Chapter 10 #2
“I imagine it is, as you would have been required to fight them with your bare hands. I’m afraid the men in my village would not be able to handle a sword. Fighting with fists, as they do, would be the only honorable thing for a knight to do. Otherwise, it would just be murder.”
“What makes you think I could not give a creditable account of myself with my fists?”
“Well, could you?” Katherine challenged on the same tone. There was something in this man that made it easy to be comfortable.
“I believe so, especially if my honor was at stake.” His face became serious once more. “I suppose you do not know this, but my paternal grandfather was a brewer.”
“A brewer!” Katherine recoiled. Had he announced that his stallion was in fact a griffin she would not have been more surprised.
“A brewer.” He made it sound as if this was the highest distinction one could bestow upon a man. “And he would not hear of his grandson being unable to defend himself if he came to have a drink with him in the village tavern and landed in the middle of a brawl.”
The image of Siaspar having to fight his way through a crowd of drunken peasants was enough to make her snort.
“You are telling me that you have actually found yourself in a village brawl, exchanging blows with villagers?” It was hard to picture such a scene.
“More often than I care to remember,” he said with a sigh. “With hindsight perhaps, I should not have gone there swathed in furs and wearing a gold crown. I should have known that would be asking for trouble.”
Laughter burst out of Katherine. She had not laughed so freely since she’d arrived in Wales and it did her good. “My lord, I believe you are jesting with me.”
“I am jesting with you. I apologize.” He didn’t seem sorry at all, rather, delighted by her reaction.
“What did you want to see me for, then?” Surely he had not come all this way to tease her about his past?
Siaspar had enjoyed hearing Katherine’s tinkling laugh. When she asked the question, he realized that, lost to the pleasure of her company, he had almost forgotten the reason behind his visit to her.
“Tomorrow you will be summoned to Lady Malpas’ bedchamber.” Months after their wedding, he still refused to give his wife her new title. Seeing Katherine’s eyes widen, he quickly specified. “Not by her, and not to be bedded, I promise.”
Some color came back to her cheeks, a crimson flush that made him wonder if she was relieved or disappointed. His groin stirred, and he did his best to ignore it. He had just told her that she had nothing to fear from his lust, so he could not now appear like a liar.
“When you enter the room please, behave as if we had not met before.”
“I would never behave in any other way in other people’s presence,” she assured him in a whisper. “But why will I be called?”
“You will see tomorrow.”
It was better she did not know what he would tell her then. That way her reaction would be one of genuine astonishment, giving Lady Malpas little chance to suspect their previous acquaintance.
“Very well.” Though she appeared nonplussed, as anyone would be in her situation, she didn’t ask anything else.
“Just know that you might be quite surprised by what I have to say. But I have my reasons.”
“I do not doubt it, my lord, and shall do as you ask.”
Siaspar was humbled by the trust she was showing him. After what she had been through, she bore him no grudges, and was even prepared to believe that he had her best interest at heart.
Which, in truth, he did.
“I was not jesting with you earlier, you know. Though I never went to a village tavern dripping with jewels, my grandfather really was a brewer. I am not as high and mighty as you seem to think.”
Katherine appeared stunned by this declaration, and no wonder. He wasn’t sure himself why he was so adamant that she should not think him so forbidding.
But it was important to him.
“I do not think you all high and mighty, not in that sense at least. I’ve seen how you talk to your people, even if I don’t understand what you tell them.
The way you acted with me yesterday is proof enough that you do not consider yourself above anyone.
” She took a step toward him, bringing her body in dangerous proximity to his.
“And I thank you for sending Mel back home for a few days, so she could get better. That was very thoughtful of you. I don’t think many lords would have done that. ”
“Thank you.” She was right, not many lords would have done that, but it had seemed like the obvious thing to do when he had seen that the maid was indeed poorly.
“Does Lady Malpas know about your grandfather?”
The question wrenched a bark of laughter out of him. “Do you know, I have no idea! But if she does not, I will make sure to tell her soon.”
Finding out that the man she already considered as a savage was a brewer’s grandson would be the last straw for the haughty lady and he couldn’t wait. Katherine seemed to share in his amusement. Her eyes had started to sparkle.
“I would like to be a fly on the wall when you impart this particular piece of information to her.”
Yes. He would make sure she did hear it. It was only fair, as she was the one who had given him the idea.
“Until tomorrow, then,” he said with a bow.
“Until tomorrow.”
Katherine watched Siaspar leave with a smile on her lips.
Only a moment ago she had been feeling weary to her bones after an exhausting day, but her fatigue had miraculously melted away.
The master of Castell y Ddraig was a brewer’s grandson.
Who would have thought it? Not her. But now that she knew, it explained a lot.
This was the reason behind his ease with servants, not the fact that he bedded them. Relief swept through her at the thought.
The next morning, she woke up filled with impatience.
The prospect of seeing Siaspar was enough to send her heart into a furious rhythm.
Then guilt sliced through her, because she remembered her promise to leave Lady Malpas’ employ as soon as she was assured that her money had been sent to her family.
This was the moment. Siaspar had read the letter to her two days ago.
Her father had been released, and the money had arrived.
So what was she waiting for?
She had only gone to Wales at her father’s suggestion, and she had agreed to being a chamberer, not a scullion.
She had never imagined life in a hot, chaotic castle kitchen, or that she would have to fulfil another woman’s marital duties.
And now she didn’t have to do any of that any longer. She could leave.
But…
But the problem was, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to leave anymore.
Her life had started to acquire a pleasing regularity at Castell y Ddraig and it was not as if she would be asked to do anything worse than sleep with a stranger.
Besides, her family needed money just as much now as they had when she had left, to compensate for the time her father had spent incarcerated.
A few weeks’ worth of wages would hardly solve anything.
And there was still the problem of getting back home without a horse or an escort.
As she lifted the heavy cauldron from the hearth, Katherine had an awful suspicion that she was hiding behind excuses. There was another, bigger reason for her desire to remain in Wales.
Siaspar.
Though she knew nothing could ever happen between them, she was loath to leave him. So for now, she would stay.
Later that morning, the summons Katherine had been expecting finally came.
Thank God, Siaspar had told her he would call for her.
What she would have thought if she had been called to Lady Malpas’ bedchamber without warning didn’t bear thinking about.
By telling her of his intentions, he had spared her an awful lot of anguish.
Despite the knowledge that she had nothing to fear, her legs were shaking when she climbed the stairs and she knocked on the door before she could lose her nerve.
“Enter.”
A strong, masculine voice called her in.
Katherine stepped inside, unsure how to behave.
It was the first time she had been in both Siaspar and his wife’s presence—if you forgot the incident in his bedchamber when she’d been hiding behind the curtain—and she could see that the two months since their wedding day had not done anything to smooth the differences between them.
Quite the opposite. The air around them almost crackled with tension.
With his mouth turned down and his jaw clenched hard, Siaspar seemed a different man to the one she had seen in the last two days. His wife appeared no happier.
Dropping into a deep curtsy seemed the best thing to do for now.
“What is the meaning of this?”
There was a note of panic in Lady Malpas’ voice and it was difficult to blame her for being nervous.
Katherine was starting to be ill at ease herself.
Had Siaspar finally decided to reveal that he knew about the deception played out on his wedding night?
Was that why she was here? She hoped not, for Lady Malpas’ wrath would inevitably fall on her and her family, not on the husband who was so formidable he had survived her assassination attempt.
She kept her gaze on the floor, not trusting herself to look at either of them. The pleasure she had felt at being called in Siaspar’s presence had quickly turned to dread.
“What is this servant doing here?” Lady Malpas was hiding her anguish behind scorn. “She reeks!”
“I expect it’s nothing a bath would not remedy.”
Katherine had the impression that Siaspar was chastening his wife for her rude comment, rather than agreeing with her.
His voice was cold, a stark contrast to the honeyed tones he seemed to use with her, even in his anger.
Hope flickered in her chest. He would not be defending her thus if he was about to throw her to the wolves, surely?
“You want to give this servant a bath?”