Chapter Two #3
“I used to do this to my sister all of the time,” Caroline said after several moments of combing. “She had hair much like yours. I miss doing this for her.”
“It has been a long time since you have seen her?”
“She died a few years ago in childbirth. She was sixteen years old.”
“Oh,” Alixandrea remarked softly. “I am sorry for you. I have never had a sister, but I can only imagine your grief.”
Caroline forced a smile, but it was evident that the pain was still there. “I have the most beautiful five-year-old niece. Her name is Elinor.”
“A lovely name,” Alixandrea said. “It was my grandmother’s name.”
“Then we have something more in common.”
Caroline had Alixandrea shift her chair so that the damp side of her head was facing the fire.
She combed and fluttered furiously, drying out the heavy hair.
Alixandrea was seated with her head slung back, staring up the ceiling, when the door to her chamber opened again.
She thought it was the servants because they had been coming in and out with blankets and clothing and warmed mead.
But then a voice spoke that sounded like the roll of thunder.
“I would speak with my lady, Caroline.”
It was Matthew. Alixandrea sat up so fast that she nearly toppled from the chair, her bronze eyes focused on the huge man standing just inside the doorway.
He was still covered with blood, now dried black, and his face was lined with dirt where his helm had not protected his face from the elements. He met her gaze as if no one else in the room existed.
“Greetings, Matthew,” Caroline said pleasantly. “’Tis good to see that you are not injured from the battle.”
“Not overly,” he said, forcing his attention away from Alixandrea to look at his sister-in-law. “If you would excuse us, please?”
It took Caroline a moment to realize that he wanted to speak with the lady alone. Her brow furrowed.
“I would not leave Lady Alixandrea unchaperoned, Matthew,” she sounded as if she was scolding him. “’Tis not proper.”
He had little patience for her propriety and struggled not to snap at her.
Caroline was a delicate creature and he was unused to dealing with delicate creatures, especially since he was still in battle mode.
He had been killing all afternoon and to snap a neck or bellow at a woman would have all been the same to him. He forced himself to calm.
“I promise that I will not harm or ravish the lady in any fashion,” he said. “Will that suffice?”
Caroline was obviously torn. “It simply isn’t proper, Matthew.”
“I know, love. But if you could just give us a moment, I would be grateful.”
Caroline acted as if she were the last line of defense between her brother-in-law and the lady. She looked at Alixandrea, then back at Matthew again, before finally nodding her head.
“Very well,” she said. “But I shall be right outside the door with my ear to the wood. And do not think for one moment that I will not come charging back in here if I hear anything questionable.”
Matthew allowed the woman the illusion of power over this situation. So much of her life was beyond her control that he was content to let her believe she had the last word on something as simple as this. When the door to the chamber shut softly behind her, his attention refocused on Alixandrea.
Seated in the chair, her magnificent hair nearly dry and clad in a soft blue dressing gown, he was aware that his first impression of her had not been wrong.
A door to heaven had opened somewhere and this woman had stepped onto the earth.
He’d never seen anything so lovely and he paused a moment simply to stare at her. He could not help himself.
“I wanted to make sure that you did not suffer any ill effects from your adventure this afternoon,” he said quietly. “It was, I would imagine, a harrowing experience to a refined lady such as you.”
She smiled at him, vaguely aware that she was glad to see him. “Harrowing is an excellent term to describe it, my lord,” she replied. “I see that you have made it out in one piece.”
“Not for their lack of trying.”
She laughed softly. “From what my uncle has told me, men have been trying to hack you to pieces for years.”
“It feels like forever.” God, she is gorgeous when she smiles, he thought giddily. “What else has your uncle told you about me?”
She shrugged lightly. “Only what everyone else knows; that you are a magnificent knight known throughout the realm as The White Lord of Wellesbourne. Even when I fostered at Pickering Castle, I heard tales of your heroism. The young squires were raised on them.”
“Surely you heard tale of others,” he said modestly. “The empire is full of brave and cunning knights fulfilling their duty for the king.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “That may be, but the more popular tales being fed to the men were of two particular knights. It was either The Dark Knight, who is said to rip men apart with his bare hands, or you, The White Lord, who is said to fight the enemy with all of the power of an avenging angel. You sweep through the land, smite all who oppose you, and vanish as swiftly as you came.”
Matthew could not help it. The corners of his lips twitched with a smile at her dramatic reprisal of the stories that permeated the land. They got more dramatic with each mouth they passed through. Someday he might even come to believe them.
“Gaston de Russe, or The Dark Knight as you have called him, is truly a legend,” he said. “I am simply mixed in with the rest of them.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Your humility is astonishing considering I have never known a knight to be anything other than completely full of himself.”
He stared at her a moment, as if hardly believing she would dare insult the prodigious institution of knighthood, before finally breaking into snorts of humor. “I would say that is a fair statement,” he said. Then his laughing abruptly stopped. “Just how many knights have you known?”
She grinned, something slightly mocking and even more evasive. “I meant the knights at Pickering and Whitewell. My uncle’s fortress is full of knights who believe the sun would not dare rise or set without them.”
He did not know why he suddenly felt a stab of jealousy at the thought of Alixandrea surrounded by dozens of brazen knights, all vying for her glorious attention.
It further occurred to him that he had been an idiot for the past ten years, resisting Lord Ryesdale’s request for the marriage when he should have claimed her the very moment she came of age.
Had he only known. Gazing into her rosy beauty, he could hardly believe she belonged to him.
“I see,” he said after a moment. He took a few steps towards her. “My father has requested your presence in the hall this eve so that he may introduce you to the castle. As the Lady of Wellesbourne and my wife, you will be given all due respect.”
She nodded. “I would be pleased to attend him, my lord, only… only my clothes do not seem to have arrived yet.”
“They are here, in the courtyard. I told the servants to hold on bringing up your capcases until I called for them.”
“My thanks,” she said. He was standing there, looking at her with an odd expression on his face. She began to feel the slightest bit awkward. “Was there anything else, my lord? I should probably dress quickly if your father is expecting me.”
His brow furrowed as if something puzzled him. Then he shook his head, turned around, and headed to the door. He was nearly to the panel when he came to a halt again and looked at her.
“May I ask you something, my lady?”
“Of course.”
He began to retrace his steps towards her with deliberate thought. It was apparent he was grasping for words. “You and I have been betrothed for ten years.”
“Aye, we have.”
“And in all that time, did you have any reservations about this union?”
“What do you mean?”
“That, perhaps, you did not want to marry me?”
Her bronze eyes glittered in the firelight. “Do you mean did I have similar thoughts to your own?”
He came to a halt. “What do you mean?”
“You do not want to marry me, that much is clear. Luke was very plain. I suppose I should like to know what that reason’s name is.”
She was not only beautiful, she was intuitive. But it did not take a genius to sense his reluctance. He’d never tried to hide it.
“That reason was very long ago,” he said quietly. “It no longer exists. And my reluctance to our union had nothing to do with her, at least not for the past several years.”
“Then why the delay? Why the unwillingness? Why not just break the contract and allow me to marry another rather than wait for you?”
“Is there another?”
She was going to provide him with an evasive answer, but thought better of it. Ambiguity was no way to start a marriage she had waited long enough for. Besides, there was no point in lying.
“Nay,” she replied softly. “There were a few who tried, but no one who caught my eye. I was, after all, promised to The White Lord. How could anyone compete with that?”
His blue eyes moved over her features, sensing her honesty. After a moment, his smile broke through. “They could not, of course,” he said. “And thank God for it.”
She met his smile but was a bit confused by his statement. “I do not understand.”
He took a few steps until he was directly beside her, gazing down at her magnificent bronze-colored head. He could smell the scent of violets. It had been so long since he had smelled anything even remotely sweet or feminine that it almost made him light-headed.
“It means that we shall be married on the morrow and be done with any further delay. I command it.”
She had to crane her neck up sharply to look at him. It was an uncomfortable position so she stood up, thinking it would be easier on her neck. But he was so tall that it made little difference.
“As you wish, my lord.”