Rise of the Defender (102 page)

     In spite of the fact that she was unworthy
to be la de Lohr, he acted as if it mattered not. A man who was feared by the
entire realm for his fierceness and unforgiving manner was gentle and
compassionate with his loved ones, and she was entirely undeserving in her
opinion.

     “Thank you,” she whispered again, wishing
she could demonstrate her thanks somehow.

     He waved her off with a slight smile,
simply relieved she was back with them once again. Convinced his sister was in
good hands, Christopher left her to those more knowledgeable and ordered a huge
meal in celebration of his sister's recovery.

     The day outside had grown black as coal and
as he went to his bedchamber, he noticed that it had begun to rain.

     ***

     And rain it did, for days on end. Deborah
grew stronger, Dustin grew fatter, and between the two of them Christopher was
quite possibly going insane. Neither one of them was in the best of moods even
in the best of times, and as Deborah's strength returned, so did her pregnancy
sickness. If she wasn't vomiting, she was laying down, making Gowen miserable
with her sickness and seeking solace with the knights whenever he could.

     In spite of the fact that the man wasn't a
warrior, he fit in quite well with the knights and enjoyed their camaraderie.
Christopher even began to trust him with the records of the estate as well as
the records of the border revenues, and the keep ran more efficiently than it
ever had.

     Gowen was brilliant with a mind for numbers
and Christopher was grateful to have him. True, he had accepted Gowen much
faster than was usual with him, for he was a man whose loyalties and friendship
were long cultivated, and he honestly did not know why he had let Gowen come to
know him as rapidly as he had. Mayhap it was because he felt guilty for the
actions that led to the marriage of Deborah and Gowen, and then the subsequent
attempted suicide of Deborah. In a sense he felt as if he were making up for
what he had inadvertently caused, but he would rather cut off his head than
admit it to anyone, especially to himself.

     By mid-September, the weather had turned
bitterly cold and the rain was almost constant. The midwife had confined Dustin
to bed because she had grown so enormous and had begun to indicate to
Christopher that she was considering inducing her pains in the near future.
Terrified for his wife, Christopher avoided the midwife as if not seeing her
would somehow erase the problem. Foolish, he knew, but he did it just the same.

     'Twas the twentieth day of September when
he entered the castle from the bailey, a bluster of icy wind following close
behind him. He let out a grunt as the chill swept over him, shaking himself
like a dog. Cold did not usually bother him, but the day was particularly
bitter as he shirked his helmet and portions of armor into Darren's waiting
hands. Instructing the boy to clean his armor and then report to Leeton for
sword practice, he was intending to seek his bedchamber to see his wife when
Gowen stopped him.

     “Chris, this missive came in not an hour
ago. We tried to find you.” Gowen handed over a scrolled piece of vellum.

     Christopher eyed the parchment, reading the
seal. “It is from Longchamp,” he murmured as he broke it. “I was out behind the
keep, in the clearing where David and I plan to build a troop house and
practice arena.”

     Gowen watched Christopher's face as he read
the missive, but could see no particular emotion. After a few minutes,
Christopher rolled the parchment back up.

     “How much money do we have in the coffers?”
he asked.

     Gowen blinked. “A substantial amount,” he
replied. “Are you interested in coinage or overall wealth?”

     Christopher chewed his lip thoughtfully,
looking at the rolled vellum. “Longchamp demands money for Richard's ransom.
Henry and Leopold have demanded one hundred thousand marks of gold for his
release.”

     Gowen's eyes widened. “My God, Chris, even
we do not have that much. Surely the justices aren't demanding…?”

     Christopher cut him off. “Nay, they are not
looking for me to pay all of it.” He shook his head, leading them both into
Gowen's small office which used to be Lady Mary’s solar. “Damnation, with
everything I have done for them, they should be paying
me
. Nay, they
simply want to know how much I can donate.”

     Gowen pondered the question a moment,
moving around his cluttered desk. “Dustin's dowry is fairly hefty, Chris. You
could donate that to Richard's cause and leave the rest untouched, including
your own individual wealth acquired from the quest.”

     Christopher looked at him. “She came with
two thousand marks of gold plus an assortment of heirlooms and jewels. What is
the total worth?”

     Gowen shrugged. “Offhand, I would say ten
thousand marks if the jewels were sold on the market. An extremely hefty
donation.”

     Christopher nodded, tossing the vellum onto
Gowen's desk. “Sizable enough for their needs,” he said. “I shall ask that you
prepare the donation, then, and I shall send my men to London with it.”

     Gowen looked at him, then chuckled. “How
can you so easily part with that amount of money? I realize, of course, that it
is for Richard's release, but ten thousand marks is more money than most people
see in a lifetime.”

     Christopher nodded. “I realize that, and I
also realize that I am depleting my wealth by one-third, but the king must be
ransomed for the sake of England,” he said, scratching under his coarse mail.
“I must make sure there is a future for my family, and for yours.”

     Gowen raised his eyebrows in agreement as
his liege quit the room.

     As Christopher mounted the stairs, he found
himself remembering a time when all he cared about was money and material
wealth were all that mattered to him. Within a year his priorities had changed
so drastically that it was almost as if he did not know the Christopher before
Dustin, the almost-mercenary warrior committed to only himself and Richard.

     He was still the same man, but he had
acquired many new characteristics that he had considered himself incapable of
at one time, and the person responsible for that change was a petite blond
woman with the unlikely name of Dustin. Fact was that he did not care if he had
grown the least bit soft and sentimental, as long as she and his close friends
were the only ones who knew it.

     He opened the bedchamber door fully
expecting to be greeted by her smiling face and was concerned to find the bed
empty. He called her name, searching a small adjoining solar but finding no
trace of his wife. His concern turning to irritation and his bellows for Dustin
lifted the roof off the castle.

     The entire place was in an uproar searching
for the errant wife when the kitchen servants told their master that his wife
has passed by them on her way to the small bailey outside of the kitchen.
Enraged, he stormed outside, knowing exactly where she had gone.

     Wrapped in a heavy cloak and swathed in
yards of heavy material, Dustin stood next to the rabbit hutch, clutching two
of the fuzzy creatures as her husband marched up beside her. He was fully
prepared to ream her for her disobedience and foolishness, but when he saw her
sweetly holding the rabbits and changing their bedding, he felt himself go
soft. He knew she had been concerned about her bunnies, and even though she had
a peasant boy caring for them, she still fretted. Beside her, Hal and Alex sat
wagging their tails, looking for handouts.

     “What are you doing?” he sounded almost
calm, certainly not like the man who had nearly torn the castle apart just
moments before.

     Startled, he could read the guilt in her
eyes. “I came to make sure they were warm enough,” she said quickly. “With the
weather so bad, I was concerned.”

     He gazed at her sternly, his hands on his
hips. “Dustin, the boy is doing a fine job with these rabbits. I see him out
here daily.”

     Her lips molded into a pout. “If he's doing
such a fine lob, then how come I am missing three of them?” she demanded.
“Three of my biggest.”

     He peered inside the hutches. “Are you
sure? How can you tell? There must be thirty or forty rabbits in there.”

     “Only thirty-eight,” she said with a pout.
“I had forty-one.”

     “Forty-one,” he repeated, shaking his head
with some exasperation. “Mayhap they escaped, sweetheart. 'Tis not unusual for
rabbits to slip out of tiny holes.”

     She frowned sadly, replacing the rabbits she
was holding and securing the cage. “I think the boy is stealing my rabbits. I
want you to find someone else to tend them.”

     He eyed her, crossing his arms. “If you are
positive he is stealing them, then I will cut his hand off. And
then
I
will find someone else to tend them.”

     Dustin gasped, her wide gray eyes the exact
color of the storm clouds above. “I do not want you to cut his hand off. I
simply want you to find someone else to tend them.”

     “Stealing in my baronetcy will not go
unpunished, Dustin,” he said sternly. “If the boy has stolen your rabbits, then
he shall pay the price.”

     She eyed him, glancing back at the hutch
again. “Mayhap I miscounted,” she said after a moment. “They do look to be all
here, do not they?”

     “You shall not count them again,” he said.
“You must return to bed immediately.”

     “But my legs ache from lying about all
day,” she whined, taking a step back from him. “I need to walk about, Chris. I
simply cannot lie still all of the time.”

     He scowled. “You can and you will until this
child is born,” he said firmly, his fists on his hips. “I shall sit on you if I
have to, Dustin. Your health and the health of my son mean everything to me.”

     “But I am bored out of my mind,” she
insisted. “I can only sew so much, and Caesar and George offer minimal
entertainment. I hate it. I want to be out and about.”

     He was not unsympathetic and his manner
softened.

     “I know, sweet, but it will only be for a
little longer,” he assured her. “After the babe is born, you can run your head
off if it pleases you. Now, come upstairs and I shall read to you from
Beowulf.”

     “Nay,” she said petulantly, seeing his gaze
turn hard and suddenly receiving a mental picture of herself slung over his
shoulder as he carried her to bed. “I….I want to see my garden first. Please?”

     He pursed his lips in frustration. “Blatant
disobedience one moment and sweet pleading the next,” he grunted. “Dustin,
surely you are going to drive me right out of my mind. I shall be glad when
this child is born if nothing else that to rid you of these mood swings. Well?
If it is your garden you wish to see, then see it you will or else I shall
never get you out of this hellish cold.”

     She smiled sweetly at him and took his arm
as he rolled his eyes at her with exasperation. “You are making me daft,” he
murmured sternly.

     “I love you, husband,” she lay her head on
his arm affectionately.

     Her garden was dead, as she knew it would
be, but she took great delight in planning the flowers she was going to plant
for spring. Christopher listened, gave her his opinions when she asked, and
spent the majority of his time watching her pace from plot to plot, explaining
to him in great detail what she had in mind.

     Now and again, he would glance to the sky
above, for he could smell the rain and he knew they were in for a hell of a
storm. He was eager to get his wife inside, but she was happier than he had
seen her in weeks fluttering about in the dead garden, and so he allowed her a
bit of freedom.

     The cold had turned her beautiful face a
healthy rosy shade and the pregnancy had filled her cheeks out, making her
appear like a round little cherub. Christopher was entranced by her glow, her
beauty, and her spirit as she made her way back over to him, all smiles. He
held his arms out to her and she fell into him, still chatting happily about
her flowers.

     He hustled her up to their bedchamber,
helping her with her cloak and heavy overdress she had put on. The closer he
came to the true figure of his wife, the more he suddenly realized that
Griselda was right; she was absolutely enormous and he felt a bolt of fear
shoot through him. She certainly could not go another six weeks. He silently
vowed to seek the old woman out when he left his wife and begrudgingly comply
with whatever she wanted to do with Dustin.

     “Sit down,” he told her and she lowered
herself onto the bed, holding up her feet so he could remove her boots.

     It had been weeks since she had been able
to put her own shoes on. This morning before she went outside, she had had to
lie on her back on the bed and hold her legs up in the air so that she might
struggle to pull her boots on.

     “Now lie down, sweetheart,” he said,
pulling the coverlet up around her. “I shall return in a moment with some mead
and the book.”