Keller watched the exchange carefully. His detailed ear digested every sigh, every whisper, every expression and sound. He had spent his life reading people and attempting to deduce their thoughts. In his profession, it was mandatory if he wanted to live a long and healthy life. He was coming to see that there was something beneath the surface of this family that he was not being told. He could see it in their faces and in their actions. Although he was coming to suspect what it was, still, he wanted to hear the truth from their lips.
“What did I do to frighten her?” he asked quietly.
Chrystobel turned to look at him. “It is difficult to know,” she said. “Izlyn is very delicate. She weeps often.”
“Why?”
Chrystobel shrugged, looking back to her little sister. “It is the only way she can communicate. She cannot speak, so she weeps.”
Keller watched as Chrystobel dried the last of her sister’s tears. He could see in those small actions that she was a very compassionate and caring individual. He could feel his interest in her deepening, unable to resist.
“Was she born mute?” he asked.
Chrystobel shook her head. “Nay,” she looked at him. “As a baby, I remember her speaking a few words. Then, when she was about two years old, she simply stopped speaking. She has not uttered a word since.”
Keller didn’t know why he was beginning to feel some strange emotional pull towards these women. He shouldn’t have and he knew it. Perhaps it was because he would soon be related to them both or perhaps it was because they looked so pale and helpless at the moment. Perhaps it was because they now belonged to him, as did everything else at Nether. He watched them both with his intense dark eyes.
“Why did your brother put her in the vault?” he asked.
Chrystobel’s head snapped to him as if startled by the question. She looked back to Izlyn, almost fearfully, struggling over an answer. She wasn’t a particularly good liar and the truth, before she could stop it, came out in pieces.
“Because… because she will not speak to him,” she almost choked over the words, horrified that they came out but unable to stop them. “It frustrates him and he punishes her for her disobedience.”
Keller couldn’t help it. His brows drew together and he looked at the pair as if they had gone mad.
“Because she does not speak to him?” he repeated, his tone bordering on incredulous. “Is this the truth?”
Chrystobel’s gaze was on her sister. She could hear the outrage in Keller’s tone, afraid it was directed at her. “Aye, my lord,” she said, more hesitantly. “He feels that she is being stubborn and if he punishes her enough, then perhaps it will compel her to speak. He has told her that if she tells him that she does not wish to be put in the vault, he will not do it.”
Keller stood up, his sheer size and massive presence causing Izlyn to collapse into her sister’s embrace as the two sisters gazed up at him fearfully. His expression was calm although the dark eyes were glittering with something emotional, something deep. He began to pop his knuckles through his heavy leather gloves as if the process would help him think more clearly. It was obvious that he was pondering the situation. He looked from one fearful face to the other and back again.
“That will not happen again,” he finally said. “It is apparent to me that Gryffyn d’Einen has wrought much distress upon this place and I do not appreciate nor respect men who wreak havoc simply for havoc’s sake. Lady Chrystobel, I will ask you a question and you will be truthful. Did your brother put those bruises on your neck and was it he who split your lip?”
Chrystobel’s eyes were wide with fright. She opened her mouth as if to reply, looking at her sister as she did so, and then suddenly shut her mouth. She didn’t know Keller well enough to trust him with the truth. She was fearful of what would happen to her or to Izlyn should Gryffyn find out that she told of his foul deeds. At the moment, fear of her brother outweighed the fear of her new husband. Unable to look at Keller, she looked to her lap.
“I…,” she began softly. “I am not sure….”
“The truth, lady.”
He had interrupted her stammering and she grew flustered. “I… I do not remember,” she whispered painfully, still looking at her lap. “I was walking across the bailey and… and perhaps I tripped. I do not remember.”
Keller stared at her. He didn’t like being lied to and since he wasn’t any good when it came to communicating with women, it produced a bad combination in a situation like this. He couldn’t decide whether he was furious or disappointed that she would not tell him the truth, which turned his demeanor to stone. His coldness was apparent. Reaching down, he took her hand in his massive gloved one and pulled her up from the bed.
“Come along, then,” he muttered. “There is a priest in the hall waiting to perform the wedding sacrament.”
He had her on her feet and Chrystobel visibly blanched. “But…,” she stammered. “I am not appropriately dressed to receive the sacrament, my lord. At least allow me to change from these dirty clothes.”
Keller’s gaze moved over her body, noting the shapely figure beneath the surcoat. “God does not care how clean you are, my lady.”
Horrified that he was not going to allow her to change into a clean frock and at least brush her hair, she grabbed Izlyn in a gesture of panic and perhaps comfort. Keller dragged both women from the chamber.
He realized, as he hit the bailey outside, that he was angry. Angry that the woman he was to marry would not give him the truth to a direct question. If she would not tell him the truth about a matter such as this, he couldn’t imagine what else she would hide or lie to him about.
Perhaps he should not have believed her when she said she was chasing a wounded rabbit down the slopes of Nether. Perhaps she really had been running away. If she wanted a marriage in name only, then he would be happy to oblige her. It would save him from becoming emotionally invested in yet another woman who would break his carefully-protected heart.
Chapter Five
Of everything Chrystobel had ever imagined her wedding to be, the actual experience was something quite different.
In the smoky, smelly hall of Nether, standing before a priest who smelled of urine and ale, she became Lady de Poyer. Izlyn clung to her during the mass and her father stood a few feet away with a rather sickened expression on his face. In fact, it made Chrystobel angry to see the expression on her father’s face since the man had knowingly entered into the contract that would use her as a pawn in his deadly game of tactics with William Marshal. She didn’t understand his visible show of remorse, late as it was, but it was of no matter. The wedding sacrament had been hastily, and sloppily, completed, and in short order Sir Keller became her husband.