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“Yeah,” Allyn answered.

“Liar.”

“Tattlemonger.”

“Lads!” Edlyn might not know what to say to Hugh, but she knew what to say to her sons. “Stop right now.”

“But—”

“He said—”

“Not another word.” She started to descend the stairs, but Hugh stood in her way, and he didn’t budge.

“Do you mind if I handle this?” he asked.

His deep voice startled her, and the concept startled her more. Since the day of the boys’ births, she’d had sole responsibility for their behavior and their discipline. Now this man, this husband, had offered to help.

“I have trained many a page and squire in my day.” He seemed to read her hesitation as more than surprise. He seemed to think she didn’t trust him. “I will not hurt them, but I’ll end this squabbling and have them clean with no trouble to you.”

She stared at Hugh and saw him, not as husband, lover, or foe, but as a knight able to curb her sons where she could not. To allow him to chastise and instruct her boys would be more than a gesture of faith. It would be an unconscionable relief. Making an abrupt decision, she said, “With my blessing.”

The boys had fallen silent. They stared at her with wide eyes as if she had betrayed them. Aye, let them realize how the upheaval that they’d so welcomed would topple their expectations of unlimited freedom.

Hugh snapped, “Get out of those clothes! Bathe yourselves in the rain! Wash your clothes in the horse trough!”

The boys began to sputter, then to cry.

“My lady.” Neda took Edlyn’s elbow. “Let us go inside.”

Edlyn didn’t object. She turned away from the sight of her wide-mouthed, bawling lads with no sensation of anything but contentment and climbed the stairs to the keep. Hugh wouldn’t abuse them, but he would teach them.

With Neda’s help, she changed into dry clothes—nothing from Richard’s men, she made sure—and when Hugh entered, she was sitting by the fire in the great hall, spinning thread from a spindle while the servants hurried to set up the trestle tables for dinner.

She rose at once from her chair. “Praise the saints you have returned, my lord.” She stripped off his wet cloak and handed it to the maid who appeared at her elbow. “You saved me from a fate I detest. My spinning skills have not increased during my time at the abbey.”

“Then leave the spinning to the maids,” he said, obviously bewildered by her offhandedness. Glancing around at the scurrying servants, he added, “There are enough of them.”

“Perhaps I will.” She smiled at him, determined not to ask what he’d done with her sons.

Hugh didn’t wait. He just told her. “They’re clean, they’re getting dry, and they’ll be along to beg your pardon for going out without your permission and for quarreling.”

“My thanks to you.” She’d never meant it as much as she did now. He’d lifted a weight off her shoulders, a weight she’d never hoped to share, and she was grateful. “If you would like, my lord, I took the liberty of laying out your dry clothing in the solar.”

Steam began to rise from his clothes as the fire heated him. “Not yet. First I think we should talk about your sons…” He peered down at her, almost embarrassed but completely determined. “Our sons.”

She had indicated to herself her willingness to share her children, and now he took responsibility for them and called them his own. That bond between them—the bond of parenthood—helped demolish the sense of helplessness she’d experienced since the time of her marriage. Curious, she said, “You could easily enforce your will about Allyn and Parkin, but you do not. Why is that?”

He stared as if she had openly called him a bully. In shocked tones, he said, “You are their mother, while I have come late to the role of father. I bow to your greater experience.”

He was a bully, of course, but not one prompted by cruelty or meanness, and he’d changed without even realizing he had. “I was previously a wife, while you came late to the role of husband, yet you forced me to marry you as if I were a child in need of guidance.” She thought she detected movement from Hugh—could he be fidgeting? “At the time I thought you truly believed it.”

He looked her in the eye. “If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t do it any differently. Although, mayhap, I would do it for different reasons.”

“You would still force me to wed you?”

“I had no time to court you, Edlyn, and as you have said, I thought you showed a remarkable lack of intelligence in not wishing to wed me.”

She wanted to laugh, but he seemed to be serious.