Chapter Seven #2
“I have a need to speak with you, Sir Douglas,” she said. “Come with me.”
She turned toward the keep. Feeling like he was about to have his bum slapped, Douglas followed.
He remained a step or two behind her because she was walking quickly and he suspected she didn’t want him to take pace beside her.
The woman had a clipped manner at the best of times, and he thought this particular incident might have something to do with what they’d overheard from Jonathan.
Lady Isabel didn’t like her knight insulted and it had been clear from the beginning that she was protective of him.
Douglas was coming to suspect there was more going on there that she didn’t want anyone to know.
So he remained silent.
Isabel took him into the keep and into that lavish, two-storied solar that was so impressive. He entered the chamber and shut the door behind them, but he didn’t move away from the panel. He remained there, legs braced apart, hands clasped behind his back, and waited.
It wasn’t long in coming.
“I do not appreciate Sir Eric being demeaned to the very men he is training,” Isabel said as she turned to him. “But I suspect that has been going on since you and de Wolfe began helping with the training. Showing how much better you are than Eric.”
Douglas shook his head. “We are not better than Sir Eric, my lady.”
“I heard that de Wolfe is Blackchurch trained.”
“He is, my lady.”
“And that gives him the right to glorify it over a mere knight who did not have that opportunity?”
“He is not glorifying it over anyone, my lady.”
Isabel, who had been mostly pacing since entering the chamber, came to a halt and glared at him.
“I heard it with my own ears,” she snapped.
“De Wolfe called Eric a fool and I will tell you, quite plainly, that I will not stand for that. I will send you all back where you came from immediately if there is one more instance of that behavior. Am I making myself clear?”
Douglas nodded. “You are, my lady.”
He didn’t say anything more, mostly because he wanted her to have her complete say before he began to defend both himself and Jonathan, but given what they had just heard in the bailey, he really couldn’t blame Isabel for her reaction.
“I never wanted you here to begin with,” she said, growing more agitated. “With Tatworth subdued and his army disbanded, you are unnecessary. I do not even know why you are still here. Can you tell me that?”
Douglas made sure to look her in the eye as he spoke. “Because the situation is volatile, my lady,” he said. “Tatworth’s army has been disbanded, that is true, and he has allies who are currently ostracizing him.”
“Then you are not needed!”
“But the situation could change,” Douglas said evenly.
“According to what I have been told, Tatworth has been tight with his allies for years. Generations of alliances. If he should convince them that he has been wronged, then they may decide to support him again and march on Axminster simply out of vengeance.”
“But—”
“The situation is not stable, not at all,” he said, cutting her off.
“We are here, and remain here, to deter anyone from attacking Axminster purely out of a misplaced sense of revenge. My brother, and my father, have been long allied with your father and brother. They feel that this is what they would both want.”
Isabel was so angry that she was twitching. “What about what I want?” she said. “I am the heiress. This is my castle.”
“Then what do you want, my lady?”
“I want you out!”
“Because you feel that we have insulted le Kerque?”
“Because you disrupt everything,” Isabel said. “Need I mention your display to Lady Mira earlier today?”
That brought Douglas some pause. He had been wondering when he would hear about that little action, and here it was. He cleared his throat softly.
“It was not what you think, my lady,” he said quietly. “I realize my action was for all to see, but there was a reason behind it.”
Isabel was nearly beside herself. “What on earth could that reason be?”
Douglas lifted a blond eyebrow. “Because your ladies, the ones you take great pains to mentor and teach, have decided I am a target for the most inappropriate attention,” he said.
“Two of them have even hid in the privy to watch me while I relieve myself. Is this the sort of behavior you let go unchecked?”
Isabel was shocked. She went from angrily twitching to taken aback very quickly. “Of course not,” she said. “My ladies are the very model of decorum.”
He shook his head. “In my experience, they are not,” he said.
“And I am not entirely sure their parents would think so, either, yet you’ve done nothing about it.
You’ve let them harass me, spy on me, and God only knows what else that I do not know about.
Therefore, I’ve had to take matters into my own hands. ”
Isabel was horrified. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Douglas was becoming irritated because she seemed too defensive, as if he was making things up.
“It means that I convinced Lady Mira to pretend to be in love with me so that your ladies would back off and leave me alone,” he said.
“Lady Mira did not wish to do it, but I forced her into it. I would not have to if you had taught your ladies some discipline in the first place, so do not blame this on me. This is your folly, Lady Isabel. Not mine.”
Isabel was absolutely stunned. Stunned and outraged and offended. He had insulted her, her teaching methods, and the very young women under her tutelage.
But the truth was that he was right.
Isabel had known that her ladies had taken a shine to Douglas.
They had admired him and giggled about him.
She had heard it. She also knew that their admiration of Douglas had distracted them from their tasks, because she had seen it from time to time and admonished them accordingly.
But she didn’t know about the spying in the privy.
That was new to her. Or perhaps she had heard it but refused to believe it, or even let it take up space in her mind, because she knew her ladies were better behaved than that.
Axminster’s Angels. The finest families trusted her.
But de Lohr was from a fine family, too. Perhaps the finest in all of England.
And he didn’t have a high opinion of her or her ladies.
I’ve had to take matters into my own hands.
If such a thing got around…
“Then you are telling me that what everyone saw was not a genuine gesture of romance?” she finally said.
Douglas shook his head. “Nay, my lady, it was not.”
“You did it to discourage my ladies?”
“I did it so I could piss in peace.”
That was a blunt way of putting it, shocking to a lady’s ears, but Isabel had heard enough shocking things in this brief conversation.
“I see,” she said, noticeably subdued. “Then I apologize, Sir Douglas, for the measures you’ve had to go to in order for a little peace.
You must understand, however, that my ladies are not used to strange knights in the castle and—”
“And that is your excuse for their lack of discipline?” he said, cutting her off again.
“What happens when they go to a party or another household and see strange knights? Will you use that excuse when they follow the man around and annoy him into being cruel to them? How much understanding will you have when you are the one who is being paid to teach them discipline? It will be your fault, not theirs.”
Isabel was becoming angry again. “As you have pointed out more than once, Sir Douglas,” she said snappishly, “I will accept responsibility for their behavior and take great steps to ensure it does not happen again. But your very presence since you arrived at Axminster has disrupted everything.”
He rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help it.
“So now you are back to blaming me again,” he said.
“Lady Isabel, I am here because I am ordered to be here. Not because I want to be here. I have other things I could be doing, more important things, but here I am, trying to prevent an aggressive neighbor from taking all of this away from you. Mayhap I should simply leave and take my men with me. Then you can fend for yourself, and when Tatworth’s allies return and take your castle, you can tell everyone how that was my fault, too. ”
He hadn’t raised his voice, but his message and words were clear. Isabel, usually so confident, had to admit that she understood his reasoning. And she was blaming him for everything simply because she didn’t feel as if she needed, or wanted, any outside presence at Axminster.
“I would not blame you,” she said. “You seem to think badly of me.”
“Because you are blaming me for everything from le Kerque’s damaged pride to your ladies’ undisciplined behavior.”
She knew that, but it was difficult to admit it. “I simply said that your presence was disruptive.”
“And you live in denial,” Douglas said. “The only thing disruptive about this place is you, because you throw a tantrum when things are not to your liking.”
Her brow furrowed and she was about to lash out at him when she suddenly turned away, taking in a deep breath to keep what was left of her dwindling composure.
“No one has spoken like that to me in years,” she muttered.
“You remind me a great deal of my brother, Sir Douglas. He was the only one brave enough to tell me the truth about things, and I trusted him, but in this case, I do not know you and I do not trust you. Your words are disrespectful to say the least.”
Douglas knew he’d overstepped, but she had pushed him in that direction. He was tired of being ignored by her, and when she wasn’t ignoring him, she was treating him like an imposition.