Page 261 of Historical Hotties
Birmingham
Seven days later
Caledonia had traveledthis route many a time, but never like this.
Never like this.
When she had been quite young, she had traveled this road from Edingale to London with her family because of the London properties they held. Her father tended to like London in the spring and also in the autumn because the weather tended to be good. Summer in London was a sticky affair, with the humidity rising off the river that flowed gently through the city, and winters could be particularly brutal. Her father liked his own hearth and his own bed at Edingale during the winters because he was a man of creature comforts as he grew older.
Caledonia remembered traveling with her parents between London and Tamworth, never particularly exciting affairs, but simply something they did from time to time. They passed through a dozen villages that looked the same, with people that looked the same and cottages that were arranged mostly the same way, and none of them had ever stood out in her mind. She considered the route to be unspectacular, and even whenshe married Robert and they would sometimes travel to London, she still considered the road between Stafford and London to be boring at best.
But this time, it was different.
This time, she was traveling with Thor. He had borrowed a small carriage from the royal livery so that she didn’t have to ride on horseback for several days. Caledonia had only actually ridden in a carriage when she was a child because Robert wouldn’t entertain the thought of providing any comfort for his wife when it came to travel, so as an adult, the only way she’d ever made the journey had been on the back of a horse.
Not this time.
Traveling with someone she actually wanted to be with was a different experience altogether. Somehow, the bumpy road didn’t seem so bumpy and the drab villages didn’t seem so drab. The food that they ate seemed to have more flavor and the daytime passed slowly while the nights passed too quickly. Since their wedding, Caledonia had spent every subsequent evening exploring him as she had on that first night. The day she married him was the day her life completely changed, and something she had once viewed as an unpleasant duty was now something she looked forward to.
Her duty in the bedchamber.
And Thor was the reason.
He really was too good to be true. In her opinion, there wasn’t one thing about him that was imperfect. His manner, his appearance, his character… All of it was perfect as far as she was concerned. And she clearly wasn’t the only one who thought so, because everyone he encountered, and everyone he worked with, seemed to have the highest regard for him. He was well liked by those who knew him, including his own wife, who even now was leaning her head out of the carriage to try to catch a glimpse of him toward the front of the escort. It wasn’t as if he wasn’tstraining to catch a glimpse of her, also, because every time she sought him out, he seemed to be looking in her direction.
She waved, and he waved, and all was right in the world.
As this flirtation was going on, day after day, it was also true that Caledonia wasn’t alone in the carriage. Nicola had somehow managed to attach herself to the escort heading to Stafford. As Thor had explained it, he felt that his sister could be a great deal of help, as they had discussed on their wedding night, to the new Lady de Reyne, and Nicola seemed more than willing to accompany her brother and his new wife to their new life. Caledonia had to admit that she was very glad because she genuinely liked Nicola, but it didn’t take her long to figure out that she wasn’t the young woman’s focus.
A certain handsome knight was.
It took Nicola less than a day to confess that her father had given permission for her to marry Darius, but they were not going to announce it until after her sister’s wedding. They didn’t want to steal attention away. But given the fact that Nicola liked to talk, Caledonia suspected that everyone would know about the betrothal well in advance of the sister’s marriage. In fact, all Nicola could talk about was Darius and their wedding—she spoke of where they would live and how they would live, and what names they would give their children. She had her whole life planned out, which Caledonia thought was rather sweet. She had spent an entire week listening to Nicola plan out her future.
It certainly was a different way of life than what she was used to.
Spending so much time with Nicola had taken her back to the days at Prudhoe Castle and her friends that she had been so attached to. That had been a good time in her life, so the memories were pleasant and she was feeling happier than she had been in a very long time. In fact, she could never remember being quite so happy, which was completely foreign to her. Butshe also knew that she was about to face something at Stafford Castle that she wasn’t sure she was ready to face.
Three little girls who thought she was a monster thanks to a certain nun.
They would be reaching Stafford Castle tomorrow, so tonight was their last night on the road and Thor had called a halt to the escort in Birmingham, which was about a day’s ride south of Stafford. Caledonia knew Birmingham well, because both Stafford and Tamworth conducted their business there, including the bankers, so she was well acquainted with the city. She recommended they stop at Ye Olde Oak, a very old tavern that was quite well known and quite large. It was single-storied, but spread out in a group of cottages with a large common area in the middle where drink and food were served in any weather. It could accommodate many. There was also an enormous barn that had been converted into the tavern’s common room and could easily shelter a few hundred people.
Thor sent Truett ahead to secure chambers for the night while he and Clayne headed back to the carriage where the ladies were riding. Caledonia stuck her head out just in time to see her husband approach.
“We’ll settle in at Birmingham for the night,” Thor said. “I’ve sent True ahead to secure rooms.”
Caledonia smiled up at him as he rode atop his dark brown horse with the gray mane. He was in full battle regalia, from the top of his helmed head to the bottom of his booted feet, a big man bearing big weapons. She recalled seeing him like this the moment they’d met in the darkness at Gomorrah and how frightening he’d been.
Fortunately for them both, she no longer found him frightening these days.
“Have you been to Birmingham often?” she asked.
Thor shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I think I have only been here twice, and that was passing through.”
Caledonia looked up ahead, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. “It has an excellent market on Thursdays,” she said. “And there is a large merchant district. People travel from all over to attend it.”
“Good,” he said. “So shall we.”
She looked at him. “What do you mean?”
