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 serviceable 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.
“I am afraid I ruined it,” she said, sorrow in her voice. “I did not mean to but… you were in the room and those knights, and I was in the tub with no clothing on and I… I had to cover myself.”
Chad knew that. His gaze on her was soft. “I am sorry we upset your delicate balance so,” he replied, “but there was no time for proprieties. We had to put the fire out and I am sorry that in our haste, we made you uncomfortable.”
Alessandria stuck a hand out from the drying linen and reached down, gingerly picking the dress up and draping it over the tub in a futile gesture to somehow hang it to dry.
“It was my fault for setting the blanket ablaze in the first place,” she said. “I must have gotten too close to the fire. You did what needed to be done so I did not burn the entire place down.”
She was calm, much calmer than she had been only moments before, but Chad thought she sounded rather sorry for herself. Not that he blamed her. “My mother and sister have gone to bring you more clothing,” he said gently, trying to comfort her because he felt as if, ultimately, he was the root of her problems. “They will return shortly but before they do, I must speak with you. The men that were chasing us – Henry’s men – are here at Canterbury. They are in the keep. As I told you, they have come to take you on Henry’s orders but not for the reasons we believed. I am told that Henry does not wish to take you hostage.”
Alessandria looked at him, her eyes widening with surprise. “He doesn’t?”
“Nay.”
He thought he saw some outrage flash across her face. “Then you were wrong?” she said. “You took me from Newington for no reason at all?”
He held up a hand to soothe her rising anger. “It was still the right thing to do, my lady,” he said. “Henry does not want you as a hostage but he has another purpose for you. He wants you as a wife for one of his knights.”
Her outrage turned to confusion. “A wife for – ?” she couldn’t even finish the sentence, so great was her bewilderment. “Why would he want me as a wife for one of his knights? I am of no political value to anyone. It makes no sense.”
Chad wondered just how much to tell her, thinking to spare her fear, but he opted for all of it. It was her life and she had a right to know what was happening.
“With your cousin, Tiberius, married to the daughter of one of Henry’s greatest supporters, marrying you to another of Henry’s knights would only strengthen his ties to the House of de Shera,” he said quietly. “It is a political move, my lady. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Alessandria had to digest that. It was shocking to say the least. “But… but I am a ward of the church,” she said, baffled. “I have spent the past six years at Newington, living a simple life. I am not a fine lady with fine skills. I know how to sew and weave and harvest vegetables and mix herbs for healing, hardly the skills the wife of a fine knight needs. Does Henry even realize this? Does he even know anything about me or does he see the name and assume I am a fine and cultured lady?”
Chad folded his big arms across his chest, leaning back against the doorjamb. “I am sure that he sees only the name,” he said honestly. “That name means something to him. The knights that were chasing us… one of them is the man slated to be your husband. He was coming to the priory to marry you, so he says.”
She cocked her head curiously. “You sound as if you do not believe him.”
Chad shrugged, averting his gaze. “I do not,” he said frankly. “I do not really believe that Henry wants a marriage. I believe that the knight told me that to lead me astray from Henry’s true goal with you.”
Alessandria wasn’t a fool. She was, in fact, rather astute. She could see where he was leading. “You mean as a hostage?”
Chad simply nodded. “I have been discussing your situation with my father and he believes it would be safer for you if I took you to Isenhall Castle to be with your family,” he said. “I must agree with him. Better to take you to your cousins and let them protect you. My mission was to remove you from the priory and I have done that. Now, I must take you to Isenhall so that your family may protect you.”
Alessandria deliberated on what she’d been told. It was unpleasant to say the least. Even if Henry didn’t want her as a hostage but rather a bartered bride, she wanted no part of a marriage contract. She wanted no part of politics or intrigue or whatever else her cousins were involved in. It was a big and frightening world.
“When you found me at the priory, your first words to me were that the men who had killed my father were now coming for me,” she said quietly. “Do you remember the words you spoke to me?”
Chad nodded faintly. “I do.”
“Is Henry one of those men?”
Chad sighed faintly. “I do not know if he truly wants you dead,” he said. “In fact, I do not know what he really wants of you. All I know is that men who want you for Henry’s purposes, whatever they may be, are here and I cannot give you over to them. I will take you to Isenhall where you will be safe.”
“And I am not safe here?”
Chad reflected on the conversation he’d had with his father about putting his mother and sister at risk should Henry decide to ride on Canterbury. “My father believes you will be safer with your kin,” he said, avoiding telling her that she was creating danger for his entire family. He didn’t want to hurt her for something that wasn’t really her fault. “They are the Lords of Thunder, after all. They will make the right decisions for you and they will protect you from Henry.”
Alessandria studied him a moment. He seemed rather sedate but with an edge of frustration about him. It was difficult to put her finger on but she got the distinct impression he was sorry that he had involved himself. He wouldn’t look her in the eye, which seemed strange for him. She’d never seen that side of him before.
“I did not ask for any of this,” she said, feeling defensive for reasons she did not understand. “You can just as easily return me to Newington and no one would be the wiser. I want to go home, Sir Knight, and my
home is not Isenhall. I want to go back to the priory.”
Chad looked up at her, hearing the anger in her voice. “Chad,” he finally said. “Please call me Chad. Sir Knight sounds so… formal and stiff. I would hope after experiencing the raging river together and sneaking across miles of forest and swamp to reach Canterbury that you and I would have formed a bond, like brothers in sorrow and all that.”
Her defensiveness eased somewhat. Plus, he had the hint of a smile on his lips, which told her he was jesting with her a bit, trying to lighten the mood. She gave in to his attempt, smiling weakly.
“I have never called a man by his Christian name before,” she admitted. “I have not known enough men to become comfortable enough to do that.”
“I would hope you are comfortable with me.”
She shrugged. “Obviously, I am somewhat, if I am standing here with only a drying towel to protect my modesty.
She watched him grin to that statement. She rather liked his smile and as she watched the curve of his lips, she felt some curiosity about him. So they were brothers in sorrow, were they? Odd that he should say that. Although she had friends at the priory, she’d never truly been through the tribulations with them that she’d experienced with Chad. He was right – it had bonded them somehow. They were now linked in a way she’d never before experienced. It made her want to know a little something more about the handsome knight with the long blond hair.
“Chad is an unusual name,” she finally said. “I have never heard that name before. What is your birth name?”
His smile broke through. “Chadwick,” he said. “It is a very old name meaning the warrior’s city.”
“Oh.”
“Alessandria is an unusual name, too.”
“I know. The Mother Prioress didn’t like it and only called me Aless. She said that was a proper, humble name.”
“I like it very much. May I call you Aless, too?”
She flushed; he could see it. “If you wish.”
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