The Falls of Erith (23 page)

They
were almost at the threshold of the main gate. Braxton waved a gloved hand over
his head in a circular motion. “Turn the wagon around,” he barked to the
driver. “We return to Milnthorpe.
Move
.”

Gray
held on to the bench so she would not slide off as the wagon abruptly turned
around.  Then the wagon driver snapped the whip and the horses began to run.
The last glimpse she had of Erith as it faded away was of curious soldiers up
on the walls, watching their departure.

“Graehm,”
Braxton’s charger was cantering next to the wagon as he shouted his order.
“Return to Erith. Collect all of our men and all of our possessions and make
haste for Milnthorpe.”

Graehm
broke away from the party and returned to the fading castle.  Dallas, bringing
up the rear of the party, shoved a squealing Brooke back onto the wagon bed and
slapped closed the door at the rear of the bed where she and Edgar had been
hanging their legs out.  The wagon was bouncing over the road, rattling
heavily, and Brooke and Edgar were bouncing right along with it.

“Braxton,”
Gray called to him over the noise. “Where are we going? What’s wrong?”

He
knew she needed an explanation. His mind was working so quickly that he had
almost forgotten. But he couldn’t stop now; they had to get back to the town as
quickly as possible.

“Later,”
he told her.

Gray
watched him spur his horse ahead, charging down the road as if riding to
battle.  Geoff gave a groan at the bouncing of the wagon and she found her
attention turned to him.  Even so, her thoughts were still with Braxton and
their mad dash back to Milnthorpe.

Something
was up. She could feel it.

***

“Are
you mad?” Gray demanded. “Have you completely lost whatever good sense God gave
you?”

They
stood beneath the shade of a mature oak, just Gray and Braxton.  On the
outskirts of Milnthorpe, the rest of Braxton’s army had just caught up to them
in the past few moments and had began settling their encampment. The sun was
burning bright in the afternoon sky, but Gray wasn’t paying any attention to
that, or to anything else at the moment. Her focus was solely on the powerful
knight with the graying blond hair standing before her.

Braxton
was calm in the face of her tirade.  In fact, he hadn’t expected less. They
were away from the rest of the encampment so that no one could hear their
emotional exchange.  He had brought her to this clearing a-purpose, knowing
their conversation had the potential to be explosive.

“Think
about it, Gray,” he said evenly. “It is the best option unless you want
Brooke’s future to be marred with uncertainty.  You are going to have suitors
showing up from now until next year demanding to negotiate for your daughter.
But they cannot negotiate for her if she is already married.”

Gray
knew that; Lord, she knew that. But it didn’t help her sense of despair. “But
to Dallas?” she shook her head, baffled. “Surely you cannot take marriage so
lightly that you would force your knight to marry a young lady without a cent
to her name?”

He
crossed his thick arms patiently. “I told you that I would supply her dowry.
She is most certainly not penniless.”

Gray
shook her head until tendrils of blond hair escaped from her bun. “I cannot let
you do that. You are not responsible for her dowry. And Dallas…”

He
interrupted her. “I have a piece of vellum that states I am quite clearly
responsible for her.  She belongs to me. And since she belongs to me, I will
supply her with a suitable dowry.”

Gray
froze, her amber eyes wide on him. “So you intend to marry my daughter to your
knight no matter what I say? Because she belongs to you?”

“Nay,”
he unwound his arms and went to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “That
is not what I meant and you know it. What I am saying is that I am indeed
responsible for her; therefore, I will supply a dowry to make her attractive to
a husband. And I am trying to save you and your daughter if you will stop fighting
me on this. Would you rather see her married to a de Clare?”

She
knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t claiming Brooke as some prize to be
awarded. Her angry expression wavered. “Nay.”

“Haistlethorpe?”

She
grimaced. “Nay, not him.”

He
squeezed her shoulders. “Then you must marry her to someone suitable right away
to eliminate the uncertainty that she will end up with men like that.  Can you
not see the logic, sweet? I am trying to help you. But you must learn to trust
me.”

She
did trust him, but it didn’t help her sense of hopelessness and outrage. Still,
he was trying to do what he thought was best.  Ever since she had met the man,
he had been trying to do what was best for her and her daughter and she had
resisted him at nearly every turn. She did not want to resist him anymore; she
wanted to trust him with complete abandon. He hadn’t steered her wrong yet.

“Oh…
Braxton,” she breathed, the fight suddenly draining out of her. “Must it be
like this?”

He
nodded his head. “I fear that is the only way to save your daughter from a
horrible fate,” he pulled her closer, his forehead resting against hers.
“Dallas is a chivalrous, gentle knight. I would not entrust your daughter to
him if he was not. He will inherit a slight amount of property upon the death
of his mother, so he is not completely unsuitable. His father is a wealthy
baron.”

She
was coming to feel so very saddened. “But… he is so much older than she is.”

“He
is twenty-six years old. There is only eleven years between them, not a
tremendous gap.  There is more of an age difference between you and I.”

“What
does he say to all of this? Surely this is not appealing to him.”

“He
considers it an honor to marry into the House of de Montfort and bear the title
of Baron Kentmere. Moreover, a dowry of thirty thousand gold marks is very
appealing.”

Gray
looked at him, shocked. “Is that what you are giving her as a dowry?”

He
nodded. “Eventually, Dallas will leave my service and find his path in life. It
will be a goodly sum of money to support them.”

She
went from astonishment to complete, utter devastation over the thought of her
daughter leaving her. “He will take my daughter away?”

He
fought off a smile, watching tears fill her eyes. “I did not mean it the way it
sounds,” he shook her gently. “You must get hold of yourself and focus on the
issue. Your daughter will marry Dallas, which will end the parade of suitors,
and you will marry me.”

She
wasn’t sure she could possibly be more astonished, but she was. “You and I are
getting married also?”

He
let his grin break through then. “It makes sense. If the priest is performing
one marriage, he can perform another. That way, no one can vie for the hand of
either Serroux woman.” He ran a finger over her cheek, tenderly. “And I have
been most anxious to call you wife since the moment I met you.”

The
tears were still there, but fading. He was so very sincere and sweet.  “This
all seems like such a dream to me.” She dared to lean forward and kiss him
softly on the lips. “Never did I imagine my life would turn out as it has.
Never did I imagine someone like you.”

His
response was to pull her into his arms and kiss her with such force that he
ended up cutting his own lip with his teeth.  Gray responded with equal
passion, the caution and reserve that had filled much of her manner since their
introduction unabashedly vanished. She was his and she did not care if the
entire world knew about it. In fact, she wanted them to know.  Braxton pulled
her closer, his right hand instinctively finding her breast again. It was like
a moth to the flame. She moaned softly as he gently fondled her.

In
the midst of their heated kiss, it seemed odd when a loud thud suddenly filled
the air and Braxton abruptly released his hold on her. One moment, she was in
his arms and in the next, he was lying at her feet in a heap. It all happened
so fast that she did not have time to process the event. The next she realized,
a man with a club of wood in his hand was standing in front of her.  Startled,
she looked up into eyes of obsidian.

“So,
my lady,” said that deep voice again. “We meet once more.”

His
big gloved hand muffled her scream.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

“Why
does he keep looking at me?” Brooke whispered harshly to Edgar.

They
were sitting in a pitched tent, watching over a sleeping Geoff until Gray
returned. But it had been quite some time and neither Gray nor Braxton had
returned. Moreover, Sir Dallas was staring at Brooke from his perch several
feet away.  He had the strangest look on his face, seemingly lost in thought,
as the rest of the camp moved busily around him.

“I
do not know,” Edgar wasn’t particularly interested in Sir Dallas at the moment.
“Maybe he does not like you.”

Brooke
scowled at him. “Why are you so mean to me all of the time?”

Edgar
had no good answer. He lifted his skinny shoulders. “I do not know,” he fussed
with the wrappings on his ankle. “Where is your mother? She was supposed to
come back and look at my foot.”

Brooke
eyed the lad, still lingering on the insult he had dealt her. But she looked
around, off in the direction she had last seen her mother heading. “She and Sir
Braxton are off somewhere,” she sighed. “We’d best wait for them here. I do not
think we should go looking for them.”

“Why
not?”

Brooke
gave him a knowing expression, much like her mother’s own. “Because they are
probably doing something we should not like to interrupt.”

“Like
what?”

She
frowned. “Do you not know anything about the ways of men and women? Sometimes
they like to be alone.”

Edgar
shrugged, fooling with the wrap on his ankle. “I have seen the soldiers grab
serving wenches and put their mouths on…”

Brooke
held up a sharp hand. “Shhhhh,” she hissed. “I do not want to hear that.”

“But
I have
seen
them.”

“I
know you have and I do not care. It’s… it’s unseemly to talk about those
things.”

“I
bet your mother and Sir Braxton are doing the same thing!”

Brooke
shrieked. “Do not say such things, you evil boy. I’ll slap you, I will!”

Edgar
liked the reaction he was getting out of her. She was squirming and the corners
of his mouth twitched. “What are you so upset about? I’ll wager you don’t even
know anything about what men and women do.”

Brooke
scowled and her cheeks turned pink. “I know more than you, Edgar.”

“Do
not!”

“Do,
too!”

Dallas
picked that moment to break from his staring stance and move towards the wagon.
“Edgar,” he snapped softly. “What have I told you about harassing Lady Brooke?”

Edgar
looked at Dallas and was immediately quelled, but not entirely. There was still
fight left in his expression. “I was not harassing her, my lord. We were...
talking.”

“What
about?”

Both
Edgar and Brooke looked mortified. They looked at each other, wide-eyed, and
Brooke blurted out: “My mother and Sir Braxton. They’ve been gone a long time.”

Dallas’
blue eyes moved in the direction he had last seen the pair wander. He had to
admit, they were correct.  Braxton and the lady had been gone a long while, but
he knew the reason for their disappearance and the contents of the subsequent
discussion. He suspected that it had taken longer than expected to convince Lady
Gray the course of her daughter’s future.

Dallas,
in fact, had spent the last hour coming to grips with just that.  He’d always
hoped to marry, of course, but he’d not thought on it more than that. Braxton’s
request had been a surprising one. At first, Dallas had been quite shocked.
Then his shock had moved to resistance, to contemplation, and finally to
resigned acceptance. Though he had not exactly been ordered to marry her, the
implication was obvious. 

He’d
just spent the past several minutes watching Brooke interact with Edgar,
observing every movement, every word. She was certainly a pretty thing, like
her mother, but she was also very much a spoiled child. Yet he sensed there was
something inherently agreeable in her, like a beautiful wild rose bush that
needed some pruning and tending for it to fully blossom.  He never thought of
himself as a gardener, but that was the position he could very well find
himself in. If he was successful, he would have a lovely, well-behaved wife. If
not, then....

“Should
we go look for them, Sir Dallas?”

Brooke’s
soft voice jolted him from his thoughts. He looked into her luminous blue eyes,
the same shape but not the same color as her mother’s. “I shall go and look for
them,” he said after a moment. “You stay here with Edgar.”