Finally, when we returned to the great hall, Lady Glynnis would gather us all into a sunny corner where we would sit on stools and embroider for hours. Mostly we worked on new gowns for Lady Glynnis, sewing colorful stitches and tiny seed pearls in embroidered flowers along the hem, on sleeves, and at the front of skirts.
As a young girl, I’d only learned the most basic stitches, having spent most of my time practicing sword drills and fighting maneuvers with Cecil. Thus my needlework was of poor quality, and Lady Glynnis took pleasure in using her silver scissors to rip out sections of my needlework and tasking me to do it over.
“Only the best,” she’d say as she cut the uneven threads and sent the pearls cascading in all directions over the floor. “The stitches must be flawless.”
A time or two, I’d almost thrown the fabric into Lady Glynnis’s face and stomped away. But a glance at Isabelle sewing contentedly with the other ladies had stopped my rashness. With the sunshine turning Isabelle’s hair into spun gold and highlighting the healthy pink in her cheeks, I’d shoved aside my frustrations and quelled my anger.
Lord Pitt’s warning was never far from my mind. It will not go well for you if you make me regret my decision. I’d sensed he wasn’t a man of idle threats, that he planned to follow through on everything he’d spoken. He would punish me if I defied him. And he would punish me if Father didn’t negotiate with him by the end of the month.
The problem was that Father wouldn’t do anything until I brought him the Holy Chalice. But how could I search for the ancient relic when Lady Glynnis kept me busy at every hour of the day?
Even now as I breathed in the spicy waft of incense that permeated the chapel, I knew Lady Glynnis would begin to wonder where I was and why I was taking so long to relieve myself.
I strode to the front of the chapel, to the altar. The priest often provided the Eucharist from supplies stored within the altar. Perhaps he’d placed the Holy Chalice with the other elements used for distributing the Lord’s Supper.
The embroidered linen that graced the altar draped over the back, concealing the open shelves. I glanced at the chapel door, then bent to investigate, pushing aside the covering and taking in the assortment of wine bottles, cups, and platters. There were rosaries and crucifixes and more embroidered linens. But there was no Holy Chalice—which I knew to be distinct from others by its simplicity and the engraving of a lamb at its center.
At the click of the door and the movement of the handle, I rounded the altar and bounded toward the closest prayer cushion. The door swung wide before I could fall to a kneeling position.
Sir Aldric. Upon seeing him, I ceased my frantic pretense. Dressed as usual in his chain mail hauberk, he made a forbidding picture filling the doorway with his broad shoulders, bulky arms, and hand upon the hilt of his sword at his belt.
Since our arrival to Tolleymuth and his warnings to me before I’d met Lord Pitt, we hadn’t conversed again. I’d seen him at a distance, usually at meal times. While I sat with Lady Glynnis at the women’s table, he ate several tables away with the other knights of his rank. But he never even so much as glanced my way, not even in passing.
Though he conversed with the men around him, he was never talkative or loud, never purposefully attracting attention, always modest and humble.
Yet, his presence in the great hall was commanding, and he drew the attention of the few unmarried women at my table. With his rugged good looks, dark hair and eyes, and the strength of his bearing, he was easily the handsomest man there. The maidens boldly watched him and coyly flirted. I was secretly pleased he paid them no heed and seemed oblivious to their charm.
A time or two, I willed him to glance at me, to acknowledge my presence, to remember the brief closeness we’d shared during the ride here. But perhaps the proximity during our travels hadn’t affected him the same way it had me.
Besides, I told myself, he wasn’t my concern. He was a servant of Lord Pitt sent to do a job. With the task completed, he was free of any obligation to me.
Now, as he stood in the chapel doorway, his presence was overpowering as usual. He radiated strength and purpose. And of course, he was still handsome with strands of his windblown hair loose from the leather strip, his jaw shadowed with unshaven stubble, and his dark eyes framed by long lashes.
He opened his mouth to speak, but then with a fleeting look into the hallway, he closed the door first. “My lady,” he whispered, his hand against the handle, his gaze settling on me. “You’ll arouse suspicion by wandering in here by yourself.”
“I have come to pray.” I looked pointedly at the prayer cushion. “There is no crime in that, is there?”
“We both know you aren’t in here to pray.”
“You presume to know my intentions?”
“I know you are seeking after something, though I don’t yet know what.”
His sharp assessment of the truth took me by surprise. How could he possibly know I’d been searching when he never looked at me? Or was he spying on me when I didn’t realize it? “I did not think you remembered I still existed, and yet somehow you seem intimately acquainted with my every movement.”
“As Lord Pitt’s captain of the guard, I make it my business to know everything that goes on behind the castle walls.”
“Surely you have no need to concern yourself with a meager prisoner such as myself.”
Sir Aldric released the handle and took a step away from the door. “Meager prisoner? You surely don’t think so little of yourself. That would be out of character.”
His words, though spoken evenly, grated my pride like the sharp prongs of a wool carder.
I left my place by the prayer cushion and started down the aisle toward him. “Then you believe I am vain, Captain?” How dare he!
He watched me draw near. I had no weapons I could use to attack him. I greatly missed my custom-made sword and my dagger. And I hadn’t found anything else lying around that I might confiscate to use as a makeshift weapon. I could only fight with my hands and sharp tongue, and I aimed to do my best with both.
I stopped in front of him, my gaze daring him to insult me again so that I might slap him this time.
Likewise, his eyes challenged me and refused to back down.
“Should I take your silence to mean that you despise me?” I finally asked, not sure why it should matter what he thought about me. Sir Aldric wasn’t my concern. Even so, my breath snagged in my chest as I awaited his response.
“I don’t despise you, my lady.”
“But neither do you like me.”
He hesitated, shifting his strong frame.
His indecision cut me. Most men admired me and told me how beautiful I was. I should take satisfaction with the adulation I’d already so easily garnered. Why then did I long for his? He was only one man among many.
Yet even as I tried again to dismiss the insecurities, I realized I longed for his respect and admiration because he was a man of honor. Respect and admiration meant so much more when they came from someone who lived out the qualities.
“If I despised and disliked you, my lady,” he finally said in a low tone. “I wouldn’t be in here at this moment attempting to keep you from an action you might later regret.”
Something in his eyes sent a warm streak through my insides, something that wound around me and tied itself up so that I didn’t want to move and instead longed to stand near him and bask in the sensation.
“Do you ever do things you might later regret?” I asked. “Or are you always honorable?”
“We make hard choices every day,” he responded studying my face. “And sometimes in hindsight, we wish we could undo a choice and make a different decision.”
“Then you can understand I have hard choices to make.”
“The consequences may prove too difficult to bear.”
Was he thinking of the choices he’d made after his wife had died, the ruination he’d caused his family and home?