She nodded. “Romney is my eldest,” she smiled at the boy with pride. “He is an intelligent lad, sweet and loving. Orin is my middle son and Brendt is the youngest. Boys, why are you covered in white powder?”
She addressed her sons, who had a complete change of demeanor since her arrival and were now innocent little angels.
“We were playing, Mama,” Orin insisted. “We were ghosts.”
Emberley’s delicate eyebrows lifted. “Ghosts? Why on earth are you ghosts?”
Romney took charge of the conversation before Orin blew their cover. “Because,” he said simply, hoping that would be enough to satisfy his mother. “Mama, can we eat in the hall tonight? I want to see all of the knights!”
Emberley shook her head. “Nay,” she told him. “You must eat in your chamber. Your father has business to attend to and does not want you underfoot.” She looked at Gart. “Am I to understand that you have met my sons already?”
Gart wasn’t sure how to answer. He looked at the boys, who all gazed back at him quite innocently. He didn’t believe it for a moment. In fact, he was resisting the urge to scowl at them with disbelief.
“Aye,” he said slowly, reluctantly. “I have just arrived and the boys were… that is to say, they were….”
“Mama,” Romney latched on to his mother’s arm. “We were going to show Sir Gart to the hall. May we do that, Mama? May we, please?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Emberley smiled at her eldest. “That is quite gracious of you.”
Gart eyed the boys suspiciously as the youngest one reached out and took his big hand. “We will show you, Sir Gart,” he said politely. “Come with us.”
Gart didn’t want to pull away from the child because he didn’t want to offend Emberley. He stood there dumbly as the boy took his hand and Emberley smiled happily.
“’Tis so good to see you again, Gart,” she said sincerely, her dark blue gaze drifting over his handsome features. “It has been a very long time. Much has happened since you and I last saw one another. I would like to know what you have been doing in the twelve years since I last saw you.”
Gart could only nod. Realizing she was the baron’s wife dampened his enthusiasm at their re-acquaintance and he was coming to think that he had been very, very stupid as a young man not to have realized her potential. True, she’d always been a lovely girl, but had he known she would have grown into such an exquisite creature, he might have vied for her hand. But that thought was tempered by the fact that she had apparently raised three hooligans who had her completely fooled. The woman was raising a pack of wild animals.
Emberley smiled at him and beckoned him to follow her back up the stairs. He did so willingly, gladly, but the moment she turned her back on the boys and headed up the stairs, the youngest one yanked his hand from Gart’s fist and began smacking him on the leg.
Romney, too, waited until his mother’s back was turned before shaking a fist at Gart, making horrible and threatening faces at him. Orin still had a stick and he whacked Gart on the back with it. Gart grabbed the stick and tossed it away but when Emberley turned around at the sounds coming from behind her, the four of them froze and smiled innocently at her. Emberley grinned and continued up the stairs.
The attack against Gart resumed and continued all the way into the great hall above.
CHAPTER TWO
“Forbes is theone they call ‘Sach’.”
Baron Buckland looked at the man who spoke. “What does that mean?”
Sir David de Lohr, Baron Thornden, wriggled his blond eyebrows, noticing that Forbes was entering the smelly, smoky hall in the company of a very beautiful woman.
De Lohr and Baron Buckland sat at the far end of the long, scrubbed table, enjoying the heat from the enormous hearth and the fine alcohol. Now their focus was on the pair approaching from the darkened entry.
“It is an abbreviated Celtic name,” de Lohr told him quietly. “It means ‘insane’.”
Julian de Moyon, Baron Buckland, lifted his dark eyebrows. “Insane?” he repeated. “The man is mad?”
De Lohr shrugged vaguely, collecting his half-drained cup of tart port wine. “Not in the literal sense,” he said, his voice lowering as Forbes drew near. “But there is no one fiercer on the field of battle or in the face of adversity. He is absolutely fearless and skilled beyond compare.”
Julian’s gaze moved between the enormous knight with the shaved head and chiseled features, and his wife as they approached the table.
“He is a giant,” he commented quietly. “Look at the size of his hands.”
De Lohr nodded slightly as he lifted his cup. “Those hands can rip a man’s head from his body. I have seen it myself. I pity the man who truly enrages Forbes.”
Julian looked at him, shocked, as Gart and Emberley reached the table. Emberley’s warm smile turned into something forced as she focused on her husband.
“My lord,” she addressed him. “This is Sir Gart Forbes, a man who was friends with my brother long ago. Gart and I knew each other when we were very young.”
