Page 431
“Very well,” his gaze moved up and down her muddy body. From what he could see, it was as exquisite as the rest of her. “Let us return you to the castle and get you into some dry clothing before you catch chill. It would not do for the bride to be ill on the event of her wedding.”
Still reeling from the fact that her mystery savior was, in fact, her betrothed, Chrystobel obediently began to move down the muddy path, heading towards the distant road. Keller carefully turned his horse around and began to lead the beast after her.
He watched her lowered head, her slumped shoulders, thinking that perhaps he had been too harsh in accusing her of running away. But it had been the first thing that had popped into his mind and he knew, from past experience, that his manner with women had never been particularly smooth. He was apt to say the wrong thing more than the right. He did not want to start this marriage out on the wrong note.
“My lady,” he said, watching her pause and turn around. He walked up to her, gazing down into her chapped face. “I apologize if I offended you by asking if you were running away. I did not mean to insult your honor.”
She cocked her head slightly, wiping the rain from her brow. “You did not. But I was truthful with you; I was not running.”
“I believe you.”
“I do, however, have a question for you, my lord.”
“What is it?”
“What were you doing here? The castle entrance is not this direction.”
He just looked at her. There was a faint glimmer in the dark eyes as he pondered his reply. “I was chasing a wounded rabbit.”
“For supper?”
“Hopefully you will provide something more substantial than that.”
Her smile was back. She had a very easy, and very lovely, smile. “Indeed I will, my lord.”
It was clear she did not believe his evasive answer but she gave him the courtesy of not questioning him further. It made Keller feel worse about dodging her query. She had been truthful where he had not. To be honest, he wasn’t sure why he had taken the muddy path along the mountainside. It seemed like a good idea at the time to help clear his head to prepare for the inevitable. But now he felt guilty about it.
His guilt, however, did nothing to either ease or reinforce the confusion he felt as he followed Chrystobel’s gently swaying hips all the way back to Nether Pass.
CHAPTER THREE
He is a very big man.
That was Chrystobel’s first thought when she saw de Poyer, without his helm and most of his armor, in the great hall for supper. He had come with a cluster of English knights, haughty men with a haughty manner and big weapons. They were all big and sturdy, war machines for William Marshal’s conquest of Wales. She wasn’t sure she liked them in the halls of Nether, yet she had little choice. She had instructed the servants to begin serving food as soon as the knights entered the hall and they did so with flighty efficiency.
De Poyer didn’t sit right away even though his men did. As Chrystobel watched from an alcove, de Poyer moved to the hearth to inspect it, pacing the room slowly as his gaze moved over every facet of the hall as if biting it off, chewing it, and digesting it. He had a very intense gaze. His perusal of his new acquisition gave Chrystobel a chance to inspect him. As she had initially noticed, he was a large man with a big, muscular body. He had enormously wide shoulders and arms. He wasn’t obviously handsome but he had rugged, strong features that she found intriguing. He had dark, dusky eyes and closed-cropped dark hair with flecks of gray near the temples. She wondered how old he was. He wasn’t young but he wasn’t particularly old. It seemed to her that he was a man who had seen much in life because his manner seemed oddly weary.
A servant swept past her through the alcove, coming from the small exterior door that led off towards the kitchens, and nearly dropped a platter of boiled apples as she went. The woman panicked because she thought Gryffyn, who wasn’t even in the hall yet, might have heard the commotion. He did not tolerate clumsiness. Chrystobel caught the platter before it could crash and took it out into the hall herself. No use in hiding herself any longer.
She headed straight for the dais where the knights were collecting. She counted four in all, including de Poyer. Setting the tray down, she dared to glance up and noticed that a big blond knight was studying her intently. Startled when their eyes met, she bowed quickly and turned away, only to run straight into Keller.
He had seen her emerge with the platter of apples and made his way over to the table. Dry and cleaned up from her trip through the mud, he was not surprised to see how lovely she truly was. Her blond hair fell well past her buttocks, the hair around her face pulled back and secured behind her head. She was clad in a rough linen surcoat of a faded cranberry color with a woven tassel rope about her gently flaring hips. When their eyes met, he was intrigued anew by the beauty of her face. But along with that beauty, he noticed a dark shading along her left cheekbone. It was clearly a bruise. His dark eyes inspected her cheek with the same intensity as they inspected the hall. Keller de Poyer was a man who missed nothing.
“You hurt yourself tumbling down the hill today, my lady,” he commented. “I am sorry I could not save you sooner to prevent it.”
She truly had no idea what he was talking about. Her big brown eyes were a little lost as she gazed back at him.
“My lord?”
He tilted his chin in the direction of her cheek even as his eyes focused on the swollen area. “Your face,” he clarified, somewhat softer. “You bruised it when you fell.”
Her hand flew to her face and she lowered her gaze with uncertainty. “I…,” she tried to move away from him, out from under his intense stare. “I am sorry if my appearance is unseemly, my lord.”
He reached out and grabbed her wrist with a massive hand. Even without the gauntlets he usually wore, his hand was three times the size of hers. “You are hardly unseemly,” he pulled her back towards him and dropped his hand when he was sure she wasn’t going to try and move away again. “I would introduce you to the knights who are now in control of Nether. Good knights, this is Lady Chrystobel d’Einen, chatelaine of Nether Castle,” he eyed the men around him somewhat awkwardly. “She is the future Lady de Poyer.”
Wellesbourne was the first man to greet her. He did so politely. “My lady, Sir William Wellesbourne at your service.”
Still embarrassed about her bruised cheek, it was a struggle for Chrystobel to acknowledge the big blond knight. He was handsome and with a very deep voice. The two shorter knights on Wellesbourne’s other side came at her with the gentle force of a raging blizzard. They almost knocked her off her feet with their rush.
