister, Cymbra, was a lady but Cymbra was so unusual that she wasn't a useful standard to set anyone beside. Daria toowas a lady, and he shuddered at the thought of more of the same. His first wife had been a lady and the less he dwelled on her, the better. Perhaps then being a lady, whatever that meant, was not so important after all. Perhaps it was the woman herself who mattered.
    Krysta looked upset but he had no idea why. He could barely remember what he'd just said to her and besides, he had no more time for standing around chatting. Weary though he was, he was also well aware that the wind was strengthening.
    “We'll be finished in a few hours,” he said, “and just as well. At least promise me you won't dawdle in the fields. Get back to the manor promptly as soon as we're done.”
    She nodded but said nothing, leaving him to wonder why she was so quiet suddenly. She wasn't a quiet sort of woman. He definitely could add that to his list of things he knew about her. Hell, he didn't think he'd had a quiet moment since she'd arrived—strange servants, outrageous disguise and all. A weary smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Quiet was not so desirable. Perhaps even order was overrated. There was much to be said for a fey Norse beauty, freckles and all.
    His smile deepened. He felt less tired suddenly than he had done. They were going to win; the crops would be gathered before the storm hit. It was a small victory in the overall scheme of such things but it was his own and he savored it.
    When this was over, he decided, he was going to buckle down to the business of getting to know Krysta. And to start with, he would satisfy his curiosity about an aspect of her that had been tantalizing him from the first.
    Exactly how many freckles
did
she have?

Chapter NINE

    D
AWDLE. krysta had never dawdled in
her life. And she most certainly hadn't been dawdling the past day as she'd worked herself to exhaustion helping to save
his
oats and
his
apples and … No, that wasn't fair. Hawk was working harder than anyone else and he hadn't expected her to do anything. He had even asked if she would supervise the children instead of telling her to do so.
    But he did not think her a lady, that much was clear, and the knowing of it hurt especially when her mind wandered yet again to the damnable “lady of true worth.” Granted, they had gotten off to a poor start but her motives were pure and he might have forgiven her, indeed she thought he had. She should have known better. It was all well and good to dress up in her mother's beautiful clothes and have a maid for the first time in her life, but none of that made her a lady.
    Ladies were not sweat-stained, dirt-splattered, grimy wretches with