Cristen was sitting in her usual chair, her feet resting on her footstool, her dogs on either side of her. “But I don’t wish to marry Sir Henry, Father,” she replied calmly. “I don’t like him.”
Nigel was sitting in the large, high-backed chair with carved lion’s paws for armrests that was next to hers. At her reply, his head snapped around and his brows drew together. “Don’t like him?” he repeated. “Nonsense. What is there not to like about him? He’s a fine-looking man, and, I might add, a careful steward of his own property. He is the sort of man who will look after you and Somerford the way I want you looked after.”
“He patronizes me,” Cristen said.
“Nonsense,” Nigel said gruffly, his frown deepening.
She shook her head decisively. “It’s not nonsense, Father. You heard him yourself this evening. He talks to me as if I were a child. I may not always be correct, Father, but I do claim the right to make my own moral judgments. You have always accorded me that honor.”
Nigel looked at his daughter. She seemed so small and delicate as she sat there, almost lost in her chair, but he knew better than anyone that there was steel in Cristen’s backbone. The servants of Somerford adored her, but they also respected and obeyed her. They had done so since she had taken over as chatelaine when her mother died seven years before.
“You must marry someone, Cristen,” he said reasonably, “and good matches such as Henry Fairfax don’t grow on trees. His first wife died last year and he is in the market to replace her. The addition of Somerford to his honor would greatly enhance his stature. You would be a lady of some consequence if you married him.”
“I don’t like him,” Cristen repeated. “He’s too big. His face is too red. And he patronizes me.” Her eyes sparkled with indignation. “Did you hear him call me tenderhearted because I said I disapproved of hunting for sport? I disapprove of hunting because I find it morally repugnant, Father, not because I’m tenderhearted!”
“Cristen…” Nigel gave her a worried look. He bit his lip. “I trust you are not placing your hopes in Hugh.”
Her eyebrows lifted, two fine aloof arches over her inquiring brown eyes. “My hopes?”
“I trust you are not hoping to marry Hugh,” he said bluntly. “I can see how close the two of you have grown, but it will not do, Cristen. His situation at present is too precarious for him to be able to offer you any stability. And if he does succeed in winning his rightful place, he will be your overlord.”
“I know that, Father,” she said serenely.
He looked at her in frustration.
Her brown eyes were full of sympathy. “Poor Father. Am I such a trial to you?”
“You are not a trial at all,” he said gruffly. “You have always been my greatest joy. It is of the utmost importance to me to see you happily married.”
“I would never be happy married to Henry Fairfax,” she said positively.
“You haven’t given him a chance.”
She sighed. “He’s the worst sort of combination, Father. A man who isn’t clever and thinks he is. I also suspect that he’s a bit of a bully. And I do not take well to being bullied.”
Nigel slammed his hands down on the lion’s-paw armrests of his chair. “Is that what you want me to tell the man? That you think he is a stupid bully?”
Her full, serious mouth quirked. “I don’t think that would be terribly tactful.”
“Well, what am I to say, then?” Nigel was clearly disgruntled. “I don’t want to insult him, and he will be insulted if you refuse him.”
“Tell him I don’t want to leave you,” she said. She smiled at him. “It will be the truth, Father.”
He tried to hide his pleasure. “You’re seventeen years old,” he complained. “Many girls are married at fifteen, Cristen.”
She slid out of her chair and came over to give him a hug. “You should go to bed,” she said. “You and Hugh are to leave for Chippenham tomorrow.”
“Humph,” he said.
She kissed his cheek. “Good night, Father.”
“Good night, Cristen.”
He watched her trail off to her room, a worried frown between his brows.
Hugh awoke the following morning with a headache. Cristen ruthlessly evicted Henry Fairfax from his room and installed Hugh in his old bed.
“There must be something going wrong inside my brain,” Hugh said to Cristen tightly as she changed the cold cloths she was putting on his forehead. “I never had headaches before.”
She gently put the new cloths into place and said composedly, “I think they will go away once you find out the truth about yourself.”
The window shutters had been closed to keep out the light and no candles had been lit, but even in the dimness she could see how pale he was. The muscles in his face were tense with pain.
His lashes lifted. His eyes were much darker than usual. “Do you think the headaches have to do with my…search?”
“Yes, I do.”
In fact, she was convinced of it. He had managed to survive in his identity of Hugh Corbaille by denying his past. Now that his past had caught up with him, however, the fear of facing it was tearing him apart.
No wonder he had headaches.
He said wretchedly, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
She held the bowl for him.
“I hate this,” he said intensely when he had laid back down again.
She understood that it was not just the pain he was talking about. It was the humiliation of being ill.
“You’re not perfect,” she said calmly. “You can become ill just like anyone else.”
“What time is it?” he asked.
She looked at the hourglass. The last two headaches had lasted for eight hours.
“You have four more hours to go,” she said.
His lashes flickered.
Four more hours of agony, she thought despairingly. It isn’t fair, Dear Lord. Haven’t You already given him enough to bear?
“My lady.” It was Brian at the door. “Sir Nigel sent me to tell you that Sir Henry is leaving.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll come.”
Brian left and Cristen stood up. “I told Father last night that I wouldn’t marry Sir Henry,” she said to Hugh’s pain-tensed face.
He managed a smile. “Good.”
She bent and kissed his hair above the compress. “I’ll be back,” she said softly, and left to make her farewells to a very indignant lord of Bowden.
The headache held true to form and lifted eight hours after it had begun. A pale and tired-looking Hugh was able to join the household for supper, although he ate very little.
Nigel, warned by Cristen, said nothing about Hugh’s illness. After supper, Cristen’s ladies joined the knights in front of the fire in the Great Hall, and everyone sang to the accompaniment of Thomas’ lute. Then, after the ladies had retired, Hugh remained in the hall to play a game of chess with Matthew.
The solar was dark when Hugh entered, and the doors to both Nigel’s and Cristen’s rooms were closed. Hugh went into his own room and told the squire who was waiting for him that he would undress himself. Once the squire had gone, Hugh returned to the solar.
He stood in the middle of the room, his eyes fixed on her bedroom door, and willed her to come out.
It took her thirty seconds.
She had on her green velvet robe and her shining hair was tucked behind her small ears, spreading in a smooth fan to her waist. She held a finger to her lips and pointed to his room. On silent feet the two of them went inside and closed the door behind them.
He reached out and took her into his arms.
She leaned against him and closed her eyes.
“You got rid of Fairfax all right?” he asked tensely.
“Aye.”
He put his cheek against the silky round top of her head. Her hair smelled of lavender. “Good.”