Chapter Fifteen #3
Graehm bolted off in the direction he had just come.
By this time, Brooke was at the bottom of the steps, weeping loudly at the sight of her mother lying on the ground.
Dallas shoved the old woman at a couple of soldiers for safe-keeping and went to his wife.
He put his arms around her as they both gazed down at Gray.
“Mama?” Brooke wept, trying to move closer but being prevented by Dallas. “Mama, are you all right?”
Gray lay there, breathing heavily and not moving. Braxton realized he was as close to tears as he had ever been in his life. He touched her face, her arms, not wanting to move her but wanting to do something. He felt so helpless.
“Gray,” he murmured, bending down to kiss her forehead. “Can you tell me where you hurt? Please, sweetheart. Where do you hurt?”
Gray’s eyes lolled open, the magnificent amber orbs glazed with shock. She took a deep breath and shifted slightly, her right leg coming up to bend at the knee. Then she moved again; her arms and torso flexed. She lifted her hands to Braxton and he grasped them tightly.
“I… I think I am all right,” she whispered. “Just… stunned. Help me to sit up, please.”
Braxton was shaking like a leaf. He helped her to sit, very carefully, making sure to support her back as she tried to catch her balance. She blinked, putting a hand to her head. Braxton was deeply relieved to see that she was at least able to sit.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
She put her hand to the bloodied side of her head. “A little weak, but I believe I am all right.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think so.”
Braxton was so relieved that he nearly collapsed with it. But her bloodied head had his attention and he fingered her silken blond hair, looking for the wound.
“You have hurt your head,” he said. “The physic may need to put a few stitches in your scalp.”
Gray shook her head. “The fall did not do that,” she said quietly. “My mother did.”
Braxton’s gaze flew to the old woman, now trapped between two seasoned soldiers. His nostrils flared, indicative of his level of emotion, and the blue-green eyes blazed.
“She hurt you?” he asked his wife.
Gray looked over at her mother; she was finished protecting the woman. “Aye.”
“Is that why you were fighting with her?”
“I was bodily removing her from Erith. She did not want to go.”
Braxton stood up and snapped his fingers at the soldiers, who immediately grabbed Constance and began dragging her across the bailey. The old woman began to scream again, howling an unearthly sound. Brooke’s loud crying resumed as she watched her grandmother’s removal.
“Where is she going?” she begged. “What are you doing with her?”
Gray was attempting to stand with Braxton’s strong assistance.
“She is banished from Erith,” Gray told her daughter as firmly as she could manage.
“Because of her, we are facing more peril that we can possibly fend off. Everything horrible that has happened is a direct result of her actions. I will tolerate her no longer, Brooke. I will not allow her to continue to harm us. To harm you.”
Brooke was weeping softly against Dallas’ chest. He was trying his best to comfort her.
Gray was steadier now, leaning heavily against Braxton.
Slowly, the two of them began to walk back to the steps that had almost claimed Gray’s life.
They passed close to Brooke and Dallas as they did so, one glance at her mother propelled Brooke from Dallas’ arms and into Gray’s.
She wept dramatically against her mother as Braxton supported them both.
Dallas met his father-in-law’s gaze over the two blond heads. “What do we do with Lady Constance?”
Braxton was very close to giving a brutal order but he kept himself in check. He had more important things to contend with.
“Give her a few coins and have her escorted into Milnthorpe. Pay for a few days of lodging for her. But beyond that, she gets nothing. My patience with her is at an end for what she has done. Tell her that I will throw her in the vault if she ever shows her face here again.”
Dallas was pleased with the order but did not show it. Leaving his wife clinging to her mother, he went to give the command that would send Constance from Erith forever.
Or so he hoped.
Up in Gray’s poorly furnished chamber, Braxton inspected her from head to toe for any injuries related to the fall.
She had perked up a great deal, now seemingly just exhausted more than anything else.
Satisfied that she was moderately intact, Braxton proceeded to put three neat stitches in her ear.
Since Gray was feeling better, he called off the hunt for a local physic and decided to take care of her himself.
Brooke sat with Gray the entire time; she even helped Braxton when the man put the small stitches in her mother’s skin, a big step for the normally squeamish young lady.
When the stitches were in, he gave her a brewed willow bark potion for her throbbing headache.
“Are you hungry, Mama?” Brooke asked as she put away the bowl that Braxton had used. “The cook made some wonderful bread with the last of Braxton’s white flour.”
Gray was lying on her small, sparse bed and immediately tried to rise. “I will attend the meal downstairs. No need to cater to me, for I am well enough.”
Braxton sat on a stool next to the bed, eyeing his wife as she tried to stand. “The physician said you should rest,” he told her. “Perhaps you and I could take our meal in our chamber tonight.”
Gray gave him a blank expression. “But who will see to the meal? I must go down and.…”
He stood up, putting his hands on her gently. “You have a grown daughter who is now lady of this keep. She will see to the meal.”
Gray turned astonished eyes to Brooke. Brooke, in fact, looked rather surprised by Braxton’s suggestion. But in the same breath, she was aware that her new father was correct. In the face of her mother’s reluctance, Brooke summoned her courage.
“Aye, Mama, I will see to it,” she said eagerly. “I will go right now.”
“But.…”
“I will do a good job. You’ll see.”
Gray watched Brooke bolt from the room, much to Braxton’s amusement. Then she looked at her husband in shock; her daughter was indeed growing up and she wasn’t so sure she liked it. Braxton put his arms around his wife, careful of her bumps and bruises.
“You see?” he murmured into her temple. “She is capable of the duty. Have some faith in her.”
Gray was torn between doubt and agreement. “I do,” she said, though she wasn’t sure she meant it. “But she has never supervised a full meal before.”
“Yet you have taught her what you know.”
“I have tried.”
“Then there is always a first time for everything.”
Gray was forced to agree with him. Either Brooke would succeed or she would fail. But she must be given the chance.
Brooke never gave failure another thought.
She bound down the stairs to the great hall, nearly plowing into Graehm as he went to tend Geoff.
The red-haired knight was stuffed into an inconspicuous corner of the great hall and Brooke went over to him, peering over Graehm’s shoulder as the man checked his bandages.
“I am supervising the meal tonight, Sir Geoff,” she said, sounding rather proud of herself. “Is there anything special you would like to eat?”
Geoff was pale but lucid. He looked up at Brooke as much as his restrictive bandages would allow. “Nothing comes to mind, Lady Aston.”
She smiled at his use of her title and Graehm interrupted. “The physic in Milnthorpe said he is to eat soft foods, my lady,” he instructed. “Soup or porridge only.”
“But he may want something else.”
“Nothing else for him. Soup or porridge only.”
Brooke made a face, causing Geoff to smile weakly. She stuck her tongue out at the back of Graehm’s head even as she answered affirmatively.
“As you say,” she turned back for the kitchens.
Somehow, she felt different this night. Usually, she was in the kitchens helping the cook while her mother was doing everything else.
But tonight, she was actually doing the managing.
She went into the kitchens and told the cook that Geoff must only have soft foods; the cook barked like a dog in response.
Brooke was used to the strange behavior.
Then she walked around the kitchens like an inspector, noting what food was being prepared and how they were doing it.
She missed nothing and was feeling quite important.
Edgar and Norman entered the kitchens through the open back door. They had sacks of grain in their arms, looking for a place to drop them. Norman spied Brooke first, standing across the kitchen by the great hearth.
“Where would you have us put this, Lady Aston?” he asked her.
Brooke went over to them. “What is it that you have?”
“White milled flour,” Norman told her. “Sir Braxton and the knights like white bread. They will wish it for their meal.”
Brooke looked thoughtful. “Why not put it here, by this cutting table. Prop it up so that it is out of the way.”
Norman looked at the table shoved up against the stone wall. “If I can make a suggestion, my lady, perhaps we should put the sack on the top of the table so that they are off the floor.”
“Why?”
“So the mice can’t get at them,” Edgar said as if she was the stupidest creature on the face of the earth.
Norman cast his brother a quelling glance. “The mice like the flour,” he said nicely, hoping Brooke would not react to his brother. “We should put it somewhere off the floor.”
Brooke was still eyeing Edgar. “Very well,” she told Norman. “Put them somewhere safe.”
Norman heaved the sack onto the table top, helping Edgar do the same. Brooke was still glaring at the younger boy, watching him follow his brother from the room. She called to him before they could reach the door.
“Edgar,” she called.
Both boys came to a halt; Norman’s expression was wary while Edgar’s was downright hostile.
“Aye, Lady Aston?” Edgar emphasized ‘lady’.