The Whispering Night (4 page)

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 eyes on
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?"

Garren laughed harder.
"Old, am I?  How old do you think I am?"

"Thirty years, at
least."

He was greatly amused.
"Thank you for the compliment, but I am nothing of the sort."

"Oh. How old are
you, then?"

"Thirty-one
years."

Her jaw dropped, just as
quickly shut. "Good Heavens. I had no idea...."

"That I was as old
as God himself, eh?"

She shrugged; he
grinned. Garren turned back to the night sky, noting that the wind was picking
up.

"It is getting
rather cold," he said. "Mayhap you should return to your
chamber."

"You did not answer
my question."

"What is
that?"

"Why have you not
married?"

"I have never had
the time or the inclination. Had my father not set up this betrothal, I would
not have considered it."

"Why not?"

"I just told you. I
have never had the time nor...."

Derica looked at him,
then. "You mean to say that you have never met a woman you have wanted to
marry? Not even in all of your travels?"

It was Garren's turn to
shrug. "I have met a few interesting women in my lifetime. But it would
have been unfair to marry any one of them and then leave her while I go about
my vocation."

He could see the
thoughts racing through her mind. "Then you are telling me that you plan
to give up your vocation? That you are ready to stay in one place? Is that why
you have agreed to our betrothal?"

He could sense something
behind her questions, something he couldn't quite single out. "I agreed
because my father went to a lot of trouble to secure this marriage for the
future of my family lineage,” he said carefully. “At some point, I will need to
produce an heir to carry on the le Mon name."

It wasn't the answer she
was looking for. "So that's all I am? A breeding cow?"

"I wouldn't put it
quite that way."

Derica wasn't quite sure
what she had been driving out, but the breeding stock line hadn't been it. She
felt insignificant the way he described his views on the marriage.  Pushing
herself off the wall, she headed back toward the tower and the stairs. Garren
called after her.

"Lady Derica?"

She didn't answer. With
every step, she felt more and more distress and had no idea why. Garren called
out to her again and she whirled on him just as she reached the steps.

"I am not breeding
stock, Garren le Mon," she nearly shouted at him.  "If all you wanted
was a brood mare, you should have had your father select someone else. I am not
interested."

She had a lot of fire,
Garren would admit.  He moved away from the wall and walked towards her,
slowly, watching her body language. He was a man who had made a living from
watching the twitches of others and he could tell just how furious she was,
though he wasn't entirely sure why.

"Isn't that what
marriage is, my lady?" he asked. "To perpetuate the family lines, to
strengthen allies? If there is something else involved, then I am ignorant of
it."

Derica felt as though
she had been slapped. She didn't understand why she suddenly felt so hopeless.
He had entirely logical views of their marriage. She wasn't sure what her views
were at all.

"As am I."

Garren watched her fade
down the steps, into the darkness of the tower. He knew that somehow he had
offended her, but wasn't sure how.  Still, he wished he knew her well enough to
ask for her forgiveness for whatever it was that he had said. At this moment,
he felt the distinct twinge of regret for something he didn't fully understand.

CHAPTER THREE

"I am not going to
sup," Derica said. "You may tell Father that I am feeling ill."

Dixon de Rosa was
thirteen months older than his sister. They had always been exceptionally
close. He watched her as she sat before her vanity mirror, the slow movements
of her hands as she braided her long hair, and knew something was wrong with
her. Illness had nothing to do with it.

"He'll not disturb
you, I promise," he said. "Garren le Mon is an arrogant buffoon.
We'll chase him away before the night is out, just as we have done the others.
You will see."

Derica's expression was
pensive, thoughtful, as she braided the ends of her hair. Her fingers would
move quickly, then slow, then speed up again, then more slowly as her thoughts
progressed.

"I have a feeling
he'll not be run off," she said after a moment. "He is not like the
others who have come to call upon me."

"Of course he is.
We'll have him gone in the blink of an eye."

Derica cast her brother
a long look in the reflection of her looking mirror. "You cannot run him
off, Dix."

"Why not?"

"Because we are
betrothed." She secured the end of the braid and turned around. "The
other suitors that have come were merely that- suitors. Sir Garren and I have a
contract to be married, legal and binding. You cannot get rid of him, no matter
how much you want to."

Dixon chewed his lip
angrily. "Hoyt will."

"He doesn't like to
be called that and you know it."

Dixon rolled his eyes.
"I have never been able to call him that."

"What?"

"That."

Derica fought off a
smile. "He is not been right since that blow to the head three years ago,
has he? It still takes some getting used to."

"I cannot call him
Lady Cleo Blossom, no matter how much he wants me to."

Derica stood up, facing
her brother. "It matters not what you want. What matters is that if we do
not call him Lady Cleo Blossom, he will become quite angry and, you will
recollect, quite violent. He is perfectly harmless as long as you do as he
wishes."

Dixon put up a hand.
"I know, I know," he sighed. "For the greatest warrior among us
to take a blow to the head at a tourney and wake up thinking he is a woman
is... is...."

"I have heard this
before, darling."

"It is
tragic!"

"I know. But it
'tis God's will that our beloved Uncle Hoyt has become the Lady Cleo Blossom. 
We may not know the reasons now, but perhaps in time, it will become
clear."

Dixon grumbled.
"Woman or not, he still packs a wallop. And as protective as he is over
you, perhaps Sir Garren will feel that wallop before the night is out.  The
beauty of it is that he wouldn't dare strike a woman back."

Derica didn't say any
more. Her brothers and uncles were always hostile where suitors were
concerned.  Normally, they had her blessing to do anything necessary to drive
the fools away. But Sir Garren was different; half of her wanted him to leave,
but the other half was quite interested in him.

She thought about him,
standing on the battlements, the soft breeze blowing through his hair and the
moonlight reflecting off his features. He had laughed at one point and the
sight of his smile had made her feel strangely weak. No man had ever had that
effect on her, and she'd known many to come to Framlingham on the quest to gain
her hand.  They'd tried every known trick, every known charm. But she hadn't
fallen for it.

What made Garren
different, she didn't know. But she didn't feel like seeing him this eve.  She
didn't want him to go, she didn't want him to stay, she didn't want to speak
with him, yet she felt the strange urge to be in the same room with him.  She
decided, at that moment, that she was going mad.

"Go down to the
hall and give father my message," she didn't want her brother standing
there watching her in her moment of dementia. "Tell him I have retired for
the night."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely."
She smiled at her brother's dubious face. "Please. Go now."

He left, reluctantly. 
Aglette slipped in when Dixon left and began preparing Derica's bed for sleep.
One of her duties was to brush out her mistress' hair. Even though Derica had
recently done just that, she was so lost in thought that she hardly realized
when Aglette unbraided her hair and began running the comb through it again.

***

"I fear I have said
something to upset you."

The voice came from the
shadows. Derica was so startled that she nearly fell off her chair.  She'd been
dozing by the fire in her chamber, having no idea how long she'd been in the
twilight between thought and sleep.  She knew it was le Mon before she even saw
him. When he finally emerged from the darkness, her heart leapt into her
throat.

"You...," she
gasped, patting her chest to restart her heart. "How did you get in
here?"

He came to a halt, a
respectful distance away. "Forgive me for startling you. But when your
father told me you were feeling ill, I knew it was not the truth."

"You didn't answer
my question."

"What
question?"

"How did you get in
here?"

His blue eyes twinkled
and he gestured at the door. Derica, calming somewhat after her initial fright,
slowly shook her head. "That door was locked. I bolted it myself."

"I did not say I
came through the door."

"But you pointed to
it."

"I did not. I
merely pointed to the obvious."

She was becoming
irritated. "The obvious door? You're not making any sense."

He remained cool, almost
amused. "Does it matter how I got in? I would say that you should be more
concerned as to why I am here."

Derica was still looking
over at the door, almost hidden in the darkness. There was a lancet window near
it, the oilcloth partially peeled back. It took her a moment to realize that
the window was what Garren had meant. Her eyes widened.

"Do you mean to
tell me that you came in through the window?" she was astonished. "I
am four stories up. How in God's name did you climb up the side of the
keep?"

He smiled faintly. 
"I came to apologize if I said something to upset you when we met on the
battlements. Whatever it was, I did not mean to. I sensed that you were
perturbed when you left, and then when you did not appear at sup, I knew I must
have offended you."

She eyed him. "Are
you always so evasive?"

"What do you
mean?"

"I want to know how
you came in through the window, and you want to discuss some silly conversation
we had on the battlements."

"It wasn't a silly
conversation at all, I assure you. It was the first true conversation you and I
have had, and I suppose I conducted it badly."

Derica cocked an
eyebrow.  She was coming to suspect he was not going to tell her how he came in
through the window.  But she was off-guard at his appearance and had no desire
to continue a conversation with him.

"My father will
throw you in the vault if he finds you in here," she said. "You'd
better leave the way you came so no one will see you."