Chapter Six #5
“Any man in the king’s army has sworn to kill and die for him. Why should my role be defined any differently than any other knight sworn to obey Henry’s command?”
He had a point but, even so, he seemed rather torn. He seemed proud of his role in Henry’s arsenal, but his father’s disapproval was disappointing. It was a great insight into the man she’d known her entire life, but she hadn’t known him well.
Until now.
She liked what she saw.
“If I have anything to say about it, I believe you to be as fine and noble as any knight I have ever seen,” she said softly but firmly.
“You saved me, Trenton. You saved my life and I have said it before, but I shall say it again – I will always be deeply grateful to you. I will sing your praises until I die, so in the eyes of at least one person, you are a great and noble man.”
He was feeling the slightest bit embarrassed by her praise because it wasn’t something he came across very much in his line of work. But he also felt warmed by it. Hers was an opinion that mattered to him.
“Then I hope I shall always be that in your eyes,” he said, “and you will stop dreaming about my brother, Dane.”
Lysabel burst into soft laughter as the rather serious mood between them was broken. “I told you that I do not dream about him any longer,” she insisted. But she soon sobered. “Does he know what you do? For the king, I mean.”
Trenton nodded. “He knows,” he said. “Dane serves my father, as the captain of his army, but before he assumed that post, he and I served in Henry’s army together for a time. I miss serving with my brother. I miss him a great deal.”
“He did not choose to serve the king as you do?”
“He was not offered the post – I was,” he said. “Besides, Dane is more at home when he has a thousand men to train and command. He has astonishing command presence.”
“And you do not?”
He gave her a half-grin. “I can command thousands with ease also, but I grow quickly bored,” he said.
“I must have new and unusual things to keep me occupied. But I will tell you something truthfully – as much as I can command thousands with ease, I fold like a weakling to a child begging for a pony.”
Lysabel started laughing. “And that is another thing,” she said. “I have not yet had the opportunity to scold you for purchasing those ponies for my children. What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?”
He shrugged and looked away, but he was grinning. “I told you,” he said. “Brencis begged for the pony, and then her eyes got watery, and I collapsed like a fool. How can I resist such a thing?”
Lysabel shook her head reproachfully. “Really, Trenton,” she scolded softly. “When did you become so weak?”
“The day I met your daughter.”
“You should know better. Have you no children of your own?”
He sobered. “Nay,” he said. “My wife, Alicia, died in childbirth ten years ago. I have no children.”
Lysabel sucked in her breath, a gesture of horror. “Oh, Trenton,” she breathed. “I am so terribly sorry. I did not mean to show such disrespect by asking such a thing. I did not know.”
His eyes glimmered weakly at her. “I know you did not,” he said. “You did not offend me. It is simply a statement of fact.”
Lysabel nodded, but she was still feeling terrible about it.
The poor man had lost his wife and child, and she had been clumsy about it.
As she tried to figure out how to make amends to the man for her tactlessness, the sleepy tavern keeper suddenly appeared and handed her warm milk in a chipped wooden cup.
Lysabel stood up to accept it, thinking she should return to her chamber now that she’d made an ass of herself and leave Trenton to his quiet evening. As the tavern keeper wandered back into the kitchens, she turned to Trenton.
“I am truly sorry about your wife and child,” she said quietly. “For everything you must have gone through… there are no words to describe my sorrow for you. Forgive me for being so insensitive, my old friend.”
With that, she bent over and kissed him on the forehead, leaving the common room with her warm milk in hand and disappearing up the darkened stairs.
Trenton sat there and watched her until he could see her no more, feeling her kiss on his forehead like a brand.
He’d been kissed by women before, many times, but not like that.
Never like that. There was so much emotion and tenderness in the kiss that his heart was still thumping because of it.
That beaten, scared woman was much like her youngest daughter in that she hadn’t lost the ability to feel, and feel for others especially.
She fairly oozed gentleness and compassion, with eyes that bespoke of deeper emotions he couldn’t hope to comprehend.
He’d never experienced anything like it.
He wished she hadn’t left him.
Turning his attention back to the dying flames, Trenton realized that any hope of detaching himself from Lysabel had been summarily dashed.
That warm, wonderful, and beautiful woman had his attention as no woman had ever had it, and he knew now that purging her from his mind was going to be an impossibility.
And he hated himself for it.