With that, she walked away, heading towards the apartment building and her chamber, which happened to have a view of the garden. As she scurried away, Christopher maintained his eye contact with Alexander.
“She does not want me to ruin this for her,” Christopher said. “What, exactly, would I be ruining?”
Alexander could feel the tension. It was like a fog, swirling between them. He’d known Christopher for so long, as they’d served together in The Levant and since, and he’d never once been on the man’s angry side, so this was something new. He knew what Christopher de Lohr was capable of. Rather than become cagey or defensive, he reasoned that the best thing to do was to face it head-on.
He had to be honest.
“Up until yesterday, there was nothing to ruin,” he said. “But yesterday… Chris, I have spent the past several days with Christin, along with Peter and Bric and Kevin, escorting her back to Norwich Castle after the visit at Ramsbury. I’ve known of your daughter for a few years but I’ve never spent any time around her. There was never any reason to. She is a de Lohr and the House of de Lohr is in a class all its own. I never presumed to attain a de Lohr bride, nor did I have any ambition for one. But you have raised a woman of astounding bravery, wit, and charm, and as we came to know one another, I found myself succumbing to her. I do not know how it happened, but it has. As a man who loves his wife, and I have heard rumor that you do, then surely you can understand how these things simply… happen.”
Christopher was still staring at him. He was genuinely trying to decide how to react to all of this. He’d come on the hunt for his daughter and found her in the arms of Alexander de Sherrington.
Sherry.
An Executioner Knight.
“Do not bring my wife into it,” he finally said. “Do not even breathe her name, for this has nothing to do with my wife and everything to do you with you and my daughter. Christ, Sherry, you’re twice her age.”
Alexander cleared his throat softly. “I know,” he said, averting his gaze somewhat nervously. “I pointed that out to her.”
Christopher scowled. “Was this her idea?”
Alexander shook his head quickly. “Nay,” he said. “As I said, it just happened. We were speaking one moment about something completely neutral and in the next moment, we are declaring our feelings for one another. In fact, we discussed when I was planning on approaching you to ask for your daughter’s hand and she was right. Had I known you were going to be here today, I would have met you at the gate. It would have been the first thing out of my mouth.”
Christopher looked at him a few moments longer before finally looking away. He just couldn’t look at Alexander any longer without wanting to wrap his hands around the man’s throat. Turning away, he began to pace, digesting everything and trying not to become angry about it. Anger wouldn’t solve the problem and there was most definitely a problem as he saw it.
“Sherry, you know I greatly admire you,” he said. “You know that I like you personally. You are a fine knight and a loyal friend. But when it comes to my daughter, you must forgive me for being her father and not your friend. Do you understand that?”
“I do.”
Christopher came to a halt and looked at him. “No offense intended, but I never considered you for my daughter,” he said. “Not only are you twice her age, but the things you have done in your past, Sherry… my God, there are a half-dozen situations in The Levant alone that come to mind when you were less than noble when it came to the treatment of the enemy. I have seen what you are capable of. And I am supposed to allow you to marry my daughter?”
Alexander folded his enormous arms over his chest. “And I have seen what you are capable of,” he said in a quiet but firm counter. “That does not make you any less a loving father and husband. It makes you a formidable soldier who will do anything to gain victory. One has nothing to do with the other.”
“Explain.”
“Just because I can kill a man and his child, both of whom have betrayed Christian knights, does not make me an undesirable husband.”
Christopher cast him a long look. “It’s not just that,” he muttered. “I know what you did on your way home from The Levant. It took you eight years to return and I know what you did during that time. You spent some of it at the Lateran Palace as a guest of the Holy Father and you lived like a sultan with a harem. You did not think I knew that, did you?”
Alexander lifted his big shoulders in a dismissive gesture. “It was not as bad as all that.”
His casual reply brought Christopher’s anger around. “Then explain it to me so there is no misunderstanding,” he growled. “You want to marry my daughter? Then tell me why I should consider a man who looks at a woman as no better than a pet.”
Alexander’s jaw flexed. “I was at the Lateran Palace as a guest of the Holy Father,” he said evenly. “But the man used me as a personal attack dog and rewarded me handsomely. I was given a home of my own and twelve women, to be used by me at my discretion. Although I have great admiration and appreciation for women, I am not the kind of man who needs a different one in his bed every night and the women given to me grew fat and bored for lack of use. You did not hear that part, did you?”
Christopher frowned. “Are you telling me that you ignored twelve beautiful women?”
“I did not say that. But I did not have a different one in my bed every night, and there was not one of them that I was fond of or particularly interested in.”
“Then they were whores.”
“Aye.”
Christopher threw up his hands. “And you expect me to allow you to marry my daughter?”
Alexander lifted a dark eyebrow. “Tell me truthfully that you never sought out the comfort of a whore before you married your wife,” he said. “If the answer is no, then I will drop my pursuit of your daughter. I cannot undo the past; all I can do is make you a promise for the future. I will never disrespect Christin, I will always ensure she is safe and warm and happy, and I will be faithful to her for the rest of my life. Upon my oath, I swear this. Now, answer my question – did you ever seek the comfort of a whore before you married your wife?”
It was a clever question, one that had Christopher backed into a corner because he knew very well what the answer was. He couldn’t even lie to Alexander because everyone knew of the escapades of the de Lohr brothers and Marcus Burton in their youths. He’d been a wild buck in those days, so denying he’d ever found comfort with a whore was stupid. It simply wasn’t true.
Heavily, he sighed.
“Aye,” he said. “But we are not talking about me. We are talking about you.”
“And what I’ve done in my past is no worse than what you have done. Moreover, it will remain in my past.”
He sounded sincere and given that Christopher had known him for so long, he knew that he meant it. Alexander de Sherrington did not go back on his word, in any case. It was true that he couldn’t continue to throw stones at Alexander, knowing he shared much of the same past in certain aspects. He also couldn’t attack the man’s character, which was beyond reproach.
Therefore, he tried another tactic to see if he could shake the man loose.