“Aye, my lord,” Dane dashed to his bed and sat down to remove his shoes, eager to obey.
Gaston closed the door softly, his mind lingering on the little boy and his beauteous mother. The lad’s confession only served to reinforce his earlier declaration.
He would protect them from their nightmare.
CHAPTER SIX
The next daydawned warm and humid, and the men were sweating buckets underneath their plate armor and mail. Gaston’s hair was completely wet with perspiration, slicked back on his head to keep it out of his face.
He was supervising the cleanup of the sublevels of the outer wall in preparation of the arrival of the new recruits from London. The tanner and the blacksmith had to be relocated, adding to the task, and Gaston set the masons to work on an additional shelter to house more knights. The shelter, located where the tanner and the blacksmith had been housed, used the outer wall as one wall and was planned to house up to forty knights.
It was dirty, smelly, hot work and tempers were ripe. Arik snapped at Patrick, Patrick would snap at everyone, and Antonius was soundly reprimanded by Gaston when he removed every strip of clothing from the waist up. Antonius had the body of a Roman statue, muscular and lean and completely beautiful and he was not ashamed to display his flesh. It tanned quickly underneath the hot sun, but Gaston put an end to it and angrily sent the man to the sublevels to supervise the cleanup.
But not before Jasmine had seen him half nude from her bedchamber window. At first she was embarrassed, but she quickly discovered he was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen and was greatly disappointed when Gaston put an end to her fun. Yet she came away from the window with her opinion of the male sex slightly swayed, a very large step indeed. Mayhap not all men were vile, horrid creatures. There was apparently one that was quite easy to look at.
The castle provided minimum relief from the heat. Remington had seen to her morning duties dressed in a gauzy linen surcoat that swept the floor behind her when she walked, the v-shaped neckline draping beautifully between the swells of her breasts. Her curly mane was swept back into a gold net to keep it off her neck, but rogue tendrils escaped and curled against her face and shoulders.
By late morning it was far too hot to do anything more than sit and embroider and she found her sisters doing exactly that in the solar.
Jasmine and Skye were working on Skye’s loom. The youngest sister was not particularly talented on the frame and Jasmine was doing her best to repair the damage.
“What are you making, Skye?” Remington asked curiously. She couldn’t for the life of her tell what the figures were.
“I am trying to weave an Ariadne and a spider web,” Skye said insistently. “If Jasmine would leave me be, it would work out.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes, pulling at a piece of thread. “This is no spider web, Skye, unless it was woven by a drunk spider. And Ariadne looks as if her body has melted.”
Remington giggled at Skye’s embarrassment, opening her thin golden fan and waving it at herself swiftly. “Keep trying, sweetheart. You shall catch on.”
“What about Rory?” Jasmine asked, biting her tongue between her teeth in concentration.
Remington glanced through the narrow window that looked out over the bailey. “I intend to go and see her now, to make sure she isn’t melting herself.”
“Is the Dark Knight going to let her out?” Skye asked. She missed her closest sister.
Remington moved away from the window, fanning herself. “I do not know. He said he would consider it, I think.”
“Even after you tried to break her out?” Skye asked, wondering if the Dark Knight had punished Remington last night but was afraid to ask.
“I was not trying to free her, I was merely attempting to speak with her,” Remington insisted. “I was opening the door to go in, not let her out.”
“Did you tell de Russe that?” Jasmine had stopped her movements and was looking up at her.
“Nay,” Remington avoided her sister’s gaze. “I saw no point in it. He would not believe me, anyway.
“Well, I say there is no harm in trying,” Jasmine said. “He does not seem so quick to judge as Guy did.”
Remington almost cringed at the sound of her husband’s name. The more time passed, the more afraid she was that he would eventually return. They had been so happy in his absence and she couldn’t bear to think that life would again turn bitter when he came home. If he ever came home.
“Yesterday, de Russe told Dane that he would protect us from Guy,” she said softly, the hair on her face lifting gently from the fan as she gazed at the window pensively.
Jasmine and Skye looked shocked. “He did?” Jasmine said incredulously. “How can he say that?”
“I do not know,” Remington glanced at her sisters. “But he said it, and I believe him. I am not sure why I do, but I do.”
“He cannot protect us from Guy,” Jasmine went back to the loom, mayhap a bit angrily. “No one short of God can protect us.”
Remington watched her sisters a moment, wanting them to feel the same faith she did. “He is the Dark Knight, is he not? ’Tis said he is in league with the devil. Mayhap if God will not help us, the devil will.”
