Chapter Two
What have I gotten myself into?
It wasn’t really a question. It was a reflection upon her future, a statement of the existing plane of time upon which she was living.
It was a statement to the loss of control of her own life, something she didn’t have control of anyway, not really, but something she’d lost along the way to yet one more man.
When she’d been younger, it had been her father.
He had controlled everything. Then she had married her husband, and he controlled everything.
As a widow, she’d regained some control at the death of her husband, but she had lost it when she agreed to another marriage.
She had only agreed to another marriage because she wanted children, but the father of the man she was betrothed to took it as an invitation to dictate her life.
As if she needed any help with that. She didn’t, but that didn’t stop a man with more power than she had from taking control.
His name was Claudius de Grey, the Earl of Bretherdale.
He was seated across the carriage from her even now as the great wagon with the wooden sides braced with iron straps lurched over a road that had seen better days.
A couple of the bumps had threatened to launch her right out of her seat and onto Lord Bretherdale, but she’d held fast, at least as much as she could, because the last thing she wanted to do was end up on that man’s lap.
He was the very reason why she was here.
“Hmm,” he said, looking from the window at what lay ahead. “I see the tournament village now. ’Tis a fine day for competition. I am certain that my son is doing quite well, my lady. You needn’t worry. He will make us both proud.”
Lady Emmeline de Witt smiled politely. That same pale, polite smile that she’d been giving the man for seven days, the length of time it took for them to travel from her home to Berwick, where Bretherdale’s son, a man with the grandiose name of Maximilian, was competing in a tournament circuit.
She knew that Maximilian traveled with the tournament circuit, more as a hobby than anything else, and she further knew that his father hadn’t seen him in a couple of years.
Now, it was her turn to see him.
To meet him.
She wasn’t exactly eager about it.
“You have explained his prowess to me, my lord,” she said, trying to mask her boredom on the subject. “I look forward to seeing for myself.”
“Of course you do,” Bretherdale said. He was a tall man with a hook nose and glorious white hair. He was also thin to the point of having a frail appearance. “All young women love the thrill of tournaments. When I was younger, I competed in them myself. I was quite good, I think.”
Her polite smile turned genuine. “Did you win very much?”
He shrugged. “A little,” he said, turning his attention to the distant tournament village, which was drawing closer by the second. “My father was not too keen on his heir competing in dangerous sport, so he made me give it up.”
“Yet you let your heir compete,” Emmeline said. “You do not have the same fears for your son that your father had for you?”
He smiled weakly. “I do,” he said. “That is partly why you are here. It is time for him to give up this life of tournaments and return home with his wife. It is time for him to do his duty, and you, my lady, will be the start of it.”
Emmeline didn’t have anything to say to that, mostly because she could already see how much her new husband was going to resent her.
She didn’t even know the man, but she didn’t have to in order to know how he would feel about all of this.
Were she in his position, she knew that she would be quite bitter about it.
Maximilian.
Though Bretherdale lands bordered de Witt lands, she’d never met Maximilian de Grey.
She’d only known about the Earl of Bretherdale because her husband had spoken of him in not particularly favorable terms. But, then again, Ernest never spoke favorably about anyone, so Emmeline took anything he said with a grain of salt.
Too ambitious, Ernest had said, as if he himself had no ambition at all.
The truth was that Ernest had not only been ambitious, but he’d been greedy, too.
The mines on de Witt land were worked day and night to bring forth the ore that was so in demand throughout the country, and Ernest had no problem setting a premium price for it.
He had a big army to protect his lands, even from kings who had coveted them.
King John certainly had, and there had been a few skirmishes as a result.
But John died and his young son had taken the throne, and they’d not heard a peep from him with regards to the riches on de Witt land.
Yet.
Those riches and that land belonged to Emmeline, but it would soon belong to Bretherdale.
He had a decently sized army as well, so perhaps it was fortuitous to have their army for protection as well.
She was quite certain that Bretherdale would protect his son’s interests to the death, because the man had already made intimations about it on the ride north.
He wanted them very badly, and for the price of a marriage, he had them.
Emmeline didn’t even wonder what the man’s son thought, because she was certain he would feel the same.
What man wouldn’t want to marry into a household that produced the equivalent of more than ten thousand pounds sterling every year?
Only a madman wouldn’t want it, and Emmeline was the means by which Bretherdale would have it.
She was a commodity, just like the precious metals on de Witt lands.
The thoughts stayed with her as the carriage drew closer to the tournament village.
Off to the north, she began to see an encampment, with clusters of colorful tents indicating the individual competing houses.
Suddenly, she began to feel a little more interested in their destination—and, in truth, a little nervous.
Up until this moment, it had simply been a dreaded task, a moment she wasn’t looking forward to, but now that the moment was here, so was her anxiety on the matter.
If Bretherdale noticed her nerves, he didn’t say anything.
He was too busy yelling at the escort, telling them to look for the blue-and-white-striped tents.
He thought he saw them at one point, but it turned out to be someone else, so he ordered the carriage to a halt and climbed out to hunt down his son’s encampment on his own.
That left Emmeline alone in the carriage, which she didn’t mind in the least. Quite honestly, she was thankful for the reprieve.
She’d spent the past several days with Bretherdale right in front of her, with hardly any time to herself except when they’d stopped for the night at a tavern to sleep.
That was literally the only time. Therefore, she slumped back in her seat and closed her eyes for a moment, blissful in her aloneness.
But then her eyes popped open.
Bretherdale had gone to find his son, no doubt for an introduction.
Emmeline wasn’t sure what she looked like after hours of travel that morning on a dusty road, but she could guess.
Quickly, she found her small satchel, the one she carried all manner of personal things in, and pulled forth a small mirror made of polished silver.
It gave a gloriously true reflection, and she looked at herself critically, realizing she needed to comb her hair.
She’d dressed earlier that morning before they left for the tournament, and she had been well groomed at the time, but now she had hair sticking out. She thought she looked rather unkempt.
The braids were quickly undone and the comb came out.
Emmeline combed her hair and re-braided it, wrapping the braid around the back of her head and pinning it down with the big iron pins.
Back on went the hairnet of delicate silver netting, and she pinned that down, too.
The overall effect was proper for a widowed woman, but Emmeline hated it.
She hated pinning her hair up and always had.
She loved the feel of her hair down her back, but unfortunately, the proper way for a married woman to wear her hair was up, so up it went.
Next, she used a kerchief and a little of the boiled water in a bladder kept in the carriage and wiped her face, cleaning off the dust. Ernest had liked women who wore cosmetics because he thought they enhanced one’s beauty, so she had lip balm and rouge, and even something to line her eyes made from kohl.
All things that Ernest had given to her, things he had liked her to wear, so she dabbed the wine-colored lip balm made from tallow on her lips and took the small, fine brush to put a tiny line on the upper lid of each eye, against her eyelashes.
The effect was really quite stunning.
Tucking the cosmetics away, she was prepared to meet her new husband.
As prepared as she was ever going to be, anyway.
She waited patiently for Claudius to return to the carriage, but the minutes ticked away and he didn’t return, so she peered from the window where he had been sitting, spying the hustle and bustle of the tournament encampment.
It was actually rather exciting.
Ernest hadn’t been a social man, meaning Emmeline hadn’t gotten out much.
No great parties, no great events, and certainly no tournaments.
Ernest wouldn’t hear of it. He liked to keep to himself, and that meant his wife kept to herself also.
He didn’t even like her having friends to visit, so any relationship she had formed before she married had fallen by the wayside.
That was simply the way it had been. Therefore, at the ripe old age of twenty years and six, she was seeing a tournament for only the second time in her life.
The energy around it was palpable.