Chapter Four #3
Eiselle pulled her robe more tightly around her in the chill of the room.
“Nay,” she said. “She only said it would be on the morrow, but I do not know anything more than that. Are… are you still certain you wish to go through with it? As I said when I arrived, if the arrangement displeases you, then I may still be sent home.”
He just looked at her; petite, curvy, and that face… was he so fortunate that he was actually going to wake up to that face every day for the rest of his life?
“Do you want to go home?” he asked. “You have made this statement more than once and I am coming to think that it is your way of telling me that you are not pleased with this arrangement. If that is the case, you need only tell me.”
Eiselle shook her head quickly. “I did not mean to imply that,” she said. “I simply… that… well, if I may be honest, my lord?”
He fought off a smile. “Please.”
Eiselle drew in a long, thoughtful breath and perched herself on the end of her bed.
“It is simply that ever since I arrived, I get the feeling that you are not agreeable to this betrothal,” she said.
“Lady de Winter seemed to apologize for you far too much, as if she thought you were offending me somehow. You even asked me if anyone had told me of your reluctance to the betrothal. In all, I received the impression that this marriage was not a happy circumstance for you. Am I wrong?”
Bric couldn’t help it; a smile broke through, tugging at the corners of his mouth.
With a heavy sigh, he turned to the nearest chair in the chamber and sat down on it, so heavily that the wood creaked.
He’d left his great helm down in the hall when he’d picked up the torch, but he was wearing mail over his entire body along with weapons and a heavy tunic, among other things.
He was greatly weighted down and greatly weary, but he didn’t feel like retiring in the least.
He had a lady to know, and perhaps there was no better time than now for honesty.
“Since you are being truthful, then I should be as well,” he said.
“Nay, you are not wrong. Do not misunderstand me, my lady – it is nothing personal against you. While I love your cousin, Dash, and he is like a brother to me, he also knew that I had no desire to marry. I am a busy man, and my vocation is my wife. There is not time for a family. But Dashiell seemed to disregard my personal feelings by proposing this marriage to de Winter, who gladly accepted it to unite the House of de Winter not only to the House of du Reims, but also to the Dukes of Savernake since Dash’s wife is the daughter of the former duke.
To say that I was resistant to the betrothal is an understatement. ”
Eiselle was hurt by his words, but not surprised.
“I see,” she said bravely. “I suppose I suspected all along. The betrothal was so unexpected and sudden, I wondered if you could truly be happy about it. You are a great knight, my lord. Certainly, a merchant’s daughter is not the fine marriage you would expect for a man of your station. ”
He was looking at her, bathed in the firelight. “Normally, that would be true,” he said. “But that did not have anything to do with my feelings. I simply do not wish to be married, to anyone.”
Eiselle averted her gaze, looking at her lap. “Then I shall pack my trunks and leave on the morrow,” she said quietly. “I will not hold you to this betrothal. There is no crime in a man not wanting to be married.”
Of all the things Bric thought his future wife would be, a gracious and understanding woman who understood his resistance to a marriage had not been among those thoughts.
He’d once thought that any woman fortunate enough to be his betrothed would be most eager to sink her claws into him, eager to bind herself to the High Warrior, but Eiselle was far from it.
She seemed not only willing to agree with him, but she wasn’t thinking of her own wants in the least.
Or… was she?
“You will not pack your trunks,” he said.
“What you did not let me say was that this was my position before I met you today. I was certain you would ride in here, gloating over the fact that I was to be your husband. You did not do that and, even now, you are willing to do whatever I wish. I must say that I am quite surprised.”
She glanced up at him. “Why?” she asked. “I do not wish for you to be miserable, because if you are miserable, I will be miserable. My lord, we do not know each other. Marriage is difficult enough without the added burden of the husband not wanting a wife.”
His expression took on a suspicious cast. “You are making this far too easy,” he said. “Surely you must have other offers waiting for you, or even a lover.”
“None, my lord. Not one.”
He could hardly believe that, given her beauty, but he stopped short of telling her so.
Instead, he cocked his head curiously. “Then if that is the case, what are your feelings on marriage?” he asked.
“I asked you if you were agreeable to this marriage earlier and you did not answer me. Are you agreeable?”
“If you are.”
He snorted softly. “Again,” he said softly, “that is far too easy an answer. Tell me the truth, my lady, and tell me what you feel and not what you believe I should hear. Are you agreeable to this marriage or not?”
Eiselle lifted her head, looking him in the eye.
“As I told you, I have never had a marriage offer,” she said.
“I will have seen twenty years and one this summer, so I am quite old for a prospective bride. Most girls my age have been married for a few years, but with me… this is the one and only offer I have ever had. It is shameful to say that, and I am sure you are thinking that there must be something wrong with me. But I assure you, there is nothing wrong with me. I have lived with my parents in a relatively isolated life, so there simply has not been the opportunity to seek prospective husbands and my father was not active in such a pursuit, anyway. He seemed to think that men should come to me, not that I should go to them.”
Bric shook his head faintly. “I find that astonishing that you have never had a marriage offer,” he said. “With your beauty, you could command kings and princes, at the very least. You never even had a marriage offer when you were at Framlingham?”
Eiselle was deeply flattered by his comment, her cheeks flushing. “Nay,” she said. “But… well, if we are being honest, it was not a good situation there.”
“Why not?”
She averted her gaze again, toying with her hands in her lap. “I went to Framlingham when I was ten years and seven,” she said. “I was very old to be a ward, and the girls at Framlingham had all practically grown up together. When I came, they did not like me very much. They weren’t very… kind.”
Strangely, that statement made him feel rather protective of her. He sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands hanging.
“Tell me what happened.”
She cleared her throat softly. “I would rather not, if you please. I do not wish for you to think that I am complaining or speaking ill of others.”
“I would not think that. And I asked because I genuinely want to know. What did those women do?”
Eiselle didn’t like to think back to that terrible year, but he was asking a question and she would do him the courtesy of giving him an answer.
“They did not want to be my friend,” she said after a moment.
“I was an outsider; I understand that. But they were not kind. It was difficult to fit in, so I stopped trying. They began to whisper about me, how I was arrogant and aloof, and one night, one of the girls cut the end of my braid off. Still others stole things from me. One girl stole a necklace from me that belonged to my mother and when I saw her wearing it, she accused me of lying. There was no way I could prove the necklace was mine, of course, unless I sent for my mother, and my mother never leaves the house. My experience at Framlingham was not a good one, my lord. I am glad to forget about it.”
The kind of girls she spoke of were the kind of girls Bric had been fearful of – petty, conniving females who would sink their teeth into him and never let go.
He’d seen enough of those kinds of women to know he wanted nothing to do with them.
Perhaps it was the fear of those women that had truly cemented his resistance to marriage or, at the very least, it had been a contributing factor.
But Eiselle seemed different.
Bric had spent his life priding himself on his judgement of men, often because his life depended on it.
He could root out untrustworthy men as if he could see into their very souls and know them for what they were.
In truth, for all he knew, Eiselle was telling him a greatly fabricated lie.
She could be telling him what she thought he wanted to hear simply to endear herself to him.
But somehow, he didn’t think so.
He believed her.
“I am sorry you were faced with that,” he said after a moment. “I know what it means to not fit with my peers.”
She cocked her head curiously. “How could you know that? You are de Winter’s greatest knight and all men greatly respect you.”
He wriggled his eyebrows. “It was not always thusly,” he said.
“Listen to me; I sound as Irish as I look and, in England, that is a crime. I am lower than the pigs in the trough to some. It took years to build up men’s faith in me, and with that faith came respect.
But it was hard-fought, believe me. It was not a simple thing. ”
Eiselle smiled timidly. “But you were able to earn it,” she said. “You have a great reputation, and I am nothing. That is why I say if you wish to send me home, I will understand completely.”
So they were back to that again. Bric knew that he was never going to send her home, not even if she wanted to go.
At that moment, he knew that he was going to marry the lass.
He might even like it. In fact, he suspected he would if he gave her and marriage in general, a chance and stop being afraid of it.
Perhaps the fear of marriage he had was simply the fear of the unknown.
But Eiselle… she was “known”. And he liked what he saw.
“Would you be disappointed if I told you that I will not send you home?” he asked. “I will if you want me to. But if you say you will do whatever I decide… I have decided that I do not want to send you home.”
Eiselle’s smile grew, turning genuine. “It does not bother you that I am not a great lady?”
He snorted softly. “I have a feeling you are greater than you give yourself credit for,” he said. “You will let me be the judge of just how great you are.”
“Does that mean you have decided what you expect out of a wife? I asked you earlier today and you did not know.”
His eyes glimmered at her in the firelight. “Whatever expectations I have, you have already met them.”
“But I have done nothing.”
“You have been honest. That is the most I can ask from any man, or any woman. As long as you are always honest with me, that exceeds my expectations.”
Eiselle was somewhat puzzled by the statement. “I would not know how to be anything else.”
“Then that makes you the best wife possible.”
She was still confused but, as she looked into his eyes, she swore she saw a flicker of warmth there. She didn’t know the man at all. But from what she saw, he was just as honest as he expected her to be. Something told her that she would always know where she stood with him.
“And you?” she asked. “Will you always be honest with me, also?”
“With my dying breath, my lady. Upon my oath, I swear it.”
He said it so passionately that she believed him implicitly. “Then our marriage is to your liking?”
“It is.”
“I am glad. I… I hope that we shall have a pleasant life together.”
That gleam in his eye turned into something else, something curious and intriguing and even… deep. There was definitely something deep there.
“Lass,” he said slowly, “I hope it is something more than that.”
“What more could it be?”
“I hope we will both find out, together.”
Something in his tone gave Eiselle hope that they would, indeed.