The de Lohr Dynasty

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  “What news?” Dustin snapped at him.

  He looked at her a moment as if debating whether or not to tell her. “He fared well in the skirmish, ’tis all,” he said steadily. “He lost only four soldiers, a fine statistic.”

  She raised a well-arched brow at him. “Who cares about a bloody statistic? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know, my lady,” he said truthfully. “But I am sure he will return soon.”

  “But it is dark outside. Where could he be?” she demanded.

  “Honestly, my lady, I know not,” the sergeant insisted. “You must be hungry. I shall send someone to fetch dinner for you.”

  “I am not hungry!” she yelled at him. “I want to know where my husband is. What were you all talking about out here? We could hear you all the way inside the chamber.”

  The sergeant shook his head patiently. “Soldier talk, ’tis all, I swear it,” he replied. “Why don’t you return to your room and I shall have someone bring your meal.”

  Dustin’s face was red with fury. “If you say that one more time, I shall punch you right in the nose. I do not want food, I want someone to tell me where my husband is. If you do not know, then find out, for if you do not, I swear I shall jump from the window and go find him myself.”

  “We are on the second floor, my lady,” the sergeant reminded her. “You would break your neck at the very least if you jumped from the window.” He glanced over at the group of new soldiers that had only moments before arrived with the victorious news. “Do any of you lads know where de Lohr is?”

  “His knights are with the troops,” one man replied. “I haven’t seen the baron.”

  The other soldiers looked at each other, nodding in agreement, no one had seen Christopher.

  “With the troops? Why?” Dustin asked the man firmly.

  “The army is mobilizing, my lady,” the soldier answered. “An awesome sight to behold, indeed; over one thousand men and knights.”

  Mobilizing. Dustin swallowed hard, feeling the pit of her stomach twist. Dear Lord, he really was leaving tonight. And she hadn’t seen him all day, and there was no telling when she would see him again. It was all happening so fast that she could scarce believe it. Her apprehension and agitation was suddenly overtaken by a fierce desire to be held by her husband.

  The sergeant put a gentle hand on her. “Go and rest, my lady. The baron will be here shortly.”

  She didn’t even answer him as she turned and went back into the antechamber. Deborah, her pale blue eyes wide, gazed back at her with concern.

  “What’s wrong, Dustin?” she asked softly. “You look as if about to cry.”

  Dustin glanced at her. “Oh…..no, I am fine. But would you mind terribly if I retired? It might be a good idea if we both get some rest. After all, Chris said we would be leaving tonight and I never could sleep on a horse.”

  Deborah nodded quickly. “An excellent suggestion, Dustin. You shall let me know when Chris returns, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” Dustin nodded, accepting a quick kiss on the cheek from her sister-in-law before she quit the antechamber.

  The room suddenly felt empty and Dustin felt as if she were in a fog. A day that had started out normally had become the absolute worst and she was reeling with the rapid events. She sank into the nearest chair, her mind working itself into muddled confusion. So he was leaving, and she was returning to Lioncross. When would she see him again? Dear Lord, would she see him again? He would be fighting against John and his army of cutthroats, and she was utterly terrified that he would meet his end.

  Dustin covered her face with a hand. Lord, if they could only retreat to Lioncross and forget about John and Richard and the whole bloody country. She simply wanted to grow old with her husband and to hell with the rest of the world. Living the rest of her life without him was her very worst nightmare, and with the wars that were rapidly approaching, she had to face the very real possibility.

  One moment she was staring at the fire and the next, someone was shaking her awake. She startled, nearly falling out of the chair except for strong hands that held her steady.

  “Careful, sweetheart,” Christopher bent down and scooped her into his arms. “I shouldn’t have awoken you, but the time to leave is coming upon us and….”

  Instantly alert, Dustin threw her arms around her husband and peppered his face with kisses. “You are back,” she managed to say in between kisses. “I was so worried for you. Where have you been? What’s happened?”

  He returned her kisses, capturing her lips with his own and slowing her urgency considerably. Only when he had suckled and kissed and licked her quiet did he speak.

  “Are you all packed?” he asked against her neck. “My men are ready to take your things.”

  She forced his head up. “Where have you been all this time? What happened to the earl?”

  His soft expression hardened imperceptibly. “The earl is dead. And I have been with the justices for the past six hours listening to them debate.”

  “And?” she bade him to continue.

  “And the army does indeed ride tonight to destroy John,” he said. “You leave tonight as well and return to Lioncross.”

  She forced him to look at her. “Are you taking me back to Lioncross yourself or are you riding north with the army?”

  His eyes drank her in, memorizing every feature of her beautiful face and he felt despair of separation filling him. Never in his life had he faced this situation and he found it overwhelmingly distressing.

  “I ride with my army, sweet love,” he said softly. “You and Deborah, along with Leeton and Sir Nicholas and 250 men-at-arms will be returning to Lioncross this night.”

  In spite of the fact that Dustin had promised herself she would be brave, hot tears instantly filled her eyes. Before she could say anything, Christopher was kissing them away, lapping at her cheeks with his tongue and tasting her salt.

  “No tears, Dustin,” his voice was raspy. “I want to remember you smiling, not crying with sorrow. Please be brave, for me.”

  She tried terribly to stop her tears, responding to his kisses with kisses of her own. “How much time do we have?”

  “An hour, mayhap less,” he said. “I’d like to be moving as quickly as possible.”

  She squirmed from his arms, taking his hands and pulling him in the direction of the bedchamber. He had been thinking the exact same thought and without a word, followed her into the darkened room.

  They were completely silent as they fervently removed each other’s garments, such great pain filling them that it was difficult to put into words. All they could think of was each other, touching, holding, caressing, tasting. Even as the clothes fell to the floor and Christopher lifted her onto the bed, the anguish of their impending separation filled Dustin so that the moment he lay his body atop her, she began to cry softly.

  He heard her faint sobs and felt his eyes sting with tears of his own. His mouth tasted of her fully, gorging himself on the sweetness of her flesh, trying to ignore the salt he tasted from her tears. There was not an inch of skin that did not go unexplored by his worshipful mouth and not a limb nor a joint that did not go carefully caressed by his massive hands. When he did enter her hot, slick body, it was with a gentle and passionate thrust.

  Dustin wrapped herself around him, memorizing every stroke, every sensation, every marvelous feeling he created within her. She was so very, very terrified this would be the last time she ever felt him.

  Passion overcame her tears for the moment and she turned into the wanton woman he loved so well. Not content merely to make love with him atop her, she pushed him over onto his back so that he could watch her while she slid up and down on his great shaft. Sobbing intermittently, she flipped her incredible mane over so that it covered him from his neck to his stomach and she watched, upside down, as she made love to him.

  She heard him groan and he grabbed her by the hair, pulling her onto her back once again and driving his wet organ into
her throbbing body. It was too much for Dustin, she was so aroused that it was no time before she was pulsing with pleasure, her panting cries answered by his own grunt of satisfaction, and she heard her name in his throaty cry.

  The musk of the love making mingled in the cool air as he gathered his wife against him, kissing her hair over and over again. The warmth of her passion quickly faded and Dustin once again felt herself being overcome with despair, dissolving into tears as he held her.

  “Oh, Dustin,” she heard him murmur against her head. “Do not cry, my love. I won’t be able to leave you if you cry.”

  “Good,” she sobbed. “I do not want you to go.”

  He sighed, snuggling down into the feathered mattress and holding her tightly. “I have to. I do not want to, but I have to.”

  Sniffling and choking, she looked up at him and he kissed the end of her tear-streaked nose. “You do want to. You must go and protect your beloved Richard’s properties. He matters most to you, Chris, he always has.”

  He laid his head back on the pillow, studying her lovely, tear-stained and angry face. “ ’Tis true, our king has always been my priority,” he said softly. “But I truly cannot remember when, indeed, he began running a distant second to you.”

  She sniffled loudly, wiping at the tears on her neck and eyeing him with a mixture of anger and doubt. “What do you mean ‘second to me’?”

  His face was soft and thoughtful as he pushed a stray bit of hair from her face. “Just what I said,” he murmured. “You are the greatest priority in my life, Dustin. What I do now, I do because it is my duty and because I am sworn to it. But my heart, my love, is with you. Were that I had a choice in all of this, I would retire to Lioncross with you and raise a huge family. No more war, no more king, no more bastard prince.”

  She looked at him, astonishment filling her. “But…but you are the Defender. You are Richard’s chosen and you have always made it clear that Richard was the most important thing in your life.”

  “I know, and I am sorry,” he said softly. “At one time, that was true. But no longer. You, Lady de Lohr, are the most important thing in my life and I love you with every last fiber of my being. I have known that for some time now, but I have never been fully able to admit it. It is still difficult to believe.”

  Miraculously, her tears vanished and were replaced by the most radiant of smiles. “But you already told me you loved me. I was satisfied with that.”

  He grinned lazily, “I thought I was, too. But I was wrong. You consume me, lady, and I can think of nothing but you. This separation that we face is paining me more than you can possibly know.”

  “I know your pain too well,” she said softly. “It eats at me like a cancer. With every step you take, with every mile of distance between us, I feel as if my life is slipping further and further away. I am so scared, Chris, I cannot think straight sometimes. ’Tis all happening so fast.”

  He continued to stroke her hair, devour her face. Then, he smiled. “Do you know that for two people who didn’t want to be married, we are acting like a couple of sotted fools. Do you suppose marriage agrees with us?”

  She smiled broadly. “It does. My mother would be most pleased, I think. She did so want us to like each other.”

  “Lady Mary would be in her heaven to see that we have fallen in love with one another,” he agreed, pulling her down to the soft curve of his shoulder. “And your father, too. On his deathbed, he asked that I wed you and give you children; that was all. He said I didn’t even have to like you.”

  She felt him chuckle and she made a wry face. “Marry me and give me children, eh? I am sure my father was in fits because I was nineteen and not yet wed; not even betrothed.” She ran her hand over his faintly hairy chest. “But why you, Chris? Of all the men my father could have chosen, why you?”

  He had wondered that, too, of course. “I do not know, sweet,” he said with a sigh. “But we really must show our thanks to your father and his brilliance. Mayhap we will name our firstborn son after him.”

  “Arthur? Pah!” Dustin’s head came up and she made a face at him. “I do not like that name. Our son will have a strong name, as I have told you before. His name will be Curtis.”

  “Curtis?” he pretended to greatly disapprove of the name when, in truth, he had agreed on it once before, months back. “I do not know. Why cannot we name him after me? Actually, I have always liked the name Percival.”

  “Percival?” she said in outrage. “No child of mine will bear the name Percy. Our son will be named Curtis, or I swear I shall bear you only daughters.”

  He laughed. “Good Christ, you would, wouldn’t you? I’d have a household full of stubborn, willful little wenches just like their mother and I would surely go mad.”

  She grinned at him. “Ten of them, just like me. Are you properly frightened now? Will you agree to the name Curtis?”

  He put his hand over his face in defeat. “Anything, anything if you will spare me that living hell.”

  She continued to grin at him as he looked at her from underneath his hand. Then he dragged it the length of his face and pulled her down to him once again.

  “I love you, Dustin,” he said softly. Against him, he felt her snicker. “Why do you laugh?”

  “Because that is the first time you have ever told me without me telling you first,” she said. “Lord, Chris, you are turning into a sappy fool with enough honeyed words to fill a cesspool.”

  “And you hate honeyed words, I know,” he agreed with an exaggerated roll of the eyes. “Please do not slug me.”

  “I won’t, I promise,” she said, snuggling against him. “Only from you will I hear those words.”

  He held her for the longest time, staring up at the dark ceiling, wondering what the future would hold for them both. He knew they needed to get up and moving, but he simply could not bring himself to break the spell. When Dustin fell asleep she began snoring softly, he listened to her every breath as if it would sustain him. The depression he was experiencing was overwhelming.

  Eventually he forced himself to rise, donning his clothes. Darren had his armor and would soon be pounding on the door of the antechamber, demanding to dress his liege. He glanced at Dustin, reluctant to wake her, but knowing it was necessary. With a final loving gaze, he roused his sleeping wife.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Around midnight, Dustin and Deborah were loaded onto their horses to begin the journey back to Lioncross. Temperatures were well below freezing and a light snow was falling as Christopher and his knights made sure the two armies were well prepared and organized.

  There would be two armies leaving Windsor this night, over a thousand going with Christopher north to Nottingham and two hundred going with Dustin to Lioncross. The massive outer courtyard was full of soldiers and torches lit the area brightly. Dustin sat atop Hercules, watching what was going on solemnly. Her eyes on Christopher as he moved like an efficient war machine, completely competent in what he was doing as he put hundreds and hundreds of people in order. He constantly amazed her with his perfection and intelligence.

  Hercules stirred uneasily underneath her and she comforted the big horse, knowing the cold was hard on his limbs as he stood unmoving. Deborah was beside her on a pretty gray palfrey, while Harold, Alexander and George rode in one of the wagons. Harold, however, broke free of the confines of the cart and dashed across the compound to where Christopher was giving orders. Dustin almost called to the dog but she saw Christopher lean down and give the mutt a pat on the head, and she smiled. The Christopher that had brought her to London months ago would have rather cut off his own hand than pet a dog.

  Leeton came around loaded down with traveling blankets, thick things that weighed a ton. He proceeded to wrap Dustin in one of them, covering her completely from the waist down and covering the majority of Hercules, as well. Even though Dustin was swathed in layers of warm clothing, she was still glad for the protection. Deborah looked like a swaddled baby when he got fi
nished with her and Dustin giggled.

  The snow was falling harder now and hot breath hung like fog in the still night air. The armies were now properly in order and ready to move as the knights, their duties complete, began to mount their destriers. Christopher was taking nearly 300 of Richard’s loyal knights with him and the sight of all those men in armor was truly a scene to behold. Never had Dustin seen so many men dressed to the hilt for a battle and it was an awesome experience. The power her husband held within the kingdom began to take on new dimension in her eyes, for she could not truly grasp the concept until she saw the reality before her. And with the new respect came a new hope; surely with all of these men protecting him, it was inevitable that Christopher come home to her unscathed.

  Christopher moved back across the courtyard toward his wife and her party with Harold scampering at his feet. His armor acted like one giant block of ice with all of the snow coating it, yet he wasn’t cold. As was usual with him before a battle march, his energy flowed and he felt nothing but the power within him focusing on the fight ahead. There was no one more singularly-visioned in a battle than he, breathing and eating war. But he found that the most unusual thing was happening to him; he could not get his wife from his mind and he was constantly distracted by her presence. He wanted to be with her so that he had to stop himself from rushing through the necessary preparations and give them the full attention they required. Distraction could be deadly in his profession.

  He approached his wife, his gaze good-naturedly reproving. “You are as big as that horse with all of the material you are wearing.”

  “You made me wear all of this clothing,” she shot back. “I can barely move with all of the weight.”

  He snorted. “You shall be grateful for the weight and the warmth when the weather worsens, Lady de Lohr, and you shall thank me.” He glanced at his sister, eye-level with him on her small palfrey. “Are you sure you do not want to ride with Leeton? That little animal doesn’t look entirely hearty.”

  “She is quite hearty, I assure you,” Deborah answered. “She has taken me many places without incident.”