Joining (5 page)

It would have been rude to ask why the girl was not simply ordered to do as she was told. And Wulfric was afraid to find out that she had so little respect for her father that she would have disobeyed him. But he had a right to know the worst of it—faugh, how could it be any worse than this?

“She does not realize that she looks—ridiculous, dressed as a man?”

“Think you she cares? Nay, she cares naught about her appearance. She has not the vanity you would expect a woman to have.”

Wulfric sighed now. There was no help for it, he had to ask, “Why was this allowed to happen? Why was her behavior not curbed long ago, ere it got to be so—unwomanly?”

As he had anticipated, the question caused Nigel no small bit of embarrassment. “’Tis my fault, as you may suspect. My only excuse is that I did not know Mili was not behaving as she aught to until it was too late. When my wife died, I—I lost my own reasoning. Even when I was here, I was not—here. I am not sure you can understand, the depths I sunk to in my mourning, but I have very little remembrance of those first years after she died.”

“My father has said you loved her dearly,” Wulfric remarked uneasily, for Nigel looked now as if he were sinking down into that grief again.

“Aye, I loved her, but I was not aware of how much until she was gone. My brother, Albert, God keep him, lived with us at the time. I
trusted him to see to my girls, but he was a widower himself, and—and he thought it amusing, Milisant’s boyish ways, so made no effort to curb her.”

“But you said you were here—”

“Aye, but rarely sober, lad,” Nigel admitted. “And my girls would often pretend to be each other—’twas a game they played. So when I would see Jhone, I thought ’twas Milisant, and so was unaware that aught was amiss, until, as I said, it was too late. When I did finally see her as she had become, she was already set in her ways, and refused to be reined in.”

Wulfric stiffened slightly. “Refused?”

“She has much fire, my Milisant, not like her sister, Jhone, who is somewhat timid. The fiery spirit and courage she gets from her mother. ’Tis one of the reasons I have been unable to use harsh measures against her. I am afraid she knows she reminds me much of her mother and thus uses it to her advantage.”

’Twas not a father’s duty to mold his daughters as he did his sons, and to be fair, Wulfric pointed out, “No one would expect you to have trained her, yet were there no ladies here to see to it?”

Nigel shook his head. “There have been none here of high enough rank since my wife’s passing, other than those belonging to my household knights, but none of them have had the fortitude to butt heads with my daughter. When I finally came to my senses to realize Milisant was not getting the training she should have, I sent her to Fulbray Castle to be fostered there in the hopes that Lord Hugh’s lady could take her in
hand. But ’twas too late by then, she had already gone her own way for too long, and after several years of trying, they sent her back with the missive that ’twas hopeless. They had tried everything they could without seriously hurting her, and mild punishments had done no good.”

Wulfric wondered if the older man realized he had described a woman who was not fit to be a wife, that no man in his right mind would want such an unnatural female …
Jesu,
that was the very thing that was going to get him out of this marriage. Nigel himself would feel obliged to release him from the betrothal contract. It just needed to be pointed out, and Wulfric did just that.

“I thank you for your honesty, Lord Nigel, but all things considered, think you she would make a good wife?”

To his utter disappointment, Nigel smiled now. “Aye, I have little doubt of it, that children, and a husband she loves, are all that is needful to soften her edges and make her see the error of her ways.”

“How
can you be so sure of that?”

“Because that is what happened with her mother, and she is her mother’s daughter. I said my wife had a fiery spirit, yet truth be told, she was a harridan when we did first meet, full of rage and pride, with a vicious tongue that could and did slice deep. Yet love changed her completely.”

It was hard, truly hard, to keep from scoffing, yet Wulfric still remarked, “You assume she will love me. What if she does not?”

Nigel chuckled at that, further confounding
him, until he said, “There is naught that I can see wrong with you—far from it. Or do you tell me that you have difficulty with women?” At Wulfric’s flush, he added, “I thought not. And my daughter will be no different, given time, once you are the center of her life. Verily, I would trust no other than Guy’s son to have the care of my eldest, for if you are at all like your father, I know you will do right by her.”

And that ended Wulfric’s last hope of getting Nigel to void the contract. He
was
going to be stuck with the she-devil, because he was his father’s son, because he was not a churlish knight as some men were, because he did not beat those weaker than he as many men did, because his father had taught him differently.

He was understandably bitter, not wanting to be the trainer of his own wife, as it seemed he would have to be. Some of that came through in his next remark, if not in the tone, which he kept carefully neutral.

“Yet I must deal with her in the interim, Lord Nigel, before this hopeful change occurs. She ignores your orders. What makes you think she will obey mine?”

“Because she knows how far she can transgress with me and not suffer for it, yet with you she will not have that advantage. She is not foolish, my boy, far from it. She is merely … strange in her attitude, and in what she views as important—at this time. But what she finds important now will change once she settles into marriage.”

The father was optimistic. Wulfric was not.

Six

Jhone had a
devil of a time tracking her sister down. Milisant might have gone up the stairs leading to the north tower chamber they shared, but as Jhone had suspected, instead of going there she had traversed the corridor to the west tower stairs, which would bring her back down and out of the keep entirely. And Dunburh was no small place to find her easily when she cared not to be found.

She did find her finally, in the stable, making friends with Wulfric de Thorpe’s black stallion. It was not one of the huge destriers bred and used in battle for their viciousness and willingness to trample anything in their path. Destriers did not make good traveling mounts specifically because of their lethal dispositions, and so any knight with access to a friendlier horse would reserve his destrier just for battle. But it was still a large animal, and being a stallion, had not looked very friendly—until now.

“You are not trying to turn him against his owner, are you?” Jhone asked her sister uneasily as she approached the stall.

“I thought about it.”

That surly reply had Jhone smiling. “But changed your mind?”

“Aye. I would not see the stallion hurt, which is no doubt what would happen if that bastard suddenly could not control him. It
is
his tendency to lash out and cause pain, as I learned firsthand.”

“That was long ago, Mili,” Jhone reminded her gently. “He was only a boy then, not fully a man as he is now. Surely he has changed—”

Milisant’s head snapped up, her eyes filling with golden heat as she cut in, “You saw for yourself out there on the path. He
would
have struck me if you had not stepped forward when you did.”

“But he did not know ’twas you.”

“How much smaller am I than he, no matter
what
he thought me?”

Jhone could hardly refute that, so she remarked instead, “I was there to see his horror when he did realize just who you were.”

“Good,” Milisant shot back. “Then when I return to the hall, ’twill be to hear that that silly contract has been set aside.”

“I am not so sure of that,” Jhone said, biting her lip. “Would he have that power? To break a contract made by his father?”

Milisant frowned. “Nay, I suppose not. Then I will just have to make sure that Papa breaks it. I was going to anyway, just did not think ’twould be necessary this soon.” And then she snorted. “And why would I think so? He could have come to claim me at any time these last
six years, but he did not. Truly, I had all but forgotten about
him.”

That was not exactly true, and they both knew it. Milisant had her heart set on another, yet could not wed him until the old contract that promised her to Wulfric de Thorpe was set aside. So she could not help but think about her long-standing betrothed, even if those thoughts had not been pleasant ones.

“He may be tardy in showing up, Mili, but he has shown up. What if you do still have to wed him?”

“I would sooner jump off yonder tower.”

“Milisant!”

“I did not say I would, just that I would rather.”

Jhone leaned against the plank of the stall, not knowing how to make this easier for her sister, yet agonizing over her turmoil. It was cruel of de Thorpe to wait this long, without any communication, without once coming to visit so the two of them could gain knowledge of each other and be more at ease with the notion of their joining. She did not count that time that he did come all those years ago that had left such a bitter mark on her sister.

With no word, and so much time passed, ’twas no wonder Milisant had turned her thoughts and heart to another young knight, one she approved of and greatly liked, one who did not mind that she was not like other girls. They were even good friends, and Jhone had learned firsthand that being friends with your husband-to-be made a great difference and alleviated much fear on the bride’s part.

Jhone had been wed herself two years ago to a young man who
had
come often to visit since their betrothal when she reached her tenth year. So she’d had six years to get to know him and had been most pleased with him, and was still saddened over his loss, for he had died not long after.

But she was the younger, and she had felt strange marrying ere Milisant did, and felt that her sister might feel somewhat embarrassed over it as well—and have yet another mark to hold against her betrothed because of it. Though Milisant had never admitted to any embarrassment, and if she had felt it, hid it well.

“You really think Papa will agree to set the contract aside after the groom has shown up for you? You no longer have his absence to use as a weapon in your reasoning.”

Milisant dropped her forehead to the stallion’s in a dejected manner. “He will,” she said so softly Jhone barely heard it and had to doubt the conviction of it, then louder as she looked back up. “He must. I
cannot
wed that—that brute, Jhone! He would smother me, try to break me. And once Papa knows that I love another, he will see reason. Just because Wulfric de Thorpe has finally shown up does not excuse the lateness of it, and ’twas the lateness of it that had me looking elsewhere.”

That did sound reasonable and was in fact true. Up until two years ago, Milisant had not thought of breaking the contract that had been in existence since the year of her birth. She had hated it, and hated her betrothed, but she had been resigned to her fate—until even more time
passed and Wulfric still had not made an appearance, nor sent any excuses. And their father did often concede to Milisant’s wishes, or more to the point, he would eventually give up trying to make her conform to his.

But for some reason, Jhone had a sinking feeling that Milisant would not succeed with their father this time. Contracts were a sacred thing that men adhered to, that women could not begin to fathom the reasoning for, since they were never consulted on the making of such. And somehow she knew that her sister was just as aware of this, which was one of the reasons she was festering with so much anger. And Jhone sensed the anger.

The other reason was no doubt that attack on the path. Fear had been the first emotion there, but fear did tend to turn to anger once the fear was gone. And who would have expected an attack like that so close to Dunburh? Milisant had not even brought along her weapons, since they had only been going to the village.

“I told Papa what happened on the path,” Jhone said. “He sent Sir Milo to see about tracking down those men.”

“Good.” Milisant nodded. “Milo is a competent knight—not like some,” she added in a grumble.

Jhone refused to comment on those “some.” “I cannot imagine who they were, though, or why they seemed intent on getting to you.”

“You noticed that as well?” Milisant asked with a thoughtful frown. “I thought I had imagined it, that they seemed centered on me.”

Jhone shook her head. “’Tis true, but why?”

At that, Milisant shrugged. “Why else? Ransom. ’Tis hardly a secret, with all the improvements made in the last ten years to Dunburh’s defenses, that Papa’s coffers are nigh overflowing. And I am his heir.”

Jhone chuckled. “Aye, but who would know that you are his heir, to look at you?”

Milisant grinned. “True. Yet Dunburh sees much traffic in the way of traveling merchants and minstrels, and more frequently, mercenaries seeking work, any of whom could have found out who I am. ’Twas likely some of those mercenaries who got turned down, who saw kidnapping me as an easy way to fill their pockets.”