Chapter Four
It was dawn and he was awake.
He was always awake at dawn, simply because years of training as a knight meant there was no sloth or laziness involved. Men went to bed late and rose early, always to go about their duties, always to ensure their world, and the world of their lords, was safe and prepared for anything.
Therefore, he was always awake before the sun rose, as if his mind knew exactly when light was about to appear in the eastern horizon. He would get up, wash his face, throw water on his hair, and dress, and by the time he was finished, the horizon was turning shades of pale blue and pink.
But the trouble was on this day that he had no real duties to attend to.
He was away from London, away from the king, and at a location where he had no responsibilities.
He felt rather useless, but rather than wander around aimlessly and look like an idiot, he decided to head to the stables and tend to his horse. At least then, he’d be doing something.
The stable was dark at this hour, but the moment he entered, the animals began to shift around, knowing that human presence meant food in their bellies.
When Trenton had arrived, he’d requested that his horse be put in the farthest stall from the door because the animal was quite excitable, and vicious, and people coming in and out of the stable would agitate it.
While most knights traveled on horses that were designed for travel, lighter-weight animals that were swift, comfortable, and agile, Trenton didn’t hold to that philosophy.
He traveled on his destrier, a massively heavy-boned warhorse that he’d taken into battle many times.
The beast had been a gift from his father as a yearling, fifteen years ago, and was perhaps the smartest and most experienced battle horse in all of England.
Trenton was rather particular about the horses he rode on, and owned, resulting from a bad experience when he’d been a young lad, riding an old nag halfway across England because it was the only horse available.
He and his brother had been forced to share the animal, and since that time, Trenton only rode horses that could accommodate his bulk easily and didn’t crush his manhood.
That meant he didn’t ride on small or even medium-sized horses.
Of course, the saddle had a good deal to do with that, too, and he had the finest saddle made, one he could ride in comfortably for hours on end.
His preference for horses and saddles was peculiar, indeed.
At the end of the row of tied-up horses stood his enormous warhorse; he could see the outline of the horse’s back, taller than all of the other horses, when he approached.
He whistled low to the animal to let him know he was approaching.
The horse’s massive head shot up, eyeballing Trenton in the darkness, nickering softly to him.
A horse that could bite off men’s hands or stomp them to death had a definite fondness for his master.
Trenton slipped into the stall, rubbing the big, black head affectionately.
Dewi was the horse’s name, named for the Welsh dragon god, simply because the horse was the closest thing Trenton had ever seen to a fire-breathing dragon.
Dewi’s big lips pulled at Trenton, nipping at him playfully, and Trenton avoided the seeking lips as he untied the horse’s tether and backed him out of the stall.
Leading the animal to the front of the stables and tying the lead rope around his muzzle to prevent him from trying to snap at anyone, Trenton proceeded to check over the horse to ensure the rough travel hadn’t done any damage.
Dewi seemed well enough, now swishing his big tail at Trenton, as he was hungry and trying to prompt his master into procuring his food.
Trenton slapped the big, black butt of the horse, grinning because the horse was doing everything it could to try and force him to go and get his morning meal.
When Dewi started to lift his hind leg, as if to kick out at Trenton, the man laughed softly and decided he should hunt down a stable servant so his spoiled glutton of a horse could be fed.
The very subject of a meal had him thinking about the previous night’s feast with Lysabel and her daughters.
The children had been adorable and delightful for the most part, with their mother’s sweet face.
At least, he thought so, although the youngest girl did look a good deal like Matthew.
It had been a long time since Trenton had lingered on thoughts of a woman, but he’d gone to sleep with thoughts of Lysabel on his mind and even now, visions of her lovely face and tinkling laughter filled his head.
In fact, he’d been unable to really sleep well because of it.
He kept thinking of that long-limbed little girl he’d known; one who would run and play and jump with her siblings, and one who would sit on her father’s lap and listen to him tell stories until she fell asleep.
Of course, Trenton hadn’t really been part of the family – he’d been a squire for a few years before Matthew knighted him, but he was always there, always around the family, and always watching.
He remembered well the mostly-blond Wellesbourne children, except for Lysabel and Rosamunde, who had their mother’s glossy bronze hair, and then William, who inherited red hair.
He remembered them all, but he’d never given any of them much thought.
Until now.
Now, he was thinking of one of them in particular.
God, he was insane for doing it. This was all so foolish and confusing.
His conversation with Henry came to mind, the one before he’d come to Stretford, where Henry reminded him what a terrible record he had with women.
It wasn’t untrue, and a terrible record was putting it mildly. But there was so much more to it.
It wasn’t as if he’d been careless…
His first wife, Alicia, had come through his father. Gaston knew the woman’s father and he’d brokered the agreement, which had been a good one until Alicia had died trying to push forth an enormous son, who died also, but that was something Trenton tried not to remember.
He’d been young, and he’d loved Alicia, and her death had been devastating.
Memories of the pretty girl with the silly laugh only made him ache for what could have been.
He remembered their marriage, of falling in love with her, and of the good life they had together.
She was patient with him, and he appreciated that.
Then came her pregnancy; they’d both been thrilled.
When the day of birth arrived, he remembered the anticipation of waiting for his son to be born – two days of waiting – before the physic came to tell him that his wife had died and the child with her.
In disbelief, he’d run up to the chamber where she’d been laboring, convinced the physic was lying, only to find Alicia dead upon their bed with her legs splayed and the child stuck between them, halfway out.
He remembered seeing two little legs emerged from her womb and after that, he didn’t remember much else.
Somewhere in the chaos, he remembered vomiting as the physic scolded him for even looking upon his dead wife.
He’d learned his lesson.
He would never look again.
He didn’t look when his second wife, Iseuld, had been murdered by her father.
She was dead; everyone told him she was dead, so he took them at their word.
They’d been visiting her father’s home shortly after their marriage because her father, a greedy baron, had demanded the meeting.
He wanted money from Trenton, and some of the de Russe fortune, because he felt entitled to it now that his daughter was married into the family.
Trenton had sent word to his father to come and help him negotiate something that had confused him, because the demands for money had come directly from the father.
Never Iseuld. Finally, when the father evidently couldn’t get Iseuld to cooperate with him, he threw her out a window and told everyone that she had killed herself, but servants who had heard the arguing told otherwise. It had been murder.
Another wife dead.
And then came Adela…
He sighed heavily as he thought of his current wife.
If ever a mistake had been made, he had made it with her.
Another marriage brokered by his father had seen him wed Adela of Brittany, the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Brittany.
In theory, it should have made a fine marriage, but in practice, it was a horror.
Adela was petty and spoiled, and had male “friends” who had followed her from France.
Henry had alluded to her whoring ways and it only upset Trenton in the sense that Adela had sullied the de Russe name.
She spat upon it every chance she got, and she hated the very sight of Trenton because she liked to pretend she wasn’t married at all.
It was a horrific situation but one that he couldn’t do anything about.
But it also made it impossible to find any happiness of his own.
That included the daughter of his father’s best friend.
Slapping his horse on the rump again, he realized he’d been lost in thought.
The sun was starting to rise because the horizon was growing lighter, and Dewi was still swinging his tail around, deliberately trying to hit Trenton with it.
At least, that was Trenton’s belief. His horse was smart enough to do such a thing.
With thoughts of Lysabel still on his mind, he headed off in earnest to procure feed for his pig of a horse.
Her mother was looking for her, but she didn’t want to be found.