Chapter Five #4
“My lady, I promise to be as unobtrusive as possible,” he said. “I will follow your orders. Other than leaving, I shall do as you please. How can I make this situation easier for you? How can I help you?”
Isabeth picked up a piece of the egg and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly.
“I am not entirely sure,” she finally said.
“I do not think you can help me at all. What… what I mean to say is how does one go on after death? This is not how I imagined the rest of my life. I always thought Dyce would be with me, so how does one go on with an unexpected future?”
It was an extremely candid question in an unguarded moment and Ronan took it seriously.
“May I share something with you?” he asked.
“Aye.”
Ronan thought carefully on what he would say next.
“When I was around seven years of age, my father was killed in battle in Wales,” he said.
“My mother and father had known each other all their lives and when news of his death came, I remember that my mother sat in her chamber for days on end, simply staring from the window. She wouldn’t eat and she hardly slept.
Although I was young, I felt as if my entire life had ended.
I loved my father very much, you see, and although losing a father is not like losing a husband, the sense of loss is still great.
Even back then, my grandmother insisted that my father wasn’t really dead…
he’d simply stepped into the next room. That is what I told you before, the way she chose to view death.
Think of it that way – that Dyce has simply stepped into the next room and you must carry on as if he is going to return at any moment.
That means you live your life in a way that would bring him honor and when your son is born, you raise the boy to know his father as if Dyce has been there all along. ”
By that time, Isabeth was looking at him. “And your mother?” she said. “Did she pretend that your father had just stepped into the next room, too?”
Ronan nodded. “She did,” he said. “For a while, anyway. Then, she met her next husband and that helped ease her grief. She had something to look forward to at that point and her life continued in a happy way. But I should tell you that in my father’s case, he really had just stepped into the next room, for he returned five years later a changed man. ”
Isabeth was curious at that statement. “What happened?”
Ronan pulled up the nearest chair and sat down wearily.
“He received a terrible head wound in an ambush,” he said.
“My grandfathers and my uncles thought that he was dead and because they were outnumbered by the Welsh, they were forced to leave him behind. As it turned out, he wasn’t dead.
He was saved by a Welsh warlord who healed him.
Unfortunately, because of the head injury, my father did not remember who he was or where he came from until years later.
But he returned and I have always been grateful. ”
Isabeth’s eyebrows lifted. “That is a miraculous story.”
“Indeed, it is,” he said. “But I think the point is, for you, to take every day as it comes, focus on your son, focus on Dyce’s properties and administer them in a way that would make him proud. Keeping busy will help ease the grief.”
Isabeth lifted her shoulders. “But I do not know the first thing about administering his properties,” she said. “He did everything himself. He told me that my head was too pretty to be filled with useless knowledge.”
Ronan smiled faintly. “That is also why I am here,” he said. “Although your head is quite pretty, I do not agree with Dyce when it comes to useless knowledge. No knowledge is useless. I will teach you everything you need to know and you will be an excellent student.”
Her brow furrowed. “How do you know?”
His smile broadened. “Because you are bright and witty,” he said. “I saw it the first night at Middlesbrough when you told Dyce that I was your brother because you knew so much about me. I still hope that you will always consider me your brother, my lady. I would be honored.”
Isabeth’s gaze lingered on him before she returned to her egg. “That night at Middlesbrough seems so long ago,” she said. “So much has happened since then.”
He watched her pick at her egg. “Aye, it has,” he said. “But you are made of strong stuff. This will not sink you.”
She sighed faintly. “It feels like it already has.”
“Nay,” he said quietly. “I am your boat in rough seas. I will not let anything sink you.”
Isabeth looked at him, grinning in spite of herself. “You do not look like a boat.”
He snorted. “Have you ever been on a boat?”
She nodded. “Once,” she said. “Dyce took me to Calais when we were first married. The boat made me so sick I could hardly eat anything. I vowed to never go on a boat again.”
Ronan broke down into laughter. “And here I am, comparing myself to a boat,” he said. “I am coming to think that was not the right comparison.”
Because he was laughing, she grinned. “Mayhap not,” she said. “But it was appropriate. When one sinks, one needs a boat.”
“I hope this boat will not make you sick.”
She giggled. “Surely not,” she said, looking more relaxed than he’d seen her since Dyce’s passing. Finally, he was getting a glimpse of that witty woman again as she warmed to the conversation. “And you don’t smell like the rotten sea, which is refreshing.”
He, too, was relaxing with the conversation at hand. “That you know of,” he teased. “I’m far enough away that you cannot smell my barnacles.”
Isabeth burst into gales of laughter. She also took another bite of her egg because the humor was helping her appetite. “What an enticing thought,” she said, though she didn’t mean a word of it. “How does Lady de Wolfe feel about the smell of barnacles?”
Ronan’s smile faded somewhat. He couldn’t tell her that his wife didn’t care how he smelled.
Or looked. Or thought. They hadn’t been intimate in years, not since his last daughter was born and he knew the child wasn’t his.
He couldn’t tell Isabeth that he didn’t have a relationship with his wife like the one she had with Dyce, where there was genuine caring.
Nay, he couldn’t tell her that.
To admit it would be to admit failure.
“I suppose it’s all part of the de Wolfe allure,” he said, avoiding the question. “Tell me about Briarfield. I’ve never been there but know the area. To the west in the moors, isn’t it?”
It was a change in subject. If Isabeth noticed, she didn’t let on.
She went on like normal, finishing up her egg and cutting into the second one.
“Aye,” she said. “It is about a day’s ride from here.
And it was a rather idyllic upbringing, I suppose.
My mother, my father, me, and no trouble that I can recall. ”
“Where did you foster?”
“Nottingham,” she said. “My father did business with the castle and knew the lord, so I fostered there for a few years. I met Dyce right before I left to foster.”
“How old were you?”
“About nine,” she said. “I went to foster when I was nine years of age and returned when I was twelve because my mother couldn’t stand to be parted from me. She said that three years was enough.”
He nodded in understanding. “It is difficult on the parents, to be sure, unless you can’t stand your children and are eager to be rid of them.”
He said it with a twinkle in his eyes and she grinned. “You have children, do you not?”
Ronan struggled not to lose his humor completely. “Anne, Esther, and Priscilla.”
“Where do they foster?”
Ronan averted his gaze, shifting on his chair now that they were on the unhappy subject of the offspring that bore the de Wolfe name.
“Anne and Esther are at Northwood Castle,” he said. “Priscilla is at Castle Questing, though she is still a little young to foster. Mostly, she is staying with my mother, who lives at Castle Questing.”
Isabeth was devouring her second egg, interested in the conversation. “You must miss them terribly,” she said. “I know that I must send my son to foster, but even as I think on it, it makes me so very sad. I have never understood why young children must be sent away from those who love them.”
Ronan shrugged. “It is the custom,” he said. “They go to learn great and noble things. They go to learn how life is different at homes other than their own. It is all part of their education. It was part of yours and part of mine.”
“Where did you foster?”
“Kenilworth,” he said. “I was trained by the master knights of Kenilworth before returning to Northumberland and serving in any number of my family’s properties. The past few years, however, I have been at Roxburgh Castle because it is so active.”
“What does that mean – active?”
“It means the Scots are bent on throwing out the English and claiming the castle for their own,” he said. “It is a very volatile location.”
Isabeth nodded in understanding. “I have never seen a battle in my life,” she said. “Briarfield is not a contested castle, nor does anyone want it badly enough to fight for it, so it has not seen a battle in one hundred years.”
Ronan grunted. “I have seen battles since I was a small lad,” he said. “In fact, I even fought a few as a young boy.”
She frowned. “The House of de Wolfe forces children to fight?”
His grin was back. “Nay, not like that,” he said. “After my father died, I felt it my duty to take up arms in his stead. Remember that I was only seven when he died, so there were times when I would follow the army to a skirmish and do my best to smite the enemy.”
Her eyes widened. “And you were never injured?”
“Never. But I did get a grandfatherly beating or two.”
Isabeth chuckled. “But it did not stop you.”
“Never,” he said. “In case you have not realized it, I can be rather stubborn when it comes to doing something I feel strongly that I must do.”
“Like honoring your word to a dying man.”
“Exactly. Or fighting in my father’s stead, even as a child.”
Isabeth’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, a twinkle to her eyes. “Very well,” she finally said, as if surrendering. “I understand now.”
“What do you understand?”
“That I cannot be rid of you no matter how much I want to.”
His eyes glimmered at her. “Now you understand everything, Madam.”
She nodded in resignation. “You are a stubborn man, Ronan de Wolfe.”
He chuckled. “Stubborn is where I begin,” he said. “Where I end, no one knows. I’ve yet to find any ending to anything about me. Everything that I am is continuously expanding, ever-reaching. I will go on forever.”
Her smile was warmer and more relaxed than it had ever been before.
“I would believe that,” she said. “Therefore, I will give you permission to return to Ravenscar with me. But given the circumstances… you will forgive me if I am not the most gracious chatelaine. I will try, but there may be times when I simply do not feel like…”
She trailed off and the mood of the conversation took a downturn. However, in this case, Ronan understood completely and it didn’t feel as if things had turned sour between them. Not in the least. In fact, he felt as if they had more common ground now.
As if they understood each other better.
“Not to worry,” he said quietly. “If you feel as if you are sinking, remember that I am your boat. Barnacles and all. All you need to do is ask and I shall move heaven and earth to grant your wish.”
All Isabeth could do was smile in response, unsure what more to say.
This conversation between them had been the most productive conversation yet, without arguing or unhappy feelings.
It wasn’t as if she’d changed her mind about him or his wife – she still didn’t want either one of them at Ravenscar – but she knew it would be a losing battle to try and keep them away.
She wasn’t very good at fighting battles.
Therefore, the conversation died. They sat in relative but not uncomfortable silence until Isabeth finished her food, every last crumb, and Ronan took the tray away.
Their time together, for the moment, was over.
Leaving the woman to sleep, he had a feeling of peace he’d not had when he’d entered the chamber.
Peace that things were going to be well, after all.
At least that was the hope.
Until Lady de Wolfe and her entourage entered the inn.
That was when things started to become difficult again.