Corisande cocked her head curiously. “What is a dapifer?”
“A steward,” Cole said. “In this case, he was more of a military governor for FitzHerbert, but my family settled in what is known as the Roman River Valley, just south of Colchester. There are many people, even now, who display the de Velt eyes. I think that my ancestor had several wives, to be truthful.”
“De Velt eyes?” Corisande cocked her head curiously. “You mean the colors?”
He nodded. “Surely it cannot have escaped you that my eyes are different,” he said. “Our entire family line has eyes that are variations of two colors – my father has it most pronouncedly.”
“What do his eyes look like?”
“One is brown and the other is brown with a big splash of green,” he said. “My eyes were brown when I was an infant, but they developed the green in them as I grew older. My brothers have similar traits, as does my youngest sister.”
“Interesting,” she said. “Interesting and beautiful, I think. You say that half of Colchester has these two-colored eyes?”
He laughed softly. “Practically,” he said. “I have an uncle who lives at our ancestral home of Abberton Castle, but it’s known as Purgatory to the locals.”
“Why do they call it that?”
Cole swallowed the bite in his mouth and went for the meat pies. “Because my ancestor, in order to enforce military rule in Colchester, did some unsavory things,” he said. “My family has a history of that. Undoubtedly, you know of my father’s reputation.”
Corisande nodded. “A little,” she said. “I know that your father waged war on the borders many years ago.”
Cole looked at her. “Be under no illusions,” he said. “He did not wage war. He waged conquest and he did it the way our ancestors did it. It is the de Velt way.”
“How did your ancestors do it?”
His gaze lingered on her for a moment. “Blood and gore, my lady,” he said, unwilling to tell her the truth of it if she did not already know. “That seems sufficient. The de Velts are more brutal than most.”
Corisande watched him dig a meat pie out of the sack and take a big bite. “You do not seem brutal to me.”
“That is because we are not fighting one another.”
“True,” she said. “And I am thankful.”
She grinned as she said it, causing him to smile. He handed her part of the meat pie and she took it gratefully. When their fingers brushed, her heart leapt, just a little. She bit into the pie, noticing that he was watching her as she did so. His smile broadened when their eyes met.
“Let us speak no more of war and brutality,” he said. “I have enough of it in my life. I want to talk about you.”
“Me?” she said, surprised. “Why me? I am uninteresting.”
He frowned. “That is a lie,” he said flatly. “You are very interesting.”
“Then what do you want to know?”
He thought on the question. “Other than heal the sick and tend to your chatelaine duties, what else do you do? Surely you have something to do with your leisure time. Painting, mayhap?”
Corisande wiped some pie goo off her cheek. “I have a garden,” she said. “To be truthful, it was my mother’s garden and I grow a variety of herbs and flowers, many of them used in healing. I love to dig around in the garden and watch things grow.”
“That is commendable.”
“And you? What do you do when you are not fighting?”
He paused as he thought on his own leisure pursuits, something that seemed very foreign to him. “I like to hunt,” he said. “It has been a long time since I last went on a hunt with my father and brothers, but the hunts always go the same way – four dominate knights fighting for the right to claim the prize. I am the eldest, so it is my right, but Julian and Cassian do not think so. The last time, we were hunting boar, I had it in my sight, but Julian scared the boar away while Cassian caught me off guard and tried to tie me to a tree.”
Corisande giggled. “And your father?”
“He chased off my brothers’ horses so they could not ride,” he said, snorting at the memory. “My father and I chased down the boar and killed it while my brothers had to walk all the way home. My mother was livid when they told her how my father and I had beat them, preventing them from capturing the game. Those liars.”
Corisande laughed into her hand. “That sounds like my brothers,” she said. “They would kill or die for one another, but Ares and Atlas mostly side against Anteaus, who is a genuinely kind man. He’s quiet and the other two are not, but he is smarter than both Ares and Atlas combined. They taunt each other, wrestle each other, trick each other… but I love to watch it. It is truly hilarious sometimes.”
“And your younger sister?” he said, finishing the last of the meat pie. “Do you get on with her?”
Corisande shrugged. “Mostly,” she said. “I will tell you a secret – Gaia has just come home from fostering and she is a changed girl.”
“How?”
“Let us say that she likes… men. Pinching your knight last evening was only the beginning.”
Cole bit his lip to keep from grinning at the cheeky young woman. “Why do you say that?”
She lifted her shoulders in exasperation. “Because she will pursue him relentlessly,” she said. “Pinching, winking, demanding kisses. Aye, she demands kisses. She denies it, but Gratiana has heard her.”
“Who is Gratiana?”
“A ward,” she said. “Gratiana is a fine, mannerly young woman and Gaia views that as a curse. But my sister has changed. My father does not know what he is going to do with her because she flirts with men who try to warm to her, but my brothers end up chasing them away. I fear for Gaia, truthfully. One day, my brothers will not be around to save her from the wrong man.”
Cole brushed off his hands, finished with his meal. “How old is she?”
“She has seen ten years and eight.”
“Then she is old enough to know better,” he said. “Mayhap she will outgrow this behavior when she realizes that decent men do not like women who are too forward. She’ll only attract the dregs with her behavior.”
Corisande nodded in resignation. “I hope she realizes it soon because trying to manage her behavior is exhausting.”
His eyes glittered at her across the dim stall. “You seem to be doing a good job of it,” he said. “Your show of concern is touching. It seems that you have great compassion and caring for everyone.”
There was that flattery again, making her feel bashful and giddy. “She is my sister,” she said simply. “I do not wish to see her come to harm.”
“Of course you don’t. Not many people are so considering, even of family members.”
Corisande didn’t know what to say to that, so she simply smiled and lowered her head. The sun was starting to rise, faint rays peeking in through the ventilation holes in the stable that faced east, and Cole managed to tear his gaze away from Corisande long enough to see that his horse had finished his meal and was in the process of tearing up the bucket his food had come in. He had it in his mouth, tossing it around.