Chapter Three #2
Titus was gobsmacked. “Great Bleeding Christ,” he exclaimed softly. “Little Katia. What in the world are you doing here, in London? On a horse that was trying to kill you, no less?”
She chuckled. “I have been living with my aunt, who lives on Coleman Street,” she said. “I have lived with her for a few years.”
Titus couldn’t take his eyes off her. “And I’ve not seen you, not once,” he said. “I cannot believe that I have not.”
“Do you spend a lot of time here, then?”
He nodded. “Enough,” he said. “My older brother, Magnus, used to be the captain of the king’s knights, so I’ve come here many times on business.
These days, I spend time either at Pembroke Castle or at Berwick, but I do come to London on occasion.
Certainly enough over the past year that I find it odd I’ve not seen you when I have visited. ”
“London is a busy city, with many people,” she said. “But we’ve seen each other now, haven’t we? I would say that is a good day.”
He nodded before she even got the words out of her mouth. “Indeed, my lady, it is,” he said. But then he started looking around, back up the road she had come from. “Are you alone on this intrepid beast? Where is your escort?”
Katiana turned to look up the road because he was.
“Probably out searching for me frantically,” she said, finally sliding off the palfrey because her buttocks were sore from the ride.
Gingerly, she began to pull off her dainty leather gloves.
“I was in the courtyard of my aunt’s home when this silly horse took me on a chaotic ride. I think my hands are ruined.”
She was blistered underneath the gloves. Titus took one of her hands before he’d even asked permission to look at her palm, red and blistered in one spot. He inspected the damage closely before releasing her.
“Nothing that some salve will not cure,” he said. “Shall I take you back to your aunt’s home?”
Katiana didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay and talk to Titus for the rest of the day, but she knew the man had other things to do, unfortunately for her.
On her feet next to her palfrey, she could see just how tall he really was.
She wasn’t too short, but average in height, and she found herself looking into his sternum.
She had to crane her neck back to look him in the eye.
“There is no need,” she said. “I can find my way back home. Surely you have more important things to attend to.”
He shook his head. “I have nothing more important to attend to at this moment,” he said. “I would not dream of letting you return to the city without an escort.”
“I do not want to be any trouble, my lord, truly. It would—”
“What is this ‘my lord’ nonsense?” he demanded, cutting her off. “Since when do you not call me by my name?”
She fought off a grin because he was overly irate, an act if ever there was one. “Since I was five years of age,” she said. “I must address you formally, and you know it.”
“Not if I give you permission to call me by my name,” he said. “I am deeply wounded that you should not call me Titus.”
“Very well. If you’re going to cry about it.”
His eyebrows flew up as if she’d just horribly insulted him, but he couldn’t manage to hold the expression. He broke down into soft laughter.
“Now I remember now why I liked you,” he said. “You are witty. You were a witty child, too.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was a frightened, timid little thing afraid of my own shadow,” she said. “I cannot remember being witty at that age.”
“You were,” he assured her. “Promise you will call me Titus or I will cry. Then you’ll be sorry.”
She shook her head solemnly. “I do not want to be sorry,” she said. “Titus it is. You must call me Katia, though I’ve not heard that since I was a child. No one calls me that any longer.”
“Not even your brother?”
Her smile faded. “Nay,” she said. “He is in the north these days. I’ve not seen him in years, thankfully.”
His smile faded also. “Still the same Ansel?”
“Still the same.”
Titus grunted. “Then he can stay in the north,” he said. “I apologize if I am about to say something offensive, but I never liked him.”
“Nor I.”
“Good. Then you are not offended.”
Katiana shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “He has the same traits you remember of him as a boy, only now he is a man. He serves at Thornton Tower, in fact. It is close to Berwick. I’m surprised you’ve not seen him.”
Titus shook his head. “I haven’t,” he said. “But we are not close allies of Thornton. That’s Edmund de Allery’s property.”
“It is.”
“Why is he not at Callerton Castle with your father?”
Katiana lifted her slender shoulders. “A castle can only have one king,” she said.
“My father and Ansel are so much alike that they were close to killing each other while they were both at Callerton, so my father sent him to de Allery simply to be rid of him. I cannot even imagine the havoc he is wreaking there.”
“And you came to live with your aunt?”
She nodded. “My grandfather’s youngest sister,” he said. “She lives in our family’s townhome in London, and she always has. She hates my father, and he hates her. The arrangement has been agreeable for the both of them.”
“Living with her is pleasant for you?”
“My aunt is not a difficult lady to live with,” she said. “We get on well, so I am not displeased.”
His eyes glimmered at her, and a smile was on his lips. “Good,” he said. “May I return you to your aunt, then?”
“If you are certain it is not too much trouble.”
“It is no trouble at all.”
She nodded, struggling not to smile openly about it because she was thrilled. She’d always liked Titus, even as a young girl. He had been kind and thoughtful, at least as much as a young man could be. But that young man had grown up.
… God’s Bones, how he’d grown up.
“Then I accept,” she said. “Mayhap you will tell me what you have been doing these past several years. How long has it been, anyway?”
Titus cocked his head in thought. “It was the year your brother left Roxburgh to return home,” he said, gathering the reins of both horses. “Twenty years ago, at least. As I recall, you left Roxburgh shortly thereafter.”
Katiana thought back to that time in her life. “It seems so long ago,” she said. “I was so young that I hardly remember it. But I do remember when your grandfather appointed you my personal protector.”
Titus grinned as he put his helm back on. “That was my first official assignment,” he said. “I was fifteen years of age and thought I could conquer the world and rescue every damsel in distress in the meantime.”
“Have you rescued many damsels, then?”
He shook his head. “Not too many,” he said. “None as pretty and fragile as Katiana de Edington. But let’s not talk about me—let’s talk about you on the ride back to your aunt’s home. Would you like to ride with me on my horse? I think it might be safer than putting you back on your frothing beast.”
Katiana glanced at the horses. “Would you mind if we walked?” she said hesitantly. “My hands are raw, and, quite honestly, there is a part of my backside that is rather sore from that wild ride.”
Titus looked up at the angle of the sun. “It is about midday,” he said. “Where did you say your aunt’s home was?”
“Coleman Street,” she said. “But if you’d rather ride because it will be faster, I will certainly comply. I do not want you to waste most of your day because of me.”
He seemed to eye her strangely, as if there was something on his mind that he was hesitant to speak of. But Titus was a forthright man, in any case, so he simply spoke up.
“It is not a waste of my time, nor do I want to return you faster,” he said.
“The truth is that I would very much like to hear what you have been doing for the past twenty years, but the reality is this—if I were your husband and you had disappeared on a wild horse, only to return an hour or two later in the company of an unfamiliar knight, I might have to cut off something of his that he considered very vital. I do not wish to offend your husband if he is out looking for you.”
“I am not married.”
“Your betrothed, then.”
“I am not betrothed.”
He scowled at her. “That’s madness.”
“Why is it madness?”
He looked her up and down, incredulous. “Katia, I am not entirely sure you are aware of this, but somewhere in the past twenty years, you have grown up to become a goddess among women,” he said. “You are absolutely beautiful. And you are not married?”
She grinned, flushing at the compliment. “Nay.”
“Madness!”
Katiana started laughing. “Then it is madness,” she said.
“But I am not married, nor am I betrothed. However, the same can be said for you. I should not like to offend your wife by taking a leisurely walk back to London in your company. If I was your wife and found you in the company of a strange woman, I might have to rip all of her hair out.”
He beamed, a big grin with big teeth and slightly prominent canines, as most of the de Wolfe men had. “Is that so?” he said. “You flatter me, my lady.”
“You have not told me if you are married, Titus,” she said sternly. “Tell me now, or I’ll not take another step with you.”
He shook his head. “Much like you, I am not married, nor am I betrothed,” he said, his eyes glittering at her. “Therefore, we may walk back to London without fear of enraged husbands or furious wives. Shall we go?”
That seemed to settle the subject, and he swept his arm out toward the road, indicating that they start their journey back. With a smile on her lips, Katiana nodded.
“We shall,” she said. “But if you become weary and want to ride, you will let me know.”
He chuckled. “I will, I promise,” he said. “But if you become weary, please tell me.”
“I will.”