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and cleaned up the broken glass, noticing wryly that there was not a drop of blood visible among the
shards. She had slept, exhausted, on the floor outside the children's rooms, with her sword beside her.
"Why are you sleeping on the floor? What happened to the window? Where's Daddy?" The children's
voices had awakened her.
When Fern had answered their questions with some reassuring half-truths they had calmed down
somewhat. They were upset to learn that their father was gone, but not too upset. Frankly, when your
father has a rotten temper, and your mother carries a sword, and they're not getting along, well, better to
have your father separated from your mother than from his head.
A sudden jolt flung her from her memories back to the present day. Fern struggled to keep herself from
going over her horse's head as the beast stumbled and came to an abrupt halt. Dismounting, she was
dismayed to see he had thrown a shoe.
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"Damn!" she said. "So much for an quick ride home. I guess we'll have to stop by Jacob's smithy."
That was not entirely an unwelcome thought. Quiet and gracious, with a pervasive sense of humor,
Jacob had always seemed a bit out of place as a blacksmith. His exaggerated manners never quite
seemed to fit the coarseness of his surroundings.
"Oh, well," she said. "My errand for Lord Worsley went smoothly enough that particular bunch of
troublemakers won't be back this way any time soon, so there's no great hurry about getting anywhere.
And it's not as if I mind Jacob's company." She straightened up and looked thoughtfully down the trail
toward the smithy.
"I can never read that man, you know." She smiled. "But it's an interesting challenge to try. All the same,
I'd have preferred you'd kept on all your shoes, you dumb beast, so I could have gotten home to a hot
bath and my children."
With a sigh she set off again, now on foot and leading her lame mount. Her thoughts drifted back to the
path her life had taken over the years.
She'd been lucky in a lot of ways. With the end of her marriage and her fool husband gone
who-knew-where, one would have expected balancing children and employment to be a problem, but
Lady Worsley had leaped to her rescue.
"My dear, I have been agonizing for simply ages over how to find suitable playmates for my children and
yours are such gems! I would be delighted to have them stay in the nursery with Nanny and my little ones
whenever you are occupied elsewhere!"
The offer had been a godsend and Fern really did like both Nanny and Lady Worsley, if only Lady
Worsley wouldn't gush quite so much.
Fern had suddenly been free to run her own life, with no short-tempered cloud sharing her bed and
raining on her parade. And all those men!& Smiling, warm, appreciative men who'd been flirting with her
for years. Surely one of them would give her the kind of affectionate, thoughtful, mature (but occasionally
silly), relationship she craved! Perhaps that fellow guardsman, or maybe the grocer& ?
"Guess again." Fern growled, scuffing the dirt as she walked and wishing more than ever for that hot
bath. Muscles stiff from the long ride now complained about walking so far, but she angrily ignored her
aching thighs and strode along.
Some of the guardsmen had considered a female warrior to be an unnatural thing and had refused to
associate with her when not on duty, but others had been eager to see more of her. A few townsmen had
seen her in her armor and been openly admiring. She had never been left lacking male company.
Somehow, though, not one of the affairs had panned out.
"Oh, they had their moments," Fern recalled angrily, "But when the relationship made it to the bedroom
every single one of the bastards was looking for this big, powerful knight-bitch to beat and humiliate him.
And that last one! First the fool badgers me into fulfilling his stupid dominatrix fantasy, and then he has the
gall to say he's entitled to extra kindnesses from me as I had abused him so!"
By the time Fern reached the blacksmith's place she was flushed, not only from the heat and exertion of
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the long walk but with anger and frustration as well. Jacob took one look at her and offered her a drink
of water from the earthen jug he always kept tucked in the shade, well away from the heat of the forge.
She accepted it, still half-lost in memories, and as she drank she thought again how everyone simply
assumed, because she used a sword for a living, that she wanted to spend her entire life dominating
people. The men who wanted to be dominated swarmed to her, and the others, the ones who might have
been worthwhile, stayed away.
"What makes men such idiots, anyway?" Fern burst out after wiping the water from the corners of her
mouth with the back of her sleeve. She reached up again, this time to brush away a mix of sweat and
tears from her eyes.
"Excuse me?" Jacob asked. "Is the water not to your liking, perhaps? Or perhaps you're miffed with the
four-hoofed male behind you who has forced this detour?" He smiled at her, slightly bemused but with
concern in his eyes all the same.
She blinked at him, then blushed.Hehadn't done anything wrong. "By the gods, I'm sorry, Jacob," she
said.
"Thank you for the drink. It's not you, and it's not the horse either. It's& well, it's a long story."
"Rest your feet while I take care of the beast's shoe, and if you care to complain to me about the gods'
whims in the process, I've a sympathetic ear. I promise to 'tsk, tsk,' in all the right spots."
Much of Fern's anger had burnt itself out by now, and she'd no desire to rekindle it by another mental
review of her personal life. Once in an afternoon was quite enough! But perhaps, she mused, she might
share some of her problems and at the same time find that chink in Jacob's emotional armor that she
sought.
"Do you find people mix up who you are with what you do?" she asked. "I may have a job as a knight,
but that's not who I am! Or is this a man's way of thinking, that you are what you do?"
"I don't know about it being 'a man's way of thinking,' " Jacob said. "I've always seen a more vulnerable
side to you than your armor would imply, but I'd say that many folks of either sex miss such things. After
all, ask yourself, do you see me as just a smith?" He smiled at her briefly, but then turned his attention to
the stallion's hoof.
She stared at him, caught off-guard by the question. Actually, up until that moment, she had indeed
thought of him just as a smith a rather unusual smith, but too aloof, too closed off, to think of in a more
personal way. She suddenly found herself staring at the firm line of his shoulders and back at the same
time she noticed how gently he handled her horse, running his hand tenderly down the leg.
"Well, I& " She hesitated, suddenly at a loss for words facing down bandits and negotiating with
brigands she could handle, but this sudden change in an old relationship had her baffled. She chose her
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