His expression took on a suspicious cast. “You are making this far too easy,” he said. “Surely you must have other offers waiting for you, or even a lover.”
“None, my lord. Not one.”
He could hardly believe that, given her beauty, but he stopped short of telling her so. Instead, he cocked his head curiously. “Then if that is the case, what are your feelings on marriage?” he asked. “I asked you if you were agreeable to this marriage earlier and you did not answer me. Are you agreeable?”
“If you are.”
He snorted softly. “Again,” he said softly, “that is far too easy an answer. Tell me the truth, my lady, and tell me what you feel and not what you believe I should hear. Are you agreeable to this marriage or not?”
Eiselle lifted her head, looking him in the eye. “As I told you, I have never had a marriage offer,” she said. “I will have seen twenty years and one this summer, so I am quite old for a prospective bride. Most girls my age have been married for a few years, but with me… this is the one and only offer I have ever had. It is shameful to say that, and I am sure you are thinking that there must be something wrong with me. But I assure you, there is nothing wrong with me. I have lived with my parents in a relatively isolated life, so there simply has not been the opportunity to seek prospective husbands and my father was not active in such a pursuit, anyway. He seemed to think that men should come to me, not that I should go to them.”
Bric shook his head faintly. “I find that astonishing that you have never had a marriage offer,” he said. “With your beauty, you could command kings and princes, at the very least. You never even had a marriage offer when you were at Framlingham?”
Eiselle was deeply flattered by his comment, her cheeks flushing. “Nay,” she said. “But… well, if we are being honest, it was not a good situation there.”
“Why not?”
She averted her gaze again, toying with her hands in her lap. “I went to Framlingham when I was ten years and seven,” she said. “I was very old to be a ward, and the girls at Framlingham had all practically grown up together. When I came, they did not like me very much. They weren’t very… kind.”
Strangely, that statement made him feel rather protective of her. He sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands hanging.
“Tell me what happened.”
She cleared her throat softly. “I would rather not, if you please. I do not wish for you to think that I am complaining or speaking ill of others.”
“I would not think that. And I asked because I genuinely want to know. What did those women do?”
Eiselle didn’t like to think back to that terrible year, but he was asking a question and she would do him the courtesy of giving him an answer.
“They did not want to be my friend,” she said after a moment. “I was an outsider; I understand that. But they were not kind. It was difficult to fit in, so I stopped trying. They began to whisper about me, how I was arrogant and aloof, and one night, one of the girls cut the end of my braid off. Still others stole things from me. One girl stole a necklace from me that belonged to my mother and when I saw her wearing it, she accused me of lying. There was no way I could prove the necklace was mine, of course, unless I sent for my mother, and my mother never leaves the house. My experience at Framlingham was not a good one, my lord. I am glad to forget about it.”
The kind of girls she spoke of were the kind of girls Bric had been fearful of – petty, conniving females who would sink their teeth into him and never let go. He’d seen enough of those kinds of women to know he wanted nothing to do with them. Perhaps it was the fear of those women that had truly cemented his resistance to marriage or, at the very least, it had been a contributing factor.
But Eiselle seemed different.
Bric had spent his life priding himself on his judgement of men, often because his life depended on it. He could root out untrustworthy men as if he could see into their very souls and know them for what they were. In truth, for all he knew, Eiselle was telling him a greatly fabricated lie. She could be telling him what she thought he wanted to hear simply to endear herself to him.
But somehow, he didn’t think so.
He believed her.
“I am sorry you were faced with that,” he said after a moment. “I know what it means to not fit with my peers.”
She cocked her head curiously. “How could you know that? You are de Winter’s greatest knight and all men greatly respect you.”
He wriggled his eyebrows. “It was not always thusly,” he said. “Listen to me; I sound as Irish as I look and, in England, that is a crime. I am lower than the pigs in the trough to some. It took years to build up men’s faith in me, and with that faith came respect. But it was hard-fought, believe me. It was not a simple thing.”
Eiselle smiled timidly. “But you were able to earn it,” she said. “You have a great reputation, and I am nothing. That is why I say if you wish to send me home, I will understand completely.”
So they were back to that again. Bric knew that he was never going to send her home, not even if she wanted to go. At that moment, he knew that he was going to marry the lass. He might even like it. In fact, he suspected he would if he gave her and marriage in general, a chance and stop being afraid of it. Perhaps the fear of marriage he had was simply the fear of the unknown.
But Eiselle… she was “known”. And he liked what he saw.
“Would you be disappointed if I told you that I will not send you home?” he asked. “I will if you want me to. But if you say you will do whatever I decide… I have decided that I do not want to send you home.”
Eiselle’s smile grew, turning genuine. “It does not bother you that I am not a great lady?”
He snorted softly. “I have a feeling you are greater than you give yourself credit for,” he said. “You will let me be the judge of just how great you are.”
“Does that mean you have decided what you expect out of a wife? I asked you earlier today and you did not know.”
His eyes glimmered at her in the firelight. “Whatever expectations I have, you have already met them.”
“But I have done nothing.”
“You have been honest. That is the most I can ask from any man, or any woman. As long as you are always honest with me, that exceeds my expectations.”
Eiselle was somewhat puzzled by the statement. “I would not know how to be anything else.”
“Then that makes you the best wife possible.”
She was still confused but, as she looked into his eyes, she swore she saw a flicker of warmth there. She didn’t know the man at all. But from what she saw, he was just as honest as he expected her to be. Something told her that she would always know where she stood with him.
“And you?” she asked. “Will you always be honest with me, also?”
“With my dying breath, my lady. Upon my oath, I swear it.”
He said it so passionately that she believed him implicitly. “Then our marriage is to your liking?”
“It is.”
“I am glad. I… I hope that we shall have a pleasant life together.”
That gleam in his eye turned into something else, something curious and intriguing and even… deep. There was definitely something deep there.
“Lass,” he said slowly, “I hope it is something more than that.”
“What more could it be?”
“I hope we will both find out, together.”
Something in his tone gave Eiselle hope that they would, indeed.
CHAPTER FIVE
The wedding day was not what Eiselle had expected.
She’d lived a rather isolated and solitary existence, as she’d told Bric. Her mother, ill most of the time, hadn’t been overly attentive to her, and other than the servants at Hadleigh House, there weren’t other women in her life. Her brief stay at Framlingham hadn’t produced any friends, female or otherwise, so Eiselle had always learned to do for herself, and insomuch as that was the
life she’d always led, she thought nothing of it. She was very self-sufficient.
But her introduction to Keeva rocked that world.
It started in the morning. Keeva, Zara, and Angela came to her chamber just after dawn with an army of servants bearing a tub, hot water, food, clothing, and a variety of other things. Eiselle was roused from her bed by knocking on her door and once that door opened, she was flooded with an army of do-gooders, all resolute in their quest to help her prepare for her marriage to Bric.
It seemed that it was a community effort.
It had, in truth, been a little disorienting at first as Keeva had gaily charged in with her troops. She had decided that the marriage would be held at midday, in the great hall of Narborough, so there was little time from Keeva’s standpoint to prepare the bride. There was much to do and little time to do it.
Keeva was much different from the woman Eiselle had come to know the day before – that woman had been hesitant and, at times, snappish. But this woman was quite happy – ecstatic, in fact – as she had a bath prepared and clothing laid out on the bed.
Eiselle peered at the clothing curiously as Zara and Angela eagerly showed her what Lady de Winter had brought her – a lavish dress made from pale green silk and lined with gray rabbit fur along the cuffs and neckline, with a cutaway layer over the gown that was made from a spectacular brocade. That, too, was lined along the edges with gray fur.
In all, it was a magnificent garment and Eiselle gingerly touched it as Zara and Angela chattered excitedly about it. It was a gift, Zara said, from Lady de Winter, and when Keeva heard the woman spill her surprise, she swatted her on the behind and yanked her over to the tub to help prepare the bath. Scolded, Zara was relegated to pouring rose oil into the water and laying out the sponges.
Truthfully, Eiselle had no say in anything that was going on. She was simply part of the tempest that Keeva was whipping up. It was as if her own son, or daughter, was getting married, and she very happily directed everyone in the room, making sure the dress was brushed off and aired out, the water was hot, the cleansing oils and sponges were at the ready. Soon enough, she chased everyone out of the room but a pair of older female servants, Zara, and Angela, and began stripping Eiselle down for her bath.
That was when she ran into resistance. Eiselle tried to preserve her modesty; God knows, she tried. She tried to hold the shift on her body even as Keeva and Angela tried to pull it off, tugging it down from the shoulders. Her nervous stomach began to act up again and she found herself trying not to belch in Keeva’s face. But Keeva was speaking calmly to her, trying to soothe her, yet Eiselle was terribly embarrassed that these women were trying to strip her naked.
Finally, Keeva took pity on her and told her that they would turn their backs as she undressed and climbed into the tub. Eiselle did, swiftly, and plunged into the hot water nearly up to her neck. But once she was in the tub, she was Keeva’s captive, with nowhere to go.
That’s when the fun began in earnest.
Eiselle was rinsed and scrubbed within an inch of her life. Every inch of skin or hair was rubbed or soaped. Keeva even took a cloth and vigorously rubbed her face with witch hazel, scrubbed and buffing until her pale complexion was rosy. It was more rubbing, scrubbing, and buffing that Eiselle had ever experienced in her life, and certainly more attention than she’d ever known.
Her own mother hadn’t been this attentive with her, but Keeva was greatly attentive, cloyingly so, and Eiselle was becoming frustrated with the entire process. She’d been fully capable of preparing herself for her wedding day. But Keeva was Lady de Winter, and Eiselle was to be her subject, so she fought down the annoyance as the woman fussed over her.
But she didn’t like it one bit.
When the bath was finished, Keeva had everyone turn their backs to Eiselle as she climbed out of the tub and quickly dried herself with the drying linen that had been put by the hearth to warm. Once she was finished drying her skin, she swiftly pulled on the shift that had been handed to her and as soon as it was over her head, Keeva and her army turned around and resumed their attention in earnest.
Eiselle was placed on a stool in front of the fire and her dark hair was brushed vigorously in the warmth to dry it. Forced onto the stool was more like it as the older serving women took turns with her hair. The brushing and tugging seemed to go on forever, and Eiselle had her hand to her mouth most of the time to prevent gassy emissions but, soon enough, the old women were braiding her hair and carefully pinning it to her scalp in an elaborate dressing that involved golden hair nets and strands of tiny seed pearls.
When her hair was mostly finished, the beautiful pale green dress went on over her shift, and Eiselle was buffeted by women so determined to make her beautiful for her wedding day that she felt like she was being pulled and pushed in every direction. Eiselle knew they meant well, but her annoyance was growing. She simply wasn’t used to such attention and found it intrusive, even though she knew Keeva and the others didn’t mean it to be. They only meant to help.
But they were like masters working over a slave.
Finally, as the day progressed towards the nooning hour, the pushing, pinning, and primping slowed dramatically. Victory was in reach. Eiselle stood in the middle of the chamber, her arms extended as Keeva and the maids finished the final touches on the dress. Keeva snapped her fingers at one of the old women, who rushed to pick up something that had been left near the door. It looked like a platter but when she held it up, Eiselle could see that it was a mirror. It was highly polished silver, flat in shape, and when the woman held it up to Eiselle, she could see what she had been transformed into.
An elegant, beautiful bride.
Now, the primping and pinning made sense, and her nervous stomach was forgotten. Eiselle gasped softly as the sight of herself in the mirror as Keeva stood next to the mirror, watching the expression on Eiselle’s face.
“Do you like what you see, lass?” she asked hopefully.
Eiselle was genuinely speechless; she had no idea she could look so groomed and beautiful, like the fine ladies from the queen’s court. She stared at herself, noting the elaborate braids that had been wrapped into buns over each ear, and another braid that skimmed the top of her head, pulling the hair away from her face.
Golden hair nets covered the buns, and the seed pearl strands were woven into the braid across her head and into a long, single braid that trailed down her back all the way to her buttocks. As she stood there, one of the serving women affixed a veil to her head, a sheer pale fabric called albatross, and it draped down the back of her, all the way to the floor.
Truthfully, Eiselle could hardly believe she was looking at her own reflection.
“You have made me so… beautiful,” she finally said. “I cannot believe it is me that I see.”
Keeva smiled proudly. “It is you,” she said. “Bric will see you and know he is the most fortunate man in all of England.”
Eiselle smiled at her, seeing how pleased she was with her handiwork, but she didn’t dare mention that Bric had already said such a thing. She didn’t want Keeva to know that he’d been in her chamber for several hours the night before. All they did was speak, and speak of many things, but she had a feeling Keeva wouldn’t like the fact that they’d spent that time alone before they were married and she didn’t want to put Bric in a bad light.
Still, it had been one of the most monumental nights of her young life.
They had spoken mostly about her and her life, as Bric didn’t seem to be too inclined to reveal much about himself, but Eiselle didn’t mind. He seemed interested in her and that was enough. He knew of her upbringing at Hadleigh House, and of her parents who had wanted a son yet received only a daughter, of the servant children she used to play with, and of the old monk priest who would come from the small village of Thurston to teach her the scripture because her mother did not want to take her into town. She spoke of her love for poetry, something the priest also taught her from the Gree
k scriptures, and how she had learned to love to sing in the brief time she’d been at Framlingham.
In all, Eiselle thought she presented a rather boring picture of a young woman who had lived a sheltered life, but Bric gave no indication that he thought the same. He’d asked her about her relations at Thunderbey Castle, where the Earls of East Anglia lived, but she didn’t know them very well. She only knew Dashiell because he would come to visit her father from time to time, and he always brought her sweets when he came, sweets her mother would steal from her. Bric had snorted about that.
They spoke of the House of du Reims at some length, even as Eiselle grew so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open. Realizing this, Bric had politely excused himself so that she could return to bed, and he’d done nothing more than smile at her before quitting her chamber. No touching her hand, and certainly no kiss farewell. He’d been strictly polite.
Eiselle had fallen asleep with visions of a silver-eyed knight on her mind.
And now, Keeva had dressed her to please the man. No matter if it had been an annoyance, the end result was worth it. Eiselle was deeply grateful.
“It is I who am the fortunate one, Lady de Winter,” she said after a moment’s reflection. “I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me. I am very grateful.”
Keeva stepped forward, fussing with the veil so it draped more gracefully. “May I tell you a secret, my lady?”
“Of course. And you may call me Eiselle. I would be honored.”
Keeva smiled at her as she continued to fuss with the veil. “Eiselle,” she repeated. “Daveigh and I have been married for almost fifteen years and we’ve yet to have children. I do not think we shall ever be so blessed, and I had been saving this dress for my daughter, should I have had one. It belonged to my younger sister, you see, and it was to be her wedding dress, but she died before she was able to wear it. I have been saving it all of these years and since Bric is my cousin, I think it is most appropriate to give the dress to you. You are my family now, too.”
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