The messenger cocked his head curiously. “This is not his first missive, my lady,” he said. “I have brought four others before this one.”
Shocked, Emilie looked at him. The vellum was open in her hand but she wasn’t looking at the words. All she was focused on was the messenger’s stunning revelation.
“Four messages?” she repeated. “And you brought them here, to Canterbury?”
“Aye, my lady.”
“Are… are you certain?”
“Aye, my lady.”
“But I have not seen any of them!”
The messenger looked around, at the soldiers who were both standing in the gatehouse and wandering out onto the road. He even turned to look at the two soldiers who were chasing the frolicking dog in the distance.
“I gave them to a knight, my lady,” he said. “And older man, big. But I do not see him here. I have been instructed by Sir David to wait for a reply with each message I deliver but the man told me you were indisposed and not inclined to provide an immediate answer.”
Emilie stared at him. It began to occur to her who the messenger was speaking of and the excitement in her chest turned to something else, something dark and furious as the devil. Four missives she had not received. Any hint of happiness that she might have had in her expression vanished.
“A big knight?” she repeated, just to be clear. “He has big blue eyes that droop slightly?”
“I believe so, my lady.”
“Did he give a name?”
“If he did, I do not recall it, my lady.”
“And you said that you have delivered four missives here prior to this one?”
“Aye, my lady.”
“And he took every one of them?”
“Aye, my lady.”
Emilie’s blood was beginning to boil. She was starting to realize that David had indeed been delivering missives to her, missives that she had never received. The only person at Canterbury who would have kept them from her was, in fact, Brickley.
Brickley!
Struggling to keep her temper under control, she motioned for the messenger to follow her. “Come with me,” she said. “You will rest and eat, and I shall provide you with a returned missive.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
Emilie began to walk, passing into the gatehouse. The first thing she did was find the sergeant on duty, the man who was usually in charge of the gatehouse on any given day. He had been with the House of Hampton for years. She addressed the sergeant, pointing to the messenger as she spoke.
“Have you seen this man before?” she asked.
The sergeant was a tall, thin man with wild red hair. He nodded. “I have, my lady.”
Emilie’s jaw tightened. “He says that he has been here before,” she said. “He has been here four times and every time he has delivered a missive. Do you recall Brick taking the missive from him?”
The sergeant, who truly had no idea what was brewing, or that Brickley had done anything wrong, nodded. “I do, my lady.”
Emilie sighed heavily, something that sounded suspiciously like a growl. Turning away, she continued into the ward beyond. Behind her, Roland had been corralled and was being brought back to the castle and the de Lohr rider was being shown a place where he could rest. Everything was happening as it should, casual, conducting usual business on a usual day. But to Emilie, everything was far from usual. There was about to be a battle and it was one she fully intended to win.
Brickley was about to pay for his lies.
Aye, they were lies. Withholding information meant for her, missives that he knew she had been waiting for, meant he had been lying to her. It was deceit. She could only imagine that the man sought to erase David from her heart and mind, but it was not going to work. David was embedded into her more firmly than Brickley could ever comprehend. With the vellum still in hand, a message she had not even read yet, she marched into the keep.
It was cool and dark in the keep, smelling of moist earth, a scent that wafted up from the store room below the entry level. Lyle’s solar was immediately to the right of the entry and Emilie went to it, knocking on the door. She heard her father’s voice, telling her to enter, and she did.
But Lyle was not alone. The very man who had been foremost in her thoughts for the past few minutes was there, too, his eyes seeking her out and that sickening expression of hopefulness on his features. The sight of Brickley was enough to throw more fuel on Emilie’s rage. Without looking at her father, she spoke directly to the knight.
“Brickley,” she said. “I have just discovered that David de Lohr has sent four missives to me, four missives that I never received. The gatehouse sergeant confirmed that you received them. Since you are the only person in Canterbury who would not want me to read such things, I can only assume that kept them. Where are they? You will give them to me immediately.”
The expression of hope vanished from Brickley’s face and his brow furrowed. Shocked, his first reaction was one of denial. “Missives?” he said. “We… we receive many messengers, my lady.”
Infuriated, Emilie shouted in reply. “Damnation, Brickley de Dere!” she said, throwing a finger in the direction of the gatehouse. “The de Lohr messenger is here. He has brought me what he has told me is the fifth missive from David. You are the only one who would keep such information from me, so I am ordering you now to give me my messages. They are mine and I want them. How dare you keep them from me!”
By this time, Lyle was coming around the side of his table, an expression of shock on his face. He looked at Brickley. “Brick?” he said. “Is this true? Did Emilie receive missives from David de Lohr?”
Brickley was caught; he knew he was caught. He was willing to dance all the way around Emilie’s query without providing her with an answer but he couldn’t lie to Lyle. Their relationship was built solely on trust and if he lied to the man, he would be ruining years of service. Heart sinking, he was coming to feel sickened. Sickened that Emilie had discovered the truth. He wasn’t sorry he’d done it but he was sorry they’d discovered what he’d done. Therefore, he did the only thing he could do – he looked Lyle in the eye and nodded his head.
“Aye, my lord,” he said quietly.
He said no more than that and Lyle lifted his eyebrows as Emilie growled in frustration. Lyle held out a hand to his daughter, stilling her, as he focused on his knight. The situation was serious, indeed.
“She received missives from de Lohr but you never gave them to her?” Lyle asked.
Brickley shook his head, briefly. “I did not, my lord.”
“But why?”
Brickley’s jaw flexed but he continued to look Lyle in the eye. “Because I did not want her to have them, my lord.”
Emilie shrieked, clearly overwhelmed with fury. “It is not your choice to make!” she cried. “How dare you do this, Brickley! I cannot believe you would do such a terrible and despicable thing!”
Lyle was still holding out a hand to Emilie, struggling to keep her moderately quiet as he dealt with the situation. “Emilie, please,” he begged. His focus returned to Brickley. “Brick, I must say that I am having a difficult time believing this. You have never been the deceitful kind. Where are these missives that you have kept from Emilie?”
Brickley sighed heavily; this time, he hung his head, no longer able to look Lyle in the face. “I burned them,” he said quietly. “I burned them because… because I wanted her to think that de Lohr had lied to her, that he had forgotten about her. My lord, you know how I feel about Emilie. You know that I want to marry her. Therefore, I did not want her to have de Lohr’s messages.”
Emilie was so angry that she was red in the face. “Listen to me and listen well, de Dere,” she snarled. “I do not care how you feel about me. You have always been my friend through the years but now… now I cannot even stand the sight of you. What you have done to try and manipulate me is beyond contempt. It is vile and low. I do not want to marry you and I never shall. Even if there was
no David de Lohr, there would be no chance for you. I will never trust you again and I will hate you until I die!”
Her fury was so great that tears came to her eyes and after the last few words, a sob sprang to her lips. In a fit, she ran from the room, leaving her father and Brickley in awkward silence.
When she was gone, Brickley simply stood there, looking at his feet. He refused to believe that Emilie meant any of that but something told him that he’d just ruined everything he’d tried to accomplish. If she really did hate him forever, it was his own fault. More than that, he had behaved in a way that had shamed Lyle, his liege. Having never met his father, Brickley had always looked to Lyle as a father-figure. He was trying very hard not to feel ashamed of his actions. He cleared his throat softly.
“A man said once that all is fair in love and war,” he said to Lyle. “David de Lohr already has an advantage over me. I sought to take away that advantage and I would do it again given the chance. I will apologize if that is shameful to you, my lord, but it is the way I feel.”
Lyle didn’t know what to say. He was still a bit shocked at what had happened and he was starting not to like this entire situation. Brickley’s attraction to Emilie was causing him to do strange things. After a moment, he shook his head and turned away, heading back to his table.
“Go now and find more recruits to remain here at Canterbury when you take the bulk of the army north,” he said. When Brickley started to move, he stopped the man. “And, Brick… stay away from Emilie. That is a command. Leave her alone and stay clear of her. If she tells me you have done otherwise, I will release you from my service and send you away. Is this clear?”
Brickley was standing by the door. “It is, my lord.”
“Then go about your duties.”
With a heavy heart, Brickley did.
*
Upon leaving her father’s solar, Emilie had run up to her chamber with David’s missive still in her hand. She had a table in her chamber where she would often sit and draw, and sheets of used vellum and paints and ink. She fully intended to write an immediate reply to David and send the de Lohr messenger back to him this very day.
She wiped any remaining tears from her eyes as she reached her chamber on the third and top level of Canterbury’s red stoned keep. She wasn’t going to weep anymore over the burned missives; she would make sure to focus on the one she had actually received and reply to David in kind. It was what she had been praying for, communication from the man. Finally, she had it.
Entering the chamber, she immediately bumped into the end of her bed. The chamber was rather small, and cramped, because the entire structure of Canterbury had Roman origins, including the keep, which meant chambers were small but efficiently arranged, and instead of windows in the chambers, there were long, rectangular openings at the top of the room meant to let in air and light whilst keeping the elements out.
That meant that on bright days, the chambers were well lit and the cross-ventilation between the rooms helped keep the temperature very pleasant. But Emilie wasn’t paying attention to any of that; she was focused on the table that held her vellum and inks. Now that the shock of Brickley’s behavior had worn thin, she was thinking of David’s missive and most eager to read it. She hoped it wasn’t a missive telling her that he’d grown tired of being ignored.
So she plopped down on the wooden stool beside her table and eagerly read the contents of the missive. David was very polite, speaking of the fact that he had left London and his brother’s army had seen a few skirmishes against John’s mercenary army in the north, but he spoke of war, his health, and little else. He concluded the missive by stating he hoped she would find time to respond to him this time, which she most certainly would. She read the missive four times before setting it aside, collecting a piece of vellum that she hadn’t painted on, and picked up her quill. Dipping it in the ink, she began to very carefully write.
The first sentence she composed was an apology for not replying to his earlier missives. She debated about what to tell him, perhaps something to gloss over and not really explain why she hadn’t, but she didn’t want David to think she hadn’t replied to him because she hadn’t been interested. That was the furthest thing from the truth. Therefore, she decided to briefly explain that Brickley had never given the missives to her, and had subsequently burned them, so she had never even seen them. She asked for David’s forgiveness in the matter of not even knowing he had sent them. And with that, she went on to tell him everything that had happened in the months they had been separated.
It was a rather fulfilling experience writing to David. It was almost as if she was speaking to him, telling him of things that had happened, telling her of the jokes her sisters had played since they’d been home. The pranks were rather humorous providing that they weren’t being played against her, so she hoped he would laugh at them. She wished she could be there to tell him in person. She had missed him every day of their separation and she wanted to tell him that, but she thought it might sound too foolish and gushing, considering he had not said anything of the same measure in his missive. So she ended her message by telling him that she hoped he was well and she hoped she would see him again very soon. She was just signing her name when Nathalie happened to wander in from an adjoining door.
Emilie glanced up when her sister entered, eyeing the girl as she moved to her bed. Emilie and Nathalie shared a chamber whilst Elise and Lillibet shared another. Emilie went back to her missive, sanding it, as Nathalie opened a big, square oak trunk against the wall that held her possessions and began rummaging through it.
“Em, have you seen my sewing kit?” she asked. “I cannot seem to find it.”
Emilie shook the sand off of the vellum, blowing on it for good measure. “Nay, I have not,” she said. “But mine is in the wardrobe. You may use it if you need to.”
Nathalie, finished searching the corners of her disorganized trunk, shut the lid and stood up. She glanced at her sister and noticed what she was doing. “What are you writing?” she asked.
Emilie held the missive up before her, reading through it once more to make sure it was perfect. “I am answering David,” she said, rather dreamily. “He sent me a missive.”
Nathalie looked moderately interested. Considering the joke she and Elise had played on David the last time she had seen him, she was rather surprised to discover the knight had written her sister. She had rather hoped she had chased the man away completely. Now, she wondered if his missive said anything about the nasty prank that had been played on him back at Lady Orford’s home.
“Oh?” she asked, innocent. “What did he say?”
Emilie shook the last of the sand from the vellum. “That he has been at war these past few months,” she said. “There are wars in the north now, according to him. The Prince is trying to take the country from his brother and David is fighting him.”
Nathalie wandered near the table, peering at the missive from David. “The de Lohrs fight a lot,” she said. “Haven’t they just returned from fighting with Richard in the Holy Land?”
Emilie nodded. “Indeed they have.”
“So they are back to fighting again?”
Again, Emilie nodded. “For Richard’s cause,” she said. “They support the king.”
“So do we.”
Emilie lifted her eyebrows at her sister for emphasis. “I know, but they de Lohrs actually show their support,” she said. “They do not sit at home and let others do the fighting for them, like we have done.”
Nathalie lowered herself onto another stool, watching her sister carefully fold the missive. “Why did Papa not send his army to the Holy Land?” she asked before making a statement to her own question. “But… but I am glad he did not. Something might have happened to Brick had he been forced to fight the savages. Maybe he would not return home to Canterbury at all.”
Emilie tensed at the mention of Brickley’s name. “I do not care,” she said flatly. “I wish he had gone and stayed the
re.”
Nathalie frowned. “Why do you say that?” she demanded. “That is a mean thing to say!”
Emilie’s focus flew to her sister. “Mean?” she repeated, outraged. “Do you want to hear what your sweet and wonderful Brickley did? I will tell you and then you may not think so kindly of him. David has sent me four missives – this missive that you see is the fifth. But I would not have known about any of them if it were up to Brickley; he took the first four missives and burned them. He did not even tell me that I had received them. He did not want me to know!”
Nathalie was shocked. It was true that she had been an enemy of Brickley ever since the John’s mask those months ago, but the truth was that she still secretly yearned for him. He still had her heart. Now, hearing of this terrible thing from her sister, she was shocked and appalled. But she also refused to believe it.
“Why should he not want you to know?” she asked. “He has no reason to keep the missives from you. How can you blame him?”
Emilie was angry enough so that she wasn’t considerate of her sister’s feelings when it came to Brickley. Considering the pranks that Nathalie had played on the man as of late, she naturally assumed her sister had no feelings for the man.
She was wrong.
“Because he admitted it,” she said angrily as she finished folding David’s missive. “He told Papa and I that he had intercepted messages from David and burned them. He is a terrible man and I hope I never see him again!”
Nathalie was becoming more and more appalled by what she was hearing. “But why should he do it?”
Emilie picked up the wax stick and held it over the flame of taper to soften the wax so she could seal the missive. “Because he does not want any competition for my hand,” she said. “Brickley wants to marry he. He has told Papa that. So he is trying to keep David away from me but I discovered his wicked plan. Thank God I discovered it. Brickley is terrible and evil and I hate him. I will hate him for always!”
Nathalie sat there with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open at what she was hearing. Her heart, a confused and fragile thing, had just been smashed into a thousand little pieces.