Chapter Eighteen #2
She looked defiantly back at him, fussing with a slipper. “Aye, it is, and you approved of it. And you just fastened the stays not a minute ago and said nothing about it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I must have been drunk. ’Tis too tight.”
“It fits me well, thank you,” Dustin insisted. “I am not going to change again. What do you think, Marcus?”
Marcus glanced at Christopher before forming a carefully-worded answer. “ ’Tis a lovely surcoat, my lady.”
“You are no help,” Christopher muttered, then looked at his wife again. “Well, then, I suppose it is a good thing you have both Marcus and myself for escorts, considering we will be beating the entire male population of Windsor away from you.”
She giggled and he held out his arm to her. When Marcus stood beside her she instinctively reached out to take his arm, as well, but clutched bandages instead. “Oh, Marcus, I am sorry.” She snatched her arm away. “Did I hurt you?”
“Nay, dear lady,” he said as he opened the door. “You could not if you tried.”
There were still over a dozen soldiers in the hall and Christopher took half with them down to the great dining hall where supper was already being served in high fashion.
Leeton and Edward were there, but David and the rest of the knights were attending to the final details for the tournament as Christopher seated Dustin and then took the chair next to her.
He didn’t bother to glance at the head table to see if Ralph was there; he hoped the man had died of a hemorrhage.
Dustin seemed to be in good spirits. Mummers were moving about the room, making fun of the guests and doing acrobatics.
Dustin had seen mummers, once, when she had traveled with her father to Bath as a young girl and was fascinated by their tricks and brightly colored costumes.
One fool wore lively bells on the end of his three-cornered hat that jingled wildly.
She devoured her meal of capon and venison with a plum sauce, watching with bright eyes as the mummers danced, oblivious to the conversation her husband was having with Marcus over the top of her head.
She was thoroughly enjoying herself until she glanced away from the fools and caught sight of Lady Gabrielle sitting a few tables away with her husband and sister-in-law.
The smile of greeting that was forming on her lips turned to horror when she saw that Lady Gabrielle’s face was bruised and her lip was swollen. The woman averted her eyes when she saw Dustin, turning back to her trencher and Dustin went stiff with distress. She turned to her husband.
“Chris, look at Lady Gabrielle over there,” she pointed as discreetly as she could manage. “Look at her face. She looks to have been in an accident.”
Christopher glanced nonchalantly at the lady. It took him all of two seconds to see that the woman met with no accident, unless she mistakenly threw herself on her husband’s fists. He turned back to his own food, disgusted at a man who could beat his wife.
But Dustin wanted his opinion. “What do you think happened? Can I at least speak with her for a moment?”
“That would not be wise,” he said quietly, suspecting that Lady de Havilland’s husband disciplined his wife for consorting with an enemy’s wife. “Leave well enough alone, Dustin.”
She looked at him curiously. “Leave what alone?”
“Lady Gabrielle,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t even look at her if I were you.”
She was thoroughly puzzled by now. “For God’s sake, why not? What’s the matter?”
Christopher put down his spoon, wondering how he could delicately phrase his answer so his wife wouldn’t fly into a frenzy.
“I told you that her husband was sympathetic to John,” he replied. “After what happened this afternoon with Ralph, I can only deduce that the earl punished his wife for befriending you. Anymore contact between you and it could result in more than a beating for her.”
Dustin’s eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly, but she didn’t look back at the woman. Instead, she looked quickly down at her trencher. “He hurt her?” she whispered. “But…she did nothing. Why did he have to hurt her?”
Christopher picked up his wife’s hand and kissed it, returning to his own food. “I do not know, sweetheart. Some men do not think twice about beating a female.”
Dustin was sick. She sat back in her chair, trying desperately not to look at Lady Gabrielle but wanting to comfort the woman somehow. She was such a nice lady and Dustin was quickly becoming distraught on her behalf.
Suddenly the mummers were in front of her, two effeminate men in tight little costumes, dancing and cavorting in front of her.
They leap-frogged over each other a few times, singing some sort of crazy song.
Minutes earlier, Dustin would have been thrilled but at this moment she wanted nothing to do with them.
The first mummer, a little man with graying hair, hopped up to the table and gave Dustin a wild-eyed look.
“ ’Tis said the Lion’s Claw married the most beautiful woman in the realm,” he began. “The man who single-handedly tamed Saladin finds himself tamed by a mere slip of a girl with enough hair to weave a rug.”
The two of them bounced around crazily as the tables closest to them laughed at Christopher and Dustin’s expense. Dustin frowned impatiently as the second mummer bobbed forward.
“Eyes like silver, hair like gold, will she tarnish when she grows old?” he blurted in a silly fashion, rolling his eyes. “The face of an angel and fists of steel, will she be the Claw’s Achilles heel?”
Christopher sat quite calmly, his gaze never wavering and his expression never changing. Dustin, however, wasn’t so adept at hiding her emotions.
“Go away,” she snorted as the first mummer rolled forward for his turn.
His face fell exaggeratedly. “Oh, my lady doesn’t appreciate our humor. Should we use smaller words?”
It was a blatant insult, unusual for mummers. Christopher suspected the prince had paid these fools well for a daring chance. Before he could stop his wife from reacting, she stood up and smashed a half-eaten custard tart into the mummer’s face.
“Obviously you do not understand words at all, otherwise you would have respected my wishes,” she snapped. “Get out of my sight before I do more than rub custard in your face.”
Surprisingly, the mummer didn’t react except to stand there with his mouth agape. Then, in a silly move, he licked his lips and face, smacking loudly. “Mmmm. Tasty, tasty. As tasty as you, lion tamer?”
Marcus was half out of his chair before the mummers frolicked away, their mood unspoiled.
“Sit down,” Christopher tugged on her arm.
“Are you going to let them get away with that?” she demanded.
“Sit!” He pulled hard and she plopped into her chair. Then, to Dustin’s amazement, he put his big arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him, lips against her ear. “John sent them over here to get a rise out of me. I shall not oblige him.”
She looked up at him, her face so close she could feel his heat. “And I did. I apologize.”
He smiled softly. “I expect no less from you, Lady de Lohr. Those mummers had better run for their lives.”
She grinned, embarrassed. Knowing how he felt about public displays of affection, she was feeling warm and giddy with his nearness in front of a roomful of strangers.
“You are very close,” she murmured.
“Aye, I am.”
“Are you going to kiss me in front of the prince?”
He did, tenderly and sweetly. To hell with his restraint; John and Ralph already knew that he was smitten with her and there was no use in pretending otherwise.
He remembered the mummer’s words, thinking the term Achilles’ heel to be quite apt.
She was his one and only weakness, and the sooner he acknowledged that, the better to deal with it.
He realized he was finished resisting her.
There was no point. He was a much happier man embracing the joy of emotion than denying it. It made him feel strong and empowered.
He was going in for another kiss when a figure stood in front of the table, interrupting.
Christopher looked up to see William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke.
The tall, older man was Richard’s marshal, of greater rank than Christopher and was more an administrator than warrior.
Christopher had had a long, arduous meeting with William the very day he arrived in England, even before he had delivered Richard’s message to John.
William was a man of good moral character who understood John’s ambitions better than anyone, and despised him greatly.
“I have a need to speak with you, baron,” he said quietly, barely acknowledging Dustin.
Christopher took his arm off his wife and rose steadily, concerned with the look in the marshal’s eye. “Of course, my lord.” He turned quickly to Marcus. “Entertain my wife until I return.”
Marcus agreed, his eyes riveted to Christopher and the marshal as they left the hall, knowing that something was amiss from the stiff stance of the earl. He wondered darkly what fresh new hell they were about to enter. William Marshal and a stiff stance could only convey something very bad.
Dustin’s eyes followed her husband, hoping he would return shortly and having no idea who the older man was.
She also had no idea that the eyes of John were on her, raking over her beauty and trying to formulate a plan for getting the baron’s wife alone again.
Every time he saw her, his lust for her grew.
He hoped the tournament tomorrow would provide such an opportunity.
If truth be known, the only man in the realm he did fear other than his brother was Christopher, yet he knew that the baron could not punish him in any way should he lay hands on his nubile young wife.
John had bedded the wives of earls and dukes, and all were powerless to revenge him.
But de Lohr was different; the pure presence of the man intimidated and angered him at the same time.