“What are you talking about?” Myles said, frowning. “Sit back down, Lady Munstone. You’re drunk.”
Curtis held up a hand to silence his brother, but Larue lashed out at him. “Why couldn’t it have been you?” she said, her voice lifting as she glared at Myles. “Why did it have to be Curtis? If your father was going to force one of you to marry a Welsh whore, why did it have to be Curtis?”
Liora and Elle gasped at the blatant insult as Christin, who had been listening to the entire exchanged, moved like lightning. Before Curtis could stop her, she was on Larue, her fingers biting into the woman’s arm.
“Get out of here, you drunken fool,” she said. “Get out of here before I cut your tongue out.”
Larue gasped in pain as Christin squeezed, and Myles and Curtis were forced to separate them. Curtis had hold of Larue, turning her in the direction of her husband’s table.
“Return to your husband, Larue,” he growled. “For the insult you have dealt to my wife, tell him to go back to yourencampment. He is not welcome at Brython, and nor are you. Get out.”
But Larue wouldn’t be pushed around. She slapped at Curtis’ hands, stumbling away from him.
“Don’t touch me!” she nearly screamed. “You… you stupid beast! I know all about your wife and how she was not a virgin when you married her! I know how she kept company with Welsh rebels, warming their bed! We all know that you were forced into this marriage because she is of Welsh royal blood, but royal blood of the Welsh is no better than the blood of dogs. You married a dog when you could have married me!”
The entire room had fallen into shocked silence as Larue shouted her venom. There wasn’t one person in the hall who hadn’t heard her. Through it all, Elle stood stock-still, unmoving and hardly breathing. She was so shocked that she couldn’t do anything but stand there, cut to the bone by the woman’s accusations, but Curtis wasn’t silent in the least. It occurred to him that Larue was repeating what she had heard because someone on this night had been spreading rumors. He didn’t know who, or why, but something had been going on.
Something nasty.
He, too, had wondered why no one else was dancing on this night when it should have been filled with merry revelers. Instead, the guests seemed to be keeping to themselves as the de Lohr family enjoyed the food and wine and music. When the dancing first started, he’d wondered why no one joined them, but because Elle had been having such a good time, he didn’t think any more about it. He was focused on her, as he should be. But now…
Now, he could see that something was most definitely afoot. That was why no one was dancing or singing or celebrating. Like the small-minded bastards they were, someone had started a rumor about a Welshwoman and the others had listened. Ellewas not one of them. She wasn’t English, so the crowd was more than willing to believe any slander spoken against her. They were showing their true colors.
Now, he was about to show his.
“So this is what has happened,” he said, looking at Larue with unmitigated disgust before looking to the group of guests. Enraged, he leapt onto the nearest table, scattering the empty cups as he shouted. “Is that what has happened? You have all heard some vicious gossip and, suddenly, you have decided to shun my wife? Is that why you’re all crowded away from the dais?”
His voice was reverberating off the roof by the time he finished. He could see Robert de Wolfe and Tristan de Royans near the entry, but they weren’t part of the group that was huddled together. When they heard him shouting, they came away from the entry and moved past the other guests, going to take a stand near Christopher and Curtis and the de Lohr family. Bretton de Llion had been with them, and he, too, moved over to the de Lohr side. Sean and Caius, who had blended into the group to discover why they’d been so standoffish, now had their answer. They, too, began to move away. All of them moved over to the de Lohr family, as something quite serious was evidently happening.
They would side with de Lohr to the death.
Even against petty rumors.
But Curtis was beyond livid. He was still drunk, which made his actions more dramatic, but he was a very big man with a very nasty temper when aroused, and the guests and allies he’d invited for a celebratory feast were going to find that out firsthand.
He spoke with great animation.
“Since some of you have chosen to listen to slanderous gossip about my wife, let me be plain,” he said. “Elle was marriedbefore. She is a widow. That is why she was not a virgin coming into our marriage, if it’s any of your damn business. As for warming the beds of Welsh rebels, nothing could be further from the truth. My wife is the daughter of Gwenwynwyn ap Owain, and she has spent her life fighting for the rights of her people. Rather than sit on her arse and dictate to others, like so many of you do, she chose to fight alongside them, and that is noble and admirable. And as for my being forced into this marriage, let me assure you that it was not the case. While the marriage was arranged, I love my wife and we are very happy. That is something most of you cannot claim, so if you must gossip about a woman you do not know simply because she is Welsh, then I believe I must rethink my alliance with the lot of you.”
John Munstone, who hadn’t paid much attention to his wife until she spouted off about the rumors regarding Lady Leominster, stepped forward. He had seen his wife earlier in the evening, whispering rumors to others, and with her most recent explosion, he realized that she was largely to blame for the situation.
John didn’t want to lose the de Lohr alliance.
“Forgive me, my lord,” he said, heading in Larue’s direction even as he was begging pardon. “I… I do not believe my wife meant any harm. We were only concerned for you and your reputation.”
Curtis scowled. “How dare you lie to my face,” he said. “You were concerned foryourreputation, not mine. You were concerned how you would be viewed if you associated with a man married to a woman with a sullied reputation, so your lies are unbecoming, Munstone. You are supposed to be a great warlord, but you clearly have the mind of a muddled fishwife. All of you do.”
John cleared his throat nervously, glancing back to the group of shocked people. “You are correct,” he finally said. “It is… regrettable.”
Curtis wasn’t in a forgiving mood. “Regrettable?” he said. “Is that all you have to say? I do not even care who started these rumors, but you listened to them and you believed them and you repeated them. Against a woman who has never done you any harm. Do you know why I arranged for this feast tonight? Because I wanted to introduce her to you. To everyone. I wanted to show her how noble and loyal our allies are. But you made me a liar. I told her you were good people, and you made a liar out of me.”
John appeared truly remorseful. “Sometimes it is… difficult,” he said, trying to make excuses. “Your wife is Welsh, after all. Most of us have lost friends and loved ones to the Welsh. It is harder to accept the Welsh sometimes.”
“And easier to believe any slander about them.”
“Unfortunately, it is.”
That only fueled Curtis’ fury, and he unleashed on that small, timid man. “If you’d like to spread rumors that are actually true, let us speak ofyourwife and how many beds she warmed before you married her,” he said angrily. “I know that for a fact because she tried to worm her way into my bed on more than one occasion. I do not think there is an aroused manhood between Hereford and Brookthorpe that she hasn’t put her mouth on, so before you go spreading foul rumors about others, you had better keep your own house in check, Munstone. If you are looking for whores, look no further than the one who bears your name.”
