“May we have use of your guest accommodations, my lord?” he asked. “I would beg upon de Lohr hospitality this day. The troop house or knight quarters would do just as well.”
Daniel started to nod until he saw Chad’s expression, which suggested his father would do no such thing. Confused by his son’s agree-and-die expression, he tried not to look too confused.
“There is a small hall next to the entry,” he said. “Go there and I will have food brought to you while we… um… work out sleeping arrangements.”
If de Serreaux sensed something odd, he didn’t acknowledge it. He simply nodded gratefully and motioned to his knights, and the six of them headed over to the indicated hall. As they moved, Chad turned to his brothers and cousins, silently indicating they follow, which they did. The Six were not to be left unattended. The entire group lumbered over to the smaller hall, leaving Chad alone with his father.
When the solar had cleared, Daniel turned to his son. “Now,” he said quietly. “What is going on? What has you so on-edge?”
Chad shook his head. “I do not believe de Serreaux in the least,” he said. “I think he just wants to get his hands on the girl to take her as a hostage. I do not truly believe there is any marriage involved here.”
Daniel lifted his eyebrows, scratching his head, as if he were perplexed by the entire situation. “Even if there is, I cannot, in good conscience, permit a wedding to take place without the consent of Aurelius de Shera at the very least,” he said. “Stefan told me that Julius fell at Evesham.”
“He did.”
“Which means his son is now in command of that branch of the family.”
Chad nodded. “He is,” he said, looking at his father and finally realizing, for the first time since entering the solar, that he was really and truly home. Reaching out, he put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “It was a nightmare, Papa. The brutality and the complexity of the battle at Evesham is something I hope I never see again.”
Daniel put a hand on his son’s face. “But you triumphed,” he said quietly. “You survived and you triumphed. That makes it a good day, indeed. Stefan and Perrin also told me what happened with Henry, how de Montfort put him in enemy armor and how you recognized him. You saved the king, lad.”
There was such pride in his tone, something that embarrassed Chad. When he was drunk, it was fine to boast of his role in saving Henry, but when sober, he found that praise made him uncomfortable. To him, incidents like saving the king or winning a battle were simply things that needed to be done. He didn’t consider them achievements to be boasted about, in sharp contrast to a father who would make sure everyone praised him for the smallest accomplishment. Daniel savored praise while Chad shrank from it.
“I saved the man so he could go mad with vengeance against everyone who supported de Montfort,” Chad said, “including Gallus and Max and Ty. Now, I’ve got their cousin holed up in the knight quarters with Jorden and Rhun guarding her. That is why I did not want you to send de Serreaux and his men in there yet. Let me remove her from the knight quarters while they are eating and put her someplace safe.”
Now, Daniel understood that expression Chad had given him when de Serreaux had requested accommodations. It would have been usual to direct the man to the knight quarters which, at this moment, held the young lady Chad was trying to keep from them. He nodded his head.
“Ah, I see,” he said. “Go and remove her, then. Put her in Ronnie’s chamber for the time being, but I suspect de Serreaux will not leave without her. We may have a fight on our hands.”
Chad shrugged. “We outnumber them,” he said frankly. “They can return to Henry and tell the man that we are now her protectors and have no intention of giving her up.”
Daniel sighed faintly, thinking on that subject. He’d been thinking on it ever since Stefan and Perrin had told him about Evesham and Henry’s determination to punish everyone who supported de Montfort. He particularly thought about it when they further told him that they’d wrested Aurelius de Shera’s sister from Newington so that Henry could not get to her, with the intention of using the woman as a hostage against the House of de Shera. That was, of course, shortly before Henry’s Guard of Six showed up at the gatehouse and Daniel had been told that they had come to take the girl to Henry.
It was all quite complex, and all quite dangerous. Daniel did not want to make the wrong move, especially with the king involved. Therefore, he had to think of what was best, not only for the de Shera girl, but for Canterbury as a whole. He turned for his table, lost in thought.
“I do not disagree with you, lad,” he said. “But we must be practical – if Henry is out for vengeance as you say he is then he could see our refusal to deliver the de Shera girl to him as a declaration of loyalties. He may see us as his enemy. He may even bring his army here to Canterbury to lay siege. I must say that I am not entirely willing to see that happen with your mother and sister here. Would you see them face Henry’s wrath?”
Truthfully, Chad hadn’t looked at the situation from that perspective and it gave him pause in his determination not to deliver Alessandria to Henry. Now, he was starting to see what his father was suggesting and he didn’t like it, not in the least. He’d only meant to take the girl to safety, to keep her from being used as a pawn out of respect to the House of de Shera. But the truth was that in doing that, he realized now that he’d put his family in jeopardy.
Perhaps it had been a mistake to bring her here in the first place, especially with Henry bent on vengeance against all things de Montfort. Perhaps he’d brought danger home when that had not been his intention.
“Of course I would not see them face Henry’s anger,” he said, torn. “What he did to de Montfort… Papa, the man was as brutally murdered as I have ever seen. It was anger that turned to madness. Do I wish to see that madness brought here? Of course not. But the more I think on it, the more frightened I am that Henry would tear through Canterbury and cut you to pieces just as he did de Montfort. If he thinks you are siding against him, there is no knowing what he will do.”
Daniel nodded with some sadness. “I agree,” he said. “You know that I have no problem fighting off Henry and would gladly do so for the right cause, but it is your mother and sister that I fear for. I fear he would punish them for our stance and no offense to the House of de Shera, but risking everyone for their cousin does not seem like a fair and just cause.”
Chad had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I have to remove Alessandria.”
“Aye, you do.”
“But where?”
Daniel threw his thumb in the general northerly direction. “Take her back to The Paladin,” he said. “Or take her to Isenhall. In fact, Isenhall is closer. You have done your duty; you have kept her from Henry’s clutches. Deliver her to the Lords of Thunder and let them protect her.”
“She is our cousin, too, you know.”
Daniel waved him off. “Distantly only,” he said. “Very distantly. She is much closer to Gallus and Max and Ty. Chad, if she had nowhere to go, that would be one thing. I would keep her here and dare Henry to take her. But she belongs with her close kin. You must take her there.”
“You mean let her become their problem.”
“A harsh way of putting it.”
Chad would have liked to have scolded his father for his unchivalric attitude but he knew the man was correct in this case. “Henry will still be furious that we interfered in his plans,” he said.
Daniel shrugged. “Mayhap he will, but if we do not hold the girl here, he really has no reason to attack us or harass us,” he said. “Chad, you must take her while the Six sleep. When they awaken, I will tell them you have taken the girl to Isenhall and they can find her there. If they wish to search Canterbury for her, they are welcome to do it, but they will find nothing. I think this is the wisest course of action.”
Chad mulled over the plan, thinking that it was all probably for the best. He didn’t want to create trouble for his
entire family over the de Shera girl.
… the beautiful de Shera girl.
“Very well,” he said, turning for the solar entry. “I will go to her now and tell her of her immediate future. Your job will be to keep the Six occupied while I slip away with her.”
Daniel grinned. “I have been known to be sly and cunning when the situation called for it,” he said. “Just ask your mother.”
Chad snorted. “What would she know about your dirty dealings?”
“How do you think I got her to marry me?”
Chad laughed at his father, who was truly a humorous and, at times, devilish man. He went to hug him one last time before quitting the solar, slipping by the smaller hall where the knights were gathered, before fleeing the keep.
The day had dawned sunny, a far cry from the storms they had been suffering as of late, as Chad moved swiftly across the bailey towards the knight quarters. He was lost in thought, thinking of the journey to Isenhall Castle and realizing he was reluctant to take Alessandria there. He might never see her again and that thought didn’t sit well with him. He wasn’t sure what it was about the lass that intrigued him so, but there was something about her that had his attention. Something in those beautiful, wide eyes that had his interest.
Mulling over that sweet little face, he caught a whiff of smoke and looked up to see black smoke billowing from one of the narrow windows that lined the knight quarters. He thought he heard screams, too. Female screams.
He took off at a run.
CHAPTER FIVE
Someone had her by the hair, pulling her up into the smoky air above. As Alessandria sputtered and tried to beat away the hand that held her, she could hear Chad’s voice.
“Are you well?” he demanded. “My lady, are you injured?”
He sounded panicked. Alessandria’s eyes were closed, water rushing in her face. “I am fine!” she shouted. “Let go of my hair!”
Chad instantly let her go and rushed to help Rhun and Jorden, who were pulling the burning blanket away from the door so Liselotte and Veronica could escape. He ushered his mother and sister out of the room, quickly, pausing in the chamber beyond to grab a bucket that was usually used to piss in. It still had some urine in the bottom of it but he didn’t give it a second thought. Rushing back into the chamber where thick, black smoke was gathering near the ceiling, he went straight to the copper tub where Alessandria was trying desperately to cover herself.
“Sorry, my lady.”
He said it swiftly, apologetically, as he dunked the bucket into her bathwater. Alessandria shrieked as some of the urine backwashed into the tub, watching as he threw the bucket onto the burning blanket, creating clouds of white steam and smoke from the doused flame. Meanwhile, Jorden had grasped a second bucket and also apologized to Alessandria before dropping the bucket into the bath and tossing the water onto the burning blanket.
Horrified at the fact that her bathwater was being depleted and her nakedness would be all that more apparent, Alessandria looked around with desperation for something to cover herself with and spied the stack of garments that Veronica had brought for her to wear. The closest thing she could get her hands on was red, and silk, and she yanked it into the tub with her, trying to cover herself up from the eyes of the men in the room.
But the attempt to cover herself made the situation go from bad to worse. With the water splashing and the silk in the tub with her, the dye ran and began to turn the water pink. Holding it up against her body as she was, the dye also ran onto her skin, turning it a lovely, blotchy shade of red.
Unfortunately, Alessandria didn’t notice any of this right away; she was too involved watching the knights put out the fire on the blanket. More than half of it had burned. Jorden and Rhun were still stamping on it as Chad stood over them, watching the situation with a critical eye.
“For a blanket, that put out a hell of a lot of smoke,” he muttered. “I thought the entire building was burning down.”
Jorden stamped down the last of the embers, coughing as he did so. He tried to keep his head down, out of the fog of smoke overhead. “We are fortunate the entire room isn’t ablaze,” he said. “I have seen that before.”
“So have I,” Rhun said, pulling at the blanket to make sure all of the embers were out. “I have seen something smaller than this burn out entire keeps.”
Chad, too, coughed as the smoke swirled around his head. “Now to get the smoke out of here,” he said. Then, he turned to Alessandria. “My lady, if you….”
Startled that the attention was back on her, and struggling to cover her naked breasts, Alessandria cut him off, screaming.
“Cover your eyes!”
Startled, Chad did as he was told. Jorden and Rhun, also startled by the lady’s scream, naturally turned to see why she had shouted and she screamed at them as well.
“Cover your eyes, all of you!”
The knights immediately complied, now the three of them standing in the middle of a smoke-filled room with their hands over their eyes. Covered from her neck to her pelvic region with silk that was bleeding red dye all over her, Alessandria had never been more mortified in her entire life.
“Now,” she cried, “get out of here!”
The knights weren’t sure what to do. They couldn’t very well leave without seeing where they were going but when Rhun attempted to remove his hand so he could see, Alessandria screamed again.
“I told you to cover your eyes!” she yelled. “Get out of here, all of you!”
“My lady,” Chad said, struggling not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. “We cannot leave with our eyes shut. We have to see where we are going.”
“You do not have to see anything,” Alessandria snapped fearfully. “Turn around and walk out.”
Chad sighed heavily and did just that, turning around with his hand still over his eyes and then when his back was turned, peeping through his fingers so he could see where he was going. Rhun was doing the same thing but Jorden was too far away to do it and not be seen. Still, he tried to turn away and walk, tripping over the blanket and crashing into Chad. Chad grabbed the man to steady him, pushing him through the chamber door. But he stopped short of going through himself when he suddenly heard soft sobs behind him.
He pretended to shut the door but he couldn’t help but look and see what had Alessandria so distressed. She was looking down at herself now, still seated in the tub, which at this point was barely half-full. She was holding a red garment of some kind over her chest that had leaked red dye all over everything. He could see her hard nipples through the fabric, which was very alluring, but the water was red and so was Alessandria. He could see the dye on her skin.
As the woman sat there and looked at the mess, she was weeping. Chad felt just as bad as he possibly could. He was about to say something to her when he heard his mother and sister behind him.
“Is it safe to go back in now?” Liselotte asked. “The fire is out?”
Chad nodded. “The fire is out,” he said. “Mother, it looks as if her tub needs to be refilled and she needs more clothing. Whatever you brought her has been ruined.”
Liselotte started to move into the chamber to assess the situation but Chad stopped her. “Go and get her something else,” he said in a low voice. “Make it warm and durable. Father has instructed me to take her to Isenhall so she will need something that will travel well.”
Liselotte looked at him with some surprise. “Isenhall?” she repeated. “Why are you taking her there?”
Chad couldn’t explain the entire thing. It would only upset her. “It is a long story,” he said. “Please do as I ask, Mother. And if you would be so kind as to give her a few more things, ladies clothing and mayhap a comb, I would be grateful. She has absolutely nothing.”
The lure of packing a bag for the lady’s travel had Liselotte suitably distracted. “Of course,” she said. “Your sister, Angelica, left some things behind when she was married. I believe there is something serviceabl
e for the lady to take with her.”
Chad grinned. “You mean that she had so many possessions her husband would not let her take them all.”
It was a dig at his mother for spoiling her girl children, and Liselotte swatted her son on the buttocks as she turned to leave. Veronica, standing behind her mother, also turned around when her mother did.
“We will see what we can find,” Liselotte said, escorting Veronica from the chamber. “I will send servants with more water for the tub. We will return shortly.”
Chad watched his mother and sister leave before returning his attention to Alessandria. She wasn’t weeping as loudly as she had been but he could hear her sniffling. He knocked on the door softly.
“My lady?” he called gently. “If I promise to cover my eyes, may I speak with you? It is important.”
He could hear more sniffling. “I need something to dry myself with,” she said. “I cannot reach it.”
“I can.”
“How will you see what it is I need with your eyes covered?”
He grinned because it sounded like a rather snippy question. He didn’t blame her, considering what the woman had suffered through since the moment he took her from the priory. He imagined she was becoming quite sick of him and the chaos he had put her through.
“If you tell me what it is you need and where it is in the room, I can find it,” he said.
Alessandria didn’t say anything. Then, Chad heard the water sloshing and what sounded like footfalls against the floor. Unlike most single-story structures, the floor was not dirt. When the knight quarters had been built, Daniel had the floor lined with stone to keep it better insulated. Chad could hear her moving around inside the room.
“My lady?” he called again, politely. “May I please come in? I promise I will not….”
The door suddenly yanked open and Alessandria was standing there, wrapped in a big section of drying linen that had been left behind by Liselotte and Veronica, along with the clothing. Alessandria stepped away from the door and wandered back over to the tub, and Chad couldn’t help but notice the red silk dress on the floor. At least it used to be red. The dye had run out of it and it was streaked and faded, from white to pink to red. Alessandria stood over the dress.
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