The Dark One: Dark Knight (7 page)

     “Stay away from Lady Stoneley,” Gaston
said, his voice quiet but unmistakable.  “She is not for you.  Keep your mind
on your profession, Antonius, for I will not hear that you have been making a
fool of yourself after a married woman.”

     Antonius nodded in resignation, but there
was a good-natured smile playing on his lips.  Turning the conversation back to
another subject, he and Patrick became animatedly engaged and forgot all about
Lady Stoneley and her sisters. Even Arik joined in, leaving Gaston brooding
silently over his wine.

     He had not forgotten Lady Stoneley.

***

     Rory was not in her room, nor was she in
any of her other usual places. Remington skirted the perimeter of the entire
castle looking for her sister but had yet to see a sign of her.  She spied Sir
Nicolas entering the castle from the inner bailey alone and her anxiety soared;
had he left Rory for dead somewhere, beaten and mauled?  Knowing Rory, she
would have not made it easy for the knight to punish her and Remington was
terrified for her sister. 

     Quickly, she descended from the southern
tower where she had been searching and made way to the inner bailey in search
of Rory.

     The flame-haired sister wasn’t hard to
find.  She was sniffling and sobbing, carrying on angrily.  Remington heard her
cursing and banging about in a small room in the inner wall turret, talking to
herself furiously.  Oblivious to the light rain that was falling and the mud on
her skirt, Remington entered the dark, dank room.

     “Rory?” she asked softly.  “What on earth
are you doing?”

     Rory’s head snapped up, her sea-crystal
eyes like flames from hell.  “You!” she yelled. “This is
your
fault. 
You let them in.”

     Remington was gripped with terror.  “What
did he do to you?”

     “
Do
to me?  How can you ask me that
question?”  Rory cried.

     Remington’s fear was now fed by annoyance. 
“Tell me, dammit.  What did he do to you?”

     Rory sobbed in frustration, smacking her
fists against the wall.  “It was…terrible.  He was so heartless, cruel….”

     Remington had had her fill of emotions for
the day; she grabbed Rory roughly by the sleeve and shook her.  “Tell me what
he did to you, Rory, or so help me I will kill you myself.”

     Rory yanked herself away from her sister in
a fit of sniffles and grunts.  She pressed her back against the cold stone of
the wall and eyed her sister.  “He…spanked me.”

     Remington wasn’t sure she heard a-right. 
She blinked and straightened, tilting her head curiously.  “He
spanked
you?”

     “Aye.” Rory cried.  “And it is your fault. 
If you had not lowered the bridge then they would have never come in.”

     Remington calmed dramatically to the point
where she almost smiled. The knight actually spanked her sister; not beat, nor
thrashed, but merely spanked.  Enough to sting, yet not enough to hurt her. 
She was soundly surprised.

     “Get hold of yourself and go to bed,” she
told her sister after a moment.  “We will have much to do on the morrow, I
fear.” 

     She turned away from Rory, but her sister
was not about to be ignored.

     “You do not care that he put his hand to my
backside.” she accused loudly, racing across the room and blocking Remington’s
exit.

     Remington met her sister’s gaze steadily. 
“Rory, if there is any justice in this country, then you have received it. 
‘Twas
you
who were terrible and reckless when you put charcoal on his
cup.  And dye on the other knight’s napkin.  What I cannot truly determine is
when you did it; I was in the hall most of the time and never saw you.”

     Rory’s eyes cooled to smoldering embers. 
“Skye put the dye on the napkin, not me.”

     Remington shook her head helplessly. “You
two are a pair. ‘Tis a wonder Guy did not kill you both for the trouble you
caused him.”

     Rory’s jaw ticked.  “I would say, in fact,
the transgressions were far greater on his part.  At least Skye and I never
physically hurt him.”

     Remington was stung by her sister’s words,
although she was only too aware of how very true they were. Still, to hear them
voiced in an accusing manner struck her.  Bitterly, she turned for the door.

     “Go to bed,” she mumbled, feeling the soft
mist caress her face.

     Rory eyed her sister a moment.  “Are you
going to service the Dark Knight as you serviced Guy?”

     Remington paused, slowly turning to her
sister. “What do you mean?”

     “As his whore,” Rory said, her bitterness
and humiliation affecting her common sense.  “Guy always said you were his
whore.  I was wondering if you would be the new lord’s whore, too.”

     Remington slapped her sister across the
face faster than either one of them thought possible.  Rory reeled with the
blow, sorry she had said something so entirely uncalled for.  She did not know
why she had said it; mayhap because Remington was blaming her for her spanking.
She had expected her sister to stand up for her. Rory hated taking
responsibility for anything.

     Remington’s control was gone; she was so
brittle and unbalanced that she continued to fly after Rory even as her sister
tried to recover from the blow.  She picked up a small stool and hurled it at
her sister as Rory screeched and ducked just in time to avoid the projectile.
It smashed harmlessly against the wall behind her.

     “Stop it, Remi.” Rory cried.  “I am sorry. 
I did not mean it.”

     Remington wasn’t finished raging. She knew
what Guy had called her, among other things, and she was raging at him as
well.  Rory was, at the moment, a convenient whipping post, the catalyst to a
much larger problem.

     Yet even with her anger, she was not
irrational.  There were tears of frustration in her eyes as she threw the
second stool at her sister, badly aimed.

     “Go to hell, Rory.” she whispered hoarsely.

     Leaving her sister thankful for her hide,
she staggered back across the inner bailey toward the door to the castle,
wiping hastily at the tears and droplets that pelted her face.  She hated
herself when she flew out of control, which was extremely rare, for it allowed
the pain and anger she felt to somehow seep deeper inside her.  Instead of a
release, it was like opening the stopper just a little bit more, allowing
emotions to creep that much further. The dimly lit interior of the castle
beckoned her, and she answered gratefully.

     High above in the southern tower, Gaston
watched her cross the bailey like a drunkard and wondered what the matter was. 
Not that he had been looking for her intentionally; he had personally taken the
night watch to better acquaint himself with Mt. Holyoak and just happened to
see her moving in the darkness.

     She disappeared into the castle and his
eyes lingered on the open doorway a moment long.  He was puzzled by his
reaction to her, yet he did not dwell on it. He had a keep to explore.

CHAPTER FOUR

     Days passed and Gaston immersed himself
into Mt. Holyoak.  He rode the perimeter of the lands, studying the landscape
and becoming acquainted with the farms and encampments within the territory. 
He went into Boroughbridge and became familiar with the layout of the town and
took a feel for the peasants, a hearty lot more loyal to each other than to the
Yorkists or the Lancastrians.

     The people of the village were respectful
of him, over-reactively so.  They acted as anyone else did when they came face
to face with the Dark Knight; they looked at him as if they were fighting the
urge to run for their very lives.  Gaston was pleased, of course, for he wanted
them to fear him.  Fear bred a healthy respect, he thought, especially with the
less intelligent.

     Satisfied with Boroughbridge, Gaston
continued his reconnoiter and passed through the great corrals where the sheep
of Mt. Holyoak were kept.  His first sight of the corrals was astonishing; from
the crest of the hill, there was nothing but a sea of white for miles. In the
distance was the great stone barn where the sheep were shorn come spring.
Bleating ewes and the strong smell of dung assaulted his nostrils, but it did
not dampen his enthusiasm. 

    
This is mine,
he thought. 
All of
this is mine.

     He did not return to the keep at night,
instead preferring to camp on his land to become still better in tune with it. 
He traveled with Arik and Antonius, leaving Patrick and Nicolas in charge of
his castle.

     After five days of becoming familiar with
his new lands, Gaston finally returned to the massive fortress with a new
respect for his castle he was now in possession of. He reminded himself to
thank Henry for his generosity.  Even if Henry had sent him to Mt. Holyoak for
the sole purpose of controlling Yorkshire, he was still vastly pleased with his
reward.

     He and his knights were passing very close
to the fortress when he suddenly caught sight of a figure in the distant
trees.  It was a slight female figure and something told him it was Remington. 
He did not know how he knew, he did.

     “Continue on,” he told his men.

     Arik caught sight of the figure as well. 
“Who is that?”

     Gaston gathered his reins.  “Lady Stoneley,
I suspect.”

     “How do you know that?” Arik wanted to
know.  “I can barely make out the figure from here.”

     Gaston ignored him, spurring his charger in
the direction of the trees.

     Remington heard him coming. She
straightened from her task and shielded her eyes from the bright sun, watching
with surprise as the great dark destrier roared towards her.  The sheer power
and size of man and beast entranced her and she was frozen to the spot, watching
with curiosity as her bore down on her.

     Aye, she knew who it was. There was no
mistaking the Dark Knight, yet she found she was not as fearful as she had been
days earlier when he had ridden into her keep. She had five days to become
accustomed to the idea that he was now her lord and it was easier to control
her apprehension. Besides, he had not been cruel to her in any way and she
reasoned she had nothing to fear.

     The destrier came to an unsteady halt a few
feet away, kicking up dirt and rocks.  Gaston gazed down on Remington, his eyes
drinking in the sight of her. It took him less than a second to realize that he
was pleased to see her.  By God, he had barely been around the woman and
already he was missing her.  He should have been angry with himself, but
instead, he was actually curious.

     “Good day to you, my lady,” he said.

     She bobbed a quick curtsey for him.  “Good
day to you, my lord.  Did you enjoy your journey?”

     He nodded his helmed head.  “Aye,” he
replied.  “Mt. Holyoak is the jewel of Yorkshire.  I am verily pleased with my
acquisition.”

     She nodded, lowering her gaze.  “I bid you
welcome home, my lord.”

     He glanced around, hearing the birds and
studying the undergrowth.  But his eyes came back to her lowered head.  “What
are you doing out here?”

She held up her basket. 
“Gathering flowers, my lord.  For pomades and perfumes.”

“Pomades and perfumes?”
he repeated.  “Of what sort?”

“Honeysuckle,” she
showed him the blossoms from her basket. “Violets, too. And in the garden in
the kitchen yard, we have massive bushes of lavender.”

To her surprise, he
dismounted his warhorse and lumbered over to her.  He was so massive that she
was positive the ground quaked when he walked.  But she held her ground against
the giant, the Dark Knight, as he approached.

He reached up and
removed his helm in one clean stroke, his smoky gray eyes meeting her
intensely.  His hair, like an unruly child’s, hung down over one eye.

“What scent do you
prefer?” he asked.

“I favor honeysuckle and
the lavender, my lord,” she held up a blossom.  “My sister, Jasmine, favors the
violet as does my youngest sister, Skye.”

He nodded faintly.  “And
the red-head?”

“Rory?” Remington put
the basket down.  “She hates all of it.  She would smell like a skunk if we did
not force her to bathe once in a while.”

The corner of his lip
tugged briefly.  “I would meet your sisters today.  I have not yet had the
chance.”

Suddenly the underbrush
behind her began to rustle and a young boy burst through, his hands clutching
bunches of flowers.

“Mummy! See what I…,”
Dane stopped when he was confronted with the Dark Knight and his young face
went pale with fright.  “I…I.…”