As she entered the stable yard, she could see Penelope sitting on her bottom in the dirt, crying her eyes out. Her brother, Thomas, was standing over her, frowning at her. Penelope didn’t need and want his comfort because she was waiting for one of her older brothers– mostly Patrick– to come and save her, but Patrick was away with the other older sons at a castle to the south in some kind of battle. At least, that was what Annaleigh had understood. They’d been gone almost a month and a missive had been received that morning indicating the army was finally returning home by evening.
But that wouldn’t be soon enough for Penelope.
Annaleigh stepped in.
“Lass,” she said as she knelt down beside the weeping child, using her sleeve to wipe the girl’s face. “Come now, sweetheart. What is it? Have the dogs of hell been nipping at yer feet?”
At four years of age, Penelope de Wolfe was a brilliant, sweet, but highly spoiled child. If the slightest thing didn’t go her way, she would make sure everyone at Castle Questing knew about it.
“T-Tommy pushed me!” she spat.
Annaleigh looked at Thomas for his reaction, which wasn’t long in coming. The boy with the long, dark hair looked both defiant and terrified at the same time.
“I didnotpush her!” he said. “She wants my sword and she cannot have it!”
He sounded desperate as he held up the offending toy, mostly because he knew what happened to those who upset little Penelope. His father doted on his youngest daughter and would often take her side in things because he couldn’t resist the pixie face and crocodile tears, so Thomas and his siblings had often been on the receiving end of fatherly punishment when it came to Penelope.
And Penelope knew it.
So did Annaleigh.
She’d been at Castle Questing long enough to see who ruled the roost and it wasn’t the warlord named William de Wolfe. It was a tiny slip of a girl named Penelope.
“What do ye want that dirty sword for?” she asked, lifting Penelope out of the dirt and brushing her off. “I have better things for ye. Come and play with me. We’ll go and find the kittens. Eh?”
The lure of a new litter of kittens was great. Penelope knew she couldn’t hold them yet, but she longed to touch them. She loved all of the animals that lived in the barns; cats and dogs and even mice included.
“I-I want to pet one,” she sniffled, wiping her eyes with a dirty hand.
Annaleigh wiped her face again to keep the dirt from getting into her eyes. “We’ll find one ye can pet,” she said. “Leave Tommy and Eddie tae their dirty swords. We’ll find ye better things tae play with.”
She didn’t give Penelope a chance to think about it. She simply took her by the hand and led her back towards the stables where the grooms were beginning to parcel out the grain for the evening meal. It wasn’t sunset yet, but that time would swiftly approach. They’d have to hunt cats before it became too dark to do so.
“Lady Annaleigh?”
Annaleigh was just entering the stables when a polite address stopped her. She paused to see Sir Talus du Reims coming up behind her and she forced a smile at the gloriously handsome young knight from a very fine family. Talus was a son of the Earl of East Anglia and also related to the House of de Lohr, which made him more elite than most.
And he knew it.
He was also young and impetuous, and when William was selecting knights to go on campaign south to Thropton, he made the younger knights draw lots to see who went and who remained behind to protect Castle Questing.
But there was the rub.
Talus made sure he drew the short stick because he knew Annaleigh would be at Castle Questing while a competitor for her affections, Sir Anthony d’Vant, would be going with de Wolfe. The pair had been competing for Annaleigh’s attention ever since she had arrived from Clan Scott’s seat of Langton Castle, but she hadn’t shown them any particular interest. However, Anthony, realizing Talus would be left behind and perhaps gain an advantage on him, persuaded Christian Hage that he should go on campaign and leave Anthony in command of Castle Questing in his stead.
Christian, who had been charged with command with the army away, agreed.
Therefore, it had been an entire month of Talus and Anthony pursuing the blindingly beautiful Annaleigh Scott with her long, red hair that gleamed like molten metal and a face that was female perfection personified. From her long-lashed eyes to her pert nose to her rosebud mouth and dimpled cheeks, she had most of the unmarried men at Castle Questing passing her a second glance.
Even men who were her distant cousins.
She was far enough removed from de Wolfe and Hage and even de Norville relations, as all three of her father’s second cousins had married those great border knights, that she could be considered a marital prospect for them, but she genuinely had no interest. The truth was that she wanted to return home, and return home badly, but her father thought it would be better for her to stay away from her clan for a while, at least until the events of eight months ago and the battle with Etal Castle had blown over.
The problem, once believed solved, had only grown worse.
But she tried not to think about that now, about people she’d known all her life blaming her for the death of loved ones in a battle that had been completely preventable. Perhaps she was a stranger at Castle Questing, and to England in general, but at least they weren’t blaming her for something that had been out of her control.
Talus du Reims included.
