After warming themselves by the entry hall fire in the keep as the escort of men and animals disbanded in the bailey, Chloë and Cassandra were directed to the hall by Michael and Lucan where food and drink await them. Michael carefully carried Cassandra across the muddy bailey to the hall entry while Lucan had taken Chloë.
Halfway across the bailey, they ran headlong into Keir, who gruffly ordered Lucan to hand the lady over to him, which he did. Safely tucked into Keir’s arms, Chloë smiled at him as they neared the great hall entry. He was back to ignoring her after their earlier conversation, or so she thought until he glanced at her and caught a glimpse of her smile. The stone-faced expression cracked and he gave her a weak grin as he carried her into the hall.
Once inside the darkened door, he set her carefully to her feet and took her hand, leading her up the steps and into the hall beyond. It was a large room, smelly, as Keir took her over to the massive oak feasting table and seated her next to her sister. As he went to sit across from her, Cassandra initiated the conversation.
“If my sister has not yet thanked you for assuming our burden, then please allow me to,” she said. “I realize my father all but shoved our protection down your throat and for that, we are sorry. This cannot be an easy thing for you.”
Keir eyed the woman as he claimed his seat. “Your sister has indeed thanked me and, as I told her, it is no burden at all. We will do our best to protect you both.”
Cassandra smiled at him, a very pretty girl but not nearly the beauty her sister was. “If it is not too much trouble, we are in need of a few necessities for our stay here at Pendragon,” she said. “I mentioned the same thing to Sir Michael but I am not sure if he has told you.”
The servants set great wooden cups down on the table along with big clay pitchers of wine. Keir picked up one of the pitchers and leaned over the table, pouring a measure into Chloë’s cup.
“He did,” he replied. “I will do my best to accommodate you. What exactly do you require?”
The women looked at each other. Cassandra was usually the more assertive but Chloë was more tactful. She put her hand on her sister’s arm to let her know that she would provide Keir with the answers.
“Since our possessions were taken as spoils of war by Lord Ingilby, we have nothing more than what you see on our backs,” Chloë said. “We require… necessities.”
“What necessities?”
Cassandra jumped in before Chloë could speak. “Clothing, my lord,” she said. “Soap, oils, hairbrushes. We will not live like animals here at the ends of the earth.”
She said it rather harshly but she had a point. Chloë looked rather fearfully at Keir, hoping he would not deny their request. Keir’s patient gaze remained on Cassandra.
“And I would not expect you to,” he said after a moment. “Unfortunately, we are not located near any larger towns that may hold a great variety of things for you to choose from but there is a town not far to the north that has several merchants. We can go there to see if they have what you need.”
“And what if they do not?” Cassandra wanted to know. “What do we do?”
Keir shrugged his enormous shoulders. “Then we will go to a town that has what you need.”
“May we go tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.”
Satisfied, Cassandra turned to her sister with a smile of victory. Chloë merely lifted her eyebrows at her sister’s bold manner.
“Thanks to you, Sir Keir,” Chloë said sincerely. “We are grateful.”
Keir’s gaze fell upon her and he smiled, the first time since she had known the man that he hadn’t tried to avoid looking at her. Chloë smiled in return, a genuine gesture, as Keir picked up the nearest pitcher and poured her more wine. She accepted it gratefully.
A servant set a heaping trencher of boiled mutton and carrots in front of Keir and he immediately slid it across the table to Chloë. Then he plopped his taut buttocks on the table, took his dagger, and began cutting pieces off for her. Unused to such service, especially from a man who had very nearly ignored her, Chloë timidly accepted the meat as he handed it to her.
“I apologize that we cannot offer more by way of comfort,” he told her. “I can supply you with a bath and soap, but I fear it is not the soap a young lady would find pleasurable.”
Chloë chewed on the tough mutton. “It does not matter,” she assured him. “Anything at this point is most happily accepted.”
He began cutting up the boiled carrots. “The keep has four bedchambers so you may share with your sister or you may have your own chamber.”
Chloë looked at Cassandra, who was in conversation with Michael. She turned back to Keir.
“I think I would rather have my own,” she whispered, pointing discreetly at her sister. “She snores.”
Keir grinned, looking at Cassandra as she chatted and Michael smiled. She seemed to have the tall knight smitten. He leaned closer to Chloë and lowered his voice.
“Then I will put you on another floor so you cannot hear her,” he said.
Chloë giggled and accepted another piece of meat from the end of his dagger. “And if it would not be too much trouble,” she was still whispering. “I should like to bathe first. She will take all night.”
Keir shook his head as he cut off another piece of meat. “You are divulging your sister’s shocking habits, my lady,” he teased softly, casting her a sidelong glance. “Are you so perfect that you do not have any bad habits at all?”
Chloë shrugged and accepted more meat. “If I do, you will never hear them from my lips. Remember that you told me that you choose to believe I am as beautiful inside as I am outside. I will continue to allow you to believe that and smite all who attempt to dissuade you.”
He laughed softly. “No one could convince me that you are anything less than perfect, so have no fear.”
“Even though I tried to smash your fingers?”
He sighed heavily. “I have already forgotten about that. I wish you would as well.”
She nodded in agreement. “I will,” her smile faded. “Still, when I close my eyes at night, I hear sounds of battle. It wakes me up.”
His smile faded as well. “That will diminish also, in time,” he assured her, his gaze moving over her exquisite mane of deep red hair, thinking on perhaps changing the subject. “When you are finished eating, I will order you a bath. I apologize that I do not have any female servants to offer you assistance.”
She waved him off. “I bathe alone, although I thank you.”
“Is there nothing else I can do for you, my lady?”
Her smile returned and her deep brown eyes glimmered warmly at him. “You have done so much already,” she said. “I will never be able to thank you enough for risking yourself for a woman you do not even know.”
He gave her a crooked smile, being sucked in by the beautiful brown eyes. “I know enough that she tells scandalous tales about her sister and she is unafraid of a man with a sword.”
Chloë giggled and returned to her food, a faint blush to her cheeks that Keir found enchanting.
He let the subject die and the conversation along with it. He continued to cut meat and hand it to her, watching her slender white fingers accept the morsels, his gaze moving over her face and hair as if he could not take his eyes off of her. The truth was that he couldn’t. Chloë seemed to captivate him like no one ever had and much to his chagrin, he realized he wasn’t resisting as he had been. His sense of self-preservation was fading fast and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
He tried not to hate himself for it.
*
It wasn’t much by way of comfort but it was all she was offered. Keir had taken Chloë to a rather large chamber that was a dusty, disheveled mess, with two small beds in it, one of them half-burned and crumpled against the wall. Keir had ordered a couple of men to remove the burnt bed but had said little else about the room or its state as he had his men bring in a big, dented copper tub.
&
nbsp; A bucket brigade filled the tub with steaming water and Keir provided Chloë with a lumpy, misshapen bar of white soap that smelled heavily of pine. When the tub was full, he left her without a word, shutting the door softly behind him while she stood in the center of the room, wondering why he seemed so cold and withdrawn again. He had been charming and warm in the hall, feeding her until she was full, before escorting her to this room that seemed dark and shadowy, even with a fire blazing brightly in the hearth.
Thoughts lingering on Keir, Chloë had taken her bath and scrubbed herself from the top of her red head to the bottom of her little feet. She didn’t have anything to dry off with and she noticed the big wardrobe against the wall, shielded by the shadows of the room, but she didn’t feel comfortable opening it, so she used her surcoat to dry her hair and body before the fire. Then she laid the surcoat carefully in front of the dusty hearth to dry it out.
Slipping back into her soft shift, Chloë wrapped up in her cloak and called for the soldiers to remove the tub for her sister, which they silently and efficiently accomplished. When they were gone, she bolted the door and lay down on the small, lumpy bed.
Exhausted, she fell into a heavy sleep, only to awaken when the hearth was burning low and great streams of white moonlight were pouring in through the lancet window. As she rolled over, she caught a glimpse of something at the foot of the bed and in the darkness, her eyes adjusted to the sight of a small girl.
Startled, Chloë sat up and stared at the child. She was no more than four or five years of age, with long pale hair and a very pale face. It took Chloë a moment to realize that she was the same color of the moonlight, standing in the darkness at the end of the bed and staring at Chloë with big, bottomless black eyes. Chloë was positive she was dreaming and she closed her eyes tightly, opening them again to find that the little girl had moved to stand directly next to the bed. Her eyes were big black voids in her pasty face and Chloë pulled the cloak more tightly around her body, feeling an icy chill envelope her.
“G-greetings,” she whispered timidly. “Who are you?”
The little girl just stared at her. Then she lifted a wispy arm and pointed towards the door. Apprehensive and confused, Chloë looked to where the little girl was pointing and shook her head. She had no idea what the child meant.
“Do you live here?” she asked softly. “Does your father work here?”
The little girl lowered her bony arm and looked at her again. The chill around Chloë grew colder and she could see her breath fogging in the air. Her skin began to bump up as icy fingers grasped at her. She could feel horror and had no idea why. The little girl looked up at her with her big black eyes, dark circled and grim.
“Me-Me,” the child hissed.
Chloë wasn’t sure what she meant, nor even who the child was. All she knew was that this pasty, ill-looking child had somehow found her way into the chamber. She reached out to gently take the child’s arm but her fingers passed through nothingness. In the next instant, the child vanished.
Chloë fled the chamber in terror.
CHAPTER SIX
It was late in the night and the keep of Pendragon was finally settled in to sleep for the evening. A bright full moon hung over the landscape, bathing the dark stoned castle in silver light. Upon the wooden parapets at the top of the walls, Keir stood with Michael and Lucan, watching the landscape that was so brightly lit. They had been walking the walls for a couple of hours, watching, making sure Ingilby hadn’t somehow followed them.
Keir had put Chloë in the chamber that had once belonged to his children. It hadn’t been used since. He’d shut the door after that fateful day and didn’t open it again until just a few weeks ago when a nest of bees had built a hive in the ceiling. It had been a strange experience for him to enter the chamber where Frances and Merritt had played; toys had still been scattered on the floor and one of the little beds had been partially burned by the siege. He had steeled himself to toss the scattered clothes and toys into the big wardrobe shared by the children, weeping silent tears when he had held the dress of his daughter that still had food stains on it. When he smelled it, he could still smell her. It broke his heart.
But he tossed everything into the wardrobe and slammed the door as his men smoked the bees out of the chamber. He had only returned to the chamber this night to admit Chloë, who looked around the chamber with one half-burned bed with big, apprehensive eyes. But she did nothing more than thank him, even though the linens were dusty and the room hadn’t been cleaned out since the day of that fateful siege three years ago. Keir suddenly felt very bad for subjecting her to such filth and discomfort, and had two of his soldiers carry out the burned bed as Chloë and Keir stood there and watched. He promised her that the chamber would be thoroughly cleaned in the morning but she had smiled bravely and insisted it was fine as it was.
He knew it was a gracious lie, which made him feel worse. He’d had his men bring up the big copper tub and fill it with hot water, providing Chloë with the only soap he had, a lumpy bar that smelled of pine. All the while, he remembered the big wardrobe in his chamber that still contained his wife’s possessions but he couldn’t bring himself to open the doors and go through it, not even to provide Chloë with something of comfort. That big, oak wardrobe with the carved doors remained closed, a silent testimony to Keir’s agony that he was unwilling to explore. Madeleine’s possessions were to remain untouched, like a frozen tribute to her memory. It was all better left untouched.
So Keir had left Chloë with a steaming tub, a lump of smelly soap, and naught much else. The invasion into his children’s chamber had him reeling again, grief clawing at him as he lost himself in his duties upon the battlements. He thought he was doing quite well at fighting off the memories until he heard a scream emitting from the keep. Startled, he looked at Michael as if to confirm the man had heard it also when the scream came again, louder. The two of them bolted for the parapet stairs.
Lucan, on the opposite wall, had heard the screaming also. He and several soldiers were flying off of the walls, heading for the keep as Keir and Michael were. Just as they reached the stairs, Chloë came shooting out of the keep as if the Devil himself was chasing her.
She flew down the old wooden stairs, screaming at the top of her lungs. Michael was the closest one to her. He reached out to grab her but she swung her little fists at him, dodging his hands as she continued on her way. Keir was too far away to grab her as she bolted past him, running as fast as she could for the castle entry with her amazing red hair trailing after her like a banner. The portcullis was lowered so she couldn’t get away, but that didn’t prevent her from trying. She ran at the iron grate and threw herself against it, trying to claw her way out.
Keir, Michael and Lucan raced up behind her but Keir held out a big arm to the men, indicating for them to remain where they were. The lady was panicked out of her mind and he didn’t want her spooked by too many men trying to render aid. Carefully, Keir approached her as she struggled to claw her way out of the portcullis.
“My lady?” he asked softly, with concern. “What is the matter?”
Through her haze of terror, Chloë heard him. She stopped clawing, turning to look at the men standing behind her in the moonlit bailey. Her luscious hair was hanging in her face, all over her body, like a giant cloak that hung all the way to her knees. She was clad only in her shift and the heavy cloak, barefoot in the muddy bailey. Her lower legs were covered in muck. When she saw Keir and the blind panic faded, she burst into painful tears.
“I want to leave,” she sobbed. “Open this gate. I must get out.”
Keir was deeply concerned. He waved the men away as he approached her cautiously. “Why?” he asked softly. “What is the matter?”
With a growl, Chloë turned to the portcullis and started clawing again. Even in the moonlight, Keir could see that she was scraping her fingers and drawing blood. Whatever had happened in the keep, the woman was clearly terrified out of her mind.
> “Chloë?” he begged quietly. “What happened?”
Her fingers gradually came to a halt and she wept painfully against the iron. “Please,” she begged. “Please open the gate. I want to leave.”
Keir turned to Michael and Lucan, still standing several feet behind him. “Into the keep,” he hissed. “Check it from top to bottom. See what has her so frightened and for God’s sake, make sure her sister is well.”
The knights fled as Keir turned back to Chloë. She was shivering, wet and muddy. He went to her, hoping she wouldn’t try to gouge his eyes out again in her panic.
“Chloë,” he said gently. “What happened, love? Why are you so frightened?”
She turned to him, tears pouring down her sweet face, and slumped against the grate. Keir swept her up into his arms because she was close to collapsing onto the wet ground and she threw her arms around his neck, holding him so tightly that she was cutting off his air. He moved his head around, trying to dislodge the arm that was against his throat so he could breathe.
“A… a girl,” she sobbed.
He held her close as he began his trek back towards the keep. “A girl?” he repeated. “What girl?”
Her face was pressed into the crook of his neck. “A… a little girl,” she wept. “She was in my chamber.”
Keir’s brow furrowed. “There was a little girl in your chamber?” he repeated. “That is not possible. There are no little girls at Pendragon.”
Chloë’s sobbing grew louder. “When I tried to touch her, she vanished.”
Keir could only think of one possibility for that. “You must have been dreaming, sweetheart.”
Chloë lifted her face from his neck, her eye swimming with tears. She shook her head emphatically, her long red hair in her face. “I was not dreaming,” she insisted. “I woke up and a little girl was standing by my bed. When I tried to touch her, she vanished.”
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