Leonie told herself to stay calm. She could not go to Crewel trembling in dread. If he hoped to see her cower, he had much to learn about Leonie of Montwyn.
Chapter 9
LEONIE instantly recognized the woman who waited in the large hall of Crewel to greet the wedding party. She introduced herself as Lady Amelia, ward of Rolfe d’Ambert, but Leonie knew her as the woman who had given the Black Wolf her favor on the tourney field and accepted his passionate kiss. Ward? Mistress, without a doubt. But Leonie wasn’t sorry. The Black Wolf could have a hundred mistresses, as long as he left her alone.
“Sir William, Lady Judith, do you make yourselves comfortable and my lord Rolfe will greet you in a moment,” Amelia said in a most agreeable tone. She turned to Leonie then. “My lady, if you will come with me, I will show you to a chamber where you may wait until the ceremony begins.”
Leonie said not a word. She followed the older woman, glad to be gone from her father and Judith’s company. She had said not a word to either of them during the journey to Crewel. Her father had tried to talk to her, but she had turned away from him.
Leonie knew Crewel well. She knew that Amelia was taking her to the small room next to the chapel in the forebuilding. Crewel was not like Pershwick at all. Sir Edmond had looked to his comfort in all things, and Leonie remembered that one of the reasons she enjoyed coming to Crewel as a child was the fascination of always finding something changed. Once it was a new room added above the raised dais at the lord’s end of the hall. Later that space was enclosed to become the lord’s chamber. Then a room was added at the opposite end of the hall above the servants’ smaller hearth, when Alain was knighted. Soon after that the space between the two large chambers was filled in, and now there was a whole second floor with many stairways circling up to it from the hall. The original ceiling had been so high that, even with the second floor, the ceiling was still high above everything.
It was a place of comfort, and it offered privacy where Pershwick did not, but Leonie’s nervousness was mounting. It struck her suddenly that the Black Wolf’s mistress had greeted them in the hall. What peculiar behavior. He was treating her contemptuously even before the wedding.
The small room that Amelia brought her to contained two stools and a table with a bottle of wine and glasses on it. “It may be a while before they are ready for you, Lady Leonie. The marriage contract must be agreed upon first.”
“I am in no hurry,” Leonie replied without feeling, leaving Amelia wondering what to think of her. She had been ready to hate her rival, eager to spite her in any way possible. But the girl before her was no bigger than a child. She even sounded like a child. With her cloak drawn tightly about her and a long veil covering her head and face, there was no telling what she looked like. Girls were married at thirteen and fourteen, or even younger, so she could be very young.Thatwould certainly change Amelia’s thinking, for she could hardly see a child as a rival.
“Is there something I can do for you?” Amelia asked. “Would you like to remove your veil or…?”
Leonie shook her head. “If you would send me my maid Wilda, I would be grateful.”
“As you will,” Amelia replied with a heavy sigh. In that instant, she determined she would come back soon and catch Leonie unawares. Surely the girl would remove the veil after she sat in that tiny room a while. It was hot in there.
She found the maid and sent her to Lady Leonie and then, hearing Rolfe’s angry voice in the hall, hurried in the other direction, toward the kitchens, to make sure preparations were running smoothly.
That was not something Amelia would ordinarily concern herself with, having customarily left the running of Rolfe’s household to the Crewel steward, but she most particularly did not wish to return to the chamber she had moved her belongings into just that morning. That room was a reminder that, at least for the present, she was not first lady at Crewel Keep.
In the tiny room next to the chapel, Leonie heard a voice raised in anger. She recognized it from that day in the woods. The Black Wolf. But it was the first time Wilda had heard him, and even though they could not make out his words, the poor girl’s eyes went wide with fright. Leonie could not reassure her, not without lying, so she kept quiet, adding more sedative to her wine.
She could not begin to guess the reason for the Black Wolf’s anger. It was he who had insisted on this marriage. She didn’t think it had to do with the marriage contract. Her lands were supposed to be hers to do with as she wished. That was her mother’s desire. But she didn’t think her father, with so little concern for her, would insist on including that in the marriagecontract. Even if he did, what would the contract matter to the Black Wolf? He’d showed himself plainly as a man who would dispossess another for his land whenever he wished.
The thought chilled her, even in the stuffy little room. Marriage would make her his property. He could do whatever he liked with her. He could imprison her for the rest of her life, even kill her.
Impulsively Leonie took a small blade which she kept in her medicine basket to cut bandages, and tucked it into her leather girdle, where it would be covered soon again by her veil. She was damned if she would find herself at a man’s mercy ever again, as she’d been with Richer.
“Lady Leonie, I have these fresh from the kitchen.”
Leonie jumped and swung around on the stool. Amelia had entered the room without knocking, holding a tray of small cakes. She froze, her green eyes wide with shock, at the sight of Leonie’s unveiled face.
“Do you always come into a room unbidden?” Leonie demanded, surprised to find that she still had the spirit to be angry.
“I—I am sorry, my lady. I thought you might like…” Amazed by her rival’s condition, she was suddenly emboldened enough to ask, “You—you did not want to marry Rolfe?”
Leonie noted the ease with which Amelia used the Christian name.
“I did not want him for my husband, no, but as you can see, I was not given a choice.” Why not tell her the truth?
“Then perhaps I can relieve your mind, my lady,” Amelia offered. “If you will give me a few moments alone.”
Leonie nodded to Wilda, and the girl slipped outof the room and closed the door. Amelia set her tray down on the table, but did not sit down.
“You have not met Rolfe d’Ambert, have you?” she began.
“No.”
“Have you heard he is very handsome?”
Leonie almost laughed. “A man can be an Adonis, but have the heart of the devil.”
