Ellowyn simply nodded and turned away from him, resuming her stool next to the hearth. She was rather disappointed that he had refused her offer, but she recognized what he was saying. He made sense.
“I understand,” she said softly. “Please know I was not truly trying to suggest something inappropriate. I was rather hoping we could continue our conversation from last night. It has been a long time since I have enjoyed such conversation and… well, I do not have the opportunity to converse with many people so I suppose I was… forgive me, I am rambling. I am sure you must return to your men, so I will thank you again for your kindness and bid you a good eve.”
Brandt’s gaze lingered on her as she faced the fire, holding out a hand trying to rub some warmth back into it. As he stood there, the heavy-set man and the two women came into the room again, dumping more buckets of hot water into the copper tub. When they left, Brandt followed. He quit the room without a word and shut the door.
Ellowyn turned when she heard the door softly shut, seeing that she was quite alone in the room. With a sigh, she rose from her stool and went over to the door, bolting it. Going over to the pot, she put a hand into it to feel that it was very hot. She wanted to get into it badly but decided to wait for her things first. It would be of no use were she to get in now and then have to get out again when her satchel was brought about. Fresh clothes and toiletries were in the bag. So she went back over to the fire and sat, waiting for one of de Russe’s men to bring her possessions as she tried to figure out why she felt such a sense of disappointment with de Russe’s departure.
She didn’t have to wait long. Several minutes later, there was a knock on the door and she rose to open it. A wench with a loaded tray of food entered, moving to set the tray down on the small table next to the hearth. The wench fled, leaving Ellowyn to inspect the tray of mutton, carrots and turnips boiled together in gravy, plus a big slab of cheese and an entire loaf of bread. There was also a cup with something steaming in it, which turned out to be spiced wine. Ellowyn slurped it down as it soothed her irritated throat. It was so good that she called for the wench to bring her another one, but the wench brought two more. They were large tankards nearly filled full. Ellowyn was almost done with the third large cup of spiced wine when there was another knock on the door.
Feeling tipsy and warm, Ellowyn went to answer the door. Brandt was standing in the doorway, soaked to the skin, with her large traveling satchel in his hands. Before he could say a word, she grabbed her bag, then his hand, and yanked him into the room.
“Come in,” she demanded. “ ’Tis cold and wet outside, and you should sit.”
She punctuated the “sit” by shoving him into the nearest chair. Brandt let her do it, mostly because he was baffled by her behavior and wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but when he saw her taking a deep drink out of a fairly large tankard, he began to suspect what had happened.
“How many of those have you had?” he asked.
Ellowyn stopped sipping and looked at him with big eyes. “Of what?”
He pointed at the mug. “That.”
She stared at his pointed finger, then looked around until her gaze came to rest on the cup in her hand. “This?”
“Aye.”
It looked as if she were thinking very hard on the question. “I am not sure,” she said. “I may have had two or three.”
He was coming to understand the situation. “I told them to bring you something hot to drink,” he said. “Wine, I would presume?”
She stared into the cup as if trying to figure out what was in it. “Aye,” she said, then walked over to him and shoved it in his face. “See? There are bits of things in it.”
He had to dodge his head quickly or risk getting hit in the nose when she tried to show him what was in the mug. He was mostly watching her face as he spoke.
“Things? You mean bits of spice?” he said.
She was staring down into the cup, her brow furrowed. She was also very close to him. In fact, their heads were nearly touching. Brandt just watched her face, studying her long lashes and creamy skin, as she gazed into the cup.
“Things,” she repeated as if unsure how else to describe it. “Floating dark things. Mayhap they are bits of bugs.”
“I doubt they are bugs.”
That was good enough for her. She proceeded to toss her head back and drink the last bit of spiced wine, at least three big gulps worth. She nearly toppled as she tried to set the cup down and would have fallen had Brandt not reached out a long arm to steady her. She smiled at him when she realized he was trying to help her. Brandt tried not to smile back but it was difficult when she was grinning so openly at him.
“Perhaps you should go to bed,” he suggested. “It has been a long day and we will depart at dawn.”
Ellowyn continued to stare up at him. Then, she reached out and grasped the hand that was steadying her, tearing her gaze away from his face to look down at his gloved hand. It was big, the glove well-used and very well made. She inspected it closely.
“You have the biggest hand I have ever seen,” she said. Then she sneezed on the glove, wiped away the spittle with an apologetic glance, and then proceeded to pull off the glove. She began to run her hand over his palm, inspecting the worn flesh. “Your hands are so rough. They have callouses. Is that from holding your sword?”
In truth, Brandt was having a rather difficult time keeping his head. There was something decidedly erotic about her running her fingers all over his hand, something that made his heart race and his stomach quiver. He was shocked at himself for his reaction to her, but not shocked enough to pull away. He rather liked the strange, alien feelings she was managing to provoke.
“Aye,” he muttered.
She looked up at him, smiling sweetly. “I heard tale that you were called the Black Angel,” she slurred. “Is there truth in this?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I suppose it depends on what side of my sword one is on.”
“The enemy would call you this?”
“As the right arm of Edward, the Black Prince, I suppose they had to come up with a name for me. Black Angel, Bringer of Death, has followed me around for some time.”
She gazed up at him seriously. “But that is not true,” she said flatly. “You are kind and you are considerate. Who has said these terrible things about you? Tell me now and I will seek them out and berate them for their slander and misinformation.”
A twinkle came to his eye. “You would champion me, then?”
Ellowyn nodded, so forcefully that she nearly toppled over again. He had to grab her again to keep her from falling.
“You have been very kind to me in spite of what happened when we met,” she said, waving a careless hand at him. “Oh, I know we were not going to discuss it anymore, but you must understand that I have been conducting my father’s business for at least three years, ever since my brother, Fenton, joined the cloister. Since my father is so ill most of the time, someone has to conduct his business for him so everyone in Cumbria knows me and treats me with the same respect they would treat my father. But you did not.”
His lips twitched with a smile at the way she said “you”. She dragged it out so it sounded as if it had four or five syllables.
“I did not know you,” he said. “I will always deeply regret the way I spoke to you.”
She cocked her head, exaggerated with her drunken state. “You will?” she asked, awed. “But, truly, you should not. I am very sorry I became so angry, but you called me a whore and, well, I have never had anyone say such things to me.”
“I should not have called you that.”
She was staring up at him thoughtfully. “Do you think it would be a terrible thing to be a whore?”
He fought off laughter because she was truly silly and ridiculous with this line of conversation. “I would not know,” he said, biting his lip. “I suppose it would depend on the circumstance.”
Her brow furrowed. “What if you had an entire family to
feed and that was the only way you could make money?”
“Then it would be the means by which to achieve an end.”
“Do you think whores like being whores?”
He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling now. “I have not given it much thought,” he said, then tried to change the subject. “Perhaps you should go to bed now. It is growing late and….”
She cut him off, yanking him over to the table where the food was. Snatching away the cloth that was covering the now-cooling meal, she pushed him down onto the bed next to the table. In spite of being more than twice her size and probably three times her weight, she was able to push him down simply by her manner. He was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t do what she wanted.
“Eat,” she commanded. “There is plenty of food.”
He tried to stand up but she pushed him down again. “Lady, my mail is wet and it is getting the bed wet,” he explained. “May I please stand?”
Her response was to grab an arm and pull him up. He pretended to let her.
“My father and mother call me Wynny,” she informed him. “I will give you permission to call me Wynny, too. Addressing me formally seems peculiar under these circumstances.”
He just smiled at her as he began to remove his helm. “Thank you,” he said, pulling the helm free and setting it on the table. “I am honored.”
Ellowyn watched, weaving and half-lidded, as he proceeded to peel his hauberk off and move to drape it near the fire. The tunic followed. He was standing with his back to her and her gaze began to wander from the top of his extremely broad shoulders down his back and to his buttocks and legs. He had enormous legs. She grinned, liking what she was seeing, more inebriated than she had ever been in her life because she never really drank wine. She didn’t particularly like it, so three large tankards of very sweet wine had gone straight to her head. She just stood there staring at his broad backside.
“Are you married, my lord?” she asked.
Brandt began to peel off his mail coat. “I was,” he said. “She died a few years ago.”
“Oh,” Ellowyn pondered the death of his spouse. “I am sorry for you.”
He shook his head. “No need,” he replied, pulling the rest of the mail coat off and shaking off the excess water on the hearth. “She hated me and everything about me. She took our two daughters and moved to France years ago. I have not seen my daughters very often since that time and was only recently contacted by them because they wish to marry and require a dowry. That is all I am to my daughters. I am a source of funds to elevate their marital prospects.”
Ellowyn was listening to him seriously. “How old are they?”
“Margarethe is fifteen years and Rosalind is seventeen years.”
She cocked her head. “Were you very young when they were born? You do not seem old enough to have grown daughters.”
The corner of his lip twitched. “Their mother and I were married very young,” he said. “In fact, I was twenty-one years of age. She was fourteen. I had been an earl since my father passed away when I was nine years of age so I was already well established and she was from royalty.”
“You were only an earl when you married her?”
He nodded. “I was not granted the Dukedom of Exeter until King Edward bestowed it upon me ten years ago after the Battle of Crècy. It was my reward for serving his son, and England, flawlessly.”
“I see,” she said, very interested. “Now, back to your marriage. You said you married very young.”
He nodded, back on the original subject. “We did,” he replied. “It was an excellent contract but for the fact that we discovered shortly after our marriage that we hated each other. Rosalind, born a short time after we were wed, was supposed to be a boy, or at least I prayed for one so that my duty as a husband would be done, but when she turned out to be female, my wife and I agreed to one more pregnancy in the hopes of having a male child but she failed at that, too. The girls were still infants when she took them back to one of my properties in France, and I have only seen them twice since. They cannot stomach the sight of me.”
She was listening to him with a heavy heart. “I am sorry for you,” she said sincerely. “I cannot understand daughters that would not love their father because I love my father a great deal. I also do not understand a wife who would not at least be fond of her husband because my mother and father are very fond of one another. I hope that when I marry I am madly in love with my husband.”
He turned to look at her, grinning. “Love, is it?” he said. “You are optimistic.”
She nodded firmly and nearly toppled again. “I will only marry for love.”
“What does Deston have to say about that?”
“He does not know.”
“You should probably tell him before he betroths you to someone you cannot stand.”
She shrugged, averting her gaze and noticing the big copper pot a few feet away. She wandered over to it and stuck her hand into the still very-warm water.
“I am sure that will not happen any time soon,” she said.
“Why?”
She went over to the bed where she had tossed her satchel and began to pull it open. “Because he knows I must approve of any betrothal and so far, I have not approved of a single fool who has come to our door.”
“Not one?”
“Not one.”
“Then you set a high standard.”
She shrugged as she open the satchel wide and began to pull forth her toiletries; a bar of soap that was made with precious oils and smelled heavily of lavender, a frayed reed and tooth cleanser that was made with mint and cloves, and a big hair comb.
“I will not be saddled with someone I do not like or do not approve of,” she said simply, then sneezed a few times in rapid succession. “It is not foolish to want to be happy.”
Brandt turned to look at her. “Nay, it is not,” he agreed quietly. “I wish you good fortune in your search.”
Pensive, drunk and sniffling, Ellowyn made her way back over to the copper pot. She set the stuff down on the bed next to the pot and looked at Brandt seriously, as if her muddled mind was in the midst of concocting something. Then she pointed at him.
“You will remove your wet clothing and put it before the fire,” she said, sounding as if she was once again commanding him. “Then you will sit in this chair with your back to me while I bathe. I will not look at you if you will not look at me and, being a knight and a duke, I will trust your word when you swear you will not watch me bathe. Are we clear?”
He was back to fighting off a grin. “My lady, I am….”
“Wynny!”
He corrected himself. “Wynny, I am not entirely certain that is wise,” he tried to make it simple so her alcohol-soaked brain could understand. “Do you realize what you are saying? You are telling me to take my clothes off, and you will take your clothes off, and the only thing keeping propriety as our cloak and shield is a promise we will not look at each other. Does that sound fitting to you?”
She blinked, thinking hard on his words. “Aye,” she said, looking up at him as if confused by his statement. “I will trust you if you tell me you will not look.”
Brandt had never before seen such naked, complete and utter trust. It was in her eyes, her expression, everything about her, and he didn’t find her drunken state so funny anymore. He’d had the faith of many people over his life, mostly out of fear and out of respect for his skills as a man and as a warrior, but never had he seen it so trusting and blatant as he did at this very moment in that lovely little face. She was trusting him as a man, not as a warrior or a duke. To refute her would be to insult her. He didn’t want to do that. More than that, she was determined to take a bath and in her condition, he was coming to think it would not be wise to leave her alone. She could hit her head, pass out, or worse. He didn’t want that to happen.
“I will not look,” he said softly.
Satisfied, Ellowyn went about undressing in a very uncoordi
nated fashion. Brandt turned away, acutely aware of every sound she made, as he pulled off his heavy padded tunic, so wet and uncomfortable, and put it out by the fire to dry out. Off came the boots as well as they ended up in front of the flame. As he sat with his back to Ellowyn, he began to carve into the cooling mutton when he heard the water behind him slosh as she climbed in. He was hit in the back of the neck with warm water as she began to splash about.
“My lord?” she called.
“I must tell you something,” he said, mouth full of mutton.
“What is that?”
“Since you have so graciously given me permission to call you Wynny,” he said, “I must tell you to call me Brandt in private. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said, splashing around some more. “Brandt?”
“Aye?”
“Do you have any friends?”
“A few.”
She fell silent a moment, sneezing as she splashed. “I do not,” she said, rather forlornly. “Not really. I have cousins, of course, but it seems as if I only really have my family. We are related to Simon de Montfort on my father’s side, so when people find out, it seems no one wants to know us. After all these years, that part of the family is still frowned upon.”
“Did you not make friends when you fostered?”
“I did not foster.”
He was surprised. “You did not foster?” he repeated, turning around to look at her but remembering his promise not to watch her bathe, so he quickly turned back to face his meal. “That is unheard of. Who took charge of your education, then?”
“My grandfather,” she said. “Braxton de Nerra. He was a very smart man. He taught me everything from when I was young. Did you know him?”
Brandt nodded as he tucked into the bread and gravy. “I knew him,” he said. “He was a great knight.”
In the tub, Ellowyn was busy soaping her feet. “He passed away six years ago,” she said softly. “But he was healthy and vital right until the end. My grandmother misses him every day, you know. They loved each other very much. I suppose they are why I am determined to marry a man I love. I saw what they had together and I want that, too.”