“Come along, now,” she urged her father towards the gray-stoned resident hall. “There is all the time in the world to become acquainted later. Right now, I want you to rest and recover. It has been a long trip for all of you.”
Bertram resisted. “I am more interested in meeting my granddaughter’s betrothed,” he said, sounding very much like the Bertram de Rosa of old. “Who is this man? What of his family and loyalties?”
Derica looked at Garren, shaking her head ironically. “Do you remember the last time my father met a bridegroom?”
Garren lifted an eyebrow. “I do indeed.”
“The situation could get ugly.”
Garren merely shook his head and snorted, having a difficult time believing the irony of history repeating itself. Roselyn was at his side, grasping his big hand tightly.
“Tell me, Dada,” she begged. “When was it? What happened?”
Garren looked at his daughter, fearful to tell her. “Well,” he began slowly. “It was….”
“His name is Paul le Velle,” Davin suddenly piped up as they all walked towards the resident hall. “His father is the local sheriff and he comes from a family of all women.”
Bertram looked at his grandson, his eyebrows lifted. “All women?”
Davin nodded eagerly. “His mother is a shrew and his sisters are hags,” he made a face, completely riling his sister. “They live like a pack of animals on the other side of town.”
Roselyn let out a shriek and began chasing Davin around the bailey, swatting at him with her hands. Lily was tugging on Hoyt, pulling him up the stairs towards the entry, as everyone else followed. Bertram watched Roselyn make contact with Davin’s head, grinning when the young man began to howl. When Austin and Weston took up the face-making complete with witch sound effects, all three boys ended up running from their furious sister.
Only Sian was left out of the fun; he was more serious, like his father, and watched the antics as the taunting boys and furious sister made their way into the keep. Derica noticed that her father was grinning from ear to ear.
“Why do you look like that?” she asked.
Bertram shook his head faintly. “’Tis as if I am watching you and your brothers thirty years ago,” he replied. “Brothers and sisters never change.”
Derica laughed softly. “Well, those boys had better change or Roselyn will have their hides.”
Bertram lifted his eyebrows. “They have de Rosa blood in them, daughter. They will never change.”
Derica laughed softly. Lily, still attached to Hoyt, reached out to take Bertram’s hand, escorting both elderly gentlemen into the resident hall, leaving Derica and Garren bringing up the rear. Garren smiled down at his wife, wrapping his arms around her affectionately.
“It looks as if Roselyn’s betrothed must endure what I had to go through,” he murmured, kissing her on the forehead. “Four brothers, a grandfather and a grand uncle to scrutinize him like an ibis among alligators. God help us all.”
Derica laughed softly at the old reference, gazing into his strong face, more handsome than she had ever remembered him.
“Thank God that the alligators did not eat the ibis those years ago,” she murmured. “I would have never have known such joy.”
Garren’s features softened. “Nor would I,” he leaned down, kissing her lips tenderly. “We have much to be thankful for.”
When Paul le Velle arrived less than an hour later, he found himself surrounded by a new generation of alligators. But this time, the ibis wasn’t set upon. He was scrutinized but not devoured, and Roselyn managed to have a wedding night without nails in the mattress or eggs in the pillow. Her father saw to that.
Garren le Mon never again saw the green fields of England or Chateroy Castle. But, then again, he didn’t much care. His legacy did not include anything left to him by his ancestors. A missive sent to his aged sister, Gabrielle, had bequeathed Chateroy Castle to her, which she in turn deeded to Yaxley Nene, and that was how Chateroy Castle became a Benedictine monastery for the next three hundred and forty two years, until fire burned it to the ground.
Garren had created his own legacy, safe in the bosom of Beaucaire Castle, eventually buried in the same crypt as his wife and, as the centuries passed, surrounded by his descendants. And in Wales, Cilgarren Castle remained standing into the new millennium, still called by its rightful name, no longer bearing tales of Owain and Brendalyn, but of the mysterious Lord Garren and his wife who vanished into the river only to be saved by good faeries. All of these things were left to the ages by Garren and Derica.
It was the best legacy either could have ever imagined.
*THE END*
