The Chief (Highland Guard #1)(45)

Though she’d been tempted to hide in her chamber and read her book until her husband returned, she was determined to prove that she could be a good wife to him. She knew he thought her young and inexperienced. To him, she was the foolish girl who’d made a mistake and nearly gotten herself ravished, or the coward who’d tricked him into marriage rather than face the wrath of her father.

But there was more to her than that, and she wanted him to see it. To see her.

“Of course whatever you need, my lady, will be at your disposal,” the seneschal said.

“Thank you,” she said. “I thought today I might start on the walls.” The previous two days she’d attended to the most pressing matters, including laundering the bed linens she’d found stacked in a trunk (apparently no one had used the room for some time), changing the rushes in the hall, and replacing the lumpy mattress in her chamber—in their chamber, she corrected herself, heat rising to her cheeks.

The intimate part of her marriage weighed heavily on her mind. Delay in their wedding night had only given her plenty of time to think about it. Would it be different now that she knew what to expect, and now that he knew it was she?

Both men looked a bit perplexed. “The walls?” the seneschal was the first to ask.

“Aye.” With only arrow slits in the thick stone and the hole in the center of the wooden ceiling to allow the smoke from the fire to escape, to say the hall was dark and dreary was a prodigious understatement. She’d added a few candelabra to the tables, but it would take a small fortune in candles to truly make a difference. “When cleaning out the ambry, I noticed a stack of old tapestries. I thought we might take them out for dusting and hang them on the walls.” Her brows drew together atop her nose. “Do you know where they came from?”

The seneschal shook his head. “Nay, my lady. It’s been sometime since anyone has used that chamber. Perhaps they belonged to Lady Flora.”

Tor’s first wife. Christina had thought as much. She’d been from Ireland, and many of the tapestries appeared to contain Irish motifs and folklore. Christina didn’t want to rouse any painful reminders of his first wife, but her husband hardly seemed prone to sentimentality. No matter the source, the tapestries were too colorful and beautiful to hide in a closet.

“Is there anything else?” he asked, his voice suggesting that he hoped not.

“Nay, that is all.” She started to leave and then pretended that she’d just thought of something, though it was the true purpose for her visit all along. “Has there by chance been any word?”

She’d not made the mistake of saying “for me” after the puzzled look the seneschal had given her the first time she’d asked. Why would her husband send word for her?

But her effort at nonchalance hadn’t fooled either of them. The clerk looked down, studying his parchment intently, and the seneschal eyed her uncomfortably. “Nay, my lady. No word.”

“Oh well,” she said good-naturedly. “I’m sure they will return soon enough.” But the false brightness did not completely mask her disappointment, even to her own ears.

Christina left the men to their duties, eager to avoid their pitying looks. They felt sorry for her in a manner that made her think she was missing something important.

She was beginning to wonder whether Tor would ever come back. Determined not to be hurt, she told herself that he had responsibilities … even if it meant missing their wedding night. If she was going to be married to a warrior, she had to get used to it. But though she could make herself understand, it was much more difficult not to be disappointed. He’d left without saying good-bye. It made her feel insignificant—a feeling she’d hoped to forget.

She busied herself the rest of the morning seeing to the cleaning and hanging of the tapestries, while trying to keep the chief’s dogs off her new rushes. But the three enormous deerhounds were too adorable, and after a few licks and whines, she gave up and ordered them bathed instead. The serving boy gave her a look as if she was addled but did as she bid.

It was a look she was becoming quite used to. It wasn’t that the people were unfriendly, but neither were they friendly. It was somewhere in between. Respectful and puzzled about summed it up.

Except for one. Her look had been entirely different.

There were surprisingly few women about the castle. Other than a couple of young girls in the kitchens, most of the servants were male. Perhaps that’s why Christina had noticed the woman right away. She stood out.

When she’d walked into the Great Hall on the arm of the seneschal the first evening to be introduced to her people, in the collective gasp of surprise at the announcement of her being their new lady, one gasp in particular had drawn her attention. The woman was tall and stately—buxom, blond, and very beautiful. She was older, perhaps ten years past Christina’s one and twenty, but the years only added to her beauty. She wore her hair coiled in a braid atop her head, and she alone of the other women wore a rich velvet cotte and not a simple leine and brat.

Their eyes had met. In that one look, Christina knew that this woman was someone. And she suspected it had to do with her husband. More shaken than she wanted to admit by the exchange, Christina had carefully avoided meeting her gaze again. Since that night, the blond woman had avoided the Hall, which only increased her suspicions. But Christina was too much of a coward to ask any questions, so she buried herself in work.