Page 6

CHAPTER FIVE

“A re you going to stop fighting?”

The question came from Curtis. He was holding tight to Elle, who was still angry, still struggling after the encounter with her brother. Curtis had hauled her to his tent, but he hadn’t released her. Even though he’d set her on her feet, he’d trapped her arms behind her back so she couldn’t get away from him or really move at all without causing herself pain. Even so, she kicked and twisted and cursed.

Curtis simply let her get it out of her system.

“Well?” he said. “Answer me. Are you going to stop fighting?”

Although he wasn’t hurting her deliberately, he was holding her firmly, and Elle had twisted around so much that she was the one hurting herself. Her arms were in great pain from the way he had her in his grip. Knowing they couldn’t stay like that all night, she was forced to nod her head.

“Aye,” she muttered. “I will.”

“And I have your word?”

Twisted up and in pain, she rolled her eyes. “You have my word.”

“And I have your word that you will not leave this tent?”

“Would you believe me if I promised?”

“I will believe you,” he said. “But violate that trust and I will never believe you again, about anything, so bear that in mind. My trust is given only once.”

He couldn’t see the face she made, one of utter displeasure and resignation, before finally nodding her head. Instantly, he let her arms go, and she groaned softly as they fell to her side, shaking them out because her hands had fallen asleep. Rubbing her fingers and silently cursing Curtis and his iron grip, she kept her back to him as he moved to the tent opening and summoned a soldier. The man went running for Curtis’ squire as Curtis moved for the open brazier in the center of his tent. As he piled on some peat from a bucket, Elle turned to look at him.

Things were calmer now than they had been only moments earlier. Seeing Gruffydd freed from the vault had startled her. Not that she hadn’t known he would make an appearance at some point, but she hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks. He looked terrible from his days in the vault with little food and no light.

But she didn’t regret putting him there. She’d do it again given the chance. She thought it rather ironic that she was now the one in a prison of sorts, a looming marriage and an uncertain future. That was worse than anything she could do to her brother.

She found herself looking at the man she was supposed to marry.

Curtis was packing peat into the brazier, preparing to light it, and she watched him for a moment. Those enormous hands had held her with a grip of iron. Truthfully, she’d never known a man as big or as strong as he was. Usually, she was one of the strongest people in the room. Not by size, of course, but by personality and determination. She was used to giving commands that men obeyed. But Curtis… He was bigger and stronger and more determined than she ever had been. She could see it in his face, feel it in his hands. Everything about him screamed power and command. She was coming to think that power like that was attractive. Any man who could force her into submission, by words or by strength, had her respect, because that was something she understood.

Strength.

“That’s a rather harsh stance, don’t you think?” she said after a moment.

He glanced at her. “About what?”

“That your trust is only given once.”

He adjusted the peat before packing in some brittle kindling. “It is not harsh. It is the truth.”

He sounded final. Elle watched him light the fire, studying him. “But people make mistakes,” she said. “It is the nature of man to err. If a genuine mistake happens, that destroys all of your trust?”

He struck a flint and stone, blowing on the sparks as they caught the kindling. “If you ran after your brother to fight him once you promised not to would not be a mistake,” he said, “that would be a deliberate action, made by choice. There is a difference between a choice and a mistake.”

He had an answer for everything, right though he may be. With a heavy sigh, Elle turned away again, and, spying a stool, she planted herself on it. As she sat there and continued to rub at her hands, a tall young man appeared in the entry. He was clad in mail and the blue and yellow de Lohr tunic, and his long blond hair was pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He faced Curtis eagerly.

“Curt?” he said. “You sent for me?”

Curtis looked at the young man. “Aye,” he said. “Is my equipment cleaned?”

The boy nodded. “Aye,” he said. “I was finishing with your sword. There is some grime in the hilt I’m trying to get clean.”

“Good,” Curtis said. “You can have this mail now, too. Help me get it off.”

With that, he unstrapped the empty scabbard from around his waist and tossed it aside. The filthy de Lohr tunic he was wearing came off, and he tossed that aside, too. Then he bent over and extended his arms to the lad, who took hold of the arms of his mail coat and began to pull. He alternated tugging at the neckline and the arms. By working both positions, he was able to slide the heavy mail coat off Curtis with relative ease.

After that, the lad helped him remove other pieces of protection that Curtis wore. Soon enough, Curtis was stripped down to a sweat-stained linen tunic, leather breeches, and his boots. As the squire gathered up all of the articles of protection and clothing to take with him, Curtis stopped him before he could get out of the door.

“Put those things aside for now,” he said. “I want you to go to Papa’s tent and find the big chest he brings with him. You know the one—with the lions carved on the side. Buried in that chest are things for Mama. He’s had them for years because she used to come along on battle marches from time to time. See if there’s anything serviceable for a woman, and bring it to me along with anything you can find for a bath.”

The young man frowned. “A bath ?” he repeated.

Curtis pointed over at Elle, who stiffened up when she realized they were focused on her. “The lady requires something other than the damp clothing she is wearing,” he said. “She smells like a hermit who has lived in a cave for forty years, so find soap and a comb and anything else. Anything Mama or Papa might have in that chest that the lady can use, bring it. And hurry up. I cannot stand her smell much longer.”

Wide-eyed, the boy fled, arms full of Curtis’ things. Elle was so humiliated by the comments on her smell that she averted her gaze, looking at her hands again. It was rare that she didn’t bite back, at least verbally, but she’d been sparring with Curtis since they fell off the wall, and she was weary of him always being right. She was even wearier of him acting superior. Since she had only just calmed down, she didn’t want to rise to the occasion with him.

Again.

Whatever she did, it seemed to work against her.

Elle kept her head lowered, listening to Curtis move around the tent. It was post-battle, so there were things he had to do. She could hear him rummaging around off to her right, and she dared to lift her head, noticing that he was going through a trunk. He removed a box and set it on a portable table with a chipped leg. Then he pulled a chair up to it, the only chair in the tent, and opened the box.

Interested, she watched him pull forth a small phial and set it on the table. A quill came out, and a small leather pouch that looked as if it had rocks in it. Finally, he drew forth a sheet of vellum, a small sheet, and began to write on it.

Curiosity had the better of her at that point.

“What are you writing?” she asked.

He didn’t look up from his task. “An account of the battle.”

“Why?”

“So we will remember what happened here.”

She thought about that for a moment. “Is it something special?”

He shook his head as he carefully scripted out each letter. “Not particularly.”

“Then why do it?”

“It is mostly for my father’s records,” he said. “He likes to keep an accounting of how long the battle took, what happened, how many men were lost. Things of that nature.”

“But why?”

He did look up then. “To understand what could have been done better,” he said. “To give an accounting to the king. And to keep a record for future generations.”

Her brow furrowed. “The nature of war cannot be tallied,” she said. “Every battle is different.”

He went back to his task. “Exactly.”

Elle didn’t understand his response. She was trying to figure out why he should want to remember a battle at all, especially if he won it. Shouldn’t one remember only the victory and not the price paid?

It made little sense to her.

“Do you always do this?” she asked.

He dipped his quill in the inkpot. “Always.”

“Will you write about me?”

“You in particular.”

That didn’t sit well with her. “Why?” she demanded. “What will you say about me?”

He was focused on his writing. “That the daughter of Gwenwynwyn ap Owain became our prisoner,” he said. Then he glanced at her. “And possibly my wife.”

She deflated somewhat with the reminder of where her future was headed. “And you still think this is a good idea?”

He paused writing and shrugged. “It does not matter what I think,” he said. “What matters is the good of all. If our marriage can save lives, Welsh and English, why wouldn’t we?”

Elle simply didn’t have a snappy comeback for that. She’d argued with him before, and, somehow, he’d always gained the upper hand. Closing her eyes for a brief moment in resignation, she hung her head again.

But Curtis was watching her. He wasn’t as detached as he pretended to be, mostly because he was weary from the battle and unbalanced from his father’s directive. He was trying to figure out just how he felt about the woman he was supposed to marry, even if he had no choice in the matter. As he’d told her, his behavior toward her would, in large part, be dictated by her. She could be civil or she could build their entire marriage on a raging battle between them.

He sincerely hoped she didn’t choose the latter.

“You still have not warmed to the idea,” he said after a moment. “Not that I blame you. I’m not sure I have, but you and I are just small pieces of a larger game. There are those who control this game, and they tell us what must be done to make it complete. If you could save the lives of your men by a marriage, wouldn’t you?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “As you said, it does not matter what I think,” she said. “I am going to be forced into this whether or not I want it.”

“Are you opposed to marriage in general?”

Was she? No, she wasn’t. But what Curtis didn’t know was that she’d been married once before, to an old man. He’d been a friend of her father’s, and at the tender age of thirteen years, she had been wed to him. Cadwalader ap Dai had been a very nice man, and very important to her people because he was part of the royal house of the ancient kingdom of Gwent. Elle’s father had hoped that his daughter would breed a new generation of royals for Gwent, which would, in turn, become an ally to Powys. Cadwalader had been kind and gentle, but mating between them had been a nightmare because his manhood would barely become stiff enough to complete the task.

That was all Elle knew of relations between a man and a woman.

She had been young and impressionable, and Cadwalader had been old and shriveled. She could still see that wrinkly body and smell the scent of an elderly man who wasn’t fond of bathing. He’d touched her as if he were afraid of her, and when it came time to consummate the marriage… Elle had found it uncomfortable and embarrassing.

Fortunately, Cadwalader had no real interest in his young wife, and Elle always received the impression that he was fearful of her somehow. It only occurred to her after his death that she represented his inability to perform as a man, because he rarely touched her, and when he did, it was yet another uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. When they’d been married six months and she wasn’t pregnant, Cadwalader told his men that she was barren to save himself the embarrassment of admitting he couldn’t perform well enough to impregnate her. It wasn’t as if Elle could dispute him. When he finally died eight months into their marriage, she did her best to forget about a man who had been completely forgettable.

But here she was, anticipating a marriage again, but not without great reluctance. Her only experience with it had been a poor one, and she’d managed to convince herself over the years that Cadwalader couldn’t become properly aroused because she wasn’t particularly attractive. Curtis had no idea what he was getting into. Perhaps he needed to know, for his own sake.

Trouble was, she was so embarrassed about it that she could hardly bring up the subject.

“I suppose I am opposed to marriage in general,” she finally said. “I simply do not want any part of it.”

“Why not?”

She swallowed hard. “Because… because men do not like me, and I do not like them,” she said, which was a lie. She did like men, but to admit she did, when they didn’t like her, was shameful. “I do not want to marry a man simply so he can tell me what to do. I do not need to be ordered about.”

Curtis sat back in his chair, scratching his cheek. “That is a very narrow view of marriage.”

“How would you know?” she said. “Have you ever been married?”

He shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “Why? Have you?”

He’d asked the fateful question. If you break my trust, I will never give it again . Those words were ringing in her head. Her relationship with the man was difficult anyway. She didn’t want to add mistrust to the mix, because it would make it miserable for the both of them. She simply wasn’t willing to lie to him.

She hoped she wouldn’t die from embarrassment.

“Aye,” she said, barely audible. “I have.”

That changed his whole mood. He set the quill down, staring at her as if she’d just said something surprising. “You have ?” he asked.

She nodded, but didn’t say anything more. She told him she’d been married, so she hadn’t lied to him. But, God help her, she didn’t want to elaborate. She’d never spoken of it, not during or after everything happened. It was a humiliation she kept buried deep inside, and she was damn well not going to confess it to a Saesneg.

To Curtis.

But he wasn’t going to let her admit something like that and not tell him the entire story. Standing up, he picked up his chair and brought it over to where she was sitting. He plopped the chair down about two feet in front of her and sat on it, facing her.

“You will tell me everything,” he said quietly. “When were you married, and to whom?”

He was being surprisingly gentle. She had expected him to be irate with the news, but he wasn’t. He was being quite calm and… kind, even. Elle wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse.

“It… it was a long time ago,” she said, hardly above a whisper. “You must understand that I am the last of my line. Other than Gruffydd, there are no other sons or daughters of Gwenwynwyn ap Owain. Legitimate ones, that is.”

He nodded patiently. “I understand,” he said. “Go on.”

She couldn’t look at him. “He was the last of a royal house of Gwent,” she said. “He was very old and I was very young. We’d not yet been married a year when he died.”

Curtis studied her for a moment. “No children?”

“No children.”

“Was the marriage consummated?”

Elle didn’t know why, but she burst into quiet tears. She was a lass who never gave in to emotion, but here she was, weeping in front of a stranger. It was so terribly humiliating, the question he was asking. She didn’t sense he was doing it to be cruel. He simply wanted to know, especially if he was being ordered to marry her. It was his right to know. Before she could answer, however, the flap of the tent snapped back and the squire appeared with bundles of fabric in his arms. Behind him, men were lugging what amounted to a big iron cauldron.

Curtis quickly stood up.

“Put the pot over here,” he said, indicating a corner of the tent away from the door. “Fill it halfway with hot water, and be quick about it.”

The soldiers carrying the cauldron dropped it in the corner and fled the tent as Curtis went over to the bed where Westley was laying out some clothing.

“I found this,” Westley said, holding up a woman’s dress. “There were a couple of others, but they are not well maintained. I do not know if Mama knows, but Papa seems to have not paid much attention to them. She’ll be furious when she finds out.”

Curtis grinned weakly, inspecting the dress his brother was holding up. It was made of brown broadcloth, with long sleeves, a rounded neckline, and a tailored bodice with a big skirt. It was plain, and not particularly attractive, but he knew it was a dress meant for travel or work. His mother didn’t care if it got dirty. He eyed it a moment before glancing over his shoulder at Elle, who was still quietly weeping.

“Mama is not a big woman,” he said. “She’s short.”

Westley nodded. “She is, indeed,” he said. “But she has big…”

He trailed off, suddenly embarrassed that he was about to comment on his mother’s bosom. Curtis snorted at his red-faced brother.

“Aye, she has,” he said. “Because she nursed a gaggle of foolish and ungrateful children, myself excluded.”

Westley looked at him with confusion. “What does that mean?”

Curtis thumped him on the head. “It means we should have drowned you when you were born,” he said. “I tried, but Mama said we shouldn’t.”

As Westley rubbed the spot Curtis had thumped, unhappy with his comment, Curtis turned to the other garments that the lad had brought. Along with the brown dress, there was a blue one of nearly the same design, and then a couple of shifts that were wrinkled. One had a big water stain on it, from water dripping through the chest and onto the garment. It wasn’t that they had been treated poorly, but merely tightly folded and shoved down into the bottom of a chest. They’d been there for years. There was also a small wooden box that contained the remnants of soap that smelled of lemons, a scrub brush made from frayed reeds, a comb, and a few other things that a lady might need, including hairpins. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

“This is adequate for now,” he told Westley. “When the lady bathes, she can borrow one of these. In the meanwhile, send for some food. I haven’t eaten since early this morning.”

Westley trudged out of the tent as men began to bring in buckets of hot water. They had a big iron pot near the kitchen area, bubbling with hot water to be used for wounds and washing, so seven big buckets from that cauldron filled up the pot to a little over half full. One last bucket of cold water made it so it wasn’t scalding.

With the soap and the scrub brush in hand, Curtis made his way over to Elle.

“Here is soap and a brush for your bath,” he said, setting them down on the chair he’d been sitting on. “I have clothing for you to wear once you are clean. It belongs to my mother, who is a little fuller than you are, but the clothes should fit nicely until you can change into something you own.”

Elle had stopped weeping from his question about the consummation of her marriage, but Curtis’ statement had her looking at him with a mixture of disdain and puzzlement.

“Something of my own?” she repeated. “I am wearing what I own. I do not come from a fine family where everything is provided for me, so what you see on my body is everything I have. There is nothing else I own.”

Curtis ignored her tone because he knew talk of her previous marriage had upset her. He went over to the cot and held up the brown dress and the blue dress. “You may wear either of these,” he said. “Whichever one you like. These are traveling garments, so they are not as fine as a lady should have, but they are serviceable.”

For some reason, his kind gesture was having the opposite effect with her. He was completely rubbing her the wrong way with his assumption that she lived the way any fine English noblewoman lived. There was entitlement in his tone. This was a man born to privilege and raised in it, and it was the first inclination that he had no concept of how she lived or what her life was like.

If the man was still determined to marry her, then perhaps he should be aware.

“Let me be clear with you on a few things, Sir Curtis,” she said, standing up from the little stool she’d been perched on. “I do not, nor have I ever, lived as a fine lady. I told you that I was born to a father who did not want a daughter and a mother who hated the sight of me. I’ve never owned a gown in my life. I’ve never had anything given to me. Everything I have, I have had to earn myself. You wanted to know if my marriage was consummated? I was given over to Cadwalader ap Dai when I was barely thirteen years of age and he had seen seventy years and six. He’d been married before, several times, and he only had one daughter as a result. My father and Cadwalader were hoping I could produce a son of Gwent, to carry on the Gwent kingdom and forever ally it to Powys. But I married a shriveled old man who could not perform as a husband should and then blamed our lack of children on me. He told everyone I was barren. Was the marriage consummated? It was, in the most horrible and humiliating way imaginable. Now you know enough about me to go to your father and tell him that we should not be wed. I’ve been telling you that from the beginning. Mayhap now you will believe me.”

With that, she turned her back on him and sat on the stool again. The only reason she turned her back was because hot, furious tears had popped from her eyes and were now coursing down her cheeks. She didn’t wipe them away because she didn’t want him to see her doing it, so she let them fall.

But Curtis didn’t turn away from her. In fact, he didn’t move. He just stood there, and Elle swore she could feel his stare against her back. Then she could hear his joints popping behind her as he moved, undoubtedly to tell his father.

But he did something else.

“I like the blue dress,” he said quietly, picking it up from the cot. “It will match your eyes. I believe my father has a screen that can give you some privacy as you bathe. He uses it to block the wind from the tent opening, but I am certain he can spare it.”

Elle looked at him sharply. “Do you not understand?” she said. “I do not know anything about a noble household. I do not know anything about being a lady. You are a titled lord who will inherit an empire someday. What a sorry sight I will make as your countess.”

He still had the dress in his hand as he snorted wryly. “Do not make this sound as if you are being altruistic,” he said. “You are trying to make it seem like the best thing for me is not to marry you. Mayhap that is true, but I will make my own decision. You will not make it for me.”

“Have I not presented sufficient evidence to help you make that decision?”

He held up a hand to beg pause while he called to a soldier and muttered something to the man about the screen. As the soldier headed away, Curtis returned his attention to Elle.

“Let us speak more when you’ve had a chance to bathe,” he said. “Then I will make my decision.”

Elle wasn’t sure if she felt better or worse. “Then you understand that I am unsuitable?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I understand that you want me to consider you unsuitable.”

“But I am!”

“The truth is that you do not want to marry an Englishman, and for no other reason than that.”

That brought her pause. “That is true,” she said. “I’ve not made any secret of it.”

“You cannot always have what you want.”

Elle sighed heavily. “So I have been told.”

He gave her a long look and turned away, tossing the garment back onto the bed. Then he returned to his table and writing kit, sitting down to continue recording the battle. Elle sat there in silence, listening to him scratch his quill against vellum, her attention turning toward that steaming bath. She could see the soap and scrub brush on the chair, and she had to resist the urge to smell the soap. She couldn’t remember the last time she had bathed, but because she lived with men and lived as one of them, things like baths—and the lack of fine garments mentioned by Curtis—meant nothing to her, not really.

But perhaps there was a part of her that wished that weren’t so.

Truth be told, there had been a time when she wished for that kind of thing, back in the days when she was envious of a woman with a pretty dress or flowers in her hair. But she knew she would never be that kind of woman, nor have pretty things, so she told everyone she didn’t care. She’d said it so much that she’d talked herself into it. She had talked herself into the life that she had because there was nothing better in her future. Not even Cadwalader offered her any hope for a better future where she wasn’t entrenched in regaining lands from the English or plotting ambushes for enemies.

But now…

Now, she was in a completely different world as the prisoner of the English. It occurred to her that perhaps there was a future ahead of her that she hadn’t expected. When this day began, she hadn’t anticipated it to go in this direction. She hadn’t anticipated being in this particular situation, but here she was.

Life was funny sometimes.

She remained quiet, huddled on the stool, while Curtis scratched away on the vellum. He must have been writing an entire epic volume, from what she could hear. She’d been sitting for several minutes when the soldier who had been sent away for the screen suddenly appeared again, bearing the mythical de Lohr screen. It was three attached panels of wood, painted in blues and yellows. Curtis took it from the soldier and propped it up in front of the pot half filled with water that was still steaming. Silently, he went to the bed, picked up one of the shifts, and slung it over the panel. Then he went to dig around in his own chest again, only to come forth with what looked like a cloak or a coverlet.

Elle wasn’t sure what it was, but she’d been watching him curiously since the screen came. She watched him toss the cloak or coverlet over the screen so it, too, was hanging. When he noticed she was looking at him, he simply gestured to it.

“You can use it to dry off with,” he said. “And you can sleep in the shift.”

He went back over to his table and sat down again. Unable to withstand the lure of hot water and soap, Elle stood up.

“Aren’t you leaving?” she asked.

He was looking at his writing. “Nay,” he said. “That is why I brought the screen. So you could have some privacy.”

She stiffened. “I will not—”

“And I am not leaving you alone so you can try to escape,” he snapped, looking at her. It was an uncharacteristically severe expression. “Get used to it, lady. You will do as you are told. Get into that pot or I’ll put you in it myself.”

That sounded much more like the knight Elle had hit in the midsection and toppled off the wall. That harsh knight with the iron grip who had manhandled her and spoken harshly to her. The man who was three times her size and far more powerful than she was. It didn’t occur to her that she probably should have a healthy fear of the man, but she genuinely didn’t like being ordered about.

Still…

She wasn’t stupid.

Without another word, she stepped behind the screen and began pulling off her smelly, dirty clothing. It wasn’t even completely dry from having been in the moat, and as she pulled it off, layer by layer, she came across leaves and debris trapped in the fabric and, eventually, against her skin. When she was finally stripped down, with only her damp, dirty hair and her grimy skin exposed, she quickly climbed into the cauldron to discover that it was, indeed, still fairly hot. As she sat in it, cross-legged, the water rose almost to the top, nearly covering her completely.

With a sigh of delight, she submerged her entire body, including her head.

Coming up for air, she wiped the water out of her eyes and went for the soap and scrub brush. The soap was strong, smelling of lemons, which was a precious commodity in England, but she used it liberally and scrubbed every inch of her body, from her head to her toes. She even scrubbed the nooks and crannies, under her arms and the soles of her feet. Her hair, neck, ears, and face got a particularly strong scrubbing because once she started, she couldn’t stop. She was determined to scrub away that nasty moat water. Perhaps she was determined to scrub away the remnants of a battle that had been unsuccessful and the turmoil her life had become. Or, more correctly, what it would become. Whatever the reason, she scrubbed herself silly.

And it felt wonderful.

When the scrubbing was done and she’d run another layer of the slimy soap over her skin just to be certain she was completely clean, Elle dunked her head in the water once more and came up sputtering. It simply felt good to be clean and warm for the first time in a very long time. It felt so good, in fact, that she startled when the squire returned with food for Curtis, but she didn’t panic. Curtis remaining in the tent was one thing, but the addition of another man was quite another. She didn’t want to be put on display as a pathetic Welsh prisoner. However, there was a screen between her and the young de Lohr brother, so she simply kept still until he left.

It was something of a relief when he did.

After that, she sat in the water until she grew cold, but Curtis didn’t say a word. He ate and wrote, ignoring her for the most part. He’d probably had enough of her, and, given their interaction since their fall from the wall, she could hardly blame him. Therefore, she didn’t speak to him, either, as she finally climbed out of the pot and set about drying herself with the piece of material he’d left for her. At one point, she heard him putting more peat in the brazier, warming up the tent, and she put the towel aside to don the shift he’d provided for her. It was warm and well made, a little roomy in the chest area and a little too short, but she didn’t care. Elle had never worn anything so fine in her entire life.

Dry and warm, but still with damp hair, she came out from behind the screen and went to the brazier to dry her hair. It was giving off a good deal of heat, so she plopped down next to it and began running her fingers through her damp hair to help dry it. As she was doing this, Curtis stood up and went over to the bed. Elle only knew that because she could hear his movements. He was still ignoring her, so she didn’t speak to him. She simply kept running her fingers through her hair until a comb suddenly appeared in front of her face. Startled, she glanced up to see Curtis extending it to her. Hesitantly, she took it.

He went to sit back down again.

It was a thick, well-made comb of tortoiseshell, and she ran it through her hair repeatedly, drying the blonde strands in the heated air. She couldn’t remember the last time she had washed her hair, to be truthful, and it was drying pale blonde and shiny in the warmth. She had rather thick hair, quite straight, but it was full and lovely when she didn’t have it tightly braided into four or five braids all around her head. She continued to comb and comb as it dried fairly quickly. But the warmth, the bath, and the food earlier were having an effect on her.

She was exhausted.

It had been a day to remember, to be certain. She had lost a battle, but she had gained… something. She wasn’t sure what yet, but she’d certainly gained something. Hadn’t she? A new perspective, a new life, such as it was. The more she combed, the sleepier she became, and she yawned several times. She wasn’t sure where she was going to sleep, considering Curtis wasn’t going to let her out of his sight, so perhaps she should simply sleep on the floor in front of the brazier. It wasn’t such a bad place, because he had several woolen hides around the brazier rather than rushes, which would burn if sparks flew. The wool wouldn’t. In fact, she was sitting on a woolen hide that was warm and comfortable. Between the combing and the sleepiness and the warmth, she ended up lying down in front of the brazier. It was too much to stay upright.

Sleep claimed her almost immediately.

Curtis saw her go down. In fact, he’d been glancing at her since she came out from behind the screen. That filthy little creature who had slammed into him on the wall walk had transformed into something quite different. With her blonde hair clean and flowing, dressed in his mother’s old shift, he would have sworn that an angel had just walked into the tent. Truth be told, he hardly recognized her. He’d suspected there was a beauty underneath the grime and sweat, and he’d been right. She was exquisite.

It was a shocking realization.

He was nearly to the end of his journaling for the battle at Brython, but he paused to watch her sleep in front of the brazier. The sun was down by now, with only the light from the tapers on his table giving the tent a gentle glow. Everything else was dark. He finished off the last few sentences of his journal, listening to Elle’s slow and steady breathing. She was sleeping deeply. As he finished the page, sanded it, and put his quill away, he began to feel caddish for letting her sleep on the ground.

His bed was a few feet away and unused.

Quietly, he stood up and went over to her, crouching down to scoop her up from the woolen hide. She smelled fresh, like lemons, a distinct improvement from the mildew smell she’d been harboring. But the moment he picked her up, she started mumbling.

“Dirty… bastard ,” she muttered, trying to slap something, and ended up hitting herself in the neck. “I won’t let you hurt me. You smell like a pig. Why is it… so… dark…?”

She faded off as she snuggled against his chest, her face buried in his shoulder. Curtis couldn’t help the grin as he carried her over to the bed and laid her down, pulling the coverlet over her. She muttered something else about it being dark but settled down quickly as the deep sleep returned. When the snoring came shortly thereafter, Curtis chuckled softly. He found himself standing over her, watching her sleep, thinking many things at that moment. There was so much about her that was foreign to him, but there was also something about her that screamed of loneliness. She seemed so very alone. She’d put her own brother in the vault, so there was evidently no love lost between them, but he didn’t sense she’d done it for malicious reasons. It almost seemed like… self-protection?

Why in the world did she have to protect herself from her own brother?

The lady was, indeed, a paradox.

“Curt?” Westley suddenly burst through the tent flap. “Papa says you must come.”

Curtis turned to look at his gangly youngest brother. “Why?”

Westley pointed in the direction of their father’s tent. “Another woman,” he said. “She says she’s a cousin to your lady. You’d better go.”

That struck Curtis as something of a surprise. “ Another lady?”

Westley nodded. “Papa wants you.”

Curtis glanced over at Elle, sleeping peacefully, before returning his focus to his brother. “You remain here with her,” he said. “She is a skilled warrior, and she wants to escape, so be on your guard. Arm yourself if you must. But do not let her out of your sight. Do you understand me?”

Westley nodded, looking at the lady with some apprehension. “She… she seems tame enough.”

Curtis snorted, but it was without humor. “The moment you truly believe that is the moment she will probably slit your throat,” he said. “Let your guard down with her at your own peril. She is not to be trifled with.”

Westley studied the sleeping woman for a moment before nodding. “As you say,” he said. “But who is she?”

“Don’t you know?”

Westley shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “Who?”

Curtis’ gaze lingered on her for a moment. “A Welsh princess,” he muttered. “A firebrand. She’s everything Welsh that you fear and more. Be vigilant.”

With that, he left Westley watching over Elle and wondering if the lady was really all that trouble. He didn’t want to admit that he was worried about being left alone with her, but he reckoned that he was more than a match for her if she suddenly woke up and got out of hand. An Englishman was always worth more than a Welsh prisoner.

Wasn’t he?

Westley hoped that theory wouldn’t be put to the test before Curtis returned.