Page 19 of The Noble Servant

“Father, do you wish I was a boy?” she asked him the next time he took her with him.

“No, of course not. You are perfect as a girl. Besides, what need have I of another boy? I already have one.” Then he smiled and patted her on the shoulder, as he was wont to do. But her brother had died not long after her father. Would Father have wished she were a boy if he’d known his only son would die?

Father rarely ever spoke to Mother with affection, and Magdalen secretly believed Mother was jealous of her relationship with her father. Magdalen sometimes felt ashamed for thinking her mother could be guilty of being jealous of her. But Mother had sneered contemptuously at Magdalen too many times for her to believe her mother loved her.

When her father died of an attack of the heart, her sense that she was deeply loved had died with him. Emptiness and loss plagued her for many months afterward, and her grief had been assuaged only when she comforted her younger sisters.

She pulled her hands down from her face and stared at the geese. “What would Mother think if she could see me now, climbing up and down the Wolfberg Castle mount with a bunch of geese?”

“Pardon me.”

Magdalen screamed and spun around. “You frightened me nearly to death.” She could barely speak, she was breathing so hard.

The man she had seen in the dining hall, the new shepherd, stood gazing down at her.

Had he been listening to her prayer? He had certainly heard her speaking aloud.

“I thought I was alone.” She stood and took a step away from him, as he was standing rather close, and picked up her stick.

His countenance changed as he stared at her face, his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

Steffan was staring at Lady Magdalen. But how could it be? Why would the baron’s daughter be tending geese when she was supposed to be marrying the Duke of Wolfberg? But then again, he was tending the sheep.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

Was he ready to tell her that he was the duke she had met in Thornbeck? What if his eyes were playing tricks on him and she was not Lady Magdalen? He certainly wasn’t ready to reveal to this servant girl that he was the duke.

“I don’t know. Do you know me?”

“I don’t know anyshepherds.”

If she was Lady Magdalen, should she not recognize him? Perhaps his disguise worked.

“You should have made your presence known,” she went on, “instead of sneaking up on me.”

“I did not consider myself sneaking. You are not very aware of your surroundings, are you?” He couldn’t help staring at her while leaning on his shepherd’s staff. Just as her delicate beauty had struck him when he’d met Lady Magdalen at Thornbeck, this goose girl’s strawberry-blonde hair, green eyes, and perfect mouth and nose made it hard to look away.

Her eyes narrowed, as if she did not appreciate him speaking to her as if she were only a goose girl. “What is your name?”

“What isyourname?” she countered.

“Steffan. But I asked you first.”

“It is not my name, but you may call me Maggie.”

What game was this? He might as well play along. He rubbed a hand over his bearded chin as he continued to study her. He had intended to speak a greeting to the girl and then herd his sheep away from her and her geese. He did not like geese, and one was wandering closer and closer to him.

Finally, he said, “Do you always graze your geese here?” If so, he would need to stay away from this meadow in the future.

She looked behind him and seemed to notice his sheep.

“I was told I might graze the geese here.” She lifted her shoulders and looked him in the eye.

He wanted to stay and talk with her, possibly find out if she was truly Lady Magdalen. But geese were evil, and even Lady Magdalen herself could not convince him otherwise.

Chapter Eight

Aworried wrinkle formed between the shepherd’s eyes as he stared at her geese, and Magdalen had that sudden thrill of wondering, again, if he was the Duke of Wolfberg. But how could the duke allow himself to dress like this and take care of animals while someone else took his place?