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A li had a problem.

It had little to do with her wedding. The ceremony had been brief, far briefer than the priest likely thought appropriate. Colin’s hand on his sword hilt had kept the man pressing on—and skipping over vast stretches of the text—without hesitation.

A hasty though substantial enough wedding feast had been provided, as well as more musical offerings by her father’s minstrels.

Though Colin had begun to drum his fingers in irritation on the table after but one verse of the first song, he’d shown admirable restraint during the course of a rather long evening, only heaving eight or nine sighs great enough to untune all the lutes in the hall.

But it was this that she thought might truly bring the hall down around their ears.

“The what?” Colin asked in astonishment.

“The standing up,” her father said, looking baffled. He sat at his place at the high table, wiped his mouth with a bit of cloth, and looked at Colin in surprise. “’Tis the custom. Don’t you know?”

“Of course I know. I just never intended it to happen to me!”

Well, Ali thought with a smile, that sounded a little bit like his whole marriage, truth be told.

“But ... ,” her father protested.

Colin rose from his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “’Tis a barbaric and undignified practice,” he announced. “And it will not happen tonight.”

“Perhaps ’Tis best,” Ali offered dryly, “lest you find yourself with a reason to flee.”

The look she was favored with would have terrified her two months before. Now she only laughed, which caused the look to darken considerably.

“Well, but of course, my lord,” her father said hastily, his tone showing that Colin’s scowl had at least made its intended point with someone in the hall. “I surely won’t force you to do something you find distasteful. Whatever pleases you.”

“What would please me,” Colin said, sitting down with a grunt, “is not having to listen to any more screeching.”

“Minstrels, seek your suppers!” her father called immediately.

There was, unsurprisingly, a frantic rush for one of the lower tables, where knights and other sundries were summarily pushed aside to make way for hungry musicians.

Ali sat back in her chair and smiled to herself.

Perhaps there was benefit after all to be wed to someone of Colin’s ferocity.

She looked at her father and wondered, though, if he felt differently.

He was looking at her with the same kind of pity one might use for a poor, hapless soul who was about to be cast into a pit of asps.

Ali smiled at him reassuringly. After all, she’d been wooed—in Colin fashion, of course, but she wasn’t going to dispute the result.

She was now wed, and now that she was wed, she would engage in matrimonial activities.

And to be sure, she’d heard enough about them from Sybil’s sisters, who had periodically come to regale their youngest sibling with all manner of tales, told without any embarrassment, but certainly intending to shock and terrify.

And on Sybil, those tales had wrought their intended work.

As for Ali herself, she had merely taken it as a fact of life. Sybil’s sisters hadn’t looked displeased with their lots. And did a woman but love her man somewhat, surely it couldn’t be unpleasant.

But, of course, that assumed that Colin intended to see to his part in the affair. She would have asked him about his intentions, but he was industriously sniffing at various parts of his person. She tried not to stare, but she simply couldn’t help herself.

A look of dismay descended on his features.

He shoved back from the table suddenly. “I will return,” he said, then trotted off toward the kitchens.

Ali couldn’t imagine he would bathe. Perhaps he was going to go roll himself in a bit of ale. She looked at her sire and shrugged. “I’ve no idea what he’s about.”

He reached out and grasped her hand between his own. “My sweet girl, it isn’t too late. Until the marriage has been consummated, it still isn’t too late. By the saints, Aliénore, I don’t know if I can bear this. I can spirit you away, hide you at another keep—”

“Father,” she said, amused, “I’ve already done that for myself, and look you now where I have wound up. Nay,” she said, shaking her head, “he is a good man.”

“Quite rough about the edges,” her father muttered.

“But I think he’s fond of me.”

“But tonight—”

“Tonight will proceed as it will. Like as not, he’ll prefer to pass the time sharpening his sword.”

He looked at her for several moments in silence, then sighed heavily.

“Perhaps you have it aright. He does look at you with great affection. I daresay he won’t use you ill.

At least he’d best not.” He looked at her with an expression of fierceness that almost rivaled Colin’s. “He’ll answer to me otherwise.”

“Of course, Father.”

He rose. “I’ve something for you. Don’t let him carry you off until I’ve returned with it.”

Ali leaned back in her chair and wondered if waiting was to become her lot in life now. First for her husband—and ’twas passing strange to call Colin that—then next for her father. The saints pity her when she had a houseful of children.

But apparently her father didn’t intend that she wait long. He returned with something in a small box. He sat next to her and presented it with what she could only call reverence.

“Here,” he said. “My treasure.”

Well, it didn’t look like bags of gold. Sir Etienne would have been sorely disappointed. Ali looked at her sire. “Shouldn’t Colin have this?”

“’Tis yours by right. I only intended to give it to your spouse that he might give it to you. Open it, if you like.”

Ali lifted the lid carefully and set it aside. And there, on a very worn bit of cloth, sat a small round bit of stiff cloth with a tiny portrait on it.

Of her mother.

Ali looked up at her father, tears in her eyes. He smiled, tears in his own eyes.

“Not a day has passed since that I haven’t grieved for her loss. I thought you should have it, for your own comfort. And I thought your husband should see it, that he might know how much he should treasure you.”

She set the box aside and put her arms around her father.

And then she wept. She wept first for the mother she’d lost, then for the years she wouldn’t have with her, and finally for the children of hers her mother would never see.

And then she wept a bit for her father, that he’d lost something very precious to him.

And then she realized that more than just her tears were dampening her. She pulled back, but her father’s weeping was confined to his face alone. Then she looked up and found that Colin was standing over her, his hair dripping down onto her and whatever else was in its path.

So he had bathed.

’Twas no wonder he looked so miserable.

“What ails you?” she asked, dragging her sleeve across her eyes.

“You regret wedding me,” he said grimly. “I can see it.”

“Well, of course I don’t.”

“Then what has wrenched these tears from your eyes?”

She handed the box to him. “Look inside, but don’t drip on it.”

He held it far out of harm’s way, then peered closely at the portrait. Then he looked at her.

“Your dam?”

“Aye.”

Colin stared at it for a moment or two longer, then looked at her father. “You loved her.”

“As you should love her daughter, or you’ll answer to me.”

Colin seemed to take that seriously enough. He nodded, then handed the box back to Ali.

Ali took her treasure, put it away, then waited. She realized quite quickly that a growing, and very uncomfortable, silence was beginning to fill the space between the three of them. She looked up at Colin.

“Did you bathe?” she asked, surprised.

He turned a very fiery shade of red. “And what if I did?”

“Very brave.”

“Very brave is the soul who follows me into that water,” he said with a shiver. “And I vow the soap took off much of my skin.” He looked at Denis with a scowl. “Bathing in your house is perilous, my lord.”

“I’ll have it seen to. Now,” Denis said, taking a deep breath, “you may take my chamber, if you like. It has been prepared for your use.”

“Use?” Colin squeaked.

Ali smiled to herself, then rose. “We aren’t heading into a pitched battle. We’re merely going to retire.”

“Retire,” he repeated. “Um, aye, retire. Indeed, we should likely do so.”

“You can regale me with tales of danger before we sleep.” She leaned over and kissed her father’s cheek. “Good night, my lord. Rest well.”

“You too,” he managed, looking a bit green.

Colin looked green as well. By the saints, when had the men about her acquired such weak stomachs? Apparently she was doomed to take the lead in this. Ah, well, to each his own strengths, she supposed.

“Come, my lord,” she said, gathering up her box, then taking Colin by the hand. “We’ll retire now and recover from your day’s labors. I know they were heavy ones.”

Colin only grunted and followed her. Ali led the way up the steps and down the passageway, then up more steps and down another passageway to her father’s bedchamber.

She supposed she should have felt a bit queasy about being there with a husband, but there was almost a little satisfaction in being able to sleep in comfort whilst Marie slept in the dungeon with the vermin and slime.

Ali opened the door and entered, then let Colin pass by her. He set a candle down on a trunk, then looked about him with about as much enthusiasm as he might have at an inescapable prison.

Ali smiled to herself, lit another pair of candles, set her mother’s portrait on the table, and sat down before the brazier to warm her toes. She patted a place on the wide bench next to her.

“Comfortable,” she said encouragingly.

Colin shut the door, bolted it, and then leaned back against the door. “So’s the door,” he said.

She laughed. “You wouldn’t think a man of your reputation would be nervous of anything.”

“Nervous?” he said, puffing out his chest. “I am not nervous. I’m merely trying to ... um ... spare you any nervousness.”

“Kind of you.”