“I had several things to attend to, and still more duties await me. But I wanted to bid you a pleasant morn.”
She wrapped her arms around his thick neck and he lifted her off the floor with the power of his embrace. Sweet, lingering kisses filled the silence between them until Peyton shifted in his arms and he reluctantly allowed her to slide to her feet. As much as she would have liked to have relented to his fevered lips, she had more pressing things to attend to. And she fully intended to involve him.
“I would ask a favor before you return to your tasks,” she took his hand and led him down the hall.
She took him to the chamber where she kept her paintings, the moody room awash with color and sorrow. Understandably, he was a bit wary, for their last visit to this room had resulted in a bitter argument. Moreover, it was the room where she kept reminders of her love gone by. Alec did not want to see of her love for another man.
The moment they entered the room, the black tides of jealousy swept him. His eyes avoided the brilliant displays of his wife’s talent, instead, focusing on the broken joust pole in the corner. Somehow, he could visualize the strong young knight who had wielded the pole, a man who had kissed his wife, who had once been betrothed to her. The faded yellow and white colors of Sir James Deveraux took shape, molding into a visionof the fair-haired man who should have been standing in Alec’s stead. Alec was glad he was dead.
Aye, he was glad. As selfish and distasteful as it was to be thankful for another’s demise, he was nonetheless grateful. Had James survived his bout in Norwich, Alec would have never come to know the woman who had very quickly become the center of his world. He would have never known complete joy, or madness, sometimes one and the same. He would have never loved her.
Aye, he loved her.
The thought crept upon him so gently that he was not startled by it. In fact, he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t loved her. Gazing at his wife’s red head as she moved across the room, he felt full of his feelings. They were subtle, yet so powerful that he couldn’t remember when they hadn’t been an integral part of his life. More than ever before, she meant the world to him.
But his love would never be returned. She had already informed him of that fact. Watching her move across the room, he hoped to summon the bravery to tell her of his feelings one day. One day when he was prepared for the biting sting of her rejection.
Peyton disrupted him from his train of thought when she stopped just shy of the twisted joust pole. When she turned to him, the smile was gone from her face.
“Would…. would you please remove these for me? I am afraid a servant would hurt himself on the broken pole. You are the only one qualified to handle it.”
He took a hesitant step in her direction, his eyes studying the once-proud lance. “Where do you wish for me to put them?”
She passed a final glance at the reminders of her sorrow, of the tokens of her grief. The ache was still there, but as a melancholy memory and nothing more. The searing pain wasvanished. Taking a deep breath for courage, she faced her husband.
“Burn them.”
Surprised, his eyes focused on her. “Burn them? Are you serious?”
“Never more so,” she moved toward him, curling her fingers around his massive forearms. “I do not need them anymore. Will you remove them for me?”
He gazed into her eyes, seeing complete sincerity. Would he remove the tokens of another man’s love? Without hesitation. Tenderly, he patted her hand and moved across the floor, retrieving the pole as if it were made of feathers. The break proved awkward to manage, but he controlled it nicely.
With the bent pole in one hand and the leather scabbard in the other, he turned to his wife with the most wonderful of expressions. She could fairly read the depth of emotion in his eyes and it startled her; if she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn the emotion was…. adoration.
“I shall dispose of them. You do not need them anymore.”
The tears Peyton fought back as he quit the room were not those of sorrow. They were those of joy.
…. good-bye, James!
Alec had thepleasure of escorting his wife to the brewery after the nooning meal. Infinitely curious about the secretive brewing process Sir Albert had kept so closely guarded, a whole new world opened up before his very eyes.
He had seen the ale storehouse once before, but it was nothing compared to the sharp smell of the brick brewery. Well-protected and sunk deep into the rich English soil, the brewery was a fascinating place of copper tubs, presses, heat and stank. Peyton paid little mind to her surroundings as she went in search of the master brewer, but Alec was enthralled. He laggedso far behind in his curious observations that she paused so he could catch up to her.
She grinned at his interest. “For heaven’s sake, Alec, it’s just a brewery.”
“I have never seen one before,” he stated the obvious. “What’s this?”
She looked in the direction he was indicating. “Those are vats of cooling mush. They’ve already been mashed and cooked and are awaiting yeast for fermentation.”
He peered closely at the huge copper vats. “It looks like porridge.”
“It is, basically. That batch will produce pale ale. It’s simple barley.”
He turned to her. “I know that St. Cloven produces four types of ale. Is each process unique to create a different end result?”
She began to walk and he followed, tightly clutching her hand. “The process does not differ, merely the ingredients. As I said, barley is used to create pale ale. For dark ale, we cook a mixture of roasted wheat, barley and molasses. With fruited ale, a recipe of apples, grapes, barley and molasses is combined. And the hearty ale, King Edward’s favorite I might add, we combine roasted barley, roasted wheat, oats and honey.”
