As Mary watched the mismatched pair disappear down the stairs without any further problems, she reached her hand into her apron pocket and grabbed for a handkerchief. She let out a loud sniff before allowing herself a moment of noisy grief. She then shoved the handkerchief back into the pocket from whence it came and resolutely straightened her spine. Perhaps if she kept telling herself that this was a good thing, then maybe it would be easier to get through.
It didn’t seem to work.
Her brows dropped a little as she thought of consoling herself by spending her time blaming Robert for this wonderful misfortune. After all, till he came here, there had been no talk of walks. It helped only for a moment.
Pity, as she had kind of liked the idea of having someone to curse. Instead she marched back into Imogen’s bedroom and over to the fireplace. She sat down heavily and began stoking the flames with a will. If she was going to wait and worry for hours, she thought with a self-righteous sniff, then there was no way in hell she was going to freeze while doing it.
Lucas walked Imogen slowly down the last of the stairs and guided her toward the main door. The burden of his new responsibility showed in the seriousness of his expression.
The Keep seemed oddly still after the past weeks of noisy activity.
With Robert gone to the tower for at least the rest of the day, the servants had taken a much-needed chance to rest. After years of near inertia, to be suddenly working for a human whirlwind, even one as respected as Robert had become with everyone in the Keep, was something of a shock. The chance to breathe normally again was too good to ignore.
Imogen smiled broadly, feeling better than she had in weeks—no, in years, she realized with wonder. A bubble of happiness rose inside her and she was gripped by a desire to run, to skip, to dance; just to see if she still could after all this time.
“Can we go a little faster?” she whispered to Lucas, wheedlingly.
“Only if you want us to fall on our faces, m’lady,” he whispered back.
She thought about it for a moment. “We mightn’t, you know.”
“Yes, but if we do, Sir Robert will have me torn into little bits.”
“Coward,” she said severely, but smiled. It seemed impossible to stop smiling on such a day.
She could feel his head nodding vigorously. “You bet I am. I intend to live to see my eighth year.”
Imogen was just about to add something when Lucas came to an abrupt halt. Imogen collided with his small body, causing him to stumble a bit.
“Why did you do that?” she exploded in shock. “If you don’t say something when you plan to stop, then falling on our faces becomes an inevitability.”
“Sor-sorry, my lady,” he stammered.
“It was my fault,” came a deep, velvet-sounding voice in front of them. “I stepped away from the wall rather abruptly while you were both whispering.”
The sudden arrival of a third person, one she hadn’t even sensed, stopped her heart for a second. She could feel the shock lodging in her hands, causing them to shake a little, but she lifted her chin in defiance. This had to be one of Robert’s men whose laughter had haunted her for weeks, she thought darkly.
“Well, sir, you are obstructing our path,” she said imperiously, “so please remove yourself so we can continue on our way.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that until you tell me what you are about. Sir Robert has left me in charge of the Keep, so, Lucas, if we start with who exactly your delightful companion is, I might be able to decide whether either of you represent a threat or not.”
“Sir Gareth…” Lucas stammered clumsily, but Imogen’s alarm was quickly turning to white-hot anger.
“You mean to tell me that you intend to prevent me from leaving the Keep if I don’t answer your impertinent questions?” she asked coldly.
The man paused thoughtfully for a moment. “Yes, that would about sum it up. Now, your name—”
“Why, you nasty little toad,” Imogen exploded. “Come, Lucas, step around this worm and we will be on our way.”
Lucas hesitated for a moment. In the fortnight since Robert had taken possession of the Keep, Lucas had quickly learned to treat both him and his knights with careful respect. The first time one of them had clapped him encouragingly on the back, he had been sent reeling. They just didn’t seem to know their own strength, and Lucas didn’t want Sir Gareth to feel he had to physically stop them. His innate common sense warned him that it would hurt.
This respect for their raw power was also mixed with a large dose of awe. Until now the only male Lucas had been in regular contact with was Duncan, the old groom. These massive warriors had suddenly invaded his world like a whirlwind, each of them as impressive as the last, and Lucas was thriving in this masculine world. They were all gruffly kind to the small boy who hung around with such obvious devotion. They tried to answer his nearly endless questions, and one of them had even let Lucus try to pick up his prodigious sword. He worshipped both the knights themselves and the world they came from and would rather die than upset one of his new heroes.
He also knew that it was simply daft to just ignore a direct order when it was given with such calm authority.
“Ah, I’m sorry, my lady, I don’t think so—”
“I didn’t ask you to think, Lucas,” she snapped. “I asked you to do.” She could feel him hesitate and she gritted her teeth impatiently. “Very well, I will go on myself.”
She dropped her hand from his shoulder and without allowing herself time to consider the wisdom of her actions, she moved to step round where she judged the rude man to be standing. She misjudged this by a good couple of inches and ran straight into him instead and at that moment, she had an almost overwhelming desire to stamp her feet with sheer frustration.
“If you would just go away, then…” She was stopped by the squeal that escaped her as her world shifted.
The knight had easily picked her up and gently threw her over one shoulder. Lucas’s eyes went totally round at the sight of Lady Imogen being carried like a sack of washing. It took a few seconds for him to collect his scattered wits enough to drop the food basket and scurry after the spluttering lady and the amused knight.
Gareth placed her carefully down near the fire in the main hall, then stepped back. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and intently considered the outraged woman in front of him.
“So, may I have your name?” he asked quietly, his deep voice rumbling impressively through the hall.
“You dolt, I’m Lady Imogen Beaumont, owner of this damn, blasted Keep.” She stepped forward to just in front of where she had heard his voice coming from, waving her finger wildly. “And you had better grab hold of anything on your person that you might value, because by the time I’m through with you, you will end up being just so many pounds of useless meat for the dogs.”
He couldn’t quite prevent the small smile that toyed with his lips.
It was just too delicious. So this was Robert’s bride. This was Lady Deformed.
Robert hadn’t married a gargoyle but a termagant instead, Gareth realized with relish. He smiled with anticipation at the fun that would soon follow as his friend tried to keep control of his life now that this woman had stormed into it.
“I’m sorry for any offence, my lady, but I was just following my orders.”
“Your orders were to waylay defenseless woman and children and then manhandle them? How bravely my Keep is to be protected,” she sneered.
“No, my orders were to monitor the Keep and its occupants and to maintain security till Sir Robert returned. The ‘manhandling’ I consider just a momentary inspiration, or perhaps even a personal pleasure.”
“A personal pleasure!” she exploded, spots of red flagging her cheek. “You have the impertinence to touch my person at all, then you have the audacity to call it personal pleasure? A momentary inspiration in the line of duty?”
“No, my lady, it had nothing to do with my duty,” he said precisely. “Manhandling beautiful women such as yourself is no duty, more one of life’s little rewards.”
Imogen glared at him dangerously. “Are you daring to flirt with me?” she asked slowly.
Gareth considered this for a moment. “Yes, my lady, I believe I am,” he said with a beatific smile. It was the kind of smile that had landed many a woman’s heart at his feet. She simply tossed her head and placed her hands on her hips.
“And what would your precious Sir Robert have to say if he found out that you openly confessed to flirting with his new bride?”
“I would hope, my lady, that I’d have the good sense not to mention it to him,” Gareth said with all seriousness.
Imogen’s sudden laughter was as spontaneous as it was unexpected.
The silliness of his answer seemed to instantly evaporate all of her anger. To Gareth, her carefree laughter appeared a little like a rainbow after a storm.
“I like that. It has a certain vestige of dishonest honesty,” she said, the laughter still bubbling up inside her. “I would like to know the name of one so skilled in survival.”
“Sir Gareth de Hugues, your husband’s second-in-command.” He remembered to bow correctly but his mind was becoming muddled by a dawning admiration. He had heard rumors about Lady Deformed and it was those rumors that could be blamed for his unusually slow-witted inability to identify this small, beautiful sprite as the Lady herself. This woman could be thought of as deformed only if exquisite beauty was considered a deformity first.
Robert had been frustratingly tight-lipped about his new bride and after a fortnight of conspicuous absence, Gareth had come to expect the worst. Any woman who was too ugly to come and eat with the rest of the household, Gareth had concluded, was in a very bad way indeed.
However, instead of a repulsive gargoyle, Lady Imogen was a small, delicate woman who possessed the kind of beauty that wasn’t the least diminished by the fact that she was dressed a little like a vagrant. The body he had felt draped over his shoulder had been a very tempting one indeed. He hadn’t been only flirting when he said he’d enjoyed the manhandling.
Mere flirting had stopped altogether, however, when she had laughed.
With that joyous laughter she went from being a pretty little baggage to being the most beautiful woman Gareth had ever seen. It had taken his breath away and, for the first time in his life, Gareth found himself envying Robert.
And how the man had managed to fritter away a fortnight pottering around the Keep when this woman waited for him was entirely beyond Gareth’s comprehension. The man must be using dung for brains!
If he ever had such a wife, and Gareth prayed silently that one day he would, then he would spend every day, no, every moment of every day, basking in the radiance of her smile. He’d devote his life to being her jester just to hear the music of her laugher. And to think he had always admired Robert’s intelligence!
Not anymore. It would take many acts of raw cunning on Robert’s part to make up for this total lapse of sanity.
“Sir Gareth. It is my pleasure to meet you,” she said softly as she dropped into a very proper curtsy.
Gareth bowed again over her hand with a small flourish, “No, my lady, I can honestly say that the pleasure is all mine.” He kept hold of her hand, enjoying the texture of her soft hand in his larger one.
Imogen couldn’t stop a small giggle from escaping. “I suspect, Sir Gareth, that you might be something of a rogue.”
“One does one’s humble best.”
“I’m sure one does,” she murmured. “Well, thank you for the entertainment, it really has been most enjoyable. Sadly, however, I have need of that hand you are holding so tightly, and must be on my way with it.”
“May I enquire as to your destination?”
“Certainly you may enquire, and I may even answer.” She paused a moment, her cheek dimpling with humor. “Lucas was escorting me to the tower. I have a pressing desire to see it,” she said finally, carefully avoiding any mention of any similar desire she might have to see Robert. Gareth heard the need there all the same, and was a little surprised by the small grief it caused. He quickly shook it off, not prepared to waste time dwelling on impossibilities.
“And they send a boy to do a man’s job?” he scoffed.
“Actually, they send a boy to do an old woman’s job. Mary normally acts as my eyes but she thought the journey might be too great and cold for one of her advanced years, so she nobly nominated Lucas in her stead.”
Gareth paused a moment. “Act as your eyes?” he asked gently.
She smiled again, but this time her earlier easy amusement was missing. “To act as my eyes, as my eyes can no longer act on their own.”
His own eyes narrowed on her, hoping for a moment that what he thought she meant was a lie. Instead, her empty eyes just missed meeting his.
He recovered from his shock quickly. Well, there had to be something wrong, he told himself rationally, the rumors about Lady Deformed had to have come from somewhere. That it was a gross exaggeration didn’t stop it from being some kind of twisted reality.
And what did it matter? Why dwell on such a thing when in everything else she was beyond such sterile concepts as mere perfection?
“Well, let me offer you the use of my own, rather attractive, sky blue eyes. Not only are they exquisitely beautiful, they are also exceptionally keen and you can consider them at your disposal.”
“Very prettily said,” she murmured, enjoying his easy acceptance of her problem very much.
He leaned confidentially closer, trying to ignore the fact that he liked a little too well just being near this woman. “For you, I will even be pretty. Of course if anyone else said such a thing, I would slice them in two.”
“I must remember that. It would make you interesting to clean up after, I must say.”
Gareth opened his mouth to reply in kind but was stopped by Lucas’s piping voice from the doorway. “But I was told to look out for my lady.”
Imogen found it strange that she had nearly forgotten his presence. Normally she kept very firm in her head the mental map needed to see her world. Perhaps, it had been so long since she had last been able to just be silly that she had forgotten all else in the pursuit of it. There was no denying that she also enjoyed the man who shared his silliness with her.