“It is not,” Bertram said flatly. “Leave us now. We will send for you when the time is correct.”
“I will not be discarded, Father. I have every right to inspect Sir Garren just as you are.”
“Later, Derica. Do as I say.”
“I will not. I have every right to….”
Bertram took her by the shoulders and turned her back towards the door. Before they reached it, however, a large figure in flowing silks and perfume appeared and threw massive arms around Derica. The largest woman Garren had ever seen held Derica, weeping hysterically.
“My darling, my sweetling,” the woman wept in a deep, husky voice. “I told you not to come down here. Your fate will come soon enough; you do not have to hasten it.”
Garren looked at the woman; he could hardly believe it was Derica’s mother. She had a huge wimple on with miles of sheer fabric, flowing all about her like waterfalls of color. She also wore an appalling amount of rouge on her lips in an attempt to make herself more attractive. But no amount of color could disguise the obvious. As Garren looked more closely, he swore he saw stubble on the fat cheeks.
“Remove her,” Bertram waved his hands at the pair. “Both of you, leave us.”
The huge woman wept and wept. Derica removed herself gently from the embrace and in turn, embraced the woman. She cast a long glance at Garren; he would never forget the look in her eyes. He didn’t know why the expression affected him so, but it did. Her eyes seemed to reach out and grab him. Quickly, thankfully, she left the room and he could refocus on the task before him. Still, the Marshal’s words echoed in his head.
I hear Derica de Rosa is a beautiful woman.
God help him, he had been right. The stakes of the game grew.
*
It had been,in fact, one of the longest afternoons of his life. Bertram de Rosa, having been the more congenial out of the group of de Rosa men, had turned into something of a barracuda when his daughter had left the room. It was as if, suddenly, a taper had been lit in his mind and he pounded Garren with questions for several hours. Politics, religion, and education– no subject escaped him. It was if he suddenly had to know everything about the man, immediately. By the time the sun set, Garren was exhausted. Sup was a few hours off, but he fully expected the interrogation to resume at mealtime. At the moment, he was grateful for the intermission.
It was the first time he is been at Framlingham and discovered it to be an enormous place. The wall walk seemed to go on forever. He had made his way up onto the battlements, watching the last of the sun, the dancing colors across the deepening sky. It was peaceful and he welcomed it. Now and again a sentry would pass him and hardly give him a glance.
A chill breeze was kicking up. Garren leaned back against the stone, his big arms crossed and his brow furrowed in thought. The Lady Derica de Rosa, he repeated over and over in his mind. He pondered the long honey-colored hair, silken-looking with its loose curls. He thought about her great green eyes, huge things that stared back at him as if they could read into his soul. He mulled over the shape of her face, the way her lips curved into the shape of a rosebud. He even liked the contours of her nose. She was rather tall for a woman, and rather robust, with delicious curves. Not that she was heavy by any means, but she wasn’t a frail little thing, either. She was quite tasty in his opinion. The Marshal hadn’t lied in the least.
A gust of cold wind came up, whistling past his ears. He was standing near the northeast tower when he heard somethingthat didn’t sound at all like the wind. There was someone lingering in the shadows of the tower, just inside the top of the stairs. He didn’t flinch or try to see who it was; he simply stood there and waited. Whoever it was would make themselves known soon enough. His dagger, well concealed, was within easy reach.
Another gust of wind arose and he caught the distinct scent of flowers. He didn’t know which kind because he wasn’t very good at that sort of thing. But the scent alone told him who was lying in wait for him.
“You know,” he said casually, “if your father finds you out here with me, without an escort, we would both be in for a good deal of trouble.”
There was no immediate reply. After a moment, he heard soft footfalls coming towards him. Very leisurely, he turned his head to see Derica emerging into the moonlight. She looked beautiful, dressed in a burgundy surcoat and a matching heavy cloak. Garren wasn’t sure if he should smile at her or just look at her. He settled for just looking at her.
Derica gazed back. She wasn’t sure what to say to him, or why she had even followed him for that matter. The only reason she could manage to pinpoint was curiosity. Pure, wild curiosity.
He wasn’t as she had expected or imagined. Garren was taller, taller than any of her uncles or brothers, and his shoulders were enormously wide. He had sand-colored hair with a hint of copper in it, cut close to his head. His eyes were clear blue, she had noticed, and his jaw was very square. It gave him a rather brave appearance, she thought. She could believe that he spent so much time in the Holy Land, fighting the infidels. Surely those dark-skinned natives must have been afraid of him.
He wasn’t deformed, maimed or pimple-faced, as once suggested. He was, in truth, a large and quite handsome man, and therein laid her curiosity. The moment she had set eyeson him, everything she had feared had taken flight and now she found herself with an entirely new set of fears. The fear of attraction.
They gazed at each other in the ghostly gray light, each appraising the other. It seemed that all they had done in the two times they had met one another is stare at each other in an attempt to satisfy the insatiable interest about the person they were going to spend the rest of their lives with. It was a hunger that grew by the moment.
“Well?” Garren finally said.
Derica seemed to snap out of whatever silly trance she found herself in. She’d never in her life experienced anything so strange. “What do you mean?” she asked.
He wriggled his eyebrows. “About your father. If he finds you here, he’ll berate us both.”
She acted as if she hadn’t heard the question. “Why is it you have never married?”
Garren couldn’t help it; he laughed softly, his straight white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “I must say, you are direct.”
Derica realized she sounded like an idiot and her cheeks grew hot. Trying to recover, she leaned back against the wall a few feet from him, trying to act as casually as he was.
“I simply meant that you’re obviously old. Why is it you have never married?”