“I do not know,” he said honestly. “He paid Roi de Lohr five hundred marks of gold, which was half of your dowry, when the betrothal was agreed upon, so I think he is going to demand the return of the money.”
Diara sighed heavily. “I wonder if they’ll return it?” she said. “I was thinking he was going to demand that I be considered Beckett’s wife and all of the benefits that would entail.”
“Like what?”
“Like anything he would inherit from his father, I suppose,” she said. “I don’t really know. All I know is that my father does not seem the least bit concerned that a young man has died. He only seems to be concerned about the marriage that will never happen now.”
Mathis was watching her as she spoke. Those sweet, slightly red lips that he’d dreamt about kissing. But he shook himself mentally before those thoughts took hold.
Thoughts that would do him no good.
“Whatever he is going to do, he seems to want me and Pryce with him,” he said, looking away and feeling the familiar stab of disappointment. “He is leaving Eddard here in command.”
“When is he leaving?”
“On the morrow.”
Diara thought about her father riding all the way to Lioncross Abbey Castle, the largest castle on the Welsh marches with an enormous standing army. A castle he wanted very much to be allied with by marriage, as he’d told her many times.
That gave her an idea.
“Mathis,” she said. “Do you suppose he is going to Lioncross for another reason?”
Mathis glanced at her. “What other reason?”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “What if he does not want the money returned?”
“Of course he will. That is a good deal of money.”
“But what if he allows them to keep it in exchange for another de Lohr husband?”
That thought hadn’t occurred to Mathis. “The House of de Lohr has many sons and grandsons,” he said. “That may be a distinct possibility.”
Diara thought so, too.
And she hated it.
Slowly, she stood up.
“It would be nice if my father looked at me as his child for once and not something to be bartered with,” she said, turning to mount the steps. “If I had any sense, I’d simply run away.”
She wandered up the steps as Mathis watched her go. When he was certain she was out of earshot, he craned his neck around in time to see her right foot disappear as she continued to the next floor above.
“With me?” he whispered. “If you would, I’d leave this minute.”
It was a sweet, if not heartbreaking, thought.
And a foolish one at that.
CHAPTER THREE
Lioncross Abbey Castle
Welsh marches
Several days later
“I’ve never seenPapa so angry,” Westley said. “Thank God you’ve come. Cheltenham is causing an uproar.”
