“And just how do you plan to gain entrance to Chippenham?” Nigel asked with heavy sarcasm. “Introduce yourself to Guy as his nephew and ask if you might pay a visit to your old home?”
Hugh looked amused. “A brilliant idea,” he said. “I believe that is precisely what I shall do.”
Nigel groaned.
“I rather think that he will let me come,” Hugh said. “He’ll feel more comfortable with me under his eye than knowing I’m running loose around the countryside.”
“He’d feel more comfortable if you were dead,” Nigel said bluntly.
Hugh shook his head. “He won’t harm me. He can’t afford to have it whispered that another de Leon came to an untimely end at Chippenham. He must know that he has been suspected of doing away with his brother.”
“Don’t you understand?” Nigel said impatiently. “Guy is one of the greatest territorial magnates in all of England. He is an immensely powerful man, Hugh. He administers his palatinate free from any vestige of royal control. Within his own lands, he wields the power of life and death. Furthermore, he is arrogant and hotheaded. He has frequently been known to act first and think later.”
They had almost reached the mews.
“I cannot guarantee your safety if you go to Chippenham,” Nigel said.
“I am not asking you to guarantee my safety, sir,” Hugh said calmly.
Nigel swore.
Cristen and Henry Fairfax had already reached the mews, and Cristen was introducing the falconer to Henry Fairfax when Hugh and Nigel came up to them.
Nigel looked at his guest, clearly making an effort to focus his mind on a topic other than the one he had been discussing with Hugh.
“I don’t have very many birds, Fairfax, but I think the ones I do have are quite fine.”
The big man said indulgently, “Lady Cristen has been telling me that she does not care for the sport.”
“She never has,” Nigel said ruefully.
“I have a very pretty little merlin,” Fairfax said. “A perfect bird for a lady. If I may, I will send it over for Lady Cristen. Perhaps she will change her mind about hunting once she sees my Faence.”
He gave Cristen a charming smile.
Hugh scowled. Who the devil did this man think he was, offering Cristen a hawk?
Cristen said firmly, “Hunting for meat is one thing, Sir Henry, but killing for sport is not something of which I will ever approve.”
Fairfax looked amused. “Your daughter is very tenderhearted,” he said to Nigel indulgently.
Hugh gave him such a hostile look that if Fairfax had seen it, he might have been tempted to draw his dagger to defend himself.
“Come, Pritchard,” Nigel said to his falconer. “Let us show Sir Henry our birds.”
Hugh’s dislike of Henry Fairfax increased as the day went on. He hung around Cristen so closely that Hugh scarcely got a chance to speak to her himself. And Nigel seemed to approve, actively encouraging the man to spend time with his daughter.
By the time supper was finished, Hugh was ready to skewer the man.
The crowning insult came when the four of them were sitting around the brazier in the solar and Nigel said, “You won’t mind if Sir Henry shares your room tonight, will you, Hugh?”
“Not at all, sir,” Hugh said between his teeth. “In fact, he may have it to himself. I’ll be glad to sleep in the hall with the knights.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Fairfax said with the genial charm that Hugh found so nauseating. “I don’t mind sharing.”
Well, I do.
Adela’s training held firm, however, and Hugh did not speak his rude thought aloud. Instead he gave a long, lethal look to Nigel’s hated guest and said, “I shall be perfectly happy in the hall.”
Fairfax shrugged.
Cristen gave him a worried look.
“Suit yourself,” Nigel grunted.
When the group around the brazier finally broke up, Hugh went back to the hall, took one of the straw mattresses, and dragged it away from the beds of the other knights.
“Where are you going, Hugh?” Thomas said. “You’ll be warmer if you stay with us.”
“Do any of you snore?” Hugh demanded.
Every eye went immediately to Ranulf.
“I thought so,” Hugh said. “It will be quieter over here.”
Ranulf did indeed snore magnificently, but it was not the noise that kept Hugh awake. It was the image of Fairfax’s blond head bending over Cristen.
He scowled fiercely into the dark.
“Hugh.”
He didn’t know if she actually spoke or if he heard her voice in his mind, but he opened his eyes and saw her kneeling next to him. She was holding a candle and shading its light with her hand.
“Come with me to the pantry,” she breathed. “I have to talk to you.”
He rose soundlessly and followed her to the small service room where the food brought from the kitchen was arranged on platters before the servants took it into the hall to be served. Cristen put her candle down on one of the scoured wooden benches and turned to face Hugh.
“What’s the matter?” he said. A thought struck him and he went rigid. “That dolt Fairfax wasn’t trying to bother you, was he?”
“Nay, that’s not it.” She shook her head. Her hair was done in two loose plaits and hung over her shoulders and down the front of her green velvet robe.
“What the devil is your father thinking, letting that fellow hang all over you?” Hugh demanded next.
“He wants to marry me, Hugh,” she replied. “And Father thinks it’s a good match.”
Hugh was thunderstruck.
“He wants to marry you?”
“Aye.”
“Well, he can’t!” Hugh said fiercely.
She looked at him.
“You’re not going to marry anyone but me.”
The single candle did not give them much light to see each other by, but he thought he could see her eyes glisten.
“You can’t marry me,” she whispered. “You’re my feudal lord.”
“I’m not your feudal lord yet,” he said. “Besides, what does that have to do with anything?”
“An overlord does not marry the daughter of one of his vassals, Hugh.”
“I shall marry whomever I choose to marry,” he replied with splendid arrogance. “And I choose to marry you.”
It was the only time she had ever heard him sound young.
A note of doubt crept into his voice. “Don’t you want to marry me, Cristen?”
“Of course I want to marry you,” she said.
The doubt left his voice. “Come here,” he said, and held out his arms.
She walked into them and lifted her face. His mouth came down on hers.
His kiss was not tender, it was hard and hungry and fiercely possessive.
His passion did not frighten Cristen. She slid her arms around his waist, pressed herself against his hard young body, and kissed him back.
It was Hugh who finally separated them.
“We have to stop this or I won’t answer for the consequences,” he said. His voice was shaking.
Cristen pulled the front of her robe together with unsteady hands.
“I’ll talk to your father tomorrow,” Hugh said. His light eyes glittered in the semidark.
“No,” Cristen said. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Don’t say anything to him yet.”
“Why not?” he demanded. His eyes narrowed. “I don’t want that obnoxious fellow laying his hands on you, Cristen.”
He looked and sounded dangerous.
“He won’t do that. He’s too much of a gentleman.”
Hugh snorted contemptuously. “I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Listen to me,” Cristen said urgently. “Now is not the time to speak to Father about us. He won’t let me marry you the way things are now.”
“What do you mean, the way things are now?”
“Father thinks you are in danger, Hugh. He won’t let me marry a man who is a target for an arrow in the back.”
He dragged his hand through his hair. “All right.” His voice was taut. “I suppose I can understand that. But what about this Fairfax fellow?”