Chapter Seven #3
He tried to push aside the sorrow he was feeling as he sat in the feasting hall and watched Matthew with his two granddaughters.
The girls were happy to see him; even Cynethryn, the reserved one, wasn’t so reserved when it came to her grandfather.
One of the first things the girls spoke of was their new ponies, pointing to Trenton and telling Matthew that Trenton had given them the ponies.
While Trenton seemed embarrassed by the attention, Matthew simply laughed.
He hugged his granddaughters, listening to their chatter, as Lysabel sat with her mother further down the table.
Alixandrea, Countess of Hereford, was about her daughter’s size and shape, with the same lovely bronze hair that she kept pulled into a bun at the back of her head. Even though she was middle aged, there was hardly a line on her face, and when she smiled, she reminded Trenton very much of Lysabel.
They had the same smile.
The women invited Trenton to come and sit with them, but he begged off, feeling very much as if he were intruding on a family reunion. In fact, after he finished eating, he excused himself from the table with talk of seeing to Dewi. He worried for the horse when he was in an unfamiliar place.
Matthew let him go without question.
But Trenton didn’t make it to the stable right away. He left the great hall and ended up in the bailey, gazing up at the clear night sky and seeing a million stars spread across the blackness, as if a great and mighty hand had taken a handful of diamonds and tossed them across the heavens.
But even as he looked up at the sky, his thoughts were on Lysabel.
He’d told Anthony, Timothy, and Adrian that he would meet them at The Horn and The Crown tavern in Westbury in three weeks, and he was already about a week into that time span.
Ten more days and he’d have to head to Westbury, and from Westbury he would have to return to London.
He tried to imagine that time when he would leave Lysabel, but he honestly couldn’t.
He was greatly distressed in that he didn’t want to leave her.
Certainly, she was safe now. There was no question of that.
She was with her father and he would make sure she was taken care of, always, so his original intention in going to Stretford, to see to the welfare of an old friend, had come to fruition.
He’d done what he’d set out to do – to ensure Lysabel was well and safe.
But what he hadn’t counted on was the door to another world that had opened to him, a world of little girls whose only goal in life was to have a pony, and a woman he’d once known as a long-legged child who had grown up into a woman of strength and beauty like he’d never seen before.
It was a world of laughter, of kindness, and of all the things he’d never before experienced.
He felt as if he’d been living in a cave and had suddenly emerged into a wonderful, new world.
It was a world he didn’t want to leave.
Depression swamped him. He was heading for the stables, but he caught sight of Lady Audrey’s garden off to the right, a walled garden named for Matthew’s mother.
Everyone knew that Lady Audrey’s garden was a magical place, a place of peace and beauty, and Trenton found himself heading for it as if his feet had a life of their own.
At the moment, he simply needed to think.
Pulling open the old iron gate, which squealed appropriately as it was moved, he stepped inside.
Even though it was a fairly bright night, as the moon was nearly three-quarters, he couldn’t see too terribly much in the garden, but he could certainly smell the blooms. Almost immediately to his right was a stone bench and he sat heavily, thinking of the things he wanted and the things he could never have.
This was all his life was ever going to be.
No love, no children, no heirs.
He wasn’t going to have a child with Adela, mostly because she couldn’t stand the sight of him and he certainly couldn’t stand the sight of her, so a coupling was out of the question even though she was his wife.
He had touched her one time, and one time only, and that had been on their wedding night.
After that, she screamed every time he came near her and after a week of screaming, he’d left his home of Penleigh and had headed on to London.
He thought that was all he was ever going to know when it came to a woman until that night he broke into Benoit de Wilde’s chamber.
Trenton’s gaze trailed up to the stars again, as if he could find his answers there.
Was there some invisible wisdom to help him through this, to tell him that he needed to leave Wellesbourne and forget about Lysabel Wellesbourne de Wilde?
He knew what he needed to do, but after that sweet kiss Lysabel had given him last night in the tavern, he couldn’t seem to do it. That small gesture had branded him.
He was still hating himself because of it.
The garden gate suddenly creaked again, catching his attention, and he turned to see Lysabel entering. Oh, God, he thought. A romantic, moonlit night and a woman he found increasingly hard to resist.
This wasn’t going to end well.
Quickly, he stood up.
“Why is it you find me every time I’m trying to find solitude?” he scolded, although it was lightly done. “Last night in the inn, tonight in the garden. Can you read my mind so brilliantly that you know where I am going and what I am thinking, always?”
She grinned. He could see her white teeth in the moonlight. “I am sorry to disappoint you,” she said. “The soldiers told me that they had seen you come in here. Am I intruding, then?”
He nodded, saw her expression fall, and then shook his head and laughed. “Of course you are not intruding,” he said, gesturing to the bench. “Sit down. I was simply gazing up at the stars.”
Lysabel moved towards the bench but she didn’t sit. “My mother sent me here, you know,” she said. “She felt bad that you left the feasting hall. She wants you to know that you are most welcome to remain.”
“I know that.”
“She thought you might have felt awkward because it was only family sitting at the table.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I have been told since I was a child that I am part of the Wellesbourne family.”
She laughed softly. “You are,” she said. “My mother wanted to make sure you remembered that.”
“I do,” he said. “Has she asked why I am here and not Benoit?”
“Nay,” she said. But her gazed fixed on him for a few moments before continuing. “I know you spoke to my father this afternoon. I saw you go into the keep with him after we arrived. You told him everything, didn’t you?”
Trenton couldn’t decide if she sounded perturbed or relieved. “As much as I dared,” he said quietly. “When we arrived, he asked right away where Benoit was, and I could not lie to him. I hope you understand that.”
She nodded quickly. “I do, of course,” she said.
“I had hoped that it would come from me, but I understand you had no choice. All he has said to me about it is that he spoke with you, but I am sure he and I will speak more in-depth about it at some point. And I am certain he has not told my mother because she asked me where Benoit was. I told her that he was away and quickly changed the subject. She has not asked anything more.”
Trenton nodded and sat down, looking up at her expectantly until she sat down, too.
The bench wasn’t very large which meant she was sitting rather close to him.
Trenton received the distinct impression that she was sitting on the edge of the bench so that their bodies wouldn’t brush against one another, because with his bulk, he was easily taking up half of it.
“You should know that my girls are already demanding to see their ponies,” she said, making conversation. “They are trying to convince my father to take them out to the stables even now.”
Trenton gave her a half-grin. “I am pleased that they are so happy,” he said. “Besides, I know what it is like to have a new horse. It is a very exciting time.”
Lysabel was looking up at the stars, nodding her head. But, in truth, she hadn’t come out here at the request of her mother.
She came out here all on her own.
Oh, she’d lied to him. Quite blatantly. When she saw Trenton leave the great hall, she’d waited a short amount of time before telling her mother she needed to use the privy and fled, following Trenton’s trail as he left the keep.
She had ulterior motives. She’d been watching Trenton throughout the entire meal, even sending her mother to invite him to sit with them, but he had declined.
He seemed rather standoffish. They hadn’t had much opportunity to talk this day because most of the focus was on the girls, the ponies, and when they’d arrived at Wellesbourne, he immediately disappeared with her father.
She’d known why, and he had just confirmed it.
Still, she wondered if somehow, someway, she had displeased him. He would hardly even look at her.
Then she began to obsess over it, wondering what she could have done to upset him.
Lysabel had known that once they reached Wellesbourne Castle, there would be no reason for him to remain, and she didn’t want him leaving whilst upset with her.
He’d done his duty – he’d come to Stretford to make sure she had recovered from Benoit’s beating, and then he’d brought her on to Wellesbourne.
She was coming to think that she had imposed on him too much in asking him to escort her to Wellesbourne.
She couldn’t imagine any other issue.
With that in mind, she continued the conversation.
“I wanted to thank you again for escorting my daughters and me to Wellesbourne,” she said. “It was very kind of you to do so.”
He simply dipped his head. “It was my pleasure.”
“Where will you go now?”
He turned to look at her. “I have only just gotten here,” he said. “Are you throwing me out already?”