The Fallen One (2 page)

Mathias felt as if he had been struck,
lifting the delirium of giddy fog he had had been feeling.
De Lara
, he thought. He knew that name all too well. He tried not
to linger on the name, that powerful and consequential name, as his attention
shifted to the slender girl in Cathlina’s arms, plastered up against her sister.

The child was dark-haired, pale, and very
frail looking.
 
When she saw that
Mathias’ was looking at her, she buried her face in her sister’s torso.

“Greetings, my lady,” Mathias said to
Abechail, somewhat gently.
 
She looked as
if a louder tone would cause her to shatter. “I sincerely pray you were not
injured in the struggle.”

Abechail was pressed as close to her sister
as close as she could go.
 
When Mathias
spoke to her, she closed her eyes tightly and tried to block him out but her
sister shook her gently.

“Abbie?” she said softly. “Will you thank this
man for helping you?”

Abechail turned slightly, peeping an eye
open from the safe haven of her sister’s embrace.
 
Instead of her sister’s doe-eyed gaze, she had
blue eyes that were red-rimmed and frightened.
 
She had tears all over her face and remnants of dried vomit on her neck.

“My… my thanks,” she stammered.

Mathias cracked a smile. “It was my
pleasure, my lady.”

Abechail’s gaze lingered on him a moment before
smiling timidly.
 
She still looked horribly
pale and terrified, however, and it occurred to Mathias that until the brute
was properly restrained or imprisoned, the poor young girl might never feel
safe.
 
In fact, neither lady would feel
completely safe.
  
He turned to his
brother.

“Sebastian,” he said. “Take that animal
over to our stall.
 
There are some old
stocks back behind it. Put him there.”

Sebastian’s ruddy face lit up. “The old
binders?” he repeated gleefully. “One of them is broken, I think. I believe
that is why they no longer use it.”

“Then chain him to it,” Mathias said. “That
fool will not be free to roam as long as these ladies are in town. See to it.”

With a smile on his face, Sebastian picked
the muddy, lice-ridden brute up by the neck and dragged the man across the
avenue towards the smithy shop down the way.
 
People were dodging to get out of his way as he hauled the man behind
him, singing a song very loudly about bearded women and knights with no
libido.
 
It was a song better suited for
a tavern but Sebastian didn’t care; he was happier than he had been in a long
while, beating up on someone.

Mathias watched him go, fighting off a grin
when he saw his father stick his head out of their smithy stall at the sound of
Sebastian’s voice. The shock registering on the man’s face was priceless. Justus
was, physically, the toughest man in England but he had a habit of showing his
thoughts plainly on his face. That could make him rather vulnerable, but it
also made him very humorous. Mathias had to turn away before his father saw him
grinning.
 
His expression was straight by
the time he turned back to the women.

“He will no longer be a threat, I promise,”
he said, his gaze moving over Cathlina’s features but trying not to be obvious
about it. “Mayhap I should wait with you until your father returns to ensure
your safety.”

Cathlina shook her head. “I am sure that
will not be necessary, my lord. You have already done so much for us. I do not
wish to keep you from your duties.”

Mathias essentially ignored her.
 
He gestured in the direction of the wagon, a
few dozen feet away. “Allow me to escort you to your wagon.”

Cathlina eyed the man who was not only
their savior but now determined to play their escort; he was enormously built
and several inches over six feet with shaggy dark hair that had a bit of curl
to it.
 
His features were even, very
handsome, and his square jaw was set with determination. But it was his eyes,
rather large orbs of dark green that conveyed… something. She wasn’t quite sure
what she saw within the guarded green sea, but there was something there
lingering just below the surface.
 
She
sensed great mystery in the searingly masculine depths.

“You are too kind, my lord,” she said,
pulling her clinging sister with her.
 
“We owe you a great deal of thanks for the regard you have shown us.”

Mathias herded the pair across the busy
avenue, stopping short of touching her in any way, as a polite escort would
have.
 
A proper attendant would have
taken the lady’s elbow to show both protectiveness and guidance, but given the
circumstances of their meeting, Mathias didn’t think they would have taken any
manner of physical contact too kindly.
 
Therefore, he basically shepherded them to the
wagon and watched Cathlina, who was hardly larger than a child herself, lift
her sister up into the wagon bed.

Abechail crawled up underneath the bench
seat and rolled up in a dusty oil cloth that was there.
 
It was evident that she wanted to hide away
from what had just happened. Cathlina watched her sister as the girl pulled the
blanket over her head.
 
She shook her
head sadly.

“She was so excited to come to town,” she
said with quiet sorrow. “More excited than the rest of us.
 
After this happening, she will never want to
leave home again.”

Mathias folded his big arms across his
chest, his gaze moving from the swaddle-bound child on the wagon to the
exquisite creature standing next to him.
 
He wasn’t one for idle chatter; in fact, he kept to himself most of the
time.
 
He was rather quiet and
introspective. But something about that lovely face made him want to engage in
conversation.
 
He hadn’t done that with a
woman in years.

“Did you come far?” he asked politely.

Cathlina shook her head. “Not really,” she
replied as she looked up at him. “We live at Kirklinton Castle. Have you heard
of it?”

Mathias nodded. “It is a well-regarded
fortress,” he replied. “It is to the north if I recall correctly.”

 
 
Cathlina nodded. “It is,” she confirmed. “It
belongs to the Earl of Carlisle. My father, who is the earl’s cousin on his
father’s side, was appointed the garrison commander last year. Before that, we
lived in a small tower near the Roman wall further north. In fact, our home was
a Roman castle hundreds of years ago and before I was born, my mother was told
about a local legend that bespoke of a Roman commander and his Saxon love, the
Lady Cathlina Lavinia.
 
My mother named
me for the Saxon lady of legend. She thought it would bring me good fortune.”

So…
she is de Lara’s cousin
, he thought. He was wondering how,
precisely, she was related to the great Tate de Lara and now he knew. It was a
sad thought, indeed, but something he wouldn’t waste the energy to dwell on. He’d
never had a real romantic interest in his life and realized he wasn’t in danger
of having one now, not with the knowledge that she was a de Lara. It was too
bad, too, but he pushed the disappointment aside to focus on her sweet voice,
husky and honeyed.
 
That was a much more
pleasant thought.

“Has your name brought you good fortune,
then?” he asked.

“Up until today it has.”

It was a cute turn of humor and they shared
a small chuckle.
 
Mathias thought he
might actually be blushing but he wasn’t about to touch his face to see if it
was warm. He could only pray it wasn’t; he’d never in his life met a lady that
so easily extracted emotion from him in so short amount of time.
 
He labored to keep his control and not look
like a giddy fool in front of her.

“I am sure the events of today will not
sour your good fortune,” he said. “I suspect you still have many years of
blessings before you.”

Cathlina was still smiling at him but as
she lingered on her sister’s near-abduction again, her smile began to fade. She
was still quite shaken by the whole thing.

“What do you suppose he wanted with my
sister?” she asked hesitantly. “I have never heard of a man simply walking up
to a woman and trying to steal her.”

Mathias shrugged, trying to make light of
the situation because it had ended well when it could have ended so tragically.
He thought it was perhaps best not to dwell on what could have been before he
had intervened.

“Mayhap he wanted someone to come home with
him and cook him a meal,” he said, mildly teasing as he skirted the subject. “Or
mayhap he simply wanted a wife.”

Cathlina turned to him, rather surprised.
“Steal a wife?” she repeated. “I have never heard of such a thing.”

“’Tis true. Those things happen.”

She could sense his humored manner and it
was difficult not to give in to the mood in spite of the serious subject
matter. “Do you speak from experience, then?”

Mathias looked at her, full-on.
 
His lips twitched with a smile. “I do not
need to steal a wife.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “I see,” she said
with feigned seriousness. “I suppose women simply fall at your feet wherever
you go and you can have your pick of them.”

He was trying very hard not to grin; her
humor was charming, and rather mocking of him, but he wasn’t offended in the
least.

“Something like that,” he teased. “Women
are always eager to marry a smithy.”

Cathlina laughed softly, glancing towards
the smithy stalls down the avenue. “Is that your trade over there?”

She was pointing and he followed the
direction of her finger. “Aye,” he replied. “My father, my brother, and me; we
are the largest smithy operation in Brampton.”

Cathlina dropped her finger and looked at
him. “You were very brave to come as you did,” she said. “I would not believe a
smithy to be so brave.”

He was amused. “Why not?”

She cocked her head as if cornered by the
question. “Because that is not your vocation,” she said, trying to explain.
“You shoe horses and make weapons. You do not answer the call to arms as brave
men do.”

His amusement faded.
As brave men do.
 
He had been
a brave man, once. Her comment hammered home the fact that he was no longer
among the privileged, no longer in command of thousands of men who looked to
him for guidance and strength. It seemed like an eternity ago when he last held
a sword.
 
Truth was, he hadn’t thought
much about it since the day he had been stripped of his weapons and lands and
titles. There was no use dwelling on what he could not change. But at the
moment, he was thinking on that very fact. He felt very useless.

“It was not a matter of answering the call
to arms,” he said quietly. “It was simply a matter of doing what was right.”

Before Cathlina could respond, she caught
sight of her father and sister coming down the avenue towards them, weaving
through the crowds of people.
 
Cathlina
waved frantically at them.

“Father!” she called. “Roxane! Thank the
Lord you have returned!”

Cathlina’s father was a big man, muscular
in his younger days but had now gone mostly to fat.
 
He was balding and with a growth of beard,
focusing curiously on his middle daughter as she called out to him.

“What is it?” he asked, depositing a
burlap-wrapped bundle into the back of the wagon. “What is amiss?”

Cathlina didn’t hold back.
 
She told her father the entire sordid tale,
watching the man’s face turn red with anger and fright.
 
Upon hearing the horrible story, the older
sister, a dark-haired young woman who had a mere shadow of her middle sister’s
beauty, leapt into the back of the wagon to comfort Abechail.
 
When Cathlina came to the part in the story
where Abechail was so wonderfully saved, she pointed right at Mathias.

“This brave man came to our aid when no one
else would,” she told her father. “He was wonderful.
 
He and his brother saved us. You
must
reward him.”

Mathias was uncomfortable now that they
were all focused on him.
 
The father, his
features still flushed with shock, made his way to him.

“Is this true?” he asked Mathias, as if he
didn’t quite believe his daughter’s fantastic tale. “Was there truly a man to
take my youngest daughter?”

Mathias could see the look of panic on the
man’s face. “It is true,” he said. “But she is safe now.
 
Lady Cathlina was quite brave; she fought him
valiantly.”

The father was stunned. He turned swiftly
to Cathlina, inspecting her hands and arms for bruises before kissing her palms
and turning his attention to Abechail.