“What’s that?”
“Bay of Fear.”
It was a delightfully scary story, one Annalyla found quite fascinating. When Graham winked at her as if to let her know to take the stories with a grain of salt, she grinned, thinking his tales to be quite thrilling.
“Rubbish,” Mother Angel suddenly hissed.
The old woman’s rasp broke the spell. Annalyla turned to the woman as she sat against the wall of the cab, stitching her careful stitches.
“And how would you know that?” she asked. “Graham lived here as a child. Are you calling his grandfather a liar?”
Mother Angel ignored her, instead, directing her barbs at Graham. “Keep your foolish tales to yourself,” she scolded. “This child has enough to worry over without you filling her head full of nonsense.”
Graham simply bowed his head gallantly and spurred his horse forward and away from the carriage. He didn’t much like Mother Angel; he never had. She was an old bitch who tried to exercise her power over everyone, including a spirited young woman. When Annalyla saw that there would be no more stories, she growled with frustration and plopped back onto the bench.
“What does it matter if the stories are not true?” she demanded. “Let the man entertain me, for God’s sake. I’ve spent seventeen days on the road with you and I can no longer stand the sight of you!”
Mother Angel didn’t rise to the insult. She kept stitching. “Sit down and resume your reading,” she said. “You were on the Book of Job, I believe.”
Annalyla looked at the Bible sitting on the bench next to her. “I feel like the Book of Job,” she muttered.
“What did you say?”
“I said I do not feel like reading the Book of Job.”
“Then sit quietly and meditate. Think on your betrothed and how you intend to greet him.”
Annalyla lay back on the bench, kicking her feet up on the walls in a petulant gesture. “I do not need to meditate on that,” she said. “I shall tell him how honored I am to finally meet him, and how honored and proud I am to marry into the House of de Velt.”
“And what else?”
“That he should feed you to the dogs.”
Mother Angel missed her stitch, instead, sending the bone needle right over into Annalyla’s foot, which was near her head. She made contact and immediately drew blood. The young woman yelped, sitting up quickly to rub the offended foot.
“Ouch!” she said, hand on her foot. “That was unnecessary!”
Mother Angel calmly returned to her sewing as if she’d not just stabbed someone. “Annie, I know you are weary, but your lack of manners and respect are uncalled for,” she said. “Now, tell me – what else shall you tell your future husband? We have practiced this. Tell me all of it.”
Unless she wanted to risk another stab by the needle, Annalyla was inclined to do as she was asked. According to Graham, they would be at Seven Crosses Castle before the nooning meal, meaning it would only be a matter of a few hours at most. Considering her father and Mother Angel had forced her to memorize an entire speech, Annalyla thought she’d better practice it a little so she didn’t look like a fool in front of the man. She wanted to look polished and practiced, and like someone he might be proud to be married to.
God help her, she prayed it would go well.
Soon enough, she would know.
CHAPTER FOUR
Seven Crosses Castle
“Her carriage is coming through the village,” Arlo de Correa gave his smart report to Tenner. “Not a very big escort party, I must say. I expected hundreds of men at the very least.”
Tenner was standing in the mud-strewn bailey of Seven Crosses, having been summoned from the great hall, where he’d been studying the map of Baiadepaura that Ivor had given him. He wasn’t shaved, or washed, and he was wearing clothes that he’d had on for three days. With Arlo’s news, he rubbed at his chin in an indecisive gesture.
“How far away would you say she is?” he asked.
Arlo knew how reluctant Tenner had been for this marriage. He could hear the tone in Tenner’s voice, like a man about to be taken to the gallows. In truth, he’d done everything possible to encourage Tenner about it, but the man would not be soothed. Arlo found some humor in that.
“Less than a half-hour, I should think,” he said. “You have time to shave if you do it quickly. In case you don’t know, women like their men to be clean shaven.”
Tenner made a face at the man. “No one asked you.”
“I know you did not, but I am telling you. And the longer you stand here, the less time you’ll have to clean yourself up. Honestly, Ten, you smell like a compost heap. Men don’t care, but women will.”
Tenner sighed sharply, eyeing the knight that was about five years older than he was. Arlo was his closest friend, a big man with dark hair and eyes that crinkled when he smiled. He was pleasant and intelligent, with a distinct sense of command. He’d been Ivor’s captain until Tenner had been brought to Seven Crosses but, much to Arlo’s credit, he never made Tenner feel unwelcome or unwanted, even though he found himself playing second to the new knight. He’d done everything in his power to make Tenner feel comfortable in his new command, and it was a kindness Tenner would never forget.
Arlo was one of the good ones.
“And what if I do not want to clean up?” Tenner hissed. “There is no use in giving her a false impression. I do not plan to clean up for her every day. She may as well get used to me as I am.”
Arlo was genuinely trying not to laugh. “Ten,” he said, lowering his voice. “You are to be married today. I have sent to town for the priest already, and the man should arrive around the time your betrothed does. Do you truly intend to be married with uncombed hair and a growth of beard? You look like a man who lives in a cave and hates the sight of civilization. If you do not shave, my wife will rush at you with a razor and demand I hold you down. I will have no choice but to listen to her. Would you truly put me in that position?”
Tenner snarled as he fought for a retort, but one wouldn’t come to mind quickly enough. Besides… he knew Arlo was correct. He just didn’t want to admit it.
“She is not going to like the sight of me as it is,” he finally mumbled. “No woman does.”
Arlo frowned. “Are you mad? Every woman that sees you goes insane for your luxurious hair and dimpled cheeks. If you smelled better, you’d have the whole of female England after you.”
Tenner shook his head, making a motion with his hand around his eyes. “Only until they see these.”
Arlo knew what he meant; Tenner had inherited the de Velt trait of the two-colored eyes that most of his male line carried. The eyes were brown for the most part, but there was always a streak of green in one of them. Tenner’s grandfather, Jax de Velt, had been famous for his “devil eyes” because one eye had a huge splash of bright green in it, giving the man a rather sinister appearance. Tenner’s father, Cassian, who had been his father’s youngest son, had inherited his mother’s eyes and had been spared the brown and green combination, but Tenner had the pronounced trait, as did his brother, Marius, and his youngest sister, Melisandra. Three of the seven siblings had that distinct trait.
In Tenner’s case, the green wasn’t a splash so much as it was a streak right through his right eye. It was as if someone took a paint brush and slashed it across the iris at an angle, from top to bottom. Arlo didn’t think it was too pronounced, but it was evident, and Tenner was self-conscious about it. He used it as a weapon at times, glaring at men who feared his two-colored de Velt eyes. But when it came to women, he’d always let part of his long hair hang in his face, covering up the right eye, so all they saw was the left mono-colored brown eye.
“I am sure she will not care,” Arlo said after a moment. “She’ll be much more put-off by the fact that you smell like a barnyard. For God’s sake, Ten, go and wash yourself and shave. Do it before I am forced to call forth my wife.”
“I am not afraid of her.”
Tenner wasn’t apt to put up a fight against Arlo’s wife, Maude, a woman he genuinely liked, but a lady who was as bold as a harpy. She was loud and bold, but generous and humorous. He always had a good laugh with her. But in this case, it was no laughing matter and he had little choice if Maude took hold of him. With another sharp sigh, he turned for the knight’s quarters, built into the wall of the outer bailey, and took off at a dead run.
He swore he could hear Arlo laughing behind him.
Once inside the dim chamber he called his own, with its messy bed and cluttered floor, he hunted down fresh water and took a bar of soap he rarely used, lathering it all up and very carefully shaving with his sharp razor. He didn’t have hot water, but he didn’t want to wait for it, so he was forced to shave with the cold and did a moderately good job of it in just a few minutes.
Stripping down to his breeches, he used some of the soap and cold water to wash his neck and chest, now paranoid that he really did smell like a barnyard and, deep down, not wanting to. Nay, he didn’t want his betrothed thinking he smelled like a pig, so he quickly remedied that and went in search of his comb and a clean tunic, but finding either in his mess of a chamber was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. He finally found a reasonably clean tunic, but not his comb, so he simply wetted his hair and ran his fingers through it, hoping that would be enough.
Since his window faced out onto the bailey, he could hear when the sentries put up the call because the St. Lo escort had arrived. Rushing to the window, he peered outside, seeing that the gates were open. He could also see Arlo standing near the gatehouse and he was certain that somewhere inside the keep, Ivor had heard the cries and that he, too, was heading out to greet the soon-to-be Lady de Velt.
Stepping away from the window, Tenner ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair one last time before heading out into the bailey, moving towards the gatehouse as the first of the escort began to enter. He could see heavily-armed men-at-arms and at least one knight, followed by a fortified carriage. He knew his betrothed was inside the carriage and he wondered if she could see him already.
That made him nervous.
With that thought, Tenner did what he usually did when facing a woman – he tucked his long hair behind his left ear while allowing the hair on the right side to drape over his right eye. He spent a good deal of his life like that, hiding his right eye. But in this case, he did it to preserve the lady’s feelings. He had no idea what she looked like; all he knew was that he didn’t want to look like a demon to her. Devil’s eyes. His grandfather had heard that curse, as had Tenner when he’d been younger. When he’d fostered, the boys around him used to tease him about it.
He didn’t want the lady thinking the same thing.
As the carriage rolled to a halt, he headed towards it.
It was time to meet the wife he didn’t want.
She saw him coming from the window.
Annalyla happened to be looking at the bailey of Seven Crosses Castle, a vast thing that was crowded with men and animals, but her attention happened to fall on a man emerging from a moss-covered stone outbuilding that was built against the fortress walls. She noticed him purely because he was wearing only a pale tunic that seemed oddly out of place among so many men wearing armor and mail and weapons. He wasn’t wearing anything at all other than the tunic, leather breeches, and boots that came up past his knees.
But as the carriage came to a halt and he drew nearer, she mostly watched him because he was handsome. She’d never seen anyone like him. He had hair to his shoulders, dark like a raven’s wing, and his face was partially obscured by it, but she could see enough to know that he had a square jaw and even features. He was also very tall, and very big, and she could see the size of his arms as they strained against that white tunic.
Her heart fluttered at the sight, but she tore her gaze away from him, feeling strangely disappointed that she couldn’t marry a man like that. She was certain her husband was one of those clad in armor, with big weapons, a career knight from a family full of them. She braced herself for the man she thought he was – probably cold, probably unhappy he now had a wife to think of, and all of that hadn’t really bothered her until this very moment. Perhaps she’d been putting off facing the truth, an entire year of being resigned to the inevitable, but now she realized that she was quite nervous about it.
The cold, unhappy husband who was about to marry into a destitute family.
“Smooth your hair, Annie,” Mother Angel hissed at her. “You look unkempt.”
Those words didn’t help her nerves. Annalyla began smoothing at her hair, hoping to look presentable. Clad in the green wool, at least she looked the part. She looked like an heiress even if it was far from the truth. Mother Angel came to sit on the bench next to her, also smoothing at her hair, which was pulled into a large braid, with other smaller braids around her face, all of them pulled back into an intricate braid at the back of her head. It was an attractive style, or so she thought, and Mother Angel even pinched her cheeks to bring some color into them. She was just slapping the woman’s hands away when the door to the carriage lurched open and a body stood in the opening.
“Come, Lady Annalyla,” Graham said quietly. “We have arrived.”
His hand extended into the carriage and she took it. Carefully, he helped her out into the sunshine, which had become quite bright now that the fog had burned away. Blinking her eyes in the bright light, she was immediately set upon by an older man with a droopy eyelid and dirty, faded hair.
“My lady,” he said. “I am Ivor FitzJohn, the Earl of Tiverton. Welcome to Seven Crosses Castle.”
Annalyla blinked at the man, squinting in the sunlight. “My lord,” she said, dipping into a practiced curtsy. “It is an honor to meet you. I am Annalyla St. Lo, and this is my nurse, Mother Angel.”
She indicated the older woman with the severe wimple as the woman climbed out of the carriage, but Ivor had no interest in a nurse. His focus was on the angelic-looking young woman.
“I trust you had a pleasant trip, my lady?” Ivor asked.
Annalyla nodded. “I have never been south of York, so it was a wondrous journey,” she said. “I am happy to be here, my lord.”
“And you are, no doubt, anxious to meet your betrothed.”
“Of course, my lord.”
Ivor grinned, turning to look for Tenner, who was just coming around the front of the matched pair pulling the carriage. “Ah,” he said. “Here is the man you have been waiting to meet. Sir Tenner de Velt, meet your betrothed, Lady Annalyla St. Lo.”
Ivor made the introduction with a good deal of relish, as if he were far too delighted in the beauty of Tenner’s betrothed and dying to see the knight’s reaction to it. But Tenner didn’t give him the satisfaction. He looked at the young woman without emotion and gallantly dipped his head.
“My lady,” he said. “I am honored.”
As Ivor was disappointed in Tenner’s lack of reaction to such a lovely woman, Annalyla’s reaction to Tenner was just the opposite.
So the man in the pale tunic is my betrothed!
Annalyla could hardly believe her eyes. She stared at him for a moment, probably for too long, before finally lowering herself into a polite curtsy.
“My lord,” she said. “The honor is mine. May I say how truly humbled my family is to unite with the great House of de Velt, and my father sends his personal greeting to you.”
By the time Annalyla came up to look him in the face again, she realized that her knees were quivering. In fact, everything seemed like it was quivering, made worse when she looked into his face to see just how truly handsome he was.
It was like a dream.
Lord, she hadn’t been expecting this. Not in a million years and, suddenly, all of the deceit she’d brought with her was weighing down upon her like
a boulder, pressing down until she could hardly breathe. This handsome knight, who could probably have had any woman in England with his looks and breeding, was entering into a marriage with a woman who brought absolutely nothing with her. Technically, she was the heiress to the House of St. Lo, but it was an empty title. Only Tenner didn’t know it.
She was starting to feel sick to her stomach.
“I’ve not met your father, but my father thinks highly of him,” Tenner said, cutting into her thoughts. “Believe me, he is quite happy about this. I think it would be a contest to discover whose father was the most joyful.”
His eye, the one she could see, was twinkling with mirth, and she grinned, feeling her heart turn giddy. It was quivering just like the rest of her, so much so that she was very nearly startled when Tenner suddenly extended a hand to her.
“If you will come with me, we shall retreat inside the hall,” he said. “I should not like to have our first conversation out here in the open for all to hear. Will you come?”
Annalyla nodded eagerly, too eagerly, and took his extended hand. He smiled at her, just a little, and she swore she was about to faint. She hoped she wasn’t coming across like a foolish young maiden, but the truth was that she was caught completely off-guard by the sheer beauty and magnetism of her future husband. She kept expecting someone to tell her that it was all a joke, and that her real uncomely and lazy husband was waiting for her in the great hall, which was where they were headed. But no great laughter or jesting came forth, from anyone. It seemed that the knight who had tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow really was Tenner de Velt. God help her, it was all true.
It was both the happiest and most distressing day of her life.
Thank God he’d shaved. And washed.
Thank God for small mercies!
Tenner felt like he was in a daze. He had an angel on his arm and he’d never been more aware of anything in his entire life.
Bay of Fear (Battle Lords of de Velt Book 3) Page 4
