It was a personal conviction.
But at the moment, his personal conviction didn’t feel so triumphant.
It felt hollow.
With a heavy sigh, Kevin turned and headed back to the chapel.
CHAPTER TEN
She was ready.
Dressed in a gown that would be sacrificed this evening, an amber silk that had faded over the years, Christin presented a striking picture.
Wynter had styled her hair with beautiful and elaborate braids, with bows pinned to her hair, and all the while the two of them had plotted out the evening. Wynter was in on the scheme but sworn to secrecy, even to Lady de Winter or anyone else who should ask. It was critical that she deny all culpability. Christin didn’t go so far as to tell Wynter about her conversation with Alexander and Sean, but rather made it seem like it was her own idea to turn the king’s attraction off.
There was quite a litany of events to accomplish this.
With Wynter as her accomplice, Christin felt much more confident going into the situation. As Wynter scurried away to prepare for the coming feast, Christin sat on her bed and waited for Sean to make an appearance. But while she was waiting, she had several gulps of wine. Not enough to make her drunk or even tipsy, but enough that one could smell liquor on her breath. When she dabbed some in her dark hair, behind her ears, and down her cleavage, the warmth of her body gave the wine a rather stale smell. She’d even gone so far as to send Wynter to the kitchen yard and gather dung from the milk cow, which Christin promptly rubbed on her shift so that when her dress moved, the scent of cow dung was obvious.
She smelled like a drunken barnyard.
That was the plan.
Patiently, she waited for Sean, who came to the apartments right after the feast had commenced to collect her. A servant had summoned her and she’d gone down to greet Sean at the apartment entry. They didn’t say a word to each other but when he got close enough to her, he smelled the cow dung and the wine. It was enough to wrinkle his nose.
“Well done, my lady,” he muttered. “Are you ready?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“Verily.”
Sean escorted her into the great hall, which was alive with men and the allies who had arrived thus far for the king’s celebration. Rather than allow Christin to grip his elbow in a polite gesture of escort, Sean had her by the arm instead, directing her into the hall and to the dais where the king awaited.
Not strangely, Christin felt a wave of fear wash through her at the sight of John. He was dressed quite well, in silks and furs, and his attention was riveted to her as she approached. Sean let go of her and she curtsied clumsily before the dais.
“Come sit next to me, my lady,” John said. “I have eagerly been awaiting this meal.”
Oh, but there was a lascivious expression on his face. Christin could see it; everyone else did, too, knowing that John was about to have another conquest for the night.
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Christin came around the side of the table, moving to the chair that John was indicating. He was smiling at her, a lazy predatory smile, but as she sat down and her dress billowed out, the first wave of cow smell washed over the table and the king.
It was a shocking first salvo in the war to discourage the king.
“It was so kind of you to invite me, your grace,” Christin said, reaching for a full cup of wine in front of her. “I will admit, I was very nervous to join you. You are a great man, a king, and I am the daughter of a mere earl. But it seems to me that we are all part of God’s family, so why should I be so nervous? I have been asking myself that all evening. I am sure you have had many ladies as guests at your table. Are they all so nervous?”
She was chattering a mad streak and John didn’t have a chance to get a word in. Even after she asked the question, she took a very sloppy drink of wine and it spilled down the front of her. Using her sleeve, she wiped at her mouth and her chest where the wine had gone.
“Forgive me, your grace,” she said. “I am ever so clumsy. Of course, the women you sup with must all be very graceful and gracious, but not me. I never had the grace that other women had and I surely am not a witty conversationalist, and all the time I have been here at Norwich, I have never had a suitor, so being asked to sup with you has made me giddy. But it is such an honor!”
Again with the sloppy drink. It washed back on her chin and she sputtered, spraying it everywhere as she coughed dramatically, as if the wine had choked her. It had sprayed onto John a little, and all over the food in front of her. She slammed the wine cup down and it sloshed over the sides.
“Oh!” she cried. “What a mess I have made! But it’s not the first mess I have made, I assure you. My mother calls me Messy Chrissy. It’s true! If something is broken, it’s usually my fault because I break everything I touch. My father says I have the grace of a rutting bull. Can you imagine? A de Lohr who is not graceful?”
There was a leg of a swan that a servant had thoughtfully put before her, probably at the king’s direction. As she talked, she picked it up and took a big bite out of it. Food was hanging out of her mouth as she smacked her lips.
“My family is going to be very surprised to learn that I have dined with you,” she said, food spilling onto her dress as she chewed with her mouth open. “Honestly, it seems that I always dine with the same people so it is thrilling to see new faces, and of course, your grace is included. I bet I make a much more congenial dinner companion with you than my father ever has!”
She laughed loudly, dripping food out of her mouth, which she simply brushed off her skirts and kept eating. Meat was going everywhere at this point with very little of it actually going into her mouth.
Beside her, the king was watching her with confusion. When the food sprayed, his eyebrows lifted and a flicker of disgust crossed his expression. He watched her as she finished with the leg bone and tossed it, throwing it right into a man on the next table. As the man looked to her in shock and outrage, she laughed loudly at him.
“Sit down, you vile pig,” she yelled at him, ripping off a wing on the peacock in front of her and throwing that at him, hitting him in the shoulder. “Oh, you don’t like that, do you? Sit down before I come over there and shove that bird up your…”
“My lady, please,” John interrupted, looking at her with a good deal of astonishment. “I appreciate civility in a lady. Please act accordingly.”
Christin demurred unnaturally fast. “I see,” she said, yanking more meat off of the swan. “I am sorry. I don’t usually talk so much, but I want to be witty and entertaining. I do not want you to regret asking me to dine with you. But I will admit that I like wine. I developed the habit when I was young. My parents never could keep the wine away from me.”
With that, she shoved the meat in her mouth and tried to take a drink of wine around it, but it was too much food and she ended up choking. All of the meat and wine came back out, spraying over the table. Some of it hit the king in the leg. Appalled, Christin used her sleeve to brush it from his knee.
“I am so sorry, your grace,” she said. “I do not know what has come over me. I am just nervous, I suppose, and…”
She had mentioned her nerves more than once and John held out a hand to shut her up. “There is no need to be nervous, my lady,” he said. “You must relax or there will be more food wasted than eaten. Lord de Winter has presented a lovely feast tonight for us to enjoy.”