Chapter Four #2
He suddenly burst into loud tears, clapping a wisp of a handkerchief over his mouth to muffle the cries. All conversation at the table stopped and they looked at Hoyt, carrying on pitifully.
Bertram wasn’t particularly tolerant of the brother who dressed in the gowns of a queen. “Lady,” he gruffed wearily. “You will not distract us with your wailing. Leave us.”
Hoyt cast him a pathetic glance and continued to sob. “How can you be so cold?” he sobbed. “Your only daughter will be married on the morrow. Do you show no compassion to her plight?”
Bertram sighed heavily. “ ’Tis only your theatrics that intimate it ’twill be something horrible and fiendish. Marriage is an event of satisfaction and progression.”
“There is no satisfaction in marrying a stranger,” Hoyt insisted. “To allow this… this man access to your daughter in the Biblical sense is barbaric. You have protected her with your life since the day she was born only to turn her over to someone we do not know? I find your callousness shocking.”
“I will not discuss this with you.”
Hoyt continued to weep and put his arm around Derica protectively.
Garren watched it all carefully, noting the size of the lady’s hand, suggesting what his first instincts told him that this was no lady at all.
Suspicion filled his mind; he wondered seriously what game he was playing. He didn’t like the implications at all.
“And you, Sir Garren?” Donat entered the conversation from across the table. “Do you find it barbaric to wed a woman you do not know, someone who obviously has no interest or need for you?”
Garren was cool. “I have no need or interest, either, but I will attend my duty. The barbaric nature of the deal has no bearing on my personal feelings for the matter.”
Donat and his brothers were working up a righteous flare. “Derica deserves better than the likes of you,” Donat hissed. “At least we do not have an ancestor that surrendered like a coward to William the Bastard. Suppose cowardice runs in your blood, eh?”
“Would you like to find out?”
“Indeed!”
“Sit down, Donat,” Bertram bellowed. “There will be no fighting on the eve of your sister’s wedding.”
The table was growing unruly. Hoyt’s weeping grew louder. Donat’s green eyes blazed at his father. “ ’Tis not fighting, Father. Call it a test of worthiness.”
“He is worthy else I would not have agreed to a contract.”
It was apparent that Donat was surprised not to have his father’s support.
“You agreed to the contract based on your friendship with his father. As le Mon clearly stated, he is nothing like his father. Doesn’t Derica at least deserve to know what kind of man she will be forced to spend her life with? ”
Bertram wouldn’t dignify the challenge to his authority as head of the House. His gaze was steady on his middle son. “Take your seat, Donat. We will speak of this no further.”
Donat wouldn’t give up without a fight. He thrust a hand at Derica. “But look at her; she is clearly miserable. She clearly despises this man.”
Derica’s head came up sharply. “You do not speak for me, Donat de Rosa,” she snapped.
Realizing what she had just said, her cheeks flamed as she looked at the surprised faces around her.
“That is… I mean to say that…!” She suddenly bolted to her feet, throwing her napkin to the table.
“I think you are all horrid. Each and every one of you.”
She tripped over Hoyt in her attempt to flee the table, knocking his wimple into the subtlety in front of him.
The tumbling wimple also managed to clip a chalice, which tipped over and splashed red wine onto Donat’s linen tunic.
Donat, trying to evade the spilling liquid, leapt up and knocked Dixon across the side of the head with his forearm.
Dixon, outraged, threw a punch into Donat’s face that sent the brother tumbling.
In seconds, a full-scale fight erupted at the head table.
It seemed that the de Rosas needed little provocation to leap into battle, with others or just with themselves.
Garren pushed himself back, away from the flying fists.
The only family member not fighting was the eldest brother Daniel, and he immediately excused himself.
Meanwhile, Derica was tangled in Hoyt’s skirts and Garren reached over, unwrapping the material from her ankle.
Before she stumbled further in her haste to leave the table, he grasped her hand to steady her, but she jerked her arm away.
“I do not require your assistance,” she hissed.
Garren allowed himself to look at her for the first time since arriving back at Framlingham. He’d spend the past several hours attempting desperately not to think of her, much less look at her. Now, in the midst of a melee, he could think or see nothing else.
“My apologies,” he said. “I did not want you to fall and hurt yourself.”
Derica glared at him, gathering her skirts.
Before she could reply, they were both startled by Hoyt’s flying fist, sending his younger brother Lon to the floor when the man spilled more wine on him in his attempt to stop his nephews from fighting.
Hoyt had an enormous hand and an enormous punch, and in spite of Derica’s declaration of no assistance needed, Garren took firm hold of her and half carried her, half pulled her, off the dais.
The table was in a nasty uproar. Garren took Derica to the small alcove directly behind the table, shielding her from the violence. He watched the fight a moment before shaking his head with disapproval.
“Are they always like this?” he asked.
Derica tried to stay focused on her need to get away from Garren, but she found that she couldn’t. She didn’t want to admit that she simply liked being around him, but she did. After a moment’s struggle, she resigned herself, feeling like a fool.
“Aye,” she muttered. “The de Rosas tend to be a riotous bunch. You may as well know that events like this are not unusual for us.”
Garren had a good grip on her, just in case bodies came flying in their direction and he needed to move her, quickly, to a safer haven.
His eyes were sharp at the fighting going on, in particular, watching Hoyt clobber a nephew and brother to the point of unconsciousness.
With the wimple off, there was no longer a question of the overly-made up creature being a man. He was colossal, with deadly fists.
A chair crashed against the wall near them, splintering. Above it all, Bertram was shouting for the disturbance to cease. No one was listening, however, and the punches continued to fly.
“I think we should leave,” Garren began to look around for an escape route. “I do not like the shift in winds.”
Derica shrugged. “This will calm soon enough, once they’ve blown off their anger.”
He spied an opening at the far end of the hall. “Perhaps. But I will not risk the potential for your injury.” He put both arms around her, shielding her with his massive body as they moved from the alcove. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
Derica permitted him to drag her along the wall until they reached the exit.
It led into the servant’s passage that skirted the hall and led to the entrance of the larger tower.
It was a cold night, with the stars bright above, and Garren took her down the wooden steps into the ward.
At the base of the stairs, however, Derica removed herself from his protective grasp.
“I do not believe I am in any danger now,” she said crisply. “In fact, I believe I can make it back into the hall and up to my chamber without any horrors befalling me. But I thank you for your concern.”
Garren didn’t know what to say. Her manner was abrupt and he knew it was because of his behavior.
Warm one minute, cold the next. He wished he could explain the reasons for his actions, but he truthfully wasn’t sure he fully understood them himself.
He just looked at her and Derica began to suspect he was never going to reply.
Gathered her skirts, she turned to the stairs.
Garren continued to stare after her, her name on the tip of his tongue, knowing he should let her go but unable to.
“Derica,” he called softly.
She paused, her manner stiff. “What is it?”
What is it? Garren felt a strange pressure in his chest, tight, as if he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t be truthful and tell her what it was. He felt himself weakening again and wondered, if this time, there would be no point of return.
“I am sorry if I have been rude to you,” he said.
“I am sure I do not know what you mean, Sir Garren. Good eve to you.”
She turned up the stairs again but he stopped her. When she turned this time, he appeared a few steps below her. He had mounted the stairs and she had never heard him. The expression on his face was surprisingly unguarded.
“You must understand something,” his voice was low. “How I behave with you privately and how I behave with you in front of your family are two different matters altogether.”
She almost did not want to be drawn into this line of conversation, so deep was her insult and confusion. But a large part of her needed to know why he had been so nice to her then had changed as abruptly as day to night.
“Why?” she demanded softly.
“Because if they see that I am kind to you, interested even, then it will suggest weakness. And right now, your family is putting me to a test of strength. I must not fail that test. Can you comprehend that, in any manner?”
She did, somewhat. Her father and uncles and brothers were a group marred by male shortcomings. Another male into the fold only fueled their fires. Garren was doing what he had to do in order not to be trampled by them.
Her hurt was easing. “But you were…,” she tried to find the right words. “In front of Aglette, you acted as if I had done something to offend you. Only the evening before, you had been warm and kind in my chamber, yet when I saw you in the bailey, you were….”