She wore a simple overdress cut from a rose-coloured fabric, shot through with threads of silver; the material shimmered against her slender frame as she walked. The wide, angular-cut neck exposed her collarbone, the shadowed hollow of her throat. As was the fashion, her sleeves were fitted on her upper arms, before hanging down loose from her elbows, revealing the tightly buttoned sleeves of her underdress, a rich scarlet.
‘My God!’ murmured Henry as the two women approached, John bustling up behind them, chivvying them up to the dais as if they were cattle. ‘What a beauty.’
‘My lords, both of you, so sorry to have kept you waiting...’ John practically shoved his lumbering wife up the wooden steps. Katherine clutched at the wooden bannister for support, dragging herself up. Matilda led her sister to the empty chair between Henry and Gilan, intending to help her into the seat.
‘No, no, what are you thinking?’ John protested, grabbing Katherine’s arm and forcing her down between Henry and his own place. A pained expression crossed his wife’s face; she paled suddenly, biting down hard on her bottom lip.
‘My lady?’ Gilan quirked one blond eyebrow up at Matilda, who hovered behind the backs of the chairs. ‘I believe this is your seat?’ He indicated the empty chair between himself and Henry.
Her toes curled reluctantly in her pink satin slippers, stalling any forward movement. Every muscle in her body, every nerve tightened reflexively at the sight of him, bracing, readying themselves for some further onslaught. She needed to arm herself against him, to shield herself from the devastating silver of his eyes, the implacable force of his body.
He read the reluctance in her face, and smiled. ‘Have no fear my lady, I’m not about to shove you into the nearest pond.’
‘No...I...’ Her voice trailed off, mind incapable of finding any explanation for her hesitation. He thought she was frightened of him, but that wasn’t it. She couldn’t identify the strange feelings that pulsed through her body. Odd feelings that flooded through her veins, making her heart race. Not fear. Excitement.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Matilda, sit down!’ John bawled at her from the other side of Henry, lines of strain stretching the fleshy skin on his face.
She slipped between the two chairs, carefully, avoiding any contact with the man on her right, sliding down on to the hard, polished seat, thinking she would rather be anywhere but here. Gilan lifted the heavy jug, pouring wine into her goblet.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, staring straight ahead.
‘Tell me, my lady, have you recovered from your ordeal this afternoon?’ Henry said conversationally on her left. ‘It sounds like you were extremely brave.’
‘Or extremely stupid,’ Gilan muttered under his breath, so that only Matilda could hear.
Eyes blazing with blue fire, she shot him an angry look, grazing the sculptured lines of his face, the corded muscles of his neck. He had dispensed with his breastplate and all other visible signs of armour, but the pleated tunic that he wore served only to emphasise the huge power of his shoulders, his chest.
She swallowed hastily, her mouth dry, arid, then turned back to Henry.
‘I didn’t have time to think about it,’ she replied, honestly, smoothing her hand across the white tablecloth. To her surprise her hand shook, fingers quivering against the soft fabric. The skin on the right side of her neck burned—was he staring at her? She clamped her lips together, annoyed with herself, with her unwanted reaction to him. Men meant little to her; scornful of their appreciative glances, mocking even, she was not in the habit of paying them any attention and had no wish to marry, especially after witnessing John’s treatment of her sister.
‘Where did you learn to shoot like that?’ Henry took up his eating knife and began cutting thin slices of roast pork that he popped into his mouth at intervals. Grease slicked the sides of his mouth and he rubbed at his mouth with a linen napkin, throwing the crumpled fabric back into his lap.
‘My brother taught me.’ Matilda rubbed at an errant spot of spilled wine on the cloth, frowning.
‘Your brother?’ Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘And where is he?’
Where was he, indeed? Matilda fixed her eyes on the colourful banners at the end of the hall. As far as she knew, Thomas was with King Richard, fighting his cause in Ireland. Her brother had no idea that their mother had given up all intention of running the estate at Lilleshall, that the responsibility had fallen to his younger sister. He had been away for over a year now; she had heard nothing from him.
Bringing her hands into her lap, she twisted her fingers together. What could she say to Henry? She couldn’t tell him the truth, because that would underline John’s allegiance, their allegiance, to Richard. ‘My brother...er...he’s...at home.’ Her answer stumbled out. ‘Dealing with things,’ she added vaguely.
Beside her, Gilan shifted in his seat. His forearm lay along the wooden arm of the chair, his hand rounding the carved end, strong fingers splayed. She could see the raised sinew on the top of his hand, the lines of blue veins tracing beneath the skin, knuckles roughened, scratched. The hands of a working soldier, a knight.
‘My lady?’ Henry was speaking to her.
‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’ She blushed furiously, a wild scarlet chasing across her cheeks.
‘I asked you where your home is, my lady?’
‘Not far from here,’ she answered lamely.
The little chit’s lying through her teeth, thought Gilan, lifting his pewter goblet to his lips and taking a large gulp of wine. The heady liquid slid down his throat. Not that it was any of his business, but it was intriguing, all the same. Her shoulder was turned rigidly away from him, her manner overly attentive to Henry; it made him want to laugh. He wanted to tell her it didn’t matter, whatever she did would have no effect on him. She could be as rude or as coquettish towards him as she liked. She could fall all over him or slap him in the face. He was immune to the many wiles of women, to their tempers and their masquerades, his body remaining in a constant state of numbness, of bound-up guilt and grief, unable to love, unable to give. His brother’s death had removed the very spirit of him, driven out his soul so that only the shell of him remained. A husk of a man.
As the sun dipped low in the sky, inching away from the long, rectangular windows, servants moved around silently with flaming tapers, lighting the thick wax candles in their iron holders, thrusting lit torches into the iron brackets secured around the walls. The cavernous chamber filled with a flickering luminescence, dreamlike, which cast odd shadows, illuminated chattering faces with rosy glows.
‘And our last crusade was up around the Baltic...’ Henry droned on, his nose reddened, cheeks flushed from too much wine. ‘And, oh Lord, I can’t even begin to tell you how cold it was...’
Crumbling a soft bread roll between her fingers, paddling the cooked dough into a smaller and smaller piece, Matilda forced herself to concentrate on the story Henry was telling her. She had smiled and nodded all through this interminable evening, aware that for the whole time Gilan sat to her right, silent, and that she was ignoring him. The muscles in her cheeks ached with the constant effort of maintaining an impressed, amenable expression towards Henry.
‘But how did you keep yourselves warm, if there was so much snow?’ To be fair, Katherine was doing a very decent job of listening to Henry, prodding him with a question now and again to show interest and keep his stories flowing.
Henry grimaced, lowering his eyebrows in an exaggerated frown. Coarse russet hairs straggled out from his brows, haphazard, messy, giving