Martin could sense Ridge’s gratitude even if the man hadn’t really spoken of it. There was an understanding between them now, a code of silence between men of honor. It had been so long since Martin had been treated honorably that the realization was fortifying. His gaze finally moved to Catherine, looking a bit haggard in her torn red dress.
“My lady, there is no apology strong enough for what happened,” he said. “Please know that the entire de Luzie family is not like Renard was. I am sorry he caused you so much distress.”
Catherine, who had collected both of her dogs, simply nodded at him. In truth, she wasn’t sure what she could say to him. She wasn’t particularly in a forgiving mood at the moment. Martin, sensing that, simply turned away and began to head back, but Ridge stopped him.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked. “Now that you know your service to Renard is over.”
Martin shrugged. “I am not sure, my lord,” he said. “I must give the situation a respectable amount of time before I return to France and inform the count. After that… I am still sworn to him, so I do not know what will become of me after that.”
Ridge’s gaze lingered on the man. “You did the right thing in a bad situation,” he said. “I respect that. If you are ever looking for a new liege, you know where to find me.”
That brought a genuine smile from Martin. “Thank you, my lord,” he said. “How men would envy me to be one of The Black Storm’s tempests.”
With that, he headed off through the trees, leaving Ridge standing with William, Kieran, the dogs, and his two soldiers, who were still several feet away, perhaps waiting for Ridge to unload on them about not having been better at protecting the lady.
But Ridge didn’t intend to rage at anyone at the moment. He said his farewells to William and Kieran before turning to Catherine, standing there with her little dogs. He could see the big welt swelling on the left side of her face, indicative of the battle she had just faced.
A battle that Ridge had finally won.
But there was still one battle left.
“Your mother is still in town,” he said softly. “What do you want to do?”
Catherine was surprised that he had asked her that question. She was exhausted, and her head hurt, but she had her life and she was extremely grateful for it. Still, she felt the need to make one thing clear before she answered his question.
“I do not know what to say about all of this, Ridge,” she said. “I suppose you are wondering why I came here. I…”
He cut her off, though not harshly. “I can guess why you did,” he said. “You wanted to see to your little devils and I would not let you. You needn’t apologize, Catie. I should apologize for not realizing how important it was to you. This was my fault.”
She looked at him, this enormous and powerful man with whom she was beginning to share such a rich foundation with. Throughout all of the turmoil, the tournament, the deadly attacks, whatever they were building between them was growing stronger by the moment.
“Nay, it was not,” she said, putting Iris and Bando down because they were squirming so much. “I feel so guilty because you had to kill for me. I thought I was being so careful, returning to the camp as I did. I thought I would see Renard before he saw me. But suddenly he was here and it was the same rhetoric he’d spoken before, only worse. He spoke of my mother and how she’d given him permission to marry me. He said you were usurping his position. You asked me what I wish to do about my mother? I never want to see her again, but she must understand that nothing she does can harm us. That we are united.”
His eyes glittered at her. “Are we?”
She went to him, looking him over, one hand going to Odin’s head while the other went to the puncture on his arm where Renard had stabbed him. She put a gentle palm against it.
“I met you three days ago,” she murmured. “Now that I have come to know you a little, I feel as if I have found the other half of my heart. I know that sounds strange, but it is not strange to say that I am looking forward to coming to know you for the rest of my life. We’ve spoken of courtship, and marriage, but it has all been so rushed. At least, some would say so. All I know is that if I were to leave this place without you, I would be shattered. Are we united? I hope so. I hope we are united forever. And I will endeavor to make you proud of me, every moment of every day.”
Because he was holding the dog, he couldn’t put his arms around her, so he bent down and kissed her, very sweetly, on the lips.
“You already do,” he whispered. “I think I have been waiting my entire life to hear that.”
“I’ve been waiting my entire life to say it.”
He kissed her again. “Come along, sweetheart,” he said. “I must tend Odin’s wound and you must decide who is going to tell your mother that she has lost this war.”
He started to walk, encouraging her to go with him and she did, calling to Bando and Iris as she went. Ridge’s soldiers made themselves scarce, stilling waiting to be reprimanded for the situation and grateful for a momentary reprieve because Ridge was more concerned about the lady and his dog than in getting to the bottom of things. At the moment, anyway, but the situation wasn’t over yet.
Not in the least.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ridge appeared tight with stress, his sister looked as if she’d been in a fight, and Charles was having a horrific time digesting what had happened while he and Geoffrey were stuffing their faces with pottage and oat cakes.
Renard was dead.
That’s not what bothered him. In fact, he was thrilled to hear it. What bothered him most was that everything Martin had told them was the truth and that Blythe was sitting in the common room at The Silly Gilly Tavern, waiting for the appearance of her daughter and Renard de Luzie.
An appearance that would never happen.
But there was most definitely going to be an appearance, more than likely one she wouldn’t be happy to see.
“Are you sure, George?” Charles asked, his jaw ticking. “You saw Mother in the tavern?”
George and Payne had only just arrived back at the de Tuberville corner of the staging area, both of them flushed and out of breath from having run all the way. George was wiping sweat from his brow.
“Aye,” he said. “She is sitting in the common room. We both saw her.”
Payne nodded in confirmation. “We did,” he said. “She is sitting alone.”
Charles’ jaw flexed dangerously. “Then all of it is true,” he said. “Everything de Lamoreux said was true, God help us.”
“God did,” Ridge said quietly. “He gave Martin the sense to warn us.”
“Where is he now?”
Ridge looked over his left shoulder, off towards the de Luzie camp. “Back in his camp, I assume,” he said. “The man has a tricky evening ahead of him, pretending he knows nothing when Renard fails to show his face.”
“And you trust him?”
“He saved Catherine. I do. Besides… I have no choice.”
Charles sighed heavily. “He was certainly right about Renard and Mother,” he said. “They were colluding and now Renard is…”
“Dead,” Ridge said in a voice that sounded low and gloomy. “Look at your sister, Charles. He tried to kill her. He stabbed my dog. Renard is dead and that knowledge will not leave this circle because his body will never be found. Is that clear?”
Charles, Geoffrey, George, and Payne nodded grimly. Tavis and Osbert weren’t part of the group, as Osbert was in the first bout of the afternoon and Tavis was helping him prepare. That left the others to contemplate what had happened to Renard de Luzie and what that meant for Ridge and Catherine. For the de Tuberville siblings in particular, it meant a great deal because their mother was behind much of the situation. She was behaving wickedly and it was difficult for them to stomach how far she had gone to have her way in all things.
For Charles, in particular.
He looked at Ridge.
“You do realize that my
mother more than likely won’t stop trying to find a wealthy husband for my sister,” he said. “Renard’s loss will only slow her down, but it will not stop her. Now that we know what lengths she will go to in order to have her wishes fulfilled, that leaves Catherine more vulnerable than ever. There must be something about this tournament and the fact that it is filled with rich and eligible lords that has made the woman go out of her mind, for I swear, she was never like this before. I feel as if Lucifer himself could offer for Catherine’s hand and if he were titled and wealthy enough, she would take it.”
Ridge began nodding before the words were even out of Charles’ mouth. “I do, in fact, realize that,” he said. “And I must act accordingly. If your sister agrees, I will marry her now, this very hour. That will stop your mother from recruiting someone else for her reckless plans and we will be finished with this madness.”
Catherine looked at Ridge in surprise. “Now?”
He met her gaze, smiling. The situation around them was so tense and it certainly wasn’t how he’d planned to deliver a marriage proposal, but that couldn’t be helped.
But he didn’t regret how he felt.
“Whether I marry you now or in a month or in a year, it will not change how I feel about you,” he said quietly. “But if we were to do it tonight… it would make you safe from your mother’s schemes. And we would start our life together sooner rather than later, with all of the joyous discovery to look forward to.”
A smile spread across Catherine’s lips as she studied his face to see if there was any hint of hesitance. “You are certain this is what you wish?”
“I am,” he said. “I realize we do not know each other well, but we have been through more than some couples go through in a lifetime. I have learned a good deal about you during that time. I have learned that you are brave and honest. I have learned what it is to have a woman look at me in such a way that makes me feel as if I am the only man on earth. I do not ever want to lose that feeling.”
She clasped his hands. “You will not,” she said. “As long as there is breath left in my body, you will not. Just promise me… promise me that the Ridge I have come to know over the past few days is the Ridge I will know for the rest of my life. Please don’t ever change.”
He kissed her hands. “I will not disappoint you, I swear it.”
She nodded, grinning broadly, and Ridge winked at her before turning to Payne. “Go to Durham Cathedral,” he said. “Find a priest who will perform a mass for me and the lady immediately and pay him well. We will be there shortly.”
Fighting off a grin, Payne headed out.
“Immediately?” George said, confused. “Don’t you have a bout to compete in later today?”
Ridge shook his head. “The marshals wanted to move my bout to tomorrow morning because they fear it will be dark by the time my turn comes, but I disagreed with them,” he said. “That is why they summoned me, before Catherine ended up in the mortal battle with de Luzie. But ultimately, I made the decision. I will go at sunset, before the light gets too low.”
Catherine looked at him seriously. “Is that safe?”
He grinned. “For me, it is,” he said. “For Arthur St. Marr, it is not.”
A jovial mood threatened but it was quickly killed by Charles. “We can discuss Arthur’s future brush with death at another time,” he said. “For now, I must get to my mother and explain things to her. Catie, are you sure you do not want to go?”
Catherine shook her head. “I never want to see her again,” she said. “You will tell her that for me, Charles. Tell her… tell her that she did not win. For all of her wicked scheming, she did not win.”
Charles could hear both the hurt and victory of the situation in his sister’s voice. “As you wish, Moppet,” he said. Then he turned to his brothers. “Geoff, George – you remain here and watch the situation with de Luzie. If anyone comes looking for him, you know nothing. If anyone says anything about him, you know nothing. Understood?”
Geoffrey and George nodded. “Not a word, Charles,” Geoffrey said quietly.
Satisfied his brothers would remain silent on the matter, Charles looked at Ridge and his sister. “Are you going to the cathedral now?”
Ridge nodded. “I will marry your sister now, before your mother can do anything more.”
Charles looked at his sister, seeing the joy on her face, and nodded. “I’d always hoped to attend my sister’s wedding, but I suppose it is not to be,” he said. “I will be there in spirit while I deal with Blythe. Let’s get on with it.”
With that, Charles went to collect his steed while Ridge went over to where his men were gathered to collect his big, stub-tailed warhorse, a beast that was nearly as old as he was. His Uncle Creed had purchased the horse for him when he’d still been a squire, a strong young boy who had been given an animal that was too much horse for him at the time but, over the years, he and Cabal had gotten along famously. He loved that horse as he would a brother.
Collecting the steed, he turned to Catherine, standing behind him. He took a moment to look her over. She still had the red welt on the right side of her face, but she’d changed out of the dirty, torn red dress into burgundy-colored fabric with a pale silk panel in the front and embroidery on the bodice of the same pale color. The front of her hair was pulled back by tortoiseshell combs, with the glorious blonde waterfall cascading down her back.
His heart fluttered at the sight.
She had cleaned up marvelously, the only evidence of her battle with Renard being on that red dress that was torn with grass stains on it. The dogs survived the skirmish admirably, including Odin, who had a wrapped leg for his heroism and the rest of the cold beef as a reward. Everyone except Renard had come through without lasting damage.
He pinched Catherine’s chin gently between his thumb and forefinger.
“How are you feeling?” he asked softly.
Catherine thought it was rather sweet of him to ask. In the midst of a rapidly moving situation, he was thinking of her. “A little afraid,” she admitted. “And quite a lot angry. But It is a comfort to know that Blythe will not triumph in the end. We will.”
“Aye, we will,” he said quietly. “Before the hour is out, you will be my wife and that will be the end of your mother’s ambition.”
Catherine nodded. “She will not be happy,” she said. “But, then again, she has not been happy with me my entire life, so I do not know why I bring it up except I suppose, just once, I would have liked to have had her approval. It is a wish I have. A pathetic wish.”
He watched her closely, wondering if he was pushing her into everything too quickly. “Catie, if you have any doubt about marrying me, we do not have to do it now,” he said seriously. “You have said that all of this has happened so quickly, and it has, so if you have any doubt… if you fear your mother’s disapproval will be too much to bear in the end, we do not have to do this.”
She looked at him as if she were surprised. “I have never wanted anything more in my life,” she said. “Of course I will marry you, Ridge. My mother’s approval has no bearing on my feelings for you and the rightness of what we are doing. I suppose I was simply expressing a regret that pertains to my entire life. But marrying you? That is something I will never, ever regret.”
He smiled faintly, kissing her on the forehead before lifting her into the saddle, which was bare without all of the trappings the horse would wear for the coming joust. Climbing into the saddle, with Catherine gripping him from behind, Ridge spurred Cabal across the staging area, picking up Charles as he went.
Together, they headed into the city of Durham where a showdown was about to take place.
The time, for all of them, had come.
*
“Greetings, Mother.”
Blythe heard the words before she ever saw who was speaking, but she knew that voice. She’d heard it thousands of times in her lifetime, something she knew as well as she knew her own.
She knew her own son.
Therefore, she wasn’t surprised when Charles emerged from the passage that went back into the kitchen and, subsequently, the stable yard beyond. Blythe had been seated in a corner, with an excellent view of the front entry and the common room as a whole, but what she couldn’t see was the rear door from her angle.
She was coming to regret that.
“Charles?” she said, struggling with her shock. “What… what are you doing here?”
Charles smiled without humor. “I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “But the truth is that I already know.”
Blythe looked up at him rather calmly. But it was clear that she wasn’t certain which direction the conversation would be taking, so she pretended nothing was amiss.
“I decided to stop here on my way out of town,” she said. “A good meal, some warmed wine. I will be on my way soon enough.”
“Nay, you will not.”
She looked at him curiously. “Why would you say that?”
“Because Renard is not coming.”
Blythe stared at him a long time. Quite long, in fact. Charles could see the wheels of thought turning behind the woman’s dark eyes. He’d had the entire ride into town to plan what he was going to tell her, but now that she was pretending to be ignorant of his appearance, it only served to disgust him. The least she could do was not insult his intelligence.
But he supposed that was expecting too much.
As he looked at her, the mere fact that she was willing to pretend she was innocent put him on his guard more than he already was. He knew that to inform her that Renard was dead wouldn’t do – she could quite possibly cause trouble by going to the marshals with that knowledge. Charles always thought he knew what his mother was capable of but over the past few days, he realized that he didn’t.
He had no idea what she was capable of.
Therefore, he was going to lie. To protect Ridge, to protect Catherine, and to protect the entire de Tuberville family, he was going to lie because the truth was that he simply couldn’t trust his mother.
“I see,” she said after a moment. “I suppose he told you everything, did he?”
The Black Storm (De Reyne Domination Book 4) Page 22