“Not punishment enough.”
“That throw—she learned it well, very quickly, didn’t she?”
“Yes. I was surprised that she didn’t know how to do it. I learned it from a Scots raider many years ago.”
“Ah. Well, she knows now since you taught her.” He paused a moment, his long fingers curling about his goblet. He didn’t look at Jerval as he said, “She still looks at you as an oversized friend.”
“Yes.”
“But she trusts you now. She has never given her trust or her friendship lightly.”
Lord Richard looked up then and paid him no more attention. Jerval frowned at his host, wondering, until he followed his line of vision to see that Chandra had come into the Great Hall. A father shouldn’t look at his daughter that way, he thought, then wondered at himself. Lord Richard was proud of her. And why not? She was the most beautiful creature he himself had ever seen. Why wouldn’t her own father think so as well? But something about it wasn’t quite right. Something was just a bit wrong with everything here at Croyland.
There was no woman to compare to her. Her hair was shining, it was so clean, and it hung nearly to her waist, kept off her forehead with a narrow golden band. She was gowned in a pale pink gown that barely showed her slippers. She wore a filigree belt around her waist. To see her now, gowned as she was, made it difficult to believe that so short a time before, she’d been a filthy urchin. Actually, it was closer to amazing.
“There is no woman to compare with her, save, perhaps, her mother.” The instant those words were out of Lord Richard’s mouth, he looked furious. Why?
“I
see no resemblance at all between her and her mother,” Jerval said. “But perhaps when Lady Dorothy was younger—”
“Aye, perhaps.”
She walked directly to Jerval, gave him a full curtsy, deep and graceful, and let Ponce seat her beside him.
“It took nearly two hours to dry my hair,” she said, the first words out of her mouth.
“Did you think of my pleasure whilst you did it?”
“No, I was thinking about Wicket’s hock. It is a bit swelled. Later I would like you to look at it, tell me what you think.”
“I will be pleased to,” he said. He heard Lord Richard choke over his wine at her words.
“Tell me about your years with the Earl of Chester,” she said, chewing on a warm piece of bread. “My father tells me he is a madman on the battlefield.”
“Yes, I have seen him fight.” He had also seen his bloodlust turn to sexual lust after a battle if there was an available woman. Willing or not, it didn’t matter to him. Chandra was right, at least about Chester. A battle brought out the worst and the best in a man. He cleared his throat and said, “But he didn’t stint on praise when it was deserved. If he had seen you throw me that last time, he would have told you it was well done.”
“I have also heard that Chester has four daughters and eight sons.”
She looked so soft, so lovely, that it was difficult to concentrate on her words. Here she was finally doing what he wanted, just simply speaking to him, but what he wanted to do was very carefully take her out of that lovely gown and touch every single inch of her. He wanted to bury his face in all that magnificent hair of hers. Suffocate himself perhaps.
“Is that not so?”
“What? Oh, yes, there were four girls. Do you know that all his children still live? It is amazing. All but one have been wedded.” He paused just a moment, then smiled at some faraway memory. “Eileen was the youngest,” he said, his voice soft, “and she followed me about like a small chicken.” No, that didn’t sound particularly flattering to him.
“Was she was infatuated with you?”
“Oh, yes. Chester had already arranged her marriage to the Earl of Maninthorpe when she was born, but the fellow married someone else. The first wife died some months ago, so Eileen goes to him this year, I believe. She’s an old woman now—near your age, I believe.”
“Not old enough then,” Chandra said. She gave him a hard look that he didn’t quite understand until she said, her voice low, “Did you break her heart?”
He saw the banked jealousy in her eyes and wanted to shout with it. He said, toying with a piece of bread, “Perhaps.”
She ate a piece of beef off the tip of her knife and chewed it viciously.
“Did she beg her father to let her marry you instead of this other man?”
“Very likely.”