“You see?” he said. “She is brilliant.”
“Indeed,” Andreas agreed. “She is also a woman of action because she cleaned this hall today in a way the hall has probably never been cleaned before. That took bravery.”
“Fearlessness,” Tor chimed in. “Any woman who would take on such a challenge is positively legendary.”
While Mattie was left flushing with the flattery, Gar frowned at his family members. “Get out,” he told them. “If you insist on insulting me, get out. I’ll not feed you any longer.”
“It is Poppy who feeds us,” Andreas pointed out, grinning. “He pays for your food and drink here. At least the lady is trying to come up with ideas to make you self-sufficient and not dependent on your grandfather’s wealth.”
Gar wasn’t at all pleased with that crack. “You have no cause to point fingers,” he said. “Hell’s Guardhouse takes plenty ofPoppy’s money, so do not act as if you refuse all coin from Poppy and use your own. You donot.”
“I do,” Andreas insisted. “I must use my own money because I take Poppy’s money and gamble it away while I am in London.”
The table roared with laughter. Even Mattie was grinning, looking up at her husband, watching his face, watching every move he made. She was clearly studying him, making sure the insults flying around weren’t seriously upsetting him. She was learning about him, about the way he interacted with his family, and she could see how much love and camaraderie there was between them. Given that all she had was her parents and brother, she realized that she was envious of that. She was envious of the giant de Wolfe family. But if she was feeling that way, she could only imagine what Maksim was feeling.
In fact, as she watched Gar shake a fist at Andreas, who laughed in the face of it, she caught sight of her brother sitting at the edge of the frivolity. He had a cup of wine in hand as he viewed the goings-on as simply an observer, not a participant. If their mother was the Empress of Hensingham, it was Maksim who was the emperor—not Reece. Maksim reigned over the castle and its occupants, which was why Mattie had been mildly surprised that her father had allowed his only son to accompany her to Gleann na Fola. Reece’s reason, at least in public, was that he needed to make sure Mattie was settled well, but that wasn’t the real reason, she suspected.
There was something else.
A castle couldn’t have two kings.
Perhaps he was hoping Maksim would want to stay at Gleann na Fola.
Unfortunately, Maksim’s time here seemed to be having the opposite effect. He wasn’t the emperor here. He was the low man in the hierarchy and he wasn’t used to that. As Mattie watched,Maksim suddenly downed what was left in his cup and left the table, heading out of the hall.
Mattie followed.
She gave Gar the rather indelicate excuse of having to find the privy and he quickly let her go. No man stood in the way of a woman’s business. Mattie followed Maksim out of the hall, finally catching up to her brother when he was down near the gatehouse where the men from Hensingham had set up a small encampment away from the gate. The first thing she saw as she approached the cluster of canvas tents was Winchester, tied up next to Maksim’s pristine blue tent.
Pristine because it was never used in battle.
Or anywhere else.
Winchester was very excited to see his mistress. The dog cried and barked and leaped vertically, straight up in the air, until she finally went to him and hugged him. Untying the rope around his neck, she headed into Maksim’s tent with Winchester on her heels. The first thing the dog did was run to Maksim’s bed and jump on it, getting the coverlet and pillows dirty. Maksim, who had been bent over a large trunk, scowled at both his sister and the excited dog.
“If I’d wanted that filthy animal on my bed, I would have untied him myself,” he said. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with your husband where I left you?”
Mattie ignored the bad attitude and went to sit on the bed next to her dog. “Because I wanted to speak with you,” she said. “I’ve not spoken to you since we arrived here.”
Maksim turned back to his trunk, digging around. “That is because you were with your husband,” he said. “That is where you should be.”
“Are you angry with me?”
He paused and looked at her. “Nay,” he said. “Why? Should I be?”
“You are acting like you are.”
He frowned and returned to his trunk. “No one is angry,” he said. “Go back to the hall. Gar will wonder where you have gone.”
“Maks, what is wrong with you?”
He was still rummaging through the chest. “I told you that nothing was wrong,” he said. “I am not angry with you. Go back to your husband, his family, and this life that has chosen you. You are a warlord’s wife now, Matilda. Your life is going to change forever.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
He paused again, thinking on her question. “Nay,” he finally said. “But it will be different.”
Mattie watched him resume his quest for something in the trunk. Even though he’d said he wasn’t angry with her, something about him still seemed off.
