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 dressmeant 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 kitchenarea, 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 amwearingwhat 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 thatcan 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?”
