Grabbing hold of the front of her surcoat, he gave one powerful yank and ripped it down to her navel. Allaston screamed as his big, warm, and dirty hand snaked between the torn pieces of fabric, grasping a warm and soft breast, fondling her. He pinched her nipple as she struggled to get away from him, and he ended up picking her up and plopping her down on the tabletop. As Allaston beat at him and fought to get away, he easily caught both of her flailing arms and pinned them over her head.
She bucked and wept as his hot mouth came down on a distended nipple, suckling furiously. As she struggled, he climbed upon the table and got on top of her, wedging himself between her kicking legs. With both arms pinned by his iron grip, he was free to do as he wished as he began to toss up her skirts.
“Nay,” Allaston wept. “Please do not do this. Please! This is not the way for a man to behave, do you hear me? You must not do this!”
He heard her. However, he was so overwhelmed with his lust and want for her at the moment that it was clouding his common sense. All he could think of was satisfying his desire, of feeling his body in hers, of tasting her tender flesh. There was nothing else in his world. This is how the act of sex had always been done, ever since the merchant who owned him had tied him down and raped him. He’d been screaming and crying, subjected to unbelievable pain, but the old man had penetrated him anyway. He hadn’t listened to the young boy’s cries. Therefore, Allaston’s struggle was nothing out of the ordinary. When his fingers began to probe the soft curls between her legs, she let out a scream of utter terror.
“Stop!” she howled. “Would you truly do this to me? I am meant for the cloister and if you do this, I will be stained forever! You have told me how terrible it was for someone to do this to you, yet you are doing it to me! I beg you, please stop! I swear upon all that is holy that I will hate you forever if you take what does not belong to you! I will hate you!”
He inserted a finger into her, listening to her scream with pain and terror. She was very tight around his finger and he could feel the proof of her virginity opposing him. He could only imagine how his manhood would feel inside of her, enveloped by the warmth and moisture of her body. He could imagine no greater pleasure. But her words began to sink in and he paused, his mouth on her breast and his finger in her body. He’d often wondered what it would be like to bed a woman whom he hadn’t paid, or who wasn’t screaming in terror.
To have a woman respond to him, to want him to touch her… it was a foreign concept, but one he’d always wondered about. Perhaps it was something to consider because he didn’t want Allaston hating him. If he raped her, she would. Nay, he didn’t want her hatred at all. Deep down, that part of him that understood decency was struggling to come forth. He’d known decency, once, as a child. He well remembered his kind mother and father, and how good they had been. If he could recollect the concept of decency, then perhaps it wasn’t dead in him after all.
So he stopped suckling her breast and removed his finger. Pushing himself off the table, he watched Allaston leap off the other side, pulling the ends of her tattered surcoat together as she bolted from the room. He could hear her running up the stairs to the second floor and he heard the door to her chamber slam. He was sure she bolted it, too, but he hadn’t heard that part. As he stood there, feeling guilty and confused, Dallan entered the keep. He could see the man approaching from the entry.
“Bretton,” he said, extending what looked to be a rolled bit of parchment in his hand. “A missive has arrived for you.”
Bretton forced himself away from thoughts of Allaston to focus on the message Dallan was bearing.
“A missive?” he repeated, confused. “For me?”
Dallan nodded. “A rider dropped it at the gatehouse and fled,” he said. “It seems the army of the dead outside the walls frightened him sufficiently, but when the sentries collected the missive, it was addressed to Bretton de Llion.”
Bretton eyed the man with both curiosity and suspicion as he took the parchment. He inspected it with great interest, turning it over in his hands so the seal was exposed. He squinted as he studied the red seal, attempting to discern the details of the seal. After a moment, shock registered across his bearded face.
It was the seal of the House of de Llion.
CHAPTER TEN
It was dark on the entry level of the keep now that the sun had gone down. Bretton sat alone at the scrubbed table with the open missive in front of him, listening to his men out in the bailey as night descended. Laughter and shouts wafted in through the three long lancet windows on the north side of the room, windows that faced the kitchen yard but the hall was near the kitchen and he could hear the sounds coming forth. Men were enjoying themselves now after a victorious campaign at Rhayder. It was the sound of mercenaries enjoying their latest bloody victory.
But Bretton wasn’t interested in celebrating. In fact, he wasn’t interested in much at the moment. He kept the missive at his hand, every so often glancing down at it, but the room had grown so dark that he couldn’t see the carefully scribed letters anymore. But he really didn’t have to, he knew what it said. He had been reading it all afternoon.
In the keep, there had been some movement during the time he’d sat and read the missive. Allaston had eventually come down from her bower, but he was sitting out of her line of sight as she descended the stairs and quit the keep, he assumed, to oversee the evening meal. In truth, he hadn’t thought about her much since he’d received the missive. All of his energy had been directed at the contents of the parchment that contained the seal of de Llion. He’d smelled the aromas of cooking meat, of freshly baked bread as Allaston and the kitchen servants cooked for several hundred men, but he wasn’t particularly hungry. In fact, he wasn’t sure what he was.
In an emotionless limbo, he continued to sit as the evening deepened and the room around him grew dark and very cold. He sat and fingered the missive, pondering the contents, for minute upon minute, turning into hour upon hour. He had no real concept of time passing, lost in a world he didn’t much like to reflect on. The world of his past. At some point during the passing of the hours, he heard the keep entry open and footfalls approach. Light was approaching, too. He glanced up, slowly, to see Allaston as she entered the chamber with an oil lamp in her hand. Two servants trailed behind her, one with a bucket of something and one with a tray of food. Allaston pointed to the dark hearth.
“Blandings, please light a fire,” she said, and as the old man with the bucket moved for the black hearth, she directed the fat servant with the tray towards the table where Bretton sat. “Robert, please take the food to the lord.”
Bretton sat there, not saying a word, as a tray of food was placed before him. Allaston moved around the table to a bank of tallow candles, impaled on an iron floor sconce, and lit them with the flame from the oil lamp. Soon, a warm glow filled the room as the candles gave off their significant light. She was business-like and polite as she set the oil lamp down on the table so he could see the food laid out before him. Taking the wooden pitcher off the tray, she poured a measure of dark red wine into the earthenware cup.
“Blandings, please make sure to bring in more fuel for the fire before you leave,” she called over to the man who was stoking the hearth. “And bring more peat, it lasts longer.”
The man responded in the affirmative as Allaston proceeded to take the trencher and other items off the tray, setting them in front of Bretton. Smells of garlic and meat and onions filled his nostrils and he realized that he was the slightest bit hungry. Allaston was pulling bread and butter off the tray, setting it within his arm’s reach, working around the parchment without moving it aside. When she was finished with her task, she took the tray off the table and headed for the door but Bretton stopped her.
“Lady,” he said, his raspy voice soft. “Hold, please.”
Allaston came to a halt by the door, pausing to look at him. It was the first time she had looked him in the face since entering the hall. But Bretton didn’t
say any more, at least not until Blandings finished stirring up the flames in the hearth and left the room in search of more fuel for the fire. Only when he heard the keep entry shut did Bretton continue.
“Will you please join me?” he asked softly.
Allaston was clearly hesitant. She moved to the table, slowly, and took a seat that was well out of arm’s length. It was obvious she was fearful of being grabbed again and Bretton was rather sorry. He knew his actions had terrified her. She said she would hate him forever if he completed his dastardly deed, and even though he hadn’t completed it, it was quite possible she hated him simply for attempting it. Nay, he didn’t want her hate. Oddly enough, he found he wanted her comfort. He’d never depended on anyone in his life but, at the moment, he wanted to depend on her. She was the only person in his entire life that had ever shown him the slighted amount of compassion and understanding. That fleeting taste had given him a glimpse of what he had been missing.
“For my earlier actions…,” he began, “I am a man not given to regrets but I fear that my actions… I cannot explain what it is I felt or why I did what I did. I did not mean to injure you.”
Allaston’s countenance was guarded. It wasn’t exactly an apology but he was trying. Still, she wasn’t ready to forgive him yet. If she did, it might show the man that he could get away with things like that and that certainly wasn’t the case. He had crossed the line of propriety with her and she was unwilling to forgive and forget at the moment. He had hurt her feelings, scared her, and embarrassed her, and she wasn’t ready to release those emotions against him.
“You did not injure me,” she said after a moment. “Why have you asked me to join you? Is there something more you require for your meal or comfort?”
He shook his head, slowly, his eyes on the parchment that was lying on the tabletop a few feet away. He reached around the oil lamp to retrieve it, holding it up in front of him as he read the words again. His normally impassive expression was in danger of becoming something emotional.
“I received a missive earlier today,” he finally said. “It is from a cousin I have not seen since before de Velt destroyed Four Crosses. This cousin is three or four years younger than I am, so in truth, I do not know the man. I only know of him. But he speaks of my grandfather, who is also his grandfather. I have only vague memories of the man.”
In spite of her anger towards him, she was inevitably interested in what he was saying. She was also surprised by the news. “That seems strange,” she said. “How would these relatives know where to find you?”
He frowned and tossed the parchment aside. “That is the question I have been asking myself,” he said. “How did they find me? When I escaped Four Crosses, they certainly made no attempt to locate me, so how were they able to locate me now?”
Allaston could hear bitterness in his words. She was coming to think there was some resentment there. “Where does this cousin live?”
Bretton glanced at the parchment in spite of the fact he had tossed it away. “Bronllys Castle,” he said. “It is well south of here. My grandfather is the garrison commander for the Earl of Hereford, or at least that is what my cousin says. I do not remember any of those particulars, but I do remember that my grandfather was stationed at Bronllys.”
Allaston asked the obvious question. “If you have family there, why have you not contacted them before now?” she asked. “Surely they would like to know you are alive and that you did not perish with your family.”
Bretton looked at her and she could see the turmoil in the bright blue eyes. “They would not care,” he said flatly. “If they loved me so much, why did they not try to find me after Four Crosses was destroyed? They could have searched for me but they did not. In fact, I prayed nightly for such things, praying for my grandfather to come and save me. Instead, he left me to the mercy of others. Nay, my relatives do not care for me. This missive simply asks if I am the Bretton de Llion whose father, Morgan, commanded Four Crosses. They do not even know for sure if it is me. If they truly cared, they would have come personally and not have sent a cold and impersonal missive.”
Allaston’s eyebrows lifted. The man, in her opinion, couldn’t have been more wrong. “How were they supposed to find you?” she asked. “Your entire family was killed at Four Crosses and they naturally assumed you were killed as well. There was no way for them to know otherwise. But now, somehow or someway, they have heard that you are here at Cloryn so they are reaching out to you.”
He snorted rudely. “By sending a missive?”
“Do you think, given your reputation, that it would have been safe for one of them to have come personally?” she countered. “What if you are not the cousin they seek? It could have been a very hazardous situation in that case.”
Once again, she spoke the truth. Bretton considered her a moment, pondering her words, before looking back to the parchment. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, looking at the contents of the missive once again without touching the parchment. It was quite clear that he was torn, not knowing how to react to it.
“That is a logical conclusion,” he said. “My cousin asks me to meet him at The Falcon and Flower Inn in Newtown. It is about twenty miles from here, to the south. He has asked me to meet him there on the first day of the new month, which is two days away. I have not yet decided if I will do this.”
Allaston was curious. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “Because I am not entirely sure there is a need,” he said. “What could my cousin possibly say to me? We do not know each other. We are simply related by blood and, I am sure, worlds apart in philosophies.”
Allaston thought on that. “Mayhap you could discover how he knew where to find you,” she said. “If it were me, I would be most curious to know.”
He cocked his head in agreement. “I will admit that I would like to know.”
“Then mayhap you should meet with him,” she said, her eyes glimmering in the weak firelight. “I would also think… well, at least by my reckoning… that I would want to find out why they did not try to find me after Four Crosses burned. They could have a sound reason for it, you know.”
He looked at her, studying her lovely face across the flicker of the oil lamp. “Why would you encourage me to seek people who abandoned me?”
“That is my point. You do not know if they did for certain.”
“Aye, I do. No one ever came for me.”
“Mayhap because they did not know where to look,” she stressed. “You said yourself that you escaped with a few servants and that they took you away. If anyone is to blame, it is the servants. They should have contacted your grandfather but they did not. It’s not for me to say, of course, but they could have even ransomed you to your grandfather. It seems to me that they thought there was more money to be had in selling you.”
She always seemed to make sense. Bretton was coming to admire that quality about her. His men would essentially tell him what he wanted to hear, dependent upon him as they were for riches, but Allaston wasn’t dependent upon him at all, at least not like that. She had the luxury of speaking without prejudice. Maybe that was why he had asked her to stay and listen to his tale of the mysterious missive. He knew she would have an opinion on it. He was glad she did.
“You have an excellent point,” he said. “To be truthful, I never thought on it that way.”
“Then mayhap you should meet your cousin and see what he has to say.”
Bretton mulled her words over, thinking that perhaps her advice was sound. Truth be told, he did want to see Rod. He wanted to know why no one had ever looked for him and he thought Rod might have the answers to questions that had pestered him for years. It was a sorrow he buried deep, but something that had fed his anger against de Velt. Were he to admit it, there was a lot of anger against his family, too. He had felt abandoned.
As he sat there and deliberated what to do, Allaston rose from her seat. “If that is all you needed, then I have duties to attend to,” sh
e said, making her way to him at the head of the table and picking up the pitcher to see if it was empty. “Would you like something more to eat? There is plenty of stew left.”
He shook his head, sitting forward with his elbows on the table as she moved around him. He watched her as she poured the last of the wine into his cup and collected the pitcher. But before she could move away from him, he reached out and grasped her left hand. Allaston stiffened, preparing to fight him off, when he brought her hand to his lips for a kiss. It was soft, gentle, and warm. Just as quickly, he released her.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Allaston could hardly breathe for the shock of that kiss had bolted through her. But it wasn’t a frightening shock in the least. It was a thrilling one. After what had happened earlier in the day, she was torn and confused with her reaction. It didn’t make any sense but, then again, nothing revolving around Bretton de Llion made much sense to her. She was attracted to a man who wanted to kill her father, a man who was reasonable and moderate one moment yet vile and terrible the next. He was a paradox. Without another word, she grabbed the empty wine pitcher and fled the room.
Bretton sat there, reflecting on the misty memories of his grandfather and family, for the rest of the night.
*
The next morning dawned clear and mild, a weather pattern that seemed to be holding. Allaston rose before dawn and stoked the fire in her chamber, heating some water over the flickering flame for her morning ritual. The day she had learned about the fate of the lady of Cloryn, she had gone to the room where the family’s things were haphazardly stored and she had neatly bundled everything, a show of respect for the family that had so terribly lost their lives. She even returned the majority of the garments Grayton had brought her, and the combs she had borrowed, until she realized she had absolutely nothing of her own to use or wear.
It seemed sacrilegious to use Lady Miette’s personal items and she was quite torn in her thinking that the lady no longer had a need for them. After saying a few prayers over the family’s possessions, she thought perhaps that Lady Miette would not have minded if she continued to use a few things. At least, she hoped not. Therefore, she took back the garments she had borrowed, and the combs, and she also found a small phial of rose-scented oil, which she reluctantly took as well. Her skin was very dry to the point of cracking and she knew the oil would help. She silently said a little prayer of thanks to Miette for her generosity and tried not to feel guilty for taking it.
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