Chapter Two #2
“He listened to a countess and her forked tongue,” Diara said, torn between the sadness it provoked and the anger.
“But it does not matter. I will tell him that I will not accept a child as a husband. I want a grown man who did not listen to Lady de Redvers’ gossip, who does not even know de Redvers and the politics of London.
Someone who is far away from that kind of thing so he will not have a preconceived notion about it.
I simply want a fighting chance to have a good marriage, Iris. Is that too much to ask?”
Iris shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “I will support you, whatever you wish. I will tell Uncle Robin that Lady de Redvers was a jealous liar. She only did it because you were more beautiful and kinder than her two daughters. They are trolls, those two.”
Diara’s eyes glimmered with mirth and gratitude. “How do you know that?”
“Because I saw them,” Iris said. “Remember? I fostered at Thetford, and whenever de Redvers would have a gathering, I would come with Lady de Warenne. I saw de Redvers’ daughters at least three times. They were wretched creatures.”
Diara laughed softly. “I know you saw them, but you never spent any time around them,” she said. Her smile faded. “I wish I hadn’t. I dislike women as a whole, Iris. I dislike them intensely. I have never had a good experience with any woman other than you and my mother.”
“That is because we’re not jealous of you,” Iris said. “We’re proud of you.”
That brought a grateful smile from Diara, but Iris could feel the woman’s pain. She’d been so persecuted by her own sex that she didn’t trust, nor did she like, women as a sex, just as she’d said. Iris had heard it before.
It was a lonely way to live.
Outside, the rain was beginning to fall in widely spaced, fat droplets.
They hit the windowsill now and again, causing Diara to reach up and grasp the oil cloth that was hanging from the top of the window.
Securely fastened, it would keep the rain out.
But just as she unrolled it, she caught sight of one of her father’s knights down in the bailey, motioning to some of the soldiers.
It was clear that he was giving orders, and Diara paused, watching the tall, dark-haired knight as he moved about.
Iris walked up beside her to help, also seeing what she was seeing.
There was a commotion going on down there.
“What’s Pryce doing?” Iris asked curiously. “It looks like he’s sending men to the stables.”
Diara was watching her father’s captain as he sent more men on their way with orders.
Pryce de la Roarke had been with her father for many years, an older man who was more like an uncle to Diara than a mere knight.
He was wise, but he was also strict. The man didn’t have a humorous bone in his body.
If someone was looking for understanding and compassion, they more than likely wouldn’t get it from Pryce.
He was, however, quite efficient at his job and could show kindness when he wanted to.
But that was rare.
“I do not know,” Diara said. “He’s issuing commands. Men are running.”
Horses began to come around, out into the bailey, and Iris leaned on the windowsill to get a better look in spite of the rain.
“It looks as if men are preparing to leave,” she said. Then she looked at Diara. “Who is leaving?”
Diara shook her head. “No one that I know if,” she said. “Papa was down in the solar yelling about the betrothal and how…”
She stopped suddenly, and Iris peered strangely at her. “How what?”
Diara blinked as if startled by the answer she was about to give. “How he would go to Hereford himself and demand restitution,” she said. “My God… do you think he is actually going to ride to the Earl of Hereford and Worcester and demand that I be allowed to marry a dead man?”
Before Iris could answer, Diara was rushing from the chamber, taking the spiral stairs of the keep far too quickly as she made her way down to the first floor where the main rooms of the keep were.
There were two solars, one for her mother and one for her father, plus a small hall and a collection of other smaller chambers.
But Diara was heading for her father’s solar, where she last saw the man, and she heard his raised voice before she ever burst into the chamber.
Startled by his daughter nearly ripping the solar door off its hinges as she entered his solar, Robin looked at his only child in shock.
“Diara?” he said, both puzzled and annoyed. “What is wrong, lass?”
Diara didn’t even look at the other people in the chamber. She was completely focused on her father as she rushed toward him.
“Why is Pryce ordering horses to be brought forth?” she demanded. “Papa, are you going to see Hereford?”
Robin had been in the middle of a raging sentence, but was now forced to calm himself simply by the expression on his daughter’s face. He took a deep breath and turned away from her.
“That is none of your affair,” he said. “You will leave, please.”
Diara didn’t obey. In fact, she began to follow him.
“Papa,” she said. “You cannot blame the House of de Lohr over the death of a son. Don’t you think they are sick with grief over it? You cannot go there and make it worse. You will make an enemy of them.”
Robin glanced at her. “I appreciate your concern, but it is unnecessary,” he said. “If you must know, I am indeed going to Lioncross Abbey, but I am going to express my condolences to Hereford. You needn’t worry.”
Diara wasn’t sure why she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t.
She took a moment to look around the chamber, seeing her mother and the remaining two knights in the chamber.
Her father had three, and with Pryce outside, Sir Eddard de Vahn and Sir Mathis de Geld were inside the solar, perhaps awaiting further orders.
Diara might have actually believed that had she not heard her father ranting as she ran down the stairs, so they were merely there to take the brunt of his rage.
So was her mother.
Lady Ananda Maxwell le Bec was looking at her daughter with some apprehension.
Unlike most husbands, Robin sought his wife’s counsel.
She sat in on any business or anything that had to do with Cicadia Castle or the Cheltenham earldom.
She was a brilliant woman, wise with her advice, and that was something Diara had inherited from her.
But Diara was the life of any party, whereas Ananda was quite reserved.
Reserve wasn’t what Diara saw in her mother’s expression, however.
What she saw, she didn’t like.
“Papa,” Diara finally said. “Should I not go with you, as Beckett’s intended? I should like to extend my condolences also.”
“Nay,” Robin said flatly. “I will go. It is my duty. You will remain here with your mother.”
“She is not going?”
Robin’s jaw flexed as he looked at her. “If you have come here to ask foolish questions, then I will again tell you to leave,” he said. He pointed to the door. “Go, please.”
There was so much that wasn’t being said. Diara could feel it. However, not wanting to argue with her father in front of people who served him, including her mother, she quit the chamber.
But she didn’t go far.
Diara sat on the spiral steps that led to the upper floor, just out of sight.
She could still see the solar door, however, peering around the bend of the staircase, and she could hear more of her father’s shouting, but she couldn’t really hear the words.
The thick walls of the keep muffled them.
But she waited him out, knowing something would happen at some point, until the door opened and one of her father’s knights spilled out.
Mathis quit the solar, quietly shutting the door behind him. He turned for the entry, but hissing from the stairwell caught his attention. Diara was waving him over, and he headed in her direction.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Waiting for you,” she said. “He’s not going to Lioncross to convey his condolences, is he?”
Mathis was a good man from a good family.
He’d been in love with Diara since nearly the moment he met her, so talk of betrothals didn’t sit well with him.
He’d offered for her hand, more than once, only to be told that although he was an excellent knight and Lord Cheltenham appreciated his service, he wasn’t suitable for the earl’s daughter.
Worse still, Diara only viewed him as a good friend.
Therefore, he had to stand by and watch someone else take what he wanted.
It was a difficult position for him.
“Nay,” he said after a moment. “He is not.”
“Is he going to demand that they consider the betrothal a marriage by proxy?”
He knew what she meant. Sometimes, betrothals were considered just as good as a marriage. The church considered it binding, so, for all intents and purposes, Diara and Beckett were already married. In theory, anyway. But Mathis shook his head.
“I do not know,” he said honestly. “He paid Roi de Lohr five hundred marks of gold, which was half of your dowry, when the betrothal was agreed upon, so I think he is going to demand the return of the money.”
Diara sighed heavily. “I wonder if they’ll return it?” she said. “I was thinking he was going to demand that I be considered Beckett’s wife and all of the benefits that would entail.”
“Like what?”
“Like anything he would inherit from his father, I suppose,” she said. “I don’t really know. All I know is that my father does not seem the least bit concerned that a young man has died. He only seems to be concerned about the marriage that will never happen now.”
Mathis was watching her as she spoke. Those sweet, slightly red lips that he’d dreamt about kissing. But he shook himself mentally before those thoughts took hold.
Thoughts that would do him no good.
“Whatever he is going to do, he seems to want me and Pryce with him,” he said, looking away and feeling the familiar stab of disappointment. “He is leaving Eddard here in command.”
“When is he leaving?”
“On the morrow.”
Diara thought about her father riding all the way to Lioncross Abbey Castle, the largest castle on the Welsh marches with an enormous standing army. A castle he wanted very much to be allied with by marriage, as he’d told her many times.
That gave her an idea.
“Mathis,” she said. “Do you suppose he is going to Lioncross for another reason?”
Mathis glanced at her. “What other reason?”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “What if he does not want the money returned?”
“Of course he will. That is a good deal of money.”
“But what if he allows them to keep it in exchange for another de Lohr husband?”
That thought hadn’t occurred to Mathis. “The House of de Lohr has many sons and grandsons,” he said. “That may be a distinct possibility.”
Diara thought so, too.
And she hated it.
Slowly, she stood up.
“It would be nice if my father looked at me as his child for once and not something to be bartered with,” she said, turning to mount the steps. “If I had any sense, I’d simply run away.”
She wandered up the steps as Mathis watched her go. When he was certain she was out of earshot, he craned his neck around in time to see her right foot disappear as she continued to the next floor above.
“With me?” he whispered. “If you would, I’d leave this minute.”
It was a sweet, if not heartbreaking, thought.
And a foolish one at that.