“No exceptions,” Siân interrupted his plea. “Now! Go on!”
The game resumed as Siân ran alongside the field of play, turning one wayward pig back into the fray and helping another boy back onto his “mount.” She enjoyed sporting with the children, organizing games and outings. It was what she had done at Westminster to while away the dull days as her brother worked out plans for her future. Never had it occurred to her that he would buy her into a nunnery.
She was trapped. Without a proper dowry, with no property to speak of at all, and a somewhat tarnished family reputation, marriage into a reputable English family was highly unlikely, not that it was especially desirable to Siân. Though Owen had managed to insinuate himself into the king’s house, and had even engendered a high degree of trust among the English elite, Siân knew that she, herself, was a lost cause. Because she got into trouble more often than not, there wasn’t a man in the kingdom who was willing to take her to wife.
Even in Wales, she’d been something of a pariah. Living at the house of one uncle or the other, Siân never felt she really belonged anywhere. Even in Pwll.
That was all she ever really cared about—belonging somewhere. For years she’d dreamed of Owen coming to take her away from Pwll. But it was not to be, not now, not ever. She could only hope that at St. Ann’s she would finally find her place. In the environment of the cloister, mayhap she would be alone no longer.
“Siân!”
She turned to look, only to see her brother’s stormy face as he approached the playing field. She hardly knew him, but she was quite familiar with this face. Owen had left Wales years before, leaving Siân to be raised by their mother’s brothers while he went to live with a noble family near London. How different things would have been, Siân thought, had he grown up with her in Wales. Perhaps he would not be the tiresome, humorless gentleman she now saw before her.
Owen grabbed her by the arm and hauled her off to a small enclosure near the kitchen. Then, in angry hushed tones, he lambasted her again for her indecorous behavior.
“Is it not possible for you to join the other ladies in their work?” Owen asked, frustrated with his sister’s lack of womanly accomplishments.
So tall and handsome, Owen kept himself impeccably attired. He was very determined to overcome the sins of their father, who had taken a prominent part in a Welsh uprising against King Henry IV. Siân, with her unsophisticated ways and lack of feminine charms, could never further Owen’s cause, as well they both knew it.
The ladies of court shunned her, not wishing to associate themselves with one so common, so unschooled in courtly ways. To make matters worse, various young courtiers had attempted to seduce Siân soon after her arrival at Westminster, thinking that because of her naive, ingenuous manner, she would willingly provide a convenient outlet for their lust. Her repeated refusals had not won her their admiration.
“I am sorry, Owen,” Siân said contritely, her gaze flitting back toward the game. “I am a poor weaver, as you know, and my stitchery is cursed by the very—”
“Do not say it, Siân!” Owen admonished, slapping his thigh in fury, his fair complexion darkening. “Your language is appalling, as is your dress…Look at your hair…where is your veil? By the Holy Cross, sister, do not disgrace me here!”
“I shall try not to, Owen,” Siân said, truly sorry to have caused him such distress. She would try harder. She surely would. If only he would care for her half as much as he cared for his position in the queen’s court. Siân cast her eyes downward and noticed a smattering of dirt and dust across the hem of her bright blue silk kirtle.
And wondered how she would get it clean by mealtime.
“Nervous?” Nicholas asked. They were to meet Lady Marguerite in the castle garden just before the noon meal.
Hugh snorted with disdain.
“I merely asked,” Nicholas said. “Were I meeting my intended bride, I’m certain I’d be…”
Seated on a wooden bench near some stone statuary, was the lady in question, along with an infant in her arms.
“…dumbfounded.” Nicholas concluded his sentence as the two men laid eyes on Marguerite Bradley. She was a beautiful woman, with shining black hair arranged intricately and becomingly around her head. Her violet eyes were sparkling and lovely, framed by thick, black lashes. The lady’s demeanor was gracious and serene, her movements elegant and graceful as she received Hugh and Nicholas.
“Welcome to Castle Clairmont,” she said, her voice a pleasing melody to the ear, laced with undertones of her native French. “I am Marguerite Bradley, and this is my son, John.”
Servants brought chairs for the gentlemen, and a nurse took the infant from his mother. When they had completed their greetings and were seated, an awkward silence ensued. Even Nicholas, who seemed always to have something to say, was rendered speechless by the lady’s poise and exceptional beauty.
“I trust your journey was a pleasant one?” Marguerite asked. Her gaze flitted uncomfortably from Hugh’s scarred appearance to Nicholas’s more comely one.
“Yes, quite,” Nicholas said, and they spent a goodly portion of time discussing the best kind of weather for travel and the incident in the wood that morning with Lady Siân and the boar.
Hugh was quiet, his usual state, leaving most of the conversation to Nick. He’d become accustomed to ladies’ reactions to his eye patch, and the scars that emanated from beneath it, and it had no effect on him anymore. Oddly enough, Lady Marguerite also had little effect on him.
He realized, of course, that she was breathtakingly beautiful, but he could not muster much enthusiasm for taking a wife. He tried to appreciate the delicate arch of her black brows, and her flashing violet eyes, the aristocratically straight nose, and voluptuously full lips. But it was useless. Whether or not he wed this woman, Hugh knew he was destined to a life of lonely isolation. For no one would ever come to understand the blackness of his soul.
The music that Queen Catherine brought to Clairmont delighted Siân. Naturally, the queen had her own musicians and minstrels, and they provided an enchanting accompaniment to every evening meal.
As Siân sat in her assigned seat at supper, she wished for some of Lady Marguerite’s elegance and competence. Not only did the countess’s beautiful and saintly appearance do her credit, but as chatelaine of Clairmont, Marguerite kept everything in splendid order. All of Lady Marguerite’s domain was neat and organized. Guests and servants alike were simply perfect.
Siân picked at the food in the trencher she shared with her tablemates as she watched all the noble gentlemen at the dais vie for Marguerite’s attention.
All but Hugh Dryden, Earl of Alldale. He was different from the other Saxons. He alone seemed indifferent to Marguerite’s abundant and obvious charms, and held himself apart from the excessive adulation. Though he kept his face carefully expressionless, Siân noted the familiar spark of intelligence in his eye.
Alldale was truly a man alone, Siân thought. She’d sensed that about him in the woods that morning and had been wondering about him ever since. He was not a handsome man, exactly…. Still, there was something about him: a depth of fortitude and endurance that had surely served him in the past. A man wouldn’t survive the kind of injuries that had damaged and scarred Hugh Dryden without a well of inner strength from which to draw.
Of all the ladies on the dais, only Queen Catherine seemed unaffected by Hugh Dryden’s appearance. The scars that were barely concealed by the leather patch…the ravages to his hand…Siân knew Hugh must be aware of the aversion he aroused, and her heart went out to the quiet and solitary man. She, at least, knew what it was to be alone in the world. Siân doubted that anyone else on the dais knew what that was like.
Alldale joined in the conversation only when addressed, and Siân considered that he might be ill at ease among the highborn folk