Chapter Nineteen #2
She stroked his cheek affectionately, watching as he kissed her hand.
“I have been thinking,” she said. “I know you are a seasoned knight and have spent your life devoted to warfare, but somewhere, you must have had a good example set for you on how a man should treat a woman. What you do… it is not inherent. It must be trained and developed.”
He smiled faintly. “In fact, I did have an excellent example set for me,” he said.
“My adoptive parents, Juston and Emera, were very much in love with one another. For a family, that kind of love radiates everywhere—to my brother and sisters, and to me. I always equated love with security. With comfort. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing you are loved and to love in return. That was the example I had set for me, and one I had always hoped to carry over into my own marriage and family.”
Andromeda smiled in return. “You and I had the same sort of familial life,” she said. “I, too, was raised by adoptive parents who were quite kind to each other. I had two sisters, and I was never made to feel differently. I never felt alone. Did you?”
“Never,” he said. “Although I did not come to Juston and Emera’s home until I was around eight years of age, up until that point, I had been well tended by a farmer and his family, and then sent to Canterbury for a time before a knight took care of me.”
“Who was this knight?”
“Sir Erik de Russe,” he said. “He taught me a great deal about honor and responsibility.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead,” he said. “He died on crusade with Richard.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling some sadness because of the way he’d said it. She could tell it had affected him. “But I am certain he would be very proud of you. He taught you a good deal about how a man should conduct his life.”
“Indeed, he did,” he said. “I hope it is not too much to ask, but I always thought I might name a son after him, should we have one. I would like to honor a man who meant a good deal to me when I was younger.”
Her smile returned. “I like that name,” she said. “It would be an honor for our son to carry it.”
He pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly. “You are a gracious woman, Lady de Royans,” he said. “And that’s something else I have been thinking of.”
Andromeda held him fiercely. “What?”
“My name,” he said. “It is really not de Royans. It is Plantagenet. However, I do not want to use that surname, for obvious reasons, so I simply use de Royans.”
“What was it when you lived with the farmer?”
He smiled, a quirky little smirk. “Tarr,” he said. “I went by Tristan Tarr. That was the name of the farm where I lived, but I was not called that at Canterbury. I simply went by Tristan.”
“I think de Royans sounds more dignified than Tarr.”
“I agree,” he said. “But what I was going to say is this—Sherry said that the king wishes to confer an earldom upon me, so whatever that earldom is, I think I should like to take that as my family name. That will define us and our descendants for generations to come.”
Andromeda thought on that. “The kings of England and the kings of Dublin will commingle in the new name,” she said. “Mayhap our standard can have a tree in it.”
“Why a tree?”
She nodded. “That is the ancient symbol for Dublin kings,” she said. “A tree with many branches representing life and family. Nothing is stronger than an oak tree withstanding the test of time.”
He kissed her head and let her go. “Not a bad suggestion,” he said. “I will think on it. Meanwhile, let us finish getting you packed, and then we shall work on me. What do you intend to pack all of this in?”
Andromeda went over to the door and peered into the stairwell. “I sent Flora and Aldis to find an appropriate satchel,” she said. “They went to the storage chamber downstairs. Mayhap I should go and help them.”
He shrugged. “If you wish,” he said. “I will go to my chamber and begin to prepare my saddlebags while you are searching for a satchel.”
Andromeda nodded and started to come away from the door when she abruptly came to a halt. “Pat,” she said, her focus still on the stairwell. “I think… I see Addax down there. Wait… he’s coming up the stairs. He looks as if he’s in a panic.”
By the time Tristan came over to the doorway, Addax was already at the top of the stairs. He was indeed breathless, not a usual state for the normally unflappable knight.
“You’d better come,” he said to Tristan. “De Wolfe and his friends are back, and they’ve been in a fight.”
“A fight?” Tristan repeated, confused.
Addax fixed him in the eye. “With some Irish.”
Tristan understood the implication immediately.
It was what they’d been waiting for. He was rushing down the stairs before he drew another breath, with Addax right behind him and, unbeknownst to either of them, Andromeda as well.
This threat was against her, after all, and she wanted to see what had happened.
The Irish were involved, and that made her both furious and terrified.
Men like her husband were being put in an unnecessarily dangerous situation because of her.
Because Aingil Lochlainn wanted her.
She had a right to know what they had done.
Tristan and Addax were faster than she was.
Andromeda tended to take the stairs of the keep slowly because they were steep, and she was in a long skirt, so she emerged from the keep well after her husband and Addax.
They had already rushed into the bailey, where Alexander was standing along with William, Paris, and Kieran, who had a beaten man between them.
Soldiers were crowding around and the gates were being sealed up.
There was tension in the air.
Without delay, Andromeda made her way into the bailey, seeing the knights circled around someone who seemed to be injured.
Kieran had the man tightly. She couldn’t see who it was until she peered around Tristan’s big body, trying to catch a glimpse of the man.
Undoubtedly an Irish prisoner. When Tristan shifted, the man’s face came into view.
Shock bolted through her.
Before she realized what she was doing, Andromeda rushed forward, pushed between Tristan and Addax, and slapped the man across the face, so hard that his hand snapped sideways.
As Tristan rushed forward to protect her, pulling her away from the prisoner, she screamed at the man with the bloodied face and black eye.
“You left me!” she yelled. “You vile bastard, you left me! You took the money and you left me to fend for myself in a country that was not my own! How could you do such a thing?”
Tristan had her by both arms. “Do you know this man, Andie?” he said, concerned. “Who is it?”
Even though he had her by the arms, it didn’t stop her from lashing out a foot and kicking the man in the hip.
“One of the guards who escorted me from Rockbrook,” she said, so furious that she was verging on tears.
“He took Lord de Courcy’s money and ran off, like a coward.
But now he’s come back, and I want to know why! ”
All eyes turned to the battered Irishman, who was looking at Andromeda with some surprise.
But her anger threw Tristan over the edge, and the man was the victim of a blow to the jaw that sent him flying onto his back.
It was strong enough to jerk him from Kieran’s grip.
Tristan was on top of the man, pulling him up by the front of his tunic.
“So you return to the scene of your crime, you piece of filth?” he growled. “And we find you gathering with the enemy. It is my guess that you were part of Aingil Lochlainn all along. Weren’t you?”
The man cast him a long look with his one good eye. “If I were, she wouldn’t be here now, would she?”
“Then you joined them after returning home?”
The man snorted, blood and mucus flying. “Why should I tell you?” he said. “You’re only going to beat me again.”
“I’ll beat you if you do not speak,” Tristan said. “I would be more afraid of that.”
The Irish rebel eyed him. “If you kill me, you’ll never know what I know.”
Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “I can already guess what you’ve been involved in,” he said. “I know men like you. I know that your heart is filled with coin rather than blood.”
The man eyed him, feigning disinterest. “You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“I know enough,” Tristan said. “I’m going to assume you went back to Ireland and made contact with the Aingil Lochlainn.
You knew they wanted her because you were her escort when she fled their grasp.
You knew where you left her, here in England, and you offered to return to find her.
But Dermot’s mother told them exactly where she was, so you came with them to identify her. Isn’t that it?”
The man made a good show of not being intimidated, even though Tristan’s speculation was very close to the truth.
But the Irishman, a soldier with a drunkard father and a mother who took men to her bed for money, knew how to play the game.
Liam de Courcy had paid him well to escort Andromeda to England, Lochlainn’s rebels had paid him well to help them identify the lady, and now he saw another opportunity for money.
For him, it was all about the money.
“Pay me well and I’ll go back to them and tell them I never saw her,” he said, his gaze moving to Andromeda. “She looks far better than she did the last time I saw her. Had I known she was such a beauty, she would have fetched a fine price.”
That was enough for Tristan. He geared up to pummel the man again, but Addax stopped him.
“Wait, Pat,” he said. “We have bigger problems. De Wolfe says that Dermot seems to have gone missing.”
Tristan’s features twisted in confusion at the change in subject. “Missing?” he said, looking at William. “What do you mean?”
“When the Irish attacked us, Dermot fled,” William answered. “He betrayed us, and in the chaos, he disappeared. We thought he might have returned here.”
Tristan looked at Addax. “Is it possible that he did?”