The knight secured his saddlebag. “I know that Barklestone will be displeased that you have gone into battle wearing his wedding dress. Christ, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t…”
He trailed off, merely shaking his head, and Teodora began to grow concerned. She studied the knight as the blood on her chest dried into dark brown spots.
“You… you know of Barklestone?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“But… but I thought…” She shook her head in confusion. “But what of the Dorketts?”
“Who?”
She jabbed a finger in the direction of the battle. “The raiding party. Aren’t you a hired mercenary of Jedgar Dorkett?”
He paused. Leaning against his horse, he raised his faceplate. Teodora caught a glimpse of dark eyes, sharp as a hawk, as they studied her. His nose was well-shaped, his cheeks wrought with stubble, and when his mouth moved, she could see big dimples in his cheeks. She thought she caught a twinkle of mirth in the stormy eyes.
“Nay, my lady, I am not.” His voice was deep, mesmerizingly smooth. “I am sworn to your future husband.”
“Barklestone?”
The knight nodded, once. Teodora took a step closer to him. “What is your name?”
“Sir Cullen de Nerra.”
Teodora fell silent, digesting the information and feeling increasingly foolish. The knight, watching her as she stood in stunned silence, took the rag from her hand, grasped her by the skull and, tilting her head back, began rubbing the stains from her neck.
“Lord Preston likes a tidy appearance,” he explained as he cleaned. “He is a meticulous man and disorder of any kind upsets him terribly. Christ, he’s going to have fits when he sees you.”
Teodora snatched the cloth from him. “I still do not understand. How is it that you were mingling amongst the raiders?”
“I wasn’t ‘mingling’,” he said. “Our party happened to ride up just as the raid was commencing. Apparently, the idiots that were attacking your fortress thought that we had come to do the same and were determined not to share the wealth. They turned their attack onto us.”
The story was becoming clear. “No wonder there were so many soldiers,” she said. “We thought the Dorketts had brought reinforcements.”
Cullen snorted, gathering his horse’s reins. “Reinforcements that were giving them a whipping.” He gestured at her own horse. “Collect your horse, my lady. Lord Preston is eager to meet his new… bride.”
He was looking at her disheveled appearance as he spoke. In disgust, perhaps trepidation, he shook his head again. Feeling self-conscious, and slightly defensive, Teodora gathered her mount.
“I did not have time to change my clothes before riding to the defense of my fortress,” she explained snappishly. “I apologize if the dress is mussed.”
“You should not be riding to defend at all.” Cullen mounted his stallion, his massive frame moving with grace and ease. “You are a woman.”
“Women fight.”
“Aye, they do. But by necessity, not by choice. As far as I have seen, your father has ample warriors and there is no reason for you to do a man’s work.”
Teodora’s cheeks were a dull red by the time she trotted past him, heading back to the fortress. He watched her plod by, the expression on his face one of curiosity as well as interest.
“I will tell you now that Lord Preston will not permit his wife to be a warrior,” he said. “I would hope you are well-versed in the duties of a chatelaine, for your sake.”
Teodora kept her gaze averted. “Of course I am,” she said. “Tell me, Sir Cullen, are you Barklestone’s champion?”
“Indeed.”
She looked at him, then. “Then why were you not in the heart of the fighting, defending your lord? When you found me, we were well away from the battle.”
What she was suggesting was insulting to say the least. Cullen’s eyes cooled. “Come to the point, my lady.”
Teodora shook her head, slowly. “No point. Merely a question.”
“Do you suggest that I purposely remained out of the fight? That somehow I fled in cowardice?”
“I suggest nothing.”
Cullen studied her closely, the silence between them heavy. “Aye, you do,” he said after a moment, his deep voice rumbling. “But I will forgive you since you can only draw your conclusion based on a solitary observation. In answer to your insinuation, I will tell you that I was, indeed, defending my lord. I had followed Lord Preston out of the battle some minutes earlier when he went in pursuit of two deserters. Lord Preston, shall we say, fancies himself a fine warrior, but the truth is that he is a man of advanced age and there are many stronger against him. As his champion, it was my duty to assist and defend him.”
“And dispatch the two men he had gone in pursuit of.”
“Precisely. I was just returning when I saw you, holding a crossbow as if you knew how to use it.”
“I do know how to use it,” Teodora replied with a lifted brow. “And where is Lord Preston now?”
“Right here.”
Teodora and Cullen turned to the source of the distant voice, noting a rather large man astride a fine horse on the heavily-foliaged rise above them. He was clad in the finest silks that Teodora had ever seen, his silver hair neatly combed and his black eyebrows furrowed in disapproval. Cullen immediately reined his horse behind Teodora’s steed, slapping the animal on the buttocks to get it moving.
“My lord,” he replied, not at all hurried or startled by Preston’s sudden appearance. “May I present the Lady Teodora de Rivington. Your future wife.”
It was clear that Preston wasn’t pleased. He looked her over as she approached, torn between her beauty and her state of dress. She would have been ravishing had she not looked as if she had just come from the Battle of the Titans. And the wedding dress she wore, his gift to her, was irrevocably ruined.
His anger surged.
“God’s Bones,” he growled, turning away as she approached. “What sort of urchin have I managed to acquire?”
Teodora felt the sting of disapproval and it hurt her feelings when it should not have. Preston spurred his horse into a hard gallop, away from Teodora and Cullen.
Cullen, too, had heard the insult, but was not surprised. Rather than attempt to ease his lord’s manner with the lady, he decided it should be her first lesson about the man she was about to marry. This would be the first in a long line of many and, in time, it would seem tame compared with what was undoubtedly yet to come.
“Come along,” he said as he spurred his horse into a jaunty trot. “Lord Preston will be waiting and he has little patience, as you’ve come to see.”
Teodora let Cullen take a substantial lead on her. When he was a small speck in the distance, silhouetted by the great structure of Cerenbeau, she abruptly reined her horse in the opposite direction and disappeared.
CHAPTER THREE
The Next Day
Near the town of Leominster
Cullen stood at the long, well-scrubbed bar. On the other side, a fat toothless woman dried a stack of wooden cups. The entire room smelled of rot and alcohol, a pungent combination, and it was full of travelers and whores, the majority of them deliriously drunk. Had Cullen not been so perturbed, he might have been inclined to get drunk right along with them.
He leaned against the bar, scratching his forehead wearily. “You, there. I am looking for a woman.”
The woman behind the bar looked up from her cups. Her eyes moved over the room. “They are all taken, mate. Ye’ll ’ave tae wait yer turn.”
Cullen shook his head. “Nay, not that sort of woman. Have you seen a female come in here over the past few hours, well-dressed, with white-blonde hair?”
The woman cocked her head. “Is she beautiful?”
“Verily.”
“Attended by servants or soldiers?”
“Neither.”
The woman cocked an eyebrow, amused. “A beautiful, unescorted woman?” S
he propped a meaty elbow on the bar. “Runnin’ from ye, is she? Are ye her husband?”
Cullen was in no mood for her taunts. “Just answer the question.”
The woman went back to wiping her cups, though her dull brown eyes twinkled merrily. “Well, mate, I might ’ave.”
Cullen tossed a coin onto the counter. The woman eyed it. “You must not want tae know very badly.”
He tossed another coin onto the counter. The woman picked up the two coins and put them in the pocket of her tattered apron. “No.”
“No what?”
“I ’aven’t seen an unescorted, beautiful woman with white-blonde hair.”
Cullen’s jaw ticked, his normally stout patience weakening. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes, resisting the urge to wrap his hands around the woman’ s puffy neck. “Mayhap she was covered with a cloak or disguised somehow. Have you seen any woman traveling alone today?”
The fat woman shook her head, her jowls quaking. “No, mate, not a-one. Though we ’ave had a few solitary travelers. Not women, though.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be without lookin’ betwixt their legs, mate.”
“Are any of them still here?”
The woman nodded and gestured into the back of the tavern, an alcove that held several tables and people. “There’s a couple in there.”
Cullen moved away from the bar, through the smoke and cluster of people. The alcove was dimly lit by a couple of fish oil lamps and an iron sconce on the wall. The group inside was quieter than those in the main hall, enjoying their meals or cups of ale in soft conversation. There was a huge burly man sitting alone in one corner, hunched over a trencher of mutton. Cullen’s dark eyes moved to the other solitary figure in the room, clad in a dirty brown cloak. The fabric obscured the face, making it impossible to tell whether it was male or female.
Cullen studied the form; the shoulders were slender, the head small. His suspicions grew. As he was preparing to move forward, the door to the tavern flew open and Preston, followed by Anthony, entered.
Preston immediately spotted Cullen. Shaking his ornate cloak of the rain that was pouring outside, his stubbled face was red from the cold.
“De Nerra!” he bellowed. “Have you found her yet?”
Cullen didn’t answer right away. He glanced at Sir Anthony, Bradford’s captain and a man he’d hardly exchanged two words with since Teodora’s disappearance hours earlier. Preston had been so angry that there had hardly been time for pleasantries between the House of de Lacy and the House of de Rivington.
In fact, Preston had threatened Bradford in a most un-familial way if Teodora was not found immediately. Bradford, angry and insulted, had taken to searching for her alone. Anthony had gone along to assist the earl as a sort of goodwill emissary, and possibly as a hostage should Teodora not be found.
“Nay, my lord, I’ve not found her yet,” Cullen replied.
Preston stomped to the bar and demanded the finest ale in the house. Cullen caught Anthony’s eye and gestured to him. Warily, Anthony joined him.
Cullen pointed to the slight figure in the corner of the alcove. “What do you think?”
Anthony studied the form a moment and realization dawned. “Her?” He glanced nervously at Preston.
Cullen nodded slowly. “I would wager.” His voice was quiet. “If you will occupy the earl, I shall whisk her out of here and back to Cerenbeau. Lord de Lacy will be less apt to punish her for her insolence in her father’s presence. ’Tis far, far better that he has time to cool down before confronting her.”
Anthony’s expression was one of fury and fear. “Punish her?”
“Of course.”
“But she has done nothing terrible!”
“She has disobeyed. That is enough.”
Anthony didn’t like the sound of that in the least. “What will he do to her, then?”
Cullen’s silence was explanation enough. Anthony stared at him a moment and, sensing the worst, paled. “Gods and angels have mercy,” he muttered. “Is he a brute, then?”
“You’ve never heard the tales?”
“Of what?”
Again, Cullen maintained his silence. He didn’t want to speak of such things, not with de Lacy nearby. His dark eyes fixed on the figure in the corner.
“Go, now,” he said. “Buy the earl all of the ale he can drink. I shall take the lady home and you bring Lord de Lacy on in a few hours. Tell him… tell him you suspect the lady has returned home because she is timid and fearful and does not do well on her own. Tell him anything you wish. Just delay him long enough for me to deliver the lady back to Cerenbeau.”
Anthony nodded, though he cocked at eyebrow at the thought of Teodora being “timid and fearful”. As timid and fearful as a bull, he reckoned. In truth, he would have liked to have returned Teodora home himself, but he dare not argue with de Nerra. The man was obviously used to being in charge and Anthony, although technically his equal, felt compelled to submit.
Anthony turned for the long, heavily-scrubbed bar but came to a halt when he realized it was empty. His gaze soon fell on the earl, however, as the man spoke with the fat barkeep at the far end of the counter. Anthony thought it appeared as if they were bartering for something. A moment later, a young man, perhaps eighteen years of age, emerged from the kitchens and after a brief conversation, the earl took the youth and disappeared into the rear of the tavern. Anthony tapped Cullen on the shoulder.
“The earl has gone away with a young man,” he said. “Back toward the stables from the direction they were heading. Should I follow?”
Cullen’s face seemed to harden. In fact, it was more than hard; it was brutally intense. The dark eyes became like shards of ice, his facial features as harsh as granite. It was as if, suddenly, he had transformed into something unreadable and terrifying. Anthony couldn’t help but notice the change; it overtook the knight’s demeanor like a deep, dark fog.
“Nay,” Cullen said after a moment, his voice low and edgy. “You will wait here until he returns.” His gaze trailed to the spot where the earl had lingered moments before and, with simmering disgust, shook his head. “Abeunt studia in mores.”
Anthony’s brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
Cullen should have kept his thoughts to himself. But he translated for Anthony’s benefit. “It means that practices zealously pursued pass into habit,” he murmured. Almost as an afterthought, he grumbled. “Even vile ones.”
Anthony could only guess what he meant. Leaving the knight standing in awkward silence, Cullen tried to forget about the earl as he moved into the alcove. He had more important things to attend to. But his preoccupation with his liege left his patience brittle and he was unsubtle when he ripped the cloak from the figure in the corner. He reached out and grabbed a skinny arm.
“No more games, my lady,” he growled. “You are coming with me.”
A small man gazed back at him in terror and Cullen immediately realized his mistake. Releasing his captive, the man fell back to his seat, cowering.
“Dunna hurt me, my lord!” he pleaded. “I’ve done nothin’!”
Cullen took a step back and put up his hands in a placating gesture. “I thought you were someone else.”
The man whimpered and moaned. Cullen removed a few more coins from the purse at his waist and tossed them onto the table to compensate the man for his fear. Feeling foolish, but mostly irritated, he was about to turn from the table when he was suddenly hit from behind. The force was leveled at his knees and he collapsed forward, pitching his enormous bulk onto the table. Everything shattered with a thunderous crash.
Teodora was up and running. Her hiding place beneath the table had been perfect; de Nerra had been so focused on the man in the cloak that he had never bothered to look beneath him. And he thought he was so smart in discovering her, ripping the cloak off a poor servant she had managed to coerce into acting as a decoy, ha! She had managed to hit him with all of her strength, right where h
is stance was the weakest and even as she raced from the alcove, he was still struggling to get to his feet. Anthony, in the midst of being distracted by a lusty whore, passed Teodora a disinterested glance as she raced from the tavern. When he suddenly realized who had passed him, the whore ended up on her arse and Anthony went in pursuit.
The weather outside had turned vicious. The climate near the Welsh border could be lovely one moment and hideous the next. The lightning flashed and the thunder rolled as Teodora raced down the street of the one-avenue town, heading for the livery where her horse was stabled.
Her shoes were soaked, her gown a shadow of its former glory. The ermine was matted and wet, the brocade torn, but Teodora wasn’t concerned about her gown, only about escape. Turning the corner, she spied the stables a short distance away. As she raced into the musty-smelling warmth, a young man ran out and they nearly collided. Teodora steadied the lad so he would not fall, but he didn’t stop. He kept going. She watched as he ran down the rain-soaked street as if terrified. The youth’s behavior puzzled her, but only for a moment. Turning about, Teodora took a step forward and suddenly plowed into a large, immovable object. The impact was hard enough to send her to the ground.
“Well, well.” Preston was gazing down at her, rubbing his chest where she had bumped him. “The future Lady de Lacy. How good of you to find me. You’ve saved me further trouble.”
Teodora’s blood ran cold with horror. Wet and trembling, she gazed up into Preston’s cold hazel eyes as he reached down to brutally pull her to her feet. His grip on her arm was painful but she refused to let him see that he was hurting her.
“My lord,” she responded, struggling to maintain her courage. “’Twas not my intention to find you. ’Twas my intention to lose you.”
Preston’s eyes blazed. “Stupid little bitch,” he hissed. “Did you truly believe you could run from me?”
His fingers were bruising her tender flesh. In truth, Teodora had believed she could keep running, but she had not thought on the duration. A day, a month, a year? Her decision to flee had been so sudden that the long-term implications had not yet been entertained. Refusing to reply to his question, she simply turned her head away. Preston dug his nails into her arm and drew blood, hoping to elicit a reaction from her. If he squeezed any harder, Teodora knew she might very well oblige him.
Noble Line of de Nerra Complete Set: A Medieval Romance Bundle Page 4