Fearsome Brides

by Kathryn Le Veque

  The mood between them had eased, growing more comfortable now. They were speaking of something other than Henry and marriages and hostages, now coming to know one another on a more personal level. Chad thought he might have even felt a spark of something between them, of warmth perhaps, but he quickly chased that thought away. She wasn’t meant for marriage. That was very clear.

  Unlike his brothers, who had no interest in marrying, Chad had some interest in it. But finding a suitable candidate had been something of a challenge. In looking at Alessandria, it crossed his mind that had the circumstances been different, she might have been a worthy candidate, indeed.

  But that was impossible and he had a mission to complete. The woman needed to be cleaned up, fed, and properly dressed so that they could flee Canterbury as soon as possible. The longer they lingered, the more chance there would be of being unable to escape de Serreaux and his men unseen. That was his priority and he forced himself away from the feelings of attraction and back to the situation at hand.

  “My mother and sister will return shortly and I am sure my mother can help you with the red color that leeched onto your skin from the dress,” he said, indicating her skin. “I wish you had all of the time in the world to bathe and be comfortable, but unfortunately, we do not have the time. You must bathe and dress as quickly as you can. We must leave for Isenhall while Henry’s men are eating and resting. It will buy us time.”

  Alessandria looked down at her red hands, embarrassed that she was such a mess. “I grabbed the garment in haste,” she said. “I was afraid… I am so ashamed that I acted in such haste. I hope your mother is not too harsh with me.”

  Chad eyed her. “She will not be harsh at all,” he said. “It was an accident. You had men in this room while you were in a rather compromised position. Anyone will understand that.”

  Alessandria continued to look at her red-stained hands, her gaze inevitably trailing to the bathwater, now lukewarm, that was a faint shade of red. She sighed.

  “I feel as if I have made a mess out of everything,” she said. “I burned the blanket then ruined the garment. It would be well within your mother’s right to beat me.”

  It was the second time she had mentioned harsh treatment from the lady of the house. “My lady, I promise that no one will beat you or become harsh with you for an accident,” he insisted. “I am not sure why you think that she would, but you are a guest. Most certainly we do not punish guests.”

  Alessandria pulled her gaze away from the tub, looking at him. She seemed confused by the concept of an unpunished transgression. “I did not mean to intimate that your mother was cruel,” she said quickly, hoping she had not offended him. “ ’Tis simply that… well, I fostered at Orford Castle prior to my tenure at Newington and the lady of the keep had little patience with accidents. Or with me, in fact. That is why I was sent to Newington – because Lady Orford’s daughter and I did not get on well.”

  “I cannot imagine that you did not get along well with anyone,” he said. “You are not a disagreeable creature.”

  She shrugged. “It was not me who was disagreeable,” she said. “Lady Orford’s daughter was disagreeable enough for the both of us. She invented new ways to bring her mother’s wrath upon me and Lady Orford was not hesitant to take a willow switch to my backside. The beatings were fairly regular.”

  Chad didn’t particularly like the sound of that. “The woman beat you?”

  “Whenever she could.”

  He was appalled. “Did you write your father, then, and ask to be removed?”

  She shook her head. “Lady Orford wrote to my father and told him how terrible I was,” she said. “My father had me quickly removed and sent to Newington. I told you that I had no love for my father… he took Lady Orford’s side against me. He never even asked me what had happened. He simply sent a man to Orford Castle who escorted me all the way to Newington, nearly as far away from my father, and home, as I could go. The man drank heavily on our trip south and he told me, more than once, that my father wanted no hint of the sight of me. Then my father’s man made advances against me and… forgive me. That is more than you need to know.”

  Chad frowned deeply. “He tried to molest you?”

  Alessandria was somewhat embarrassed that she had prattled on so, but Chad was easy to speak to. It had all come out before she could stop it.

  “He tried,” she said, sheepish. “But he did not succeed. Because of my resistance, he only took me as far as Rochester and then told me to find my own way on to Newington. A kindly merchant took pity upon me and escorted me the rest of the way.”

  It was quite a story, one that had Chad genuinely outraged. This petite, beautiful woman seemed to have a bitter and cold past, something he found difficult to accept. She was intelligent and kind; he had spoken to her enough to see that. He believed she had a good heart. But it seemed she had been treated abominably in the past, only finding peace at Newington until he came along to brutally yank her from her haven. Now, she found herself an unwilling pawn in Henry’s political game.

  That understanding, of her sorrowful past, lit a fire in Chad. The de Lohr men, historically, were do-gooders, men hoping to change the world and protect the weak, and Chad was no exception. He had that innate sense in him. What he saw before him was a woman who needed protection, but it was more than simply protection against Henry. It was as if she needed to know that there were genuinely kind people in the world, people that would treat her with respect. He wanted to be one of those people. He wanted her to know that not everyone was lecherous, or careless, or mean. There were men of honor still left in the world.

  She needed someone to be kind to her and he wanted that kindness to come from him.

  Pondering the situation, he was distracted when servants began heading back into the knight quarters with buckets of hot water and also empty buckets to remove the red-tinged water from the tub. He started to stay something to Alessandria but she heard the servants, too, and her easy manner fled. She grew nervous again and pulled the linen cloth around her as tightly as it would go, covering everything but her feet and head from the servants, several of whom were male.

  Chad watched her back away from them, standing over by the wall as they moved around the chamber quickly and efficiently. He thought about going to stand with her, simply to make her feel less nervous about the strangers in the room, when he heard his mother entering the knight quarters.

  Liselotte came bustling in through the entry door, speaking to Veronica, who was coming in behind her. Both women had linens and other items in their arms and Veronica raced past her brother, arms full, and on into the room where Alessandria was practically cowering over against the wall. Chad watched as his sister went to Alessandria, making the woman feel comfortable again, but he was distracted from further observation as his mother tugged on his arm.

  “We will take good care of the lady now,” she said, her gaze moving over her eldest son. “You look tired, Chad. Go inside and have a meal and rest, and I will send for you when the lady is ready to go.”

  Chad cocked a serious eyebrow at her. “It must be very soon, Mother,” he said. “I must remove her while Henry’s knights sleep from their long night.”

  Liselotte smiled knowingly. “Not to worry about them,” she said, lowering her voice. “I had the servants slip a poppy draught into the wine they are drinking. It will put them to sleep until tomorrow, at least. You have time.”

  Chad looked at his mother in shock. Then, he chuckled. “You did that?”

  “I did.”

  “You drugged them?”

  She shrugged, almost defiantly. “Your father suggested it,” she said. “It will not hurt them, but it will buy you time. Now, go inside and eat and rest. I will send for you as soon as the lady is ready.”

  Chad continued to chuckle at his parents’ devious ways as he put his arms around his mother and kissed her on the head.

  “I adore you,” he said before releasing her. Then, he si
ghed as if suddenly feeling his exhaustion. Now that his mother had worked her poppy magic with de Serreaux and the others, he did, indeed, have time to rest a bit. And, God only knew, he was desperately tired. “If I do not hear from you in an hour, I shall be back.”

  Liselotte pushed him towards the exit of the knight quarters. “Two hours.”

  He kept walking, nearly stumbling as his exhaustion caught up to him. “One.”

  “Three!”

  He simply grinned at his mother, waving her off, as he quit the structure. The opportunity to rest was entirely unexpected and the closer he drew to the keep, the more weary he felt. By the time he hit his chamber on the third floor next to the stairwell, he was dragging horribly. Stefan was on another bed in the chamber, snoring away, but Chad didn’t give his noisy brother a second thought. All he could see was the bed before him. He remembered throwing himself onto it, but little after that.

  Two hours later, a servant awoke him from a heavy sleep with a message from his mother and he bolted back for the knight quarters.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The only reason Torran had awoken was because he needed to piss, badly. It was all of the wine he had consumed, lavished upon him by Lord Daniel and his servants. He had consumed a good amount of it and then he found himself waking up because he had to piss so badly.

  Truthfully, he wasn’t even sure where he was. He remembered being in a small hall inside the keep of Canterbury but at this moment, it was quiet, the sounds of snoring men around him, and he didn’t recognize where he was. It took him a moment to realize he was looking at the horizontal view of a tabletop. He had fallen asleep on the table.

  His bladder was killing him, preventing him from falling back asleep. He tried to lift his head but it felt as if it weighed one hundred pounds. It was swimming and heavy and throbbing, all at the same time. He could hardly keep his eyes open. He looked around; he was still in the smaller hall only now it was empty except for his men.

  Torran rubbed his eyes; he could see de Garr sleeping on the table next to him and the others – de Leybourne, d’Vant, de Poyer, and St. John were in various positions around the room. De Leybourne was actually lying on the floor next to the hearth, surrounded by sleeping dogs, while d’Vant was in an upright position against the wall, seated on the floor near the hearth, and snoring his head off. St. John and de Poyer were sleeping on the benches next to the feasting table, arms hanging onto the ground.

  All of them, sleeping like the dead. Torran had never seen his men sleep so heavily. Struggling against the urge to ignore his bladder and go back to sleep, he pushed himself off of the tabletop and, seeing the spot on the wood where he had drooled, he wiped at his face as he stumbled over to the hearth.

  The fire was still blazing, still quite healthy, and he fumbled with his breeches, pulling them low enough so that he could expose his manhood. So he stood there, pissing into the fire, feeling a huge amount of release and struggling to keep his eyes from rolling back into his head. He actually had to reach out and support himself against the mantel, positive he needed the support to stand. Never in his life had he been so tired. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep.

  But he wanted a proper bed. He was sure that de Lohr had spare beds for them, somewhere, so he pulled his breeches back up, fastened them, and stumbled over to the hall entry. The solar was just across the foyer and the keep entry was to his right. The door was open, in fact. As Torran staggered across the foyer, heading for the solar in the hope of finding Lord Daniel there, he caught movement in the bailey beyond the open door.

  The movement brought him to a halt. It was still light outside, so he hadn’t been asleep too long, and in the bailey beyond the keep entry, he could see several men standing outside, including Chad de Lohr. The man was dressed in armor and his horse was with him, a big white thing with a fat arse, fully loaded with tack and saddlebags. Torran had seen that horse enough during Evesham and previous battles, enough to know it on sight.

  It was a curious sight down in the bailey but not a concerning one. Torran had no reason to be concerned at all, but he did think that, perhaps, Lord Daniel was in the bailey because so many of his sons and men were, so he staggered over to the door, leaning against the stone, trying to shake off the extreme grogginess as he searched for Lord Daniel.

  Finally, he spied the man as he emerged from a single-storied structure that was situated across from the keep, built up against the outer wall of Canterbury. Daniel was pointing to Chad, or at least beyond the man, and Torran noticed the younger de Lohr brother, Perrin, walking up with a long-legged mare. That horse, too, was fully tacked with a saddle and bridle and what looked like a traveling satchel strapped to it.

  Still, Torran wasn’t concerned with anything. He had no idea what was going on out there and, frankly, because of his overwhelming exhaustion, he didn’t particularly care. All he wanted was a bed to sleep on and not a table. But that all quickly changed when he saw Lady de Lohr and her daughter emerge from the one-storied building with a small, feminine figure between them. Daniel went to take the figure’s arm, leading her towards the long-legged mare that had been brought to stand beside Chad’s horse. It was clear that the woman was meant to ride the horse and, already, Chad was mounting his.

  In that instant, Torran knew what he was seeing and instead of rushing out to prevent Chad from taking the de Shera woman out of Canterbury, which was clearly the plan, he rushed back into the small hall as fast as his wobbly legs would take him. Shouts and shoves began to rouse his men, who were even slower to stir than he had been. Only d’Vant seemed able to get to his feet; everyone else was fumbling about, useless.

  Snatching his sword, Torran barked at his men to follow him out into the bailey of Canterbury.

  The horses were prepared and so was Alessandria.

  At least, that’s what Chad had been told. His mother had sent him word to make sure the horses were ready and that was exactly what he had done. His brothers had helped, however, giving him time to don his mail and prepare his equipment, but that hadn’t taken much time considering he hadn’t even unpacked since his arrival. In fact, his possessions were still in the stables, having been removed from his horse by the grooms, and they were still in a neat bundle just inside the door. That also included his precious broadsword.

  Therefore, it had been a simple thing for Chad to pack his belongings back onto his horse and prepare himself for the ride to Isenhall. He finished securing the broadsword, the silver sword that David de Lohr had given to him right before he passed away, looking at the craftsmanship of the hilt.

  He smiled faintly, running a finger over it, remembering that David had commissioned it from a local Canterbury blacksmith and had practically hovered over the man during the process of creating it. At least, that was how Chad’s grandmother, Emilie, told the story. David had insisted he’d done nothing of the kind but Chad tended to believe his grandmother. David de Lohr, if nothing else, had been a determined and exacting man, especially when it came to the production of a weapon for his eldest grandson.

  Chad’s memories lingered on his grandfather. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think of the man somehow. David had lived to Chad’s twenty-second year, but he hadn’t been particularly healthy for the last twenty years of his life. He’d had breathing problems, and finally heart problems, and the physic had instructed him to rest frequently but David never would. He was under the belief that any show of weakness or illness in front of his wife upset her, so he pretended he felt fine until one morning, he simply didn’t wake up at all.

  David’s wife, Emilie, had found him cold in his bed with a faint smile on his lips, having passed peacefully away sometime during the night. The great David de Lohr who, in his prime, had inarguably been the finest swordsman in all of England hadn’t died on the field of battle in a flurry of blood and glory. He had died in his bed, a very old and very happy man.

  To his wife, that had been a fitting end to his magnificent le
gacy and Emilie was quite positive that the smile was because, the moment he passed from life, David had been welcomed by his brother. David had never emotionally recovered from Christopher’s death eleven years earlier so she had comforted herself with the knowledge that he was with his brother once again. It was a thought that brought comfort to the entire family.

  The de Lohr brothers were together once more.

  Chad remembered the day his father had come to Lioncross Abbey, where he had been serving, bearing the unhappy news. Daniel had escorted his father’s casket all the way to Lioncross Abbey so that David could be buried next to his brother’s crypt in the abbey’s small chapel. Emilie had had accompanied her husband’s body, also, and one of the saddest sights Chad had ever seen was watching his grandmother and his Uncle Christopher’s wife, Dustin, kneel at the foot of the crypts of the great men they loved and hold hands as they prayed.

  The two women who had married two of the most powerful knights in the realm looked small and old and fragile, but the truth was that they were stronger than any of the men in that entire room. It was their love for Christopher and David that had made them strong, something that continued on until two years ago when they lost first Dustin and then Emilie within three months of each other. It had been a terrible blow to the family but the women had each been buried in their husband’s respective crypts, finally with the men they loved for all eternity.

  Their beautiful love stories had passed into legend.

  Chad’s smile faded as he remembered the tears he’d shed for his grandfather and grandmother. He hadn’t been ready to let them go yet, still seeing them through the eyes of a child who believed they would live forever. But the tears he shed had been in private, for he had to be strong for his father, who was truly devastated by his father’s passing. Something about missing “the Daniel veins” that would pop out on David’s temples, but Chad never fully understood that joke, which seemed to be something only David and Daniel understood. All Chad knew was that the entire family had been devastated by the passing of Christopher and David de Lohr, and then Dustin and Emilie, but the sword that David had given Chad was a link to his grandfather like nothing else ever could have been.