my lord, Lady Carolyn was most exacting in her description of you, so accurate the guards at the gate knew your identity immediately and sent word to us.”
“Ah, I see. Then Carolyn knows I am here.”
“Most certainly, my lord. She awaits you in the hall.”
The steward’s words were given graciously, but something in the man’s tone warned of something amiss, and Stephen feared he knew what it was.
He glanced over at Armand who, having relegated their horses to a stable lad, pushed his mail cowl back from his head. He ran his fingers through his sandy-colored hair, only half attempting to hold back a knowing grin.
“Then we should not keep her ladyship waiting,” Stephen told the steward and took to the stairs, Ivo and Armand following close behind.
Stephen opened the huge oak doors at the top of the stairway, stepped into the great hall and searched for Carolyn. She sat at a table on the dais at the far end of the hall, sipping from a silver goblet, paying scant heed to the man sitting next to her on the bench. Upon seeing him inside the doorway, she rose and came around the table, then stood statue still, waiting for Stephen to come to her.
His intended’s beauty would take any man’s breath away. Regal in her bearing, Carolyn’s gown of sapphire showed both her coloring and figure to great advantage. Braids of shining auburn hung forward, over her breasts, down to beyond her waist. A stiffened band of sapphire stitched with gold hugged her forehead. Stephen waited for her bow mouth to curve into a smile, and was disappointed.
If she was angry, however, she hid it well behind a mask of indifference. Not until he reached her did Stephen notice a tinge of annoyance surface.
“You came, finally,” she said.
Stephen grasped her dainty hand and brought it to his mouth. “I rushed to your side the moment my duty was done. My apologies for having worried you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Worried? Nay, Stephen. I have found worrying over any man a useless waste.” She pulled her hand away. “You and your company will wish to get settled.”
Annoyed by her formality, striving for a charm that usually came naturally, Stephen tilted his head and gave her his most engaging smile. “Once done, you and I shall renew our acquaintance—”
“Mayhap after evening meal,” she said. Carolyn beckoned forth the man she’d been sitting next to at the dais.
The man, whose dark hair was quickly succumbing to gray, took his time answering her summons. Norman, Stephen judged the man from both his self-assured demeanor and elegant tunic. Old, but not soft of mind or body.
Carolyn smiled up sweetly at the older man. “Edwin and I were about to go riding, were we not, your lordship?”
Edwin shrugged, giving Stephen the impression this was the first Edwin had heard of the plan but wasn’t inclined to refuse her.
Carolyn’s smile disappeared. “I hope you find your chamber to your liking, Stephen. Ivo will see to your needs.”
Incredulous, Stephen watched the pair leave the hall, Edwin trailing in Carolyn’s wake.
“An interesting turn of events,” Armand said lightly.
Stephen agreed. “Who is Edwin?”
Ivo didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “Edwin of Tinfield, your rival for Lady Carolyn’s hand.”
Chapter Two
Stephen slowly recovered from hearing another man competed with him for Carolyn, and a man nearing his dotage at that. Granted, Edwin of Tinfield was well preserved, but going gray nonetheless.
Knowing Carolyn loathed the thought of marrying an older man, Stephen doubted she seriously considered Edwin’s suit. Or did she? She’d smiled at him rather prettily. Because she liked the man—or to display her annoyance with her tardy suitor?
More importantly, did Edwin of Tinfield have William de Grasse’s favor and blessing?
“I require an audience with his lordship,” he told Ivo.
The steward waved a hand toward the farthest corner of the room where stood a drapery-enclosed bed. “William is resting. Mayhap you can have a word with him before evening meal. Until then, we shall settle you into a chamber. If you will permit, my lord, I shall have your possessions brought up to the keep.”
Stephen bit back his vexation at having an order shunted aside. Though he outranked everyone at Bran-wick, including its lord, ’twould not further his cause to berate the steward. One never knew when an underling’s goodwill might be needed.
Stephen nodded his consent for Ivo to send for the supply wagons still waiting in the outer bailey.
Studying the bed in the corner of the hall, Stephen wondered why the man preferred to have his bed down here in the hall instead of his upstairs chamber. Apparently, William still suffered mightily from whatever illness had prevented him from accompanying his daughter to Westminster.
The lack of parental presence there had afforded Stephen rare freedoms in pursuing Carolyn. Her only familial companion at court, and not a hindrance to his pursuit of Carolyn, had been Marian.
Marian had revealed her relationship to Carolyn as cousins, and Stephen knew enough of the family lines of England’s nobles to conclude they must be related through their mothers. Still, William must hold Marian, or possibly her husband, in high enough regard to have allowed his daughter to travel in the couple’s care.
After leaving Marian, Stephen didn’t have the time or the inclination to inquire after Marian’s husband. He’d barely had time to find Carolyn. She’d been so high flown on the king’s wine he hadn’t pressed his advantage, simply escorted her to her chamber, all the while explaining his need to leave for Normandy. She’d been sober enough to agree to pass along his intention to secure a betrothal bargain to her father.
’Struth, he’d been relieved to find Carolyn in no condition for a tryst. Memories of Marian, her sweet charms and eager body, had refused to leave his head. He might have seriously blundered if he tried to make love to one woman while thinking erotic thoughts of another.
Here at Branwick, knowing Marian was far from sight and out of reach, safely ensconced with her child and husband in some distant manor or castle, he would have no such trouble. If Carolyn wasn’t too angry. If Edwin didn’t interfere.
“Now what?” Armand asked.
Very aware he hadn’t been received at Branwick in the manner he hoped to be, Stephen had half a notion to tell Armand to ready the company to leave, but dismissed the idea. True, Carolyn insulted him by going off riding with Edwin, but marriage to a woman who needed little tending suited his needs too perfectly. Besides, how could he go home and tell his brothers that Carolyn preferred the company of a man nearly double his age and of lower rank? Wouldn’t they have a good laugh?
“We wait for William to wake up or for Carolyn to return from her ride,” he said, seeing no choice in the matter.
“You are taking this setback rather well.”
Stephen didn’t see much choice in that, either. He couldn’t very well go chasing after Carolyn, nor shove the bed curtains aside and shake his future father-by-marriage awake.
“Where would be the fun in life if there were no challenges?” he chided Armand. “Keeps boredom at bay. Come, I hear wagons arriving.”
Harlan, indeed, arrived with the baggage carts. Under Ivo’s direction, Wilmont’s soldiers and Branwick’s servants hauled Stephen’s belongings up the narrow, winding stairway to a bright, large bedchamber on the third and top floor of the keep. A slight musty odor hinted that the chamber hadn’t been occupied in some time. Considering the tapestries lining the walls, the huge brazier and ornate furnishings—with no bed in evidence—Stephen