Chapter Two #2
John was grinning, trying very hard not to laugh at his second eldest daughter.
“You must not let her embarrass herself like that anymore,” he said.
“Spring is going to have a difficult time as it is finding a husband without stories of her terrible dancing following her around. Please, Wynnie – protect your sister even if she cannot protect herself. You must not let her do that again.”
Wynter nodded, holding up a hand in surrender. “I will try,” she said. “But with de Luci… she very much wanted to impress the man.”
John grunted unhappily. “I fear the only thing she has done is convince the man that she is some kind of lunatic,” he said, watching Wynter put her hand over her face as she started to laugh again.
“Come with me now. De Luci has requested a conference with me and I want you to be part of it. Come and at least be kind to the man. Talk to him. Please?”
Wynter’s laughter faded as she looked at her father. He was extending a hand to her, encouragingly, and she scratched her head wearily before taking it. “Why, Papa?” she said. “I do not want to marry the man. Why must I speak to him?”
John pulled her out of the chair, heading from the hall.
“Because he is a nice man, a kind man, and a powerful man,” he said.
“He is the kind of man who would let you do anything you wanted to do, including your entertainments, and probably never say a word about it. If you want a man who will bow to your every wish, de Luci is that man.”
Wynter sighed as they exited the hall with the great keep now looming in front of them. “Do I want a husband who is simply going to let me do whatever I want to do?”
“Do you want one who is going to be cruel and controlling?”
“Of course not.”
“Then a man who will let you have your head is the best husband you can hope for.”
Wynter didn’t say anything for a moment as her father led her across the bailey. “I want a man who can make me laugh,” she muttered. “A man who is intelligent and handsome. No offense to de Luci, but I want someone who makes me feel something when I look in his eyes.”
“What do you want to feel?”
“Love.”
Her father cast her a long look. “Sweetheart, I wish you the very best of luck with that,” he said. “You know I do. But love is not a great consideration when it comes to marriage. There are other things that are more important.”
Wynter didn’t think so. She’d had that feeling, once. Years ago, she had the feeling when she looked into the eyes of Gage de Reyne and she still remembered that thrill. She remembered her stomach quivering and her palms sweating, and it was the greatest feeling in the world.
Six long years ago…
That was the one and only time she’d experienced love.
But these days, it didn’t do any good to lament what she’d lost. Her father insisted that she’d never really lost anything, that any perceived feelings from Gage were strictly her imagination, but Wynter knew better.
He may have been a good deal older than she was, but she knew the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her wasn’t simply polite consideration.
When he first left, there wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t think of him and wonder where he was.
She wondered if he was well and if he was happy, or at least on his way to finding happiness.
She didn’t want to admit that finding happiness, at some point, would more than likely mean finding a wife, but she wasn’t selfish by nature.
If Gage found a woman who made him happy, then she was happy for him.
She only wished that woman could have been her.
As the months passed, she still continued to think about him and then the years began to pass.
She thought about him less and less, but he’d never left her mind completely.
One didn’t forget the first, and in her case, the only man she had fallen in love with.
Gage was always with her, a delicate wound upon her heart and mind, but a wound that had never healed.
In truth, she didn’t want it to heal. It was something she wanted to hold on to, reminding her of those feelings she knew she’d never feel again, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep that soft and warm place where only Gage existed.
Time, and her father, were pushing him aside.
Wynter wasn’t a fool. She knew she had to marry at some point, as her father said.
She was the heiress to Ashington, so she didn’t have the luxury of remaining a spinster, pining for one man her entire life.
Not even taking the veil would relieve her of that responsibility, mostly because her parents wouldn’t let her, so it wasn’t as if she could shirk the duty. But she sincerely wished she could.
She had no desire to marry anyone.
Least of all Brian de Luci.
“Breeding and family are more important in a marriage, are they?” she said belatedly to her father’s statement. “I will agree that they are critical to the success of a good marriage, but you must at least respect and hopefully like the person you marry. Wouldn’t you agree?”
John shrugged. “You can learn to like them,” he said. “I learned to like your mother. When I first met her, I thought she was entirely too opinionated.”
“Like me?”
John fought off a grin. “You are much worse than she ever was,” he said, eyeing her as she stuck her tongue out at him. “You are far more insolent. But I love you anyway.”
Wynter smiled. “I should hope so,” she said. “But you are certainly trying to marry me off as if you don’t.”
They mounted the steps to the keep at that point, heading up the great stone flight, unusually built when most entry stairs to a keep were retractable and wooden so that they could be either raised or burned in case of an attack.
They entered the dark innards of Ashleven’s enormous keep and John let go of her hand.
“Up the stairs,” he said quietly. “Wash that charcoal off your face and return to my solar, quickly. If you think to delay, know that I shall bring de Luci up to your bedchamber and we can discuss our business there.”
Wynter frowned, knowing he would do it, too. If she wouldn’t go to de Luci, he would bring de Luci to her and in her own chamber. She could not escape the man. She’d be trapped and forced to converse with him whether or not she wanted to.
“Very well,” she said begrudgingly. “I will be swift.”
“See that you are.”
Wynter headed up the mural stairs as her father went into his solar where de Luci and two of the Ashleven knights were waiting.
Wynter could hear the voices of her father’s knights, voices she recognized, of Clark de Vries and his second in command, Sir Etienne de Gault.
But their voices faded as she reached the third floor where her chamber was located.
She could hear Spring complaining about something and the calm voice of Summer, who was much like Wynter when it came to reason and control.
She could usually talk Spring down from her pinnacle of hysteria.
As Wynter entered her chamber, she nearly ran into her mother, coming out of Summer and Autumn’s chamber.
“There you are,” Maryann said. “Where is your father?”
Wynter moved into her chamber, tossing the beard and the wig she’d been holding onto her messy bed. “In his solar with de Luci,” she said. “He wants me to wash my face and join them.”
Maryann came in behind her, picking up after her daughter, who wasn’t particularly neat and organized.
“Then you shall,” she said, watching Wynter pour water into a basin and pick up a lumpy bar of soap that smelled of lavender.
“Truly, Wynnie, he is a nice man. I do not understand what your issue is with him. He would make a good husband.”
Wynter smeared the frothy soap over her face, particularly over the charcoal around her eyes. “Not you, too,” she grumbled. “I will tell you what I told Papa – I want a man I can converse with, one who is intelligent and handsome and makes me laugh.”
“And de Luci does not?”
Wynter rubbed a wet rag over her face and eyes, scrubbing off the black soot.
“The man may be kind, but he is as dull as wood,” she said.
“I have had several conversations with him and he can hardly speak four words at a time without growing nervous and red in the face. How is a man like that supposed to make me laugh?”
Maryann put the things she collected into a neat pile on the table and came up behind Wynter, untying the linen tunic she was wearing. “You haven’t exactly been receptive to him,” she said. “He knows it, the poor man. Of course he is nervous around you if he knows you want nothing to do with him.”
“Then he is not helping his case.”
She set aside the rag and, eyes closed, splashed water on her face until the froth was rinsed away. Maryann pinched her chin between her thumb and forefinger and lifted her head, looking for any residue remaining. She found a little, using the rag to cleanse it away.
“Will you do something for me, then?” Maryann said quietly. “Go down and be pleasing. Smile at him. See if that will ease his nerves. Give the man a chance and when we go to Durham tomorrow, I shall buy you anything you wish.”
Wynter peeped an eye open at her mother through the dripping water. “Are you trying to buy my obedience?”
“If that is what it takes.”
Wynter broke into a grin. “Then I accept,” she said. “But why are we going all the way to Durham?”
Maryann finished wiping a streak of black from her face. “Because my father was born there,” she said quietly. “It is the anniversary of his death and I wish to have the priests say mass for the dead in his memory.”