Chapter Three
“I am not going to sup,” Derica said. “You may tell Father that I am feeling ill.”
Dixon de Rosa was thirteen months older than his sister. They had always been exceptionally close. He watched her as she sat before her vanity mirror, the slow movements of her hands as she braided her long hair, and knew something was wrong with her. Illness had nothing to do with it.
“He’ll not disturb you, I promise,” he said. “Garren le Mon is an arrogant buffoon. We’ll chase him away before the night is out, just as we have done the others. You will see.”
Derica’s expression was pensive, thoughtful, as she braided the ends of her hair. Her fingers would move quickly, then slow, then speed up again, then more slowly as her thoughts progressed.
“I have a feeling he’ll not be run off,” she said after a moment. “He is not like the others who have come to call upon me.”
“Of course he is. We’ll have him gone in the blink of an eye.”
Derica cast her brother a long look in the reflection of her looking mirror. “You cannot run him off, Dix.”
“Why not?”
“Because we are betrothed.” She secured the end of the braid and turned around. “The other suitors that have come were merely that – suitors. Sir Garren and I have a contract to be married, legal and binding. You cannot get rid of him, no matter how much you want to.”
Dixon chewed his lip angrily. “Hoyt will.”
“He doesn’t like to be called that and you know it.”
Dixon rolled his eyes. “I have never been able to call him that.”
“What?”
“That.”
Derica fought off a smile. “He is not been right since that blow to the head three years ago, has he? It still takes some getting used to.”
“I cannot call him Lady Cleo Blossom, no matter how much he wants me to.”
Derica stood up, facing her brother. “It matters not what you want. What matters is that if we do not call him Lady Cleo Blossom, he will become quite angry and, you will recollect, quite violent. He is perfectly harmless as long as you do as he wishes.”
Dixon put up a hand. “I know, I know,” he sighed. “For the greatest warrior among us to take a blow to the head at a tourney and wake up thinking he is a woman is… is….”
“I have heard this before, darling.”
“It is tragic!”
“I know. But it ’tis God’s will that our beloved Uncle Hoyt has become the Lady Cleo Blossom. We may not know the reasons now, but perhaps in time, it will become clear.”
Dixon grumbled. “Woman or not, he still packs a wallop. And as protective as he is over you, perhaps Sir Garren will feel that wallop before the night is out. The beauty of it is that he wouldn’t dare strike a woman back.”
Derica didn’t say any more. Her brothers and uncles were always hostile where suitors were concerned. Normally, they had her blessing to do anything necessary to drive the fools away. But Sir Garren was different; half of her wanted him to leave, but the other half was quite interested in him.
She thought about him, standing on the battlements, the soft breeze blowing through his hair and the moonlight reflecting off his features.
He had laughed at one point and the sight of his smile had made her feel strangely weak.
No man had ever had that effect on her, and she’d known many to come to Framlingham on the quest to gain her hand.
They’d tried every known trick, every known charm. But she hadn’t fallen for it.
What made Garren different, she didn’t know. But she didn’t feel like seeing him this eve. She didn’t want him to go, she didn’t want him to stay, she didn’t want to speak with him, yet she felt the strange urge to be in the same room with him. She decided, at that moment, that she was going mad.
“Go down to the hall and give father my message,” she didn’t want her brother standing there watching her in her moment of dementia. “Tell him I have retired for the night.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” She smiled at her brother’s dubious face. “Please. Go now.”
He left, reluctantly. Aglette slipped in when Dixon left and began preparing Derica’s bed for sleep.
One of her duties was to brush out her mistress’ hair.
Even though Derica had recently done just that, she was so lost in thought that she hardly realized when Aglette unbraided her hair and began running the comb through it again.
*
“I fear I have said something to upset you.”
The voice came from the shadows. Derica was so startled that she nearly fell off her chair.
She’d been dozing by the fire in her chamber, having no idea how long she’d been in the twilight between thought and sleep.
She knew it was le Mon before she even saw him.
When he finally emerged from the darkness, her heart leapt into her throat.
“You…,” she gasped, patting her chest to restart her heart. “How did you get in here?”
He came to a halt, a respectful distance away. “Forgive me for startling you. But when your father told me you were feeling ill, I knew it was not the truth.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“How did you get in here?”
His blue eyes twinkled and he gestured at the door. Derica, calming somewhat after her initial fright, slowly shook her head. “That door was locked. I bolted it myself.”
“I did not say I came through the door.”
“But you pointed to it.”
“I did not. I merely pointed to the obvious.”
She was becoming irritated. “The obvious door? You’re not making any sense.”
He remained cool, almost amused. “Does it matter how I got in? I would say that you should be more concerned as to why I am here.”
Derica was still looking over at the door, almost hidden in the darkness. There was a lancet window near it, the oilcloth partially peeled back. It took her a moment to realize that the window was what Garren had meant. Her eyes widened.
“Do you mean to tell me that you came in through the window?” she was astonished. “I am four stories up. How in God’s name did you climb up the side of the keep?”
He smiled faintly. “I came to apologize if I said something to upset you when we met on the battlements. Whatever it was, I did not mean to. I sensed that you were perturbed when you left, and then when you did not appear at sup, I knew I must have offended you.”
She eyed him. “Are you always so evasive?”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to know how you came in through the window, and you want to discuss some silly conversation we had on the battlements.”
“It wasn’t a silly conversation at all, I assure you. It was the first true conversation you and I have had, and I suppose I conducted it badly.”
Derica cocked an eyebrow. She was coming to suspect he was not going to tell her how he came in through the window. But she was off-guard at his appearance and had no desire to continue a conversation with him.
“My father will throw you in the vault if he finds you in here,” she said. “You’d better leave the way you came so no one will see you.”
Garren stood there, watching the light reflect off her features.
He also knew it was dangerous for him to be here, but for the duration of sup he had been seized with the determination to see her.
A small seed of confusion was glowing somewhere in his mind, something that he suspected at some point would make it difficult for him to keep his mind on his mission unless he kept it in check.
Maybe if he could talk to her, to find out just how spoiled and petty she was, he could learn to dislike her.
He needed to find a reason to dislike her in order to maintain his focus.
He took a couple of slow steps, moving towards the other chair in the chamber and being very careful not to appear threatening.
“You have no interest in me, my lady,” he commented quietly.
“I beg your pardon?”
He took the chair, lowering his big body. “I said, you have no interest in me. This marriage is as much a duty to you as it is to me.”
He was a safe enough distance away and Derica was feeling more composed, enough so that she found herself responding to him.
“Unless a young woman is intended for the convent, it is expected she would wed,” she replied. “I have no desire to become a nun or an old maid.”
“But you were disturbed by my observation that one of marriage’s primary purposes is to produce heirs.”
Derica shrugged, toying with the ends of her hair. “Sometimes the truth is disturbing.”
“It is. But why should the production of a child disturb you? All women want children, do they not?”
“My mother died giving birth to me.”
“I see,” Garren understood. “Then childbirth frightens you.”
Derica looked up at him, feeling an odd warmth coarse through her as their eyes met. “Not particularly,” she tried to sound uncaring. “It is a fact of life. One cannot avoid it.”
Garren sensed she was putting up a front but he let it go. “Many, many women survive it,” he said. “True enough that some die, but the same pertains to any risks you take in life. Some live, and some die, but it is better to have taken the chance than to have had no chance to take.”
For the first time since they met, he drew a smile from her, however reluctant. It was a beautiful gesture. “You speak like someone who has taken many chances, and has perhaps regretted the ones he never had.”
He met her smile, feeling the same warmth that she was feeling. “I think that can be said for all of us, not just me,” he said. “But there are things I wish I could have done, and things I wish I hadn’t done.”
She laughed softly, her straight white teeth reflecting the fire. “This conversation is becoming too philosophical for me. I am but a simple woman, after all.”
“You are indeed a woman. But I doubt you are simple.”
“So I have been told.” She was again feeling those familiar feelings associated with him, wildly curious to know more about him. “You never did answer my question when we were up on the battlements.”
“About what?”
“Whether or not you planned to stay in one place after we wed, or whether you plan to continue your wandering ways.”