Love Letters by Emily Murdoch Page B

Selwyn against a wall. Already upset that he had not been one of his lord’s chosen to accompany the family to the royal court, he finally had his chance to intimidate the steward.
    “What do you talk to my lady Catheryn about?” He slurred, his putrid breath almost asphyxiating Selwyn. “Why do you spend so much time with her of late?”
    “I cannot help it if my lady Catheryn enjoys my company,” Selwyn replied calmly. “Perhaps she prefers to spend her days with a man that can not only stand his ale, but knows when to stop drinking it!”
    He pushed back towards Deorwine, who stumbled in his drunken state and almost fell to the floor. Before he or any of the other thanes could do anything in response, Selwyn stormed out of the Great Hall and into the night air.
    Selwyn took a deep breath, and felt his heart beat heavily and painfully against his chest.
    It had been an evening like this when he had first approached Catheryn. It was only now she had gone that he realised just how much he had learned to value her company, even in the last few weeks. It felt ridiculous, but he felt it all the same. He looked for her opinion, and longed to hear her laugh, and wanted to see her roll her eyes when he mocked her.
    Yet that beautiful thing was gone to entertain others, and provide a light at another man’s table. Selwyn felt the lack of her keenly. She seemed to bring the only intelligent conversation to a house in which the principal inhabitants were obsessed with another family they had nothing in common with.
    And as much as Selwyn would have loved to deny it, he could not help but admit that Catheryn’s beauty was starting to play heavily on his mind. Her slender and delicate form, yet full of strength; the way she rolled her tongue when she mocked someone; the shine of the sun on her lips when she licked them, ready to speak. Somehow he had managed to memorise so much of her in such a short amount of time. Why?
    Catheryn was bored. The royal court was not created for the entertainment of the young, and even her parents were starting to see that their idea of a royal court was not exactly true to the mark. King Edward’s piety was certainly to be admired, but it did garner a particularly sombre mood. There was more attendance of chapel than Catheryn was used to, and all of her jewels that she had been instructed to bring with her had remained in her casket, untouched and unworn. None of the other ladies at the court wore such jewellery, to her and her mother’s astonishment, and they had not wanted to stand out for such a decadent and potentially censorious reason.
    Catheryn was irritated with the women of the court. Hoping to find friends there, she had discovered to her dismay that none were anywhere near her own age, and in fact many of them were much older than her mother. There was no gossip, or laughing, or riddles spoken over a fire. The solemnity of every situation was beginning to weigh heavily on her, and she missed talking to Selwyn.
    There, she had admitted it. She missed him. Not for himself, so much as the inexplicable happiness that she felt whenever she was with him. Selwyn knew exactly how to make her laugh, and he did not seem to mind when she was almost rude, when society demanded that she say one thing, and she couldn’t bid her tongue be silent. Although he frequently tried to bring up the topic of ‘her romancer’, his heart did not seem to be in it. It appeared that the discovery of who was writing her the letters was not something that he wanted as much as she did. But then, half of the fun is not knowing, Catheryn supposed.
    Getting to know Selwyn, on the other hand, was riveting. The more she learned about him, the more he left the caricature of him as a steward that she had created for him, and the more he become an actual person. A person that she, Catheryn, missed.
    Who would have thought it.
    But Catheryn was swiftly brought out of her reveries by a nudge that came from her left hand