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Haydn turned back to the sea. It was swirling and angry, dangerous for anyone who misjudged its calm waters from earlier in the day. “If you say so.”
“I say so. Mother and Father say so. Everyone knows you have a duty to marry, Haydn. Everyone but you.”
An age-old argument, but one it seemed they would re-visit. Again. “Neither of our parents are ill. Mother held Kenshire in her own right. She could do so again, if needed. And there are four of us, as well.”
“Father will have seen sixty years soon. They will not live forever. Even if you wish it so. And neither will we.”
Haydn hated this topic. “It matters not. The king has solved the problem,” he said bitterly.
“What will you do?”
Calmer now, courtesy of the training session—and his brother’s temperament, even if Haydn would never admit it to him—he resolved not to allow such a rage to overtake him again. The matter was settled. He could resist it all he wanted, but tomorrow he’d leave for London.
“I will bring Lady Phillipa here for the wedding, install her at Hillstone Manor, and return to Rymerden.”
His brother blinked. “Hillstone? A bit remote, is it not?” he asked.
After Haydn received his spurs, his parents had given him the small, but beautiful, manor house well south of Kenshire. But it was the castle that Edward gave Haydn’s father many years before their falling out, the one the king now threatened to take back, where Haydn resided now. He’d only been to Hillstone on a few occasions. He shrugged. “’Tis safe enough.”
“That was not what I meant.”
Haydn turned toward the stairs. “I am aware of what you meant. But if you believe for a moment I would take Robert Pernell’s daughter to Rymerden, or anywhere where she might spy on our family… The Earl of Sherfield, and by extension his daughter, is not to be trusted.”
“I didn’t suggest it,” his brother clarified. “But have you spoken to Mother about your plan? She will not take kindly to the idea of abandoning your new wife.”
Their mother, the countess of Kenshire in her own right before she married Haydn’s father, would likely not agree with his plan at all. Fierce but kind, protective as he was, Lady Sara also had a penchant for ensuring the women at Kenshire were treated fairly. But if she had a better plan, he would be keen to hear it.
“Given a choice between a wife I do not know, nor could ever trust, and our family, ’tis not a choice at all.” If he included only his parents and siblings as family, they could navigate the king easily enough. But ’twas not so simple. Haydn’s Uncle Bryce had married the sister of an influential clan chief. Their intermarriage, and close familial ties with Clan Kerr, were what made them a target of the English king in the first place. Navigating both had proven to be a challenge, but one that his parents and siblings, as well as Haydn’s extended family, had accepted. Nothing mattered more than family. Not the king. Not whispers of their being Scottish sympathizers. And certainly not the woman he was being forced to marry.
Chapter Two
Leedon Castle, Rochester, England
“Did you hear me, daughter?”
She’d heard him. But Phillipa knew better than to react. She had no wish to see this day, which had held so much promise this morn, grow even worse than it already had with his announcement.
“Aye, Father,” she said finally. Back straight, head held high, she uttered the only words he would accept. “If it is your will that I marry the borderer, then it shall be done.” Folding her hands together, fingers gripping onto each other to keep them steady, she breathed in, and out. Twice.
Show him no reaction.
“We leave in two days’ time for Westminster. The marriage agreement has been signed and bans posted.”
“May I ask, Father, the sum of my dowry?”
Since she and her sister were mostly worthless in her father’s eyes, except for this one thing, Phillipa didn’t think he would answer. But he did.
“Three hundred marks,” he replied. “And another fifty marks in plates and household items. Your betrothed has promised an estate that you will have the right to during widowhood as dower. More importantly,” he leveled a gaze at her that Phillipa knew well, “our liege sees the match as an opportunity to gain insight into the Waryn family’s dealings with border clans with which they are allied.”
Ahhhh, she understood now. That he gave her so much information, that he was even still speaking with her and had not dismissed her yet, made more sense now. As did the fact that she would marry the Earl of Kenshire’s son. Powerful, most assuredly. Landed, she was not certain how extensively. Phillipa knew less of the border lords than she knew of those in the South.
But one thing was certain. If it pleased the king for her to marry this Lord Waryn, as it seemed to, then it pleased her father. Because nothing made him happier than continuing to garner favor with the king and his son. Her father had grown richer, gained more land, in the past twenty years than their family had in three generations.
“Will Lord Waryn permit you to recoup any arrears due from our land until it comes out of wardship?”
She could see she pushed him too far. Her father said nothing as the serving maid took away his trencher. Instead of answering, he waved for the musicians, always on hand in Leedon Hall, to play.
She watched the harpist’s fingers move deftly, wondering, as she had so often, how her father could love the sound the instrument made more than she or her sister. Phillipa loved music as much as anyone in the hall. But the way he gazed at the instrument, as he did now, was a look neither of them had received from him before.
