His Lady's Ransom

“Ian,” the boy exclaimed, “you must tell me every detail of the battle at Châteauroux! The other pages have promised to share their sweets with me for a month if I relay the exact order of the siege.”

Ian ruffled Dickon’s thick golden hair and answered his eager questions while Catherine hung on his other arm. Watching them, Lady Elizabeth felt her heart contract with love. Their tawny heads shone in the light of the torches placed around the hall. The three were so alike in color most people forgot they were but half brother and sister.

Ian looked older than his eight-and-twenty years, Elizabeth thought, ascribing it to the months of war from which he’d just returned. With rest, nourishment and her watchful care, he’d soon lose the lines of strain etching deep groves beside his dark blue eyes and the gauntness from his chiseled cheekbones. He’d have to be fattened up a bit, too, she decided. Although his thighs and muscles were roped with hard muscles, his long frame was far too thin, in her opinion.

She breathed a small sigh, wishing once again that Ian would seek another wife. One who would take him in hand, fuss over him and give him the love he deserved. One who would breed him fine sons and daughters. The maid he wed as a youth had been far too timid and delicate to curb his independent ways. And since the girl’s death from ague after a scant year of marriage, Ian had become much too comfortable with his stable of willing bedmates to seek out another bride. He had his mother and a throng of loving sisters to see to his household needs, or so he protested whenever Elizabeth brought up the subject. Why should he take a wife?

Elizabeth stood a moment longer, observing the play of light on the golden heads still bent in cheerful discourse. She’d been blessed with a fine brood, six babes of her own who lived past infancy and a tall, handsome son of her heart. They were her life, and she would give her life to keep any one of them from harm.

The thought brought her brows together, and her hand sought the folded parchment in her pocket. Praise God Ian was home. Ian would speak to Will. He’d end the boy’s infatuation with a woman whose unsavory reputation had penetrated even these remote northern reaches. Knowing that the matter was all but done, Elizabeth moved forward to join her lively family.

Bad weather and the myriad demands on a lord who had been absent for many months delayed Ian’s departure for the south. He spent a week at Wyndham, his principal holding, settling disputes among his tenants and overseeing the refurbishment of the armory after the depredations of the recent campaign.

Wet snow blanketed the hills the following week, making travel to his outlying manors an unpleasant chore and slowing progress between each of his demesne properties. Consequently, when he headed south the second week in February to attend the king’s wearing of the crown, he found the roads turned to mud. His troop was slowed by great processions of mounted knights moving their households from properties denuded of winter provisions to other holdings, as well as throngs of pilgrims, road merchants and jugglers. Where their ways converged, Ian offered travelers the protection of his troop against the bandits that ravaged the countryside.

After a week of slow progress, Ian neared the red sandstone walls of Kenilworth Castle. Appropriated as a royal residence a decade before, Kenilworth stood as a massive symbol of safety and comfort. Ian rode through its thick barbican with weary relief.

Within an hour, he’d found his assigned rooms, given his mail and weapons into his squire’s care and prepared to go in search of his younger brother. As it happened, Will came charging down the drafty corridor just as Ian opened the chamber door.

“Ian!”

Will’s enthusiastic greeting propelled them both back across the threshold. He buffeted Ian on the shoulder with all the enthusiasm of a youth of seventeen summers and the unrestrained strength of a yearling bull. He already matched Ian’s not inconsiderable height and promised fair to overtake him in weight before long.

“Jesu, lad,” Ian protested, laughing. “Is this the training a knight of the royal household receives? To all but knock his lord and guardian to the floor in rough greeting?”

“Ha! The day I knock you to the floor I will know myself truly a knight.”

The two brothers grinned at each other, remembering the many wrestling matches and mock combat they’d engaged in. Ian had never coddled his younger brothers, knowing they would need all their strength of arm to survive. The boys had taken many a toss from their horses in their youth and thumped the floor regularly in their efforts to best their older brother.

Throwing an arm across the young knight’s shoulders, Ian led Will back into his chambers. A roaring fire snapped in the great stone hearth in a vain attempt to ward off the icy February drafts that whistled through the tall mullioned glass windows.

The flickering flames illuminated the full glory of Will’s attire. Brows raised, Ian ran admiring eyes down the brilliant turquoise surcoat that sat easily on the young man’s broad shoulders. The wool gown sported rich embroidery along its neck and hem in an intricate pattern of mythical beasts and twisting vines. Lady Elizabeth must have spent months setting the stitches in precious gold and silver thread.

“Well, if you haven’t learned any manners in your time at court, at least you’ve acquired an elegant air. You shine from head to toe,” Ian intoned in awe. “Our lady mother will be pleased to know her efforts to display your curls to best advantage are finally appreciated.”

A dull red crept up William’s throat, but he laughed and raked a hand through his thick golden mane. Brighter by several shades than Ian’s own tawny hair, Will’s shining curls were the bane of his existence and the object of his sisters’ undying envy.

“I but dress to keep up with the courtiers,” he protested. “I swear, Ian, with every shipment of goods that comes from Jerusalem, the knights at court bedeck themselves ever more gaudily. ‘Tis like attending a damned May fair to walk amongst them.”

“And you the beribboned Maypole, towering above them all,” Ian teased good-naturedly.

“You could use some peacocking yourself,” Will retorted, giving his brother’s ringless hands and dark blue surcoat a candid once-over. “If you would not shame me, at least wear something other than those boots when you go to take the evening meal.”

“Nay, I’d look the fool in shoes such as yours, falling flat on my face every time I tried to take a step.”

Will lifted a huge foot clad in felt slippers with toes so long and pointed they had to be curled back and caught with garters below his knees.

“’Tis a ridiculous fashion,” Will agreed with a laugh. “But a fellow must wear them, or look the country bumpkin to all the ladies.”

“You’ve much yet to learn of women, if you think ‘tis your shoes that interests them.”

To Ian’s surprise, Will failed to respond to his wry comment. The laughter faded from the boy’s face, to be replaced by an expression containing an equal mixture of earnestness and defiance.

“I know I have much yet to learn of women, Ian, but I’m not quite the fool our mother thinks me. I’m neither besotted nor bewitched. Nor do I need you to turn me from my ‘silly’ infatuation.”

Ian stifled an oath as he surveyed his brother’s stiff countenance. Evidently the Lady Elizabeth had written to advise Will of her misgivings and of her request for Ian’s intervention in his brother’s affairs. Shrugging off a momentary irritation at his mother’s interference, he led the way to two armchairs set before the fire. He poured two goblets of wine, passed one to Will, then stretched his long legs out to the fire.

“I’ll admit I’ve had some difficulty visualizing myself in the role of protector of your virtue,” he said lazily. “Especially since I was the one who sent two eager kitchen wenches to the barn to help you lose it some years ago.”

Will sputtered into his goblet, and an ebullient smile once more brightened his face.

“I didn’t think you’d dare come down heavy on me, Ian. You, of all people! You’ve not been exactly continent since your lady wife died these many years ago. Still, my mother’s latest missive all but shriveled my manhood with dire threats of what you’d do if I did not cease my…my preoccupation with the Lady Madeline.”

Ian’s lips twitched. “Mothers do tend to see these things differently.”

“Yes, well, this…this is somewhat different, Ian.” Will’s broad smile took on a tentative edge once more, and he leaned forward in his seat. “The Lady Madeline is different. I’ve never met anyone like her.”

“That’s what you said about the chandler’s daughter, the one with the astonishing repertoire of tricks with candles,” Ian commented dryly.

“She’s not like that!”

“Nay? Nor like the two sisters of the count de Marbeau, the ones who—?”

“I would not have you speak of the Lady Madeline in the same breath as those two.”

The cool command in Will’s voice made Ian’s brow arch in surprise. He set aside his wine and studied his brother. The boy’s—no, the young man’s—face wore a mask of wounded dignity. Ian had enough years of experience dealing with youthful squires and pages, guiding their transition from boy to knight, to know when to prick their pretensions and when to listen.

“Very well, I will not speak of her thus,” he told Will easily. “You speak, instead. Tell me of this paragon who has you arrayed in your finest velvet robes and gold rings.”

“She’s…she’s special, Ian. Charming and gracious, with a laugh like silver bells carrying on the summer breeze.”

Ian’s brow inched up another notch, and Will leaned forward, his blue eyes shining with sincerity.

“She’s not beautiful, exactly, but makes all other women pale in her company. And kind—she’s kind to a fault.”

“She’d have to be, to pay any attention to a clumsy-footed clunch such as you,” Ian agreed.

Will nodded, in perfect accord with this description of one whose inheritance rivaled those of the wealthiest knights in England and whose form was fast fulfilling its promise of raw strength and masculine beauty.

“She tells me I’m but a callow cub, as well,” he admitted, sheep-faced. “But she’s given me her hand twice in the dance, and I have hopes of wearing her token in the tourney.”

As he proceeded to describe the Lady Madeline, Will’s stock of poetic phrases ran out long before his enthusiasm for his subject. By the time Ian had suffered hearing how her hair gleamed like the glossy bark of a towering chestnut tree for the third time, and how her eyes sparkled like the veriest stars several times over, he’d heard enough to make him distinctly uneasy.

To his experienced ears, it sounded as if the lady but played with Will. She enticed him with smiles, yet kept him at arm’s length with a show of maidenly reserve. Such false modesty from one who had buried two husbands and was rumored to bed with the king’s son grated on Ian. Hand upraised, he called a halt to Will’s paean to the lady.

“Enough, man, enough! You make my head ache with all your mangled poetry. Let’s go down and seek out this exemplar of womanly virtues. I would see if she lives up to half of your honeyed words.”

Will clambered to his feet with boyish eagerness. “Aye, let’s go. I’m anxious for you to meet her.”