Chapter Seventeen #2
Rickard knew what he meant but he wasn’t going to give in and pretend he understood. Somehow, someway, Colchester knew about his brother and Lyssa, but Rickard wasn’t going to ask how he knew. He continued to play ignorant.
“My lord, we are not speaking of my brother,” he said. “What happened tonight that I have seen injured women?”
Jago eyed him, hatefully. “You have no right to ask me anything,” he finally said. “It is not your business, any of it. Go back to your wife and leave me alone.”
That was the answer Rickard had expected, truthfully.
He didn’t want to leave Colchester alone for fear of what the man would do when left to his own devices.
Therefore, he sought to occupy his time and attention, at least until the duchess could get her women out of the manse.
But all the while, he was suppressing the inherent desire to wrap his hands around the man’s neck on behalf of his brother and the lovely woman that had been beaten senseless on this night.
Rickard wasn’t so devoted to the duke that he didn’t feel that urge, and any devotion he did feel was based on duty and nothing more.
Duty towards the man he’d been gifted to in payment of a debt.
He was coming to curse the day when Lincoln decided to use him as a form of currency.
“My lord, I am sworn to you and I am here to assist you,” he said. “Mayhap, we should go to your solar and sit. Mayhap some wine would calm your nerves.”
Jago was pacing now, looking out of the window that overlooked the garden and the river beyond.
The moon was sitting low in the sky at this point, a brilliant crescent whose reflection rippled out over the water.
But it wasn’t the water that caught his attention; it was the garden below.
Visions of what happened that morning came flitting back to him, visions of a woman who had slapped his hand away. Even thinking of it infuriated him.
“Do you know what I saw today?” he said to Rickard.
“I saw your brother bed a woman that belongs to me. Lady Lyssa… she is my wife’s lady but all of the women belong to me.
You know that. Every last one of them. I saw your brother at a tavern and he had Lady Lyssa with him.
I watched him kiss her. I watched him take her to the sleeping rooms in the tavern.
That is why I say I saw him bed her, for I know that is what he did.
He touched something that belonged to me. ”
Rickard was shocked to say the least. He’d known that Colchester had gone into town, whoring, and he also knew that his brother had taken Lyssa out of The Wix for the day, precisely to keep the woman from Colchester.
To realize that Colchester was at the tavern where Garret evidently took the lady was shocking, indeed.
Of all of the taverns in London, Garret had to pick that one.
He was certain his brother hadn’t known because Garret surely would have said something, but now it made sense as to why Colchester was so enraged.
He’d seen them together.
But that rambling diatribe also underscored Colchester’s unsteady mind.
It was in the way he spoke the words, as if he truly believed them, and Rickard was convinced that Colchester believed every bloody word.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to calm Colchester down when the man believed something had been stolen from him.
“Let us go into your solar and have wine, my lord,” Rickard said again. “Mayhap with some sleep, the situation will look different on the morrow.”
Jago looked at him. “And mayhap it will not,” he said, unhappy that his knight was trying to soothe him. “Where is Lady Lyssa? I would see her.”
Rickard knew he was going to have to take a stand. “Nay, my lord,” he said. “Let the woman heal. You dealt her a terrible beating this night.”
Jago frowned. “It was nothing less than she deserved,” he snapped, stomping in Rickard’s direction. “Where is she?”
“Ask your wife, my lord. I cannot give you any information.”
The mention of Grace stopped him and he backed off, perhaps rethinking his demands. After a moment, frustration took over and he barged out of the room, heading for the main stairwell.
“Wine,” he boomed. “Bring me wine!”
Rickard followed. There were still a few servants in the house, hovering fearfully, and Rickard caught the attention of one of them as he followed Jago down the stairs.
As the servant went running for wine, Rickard followed Jago into his solar where the man threw himself onto a chair that nearly collapse with the force of his actions.
When the chair wobbled, Jago got out of it and threw it into the fire.
As it began to catch fire, Rickard had to fish it out because it was sticking well out of the hearth and could possibly set the whole room ablaze.
As he put out the chair, beating on it until it stopped flaming, a terrified servant arrived with wine and Jago began to drink from the pitcher.
He didn’t even bother with a cup or the formalities of offering Rickard a cup.
He simply took the whole thing for himself, which was typical.
But it was a good situation and Rickard wasn’t going to cause any stir.
Jago was in his solar, with wine in hand, and he was quiet for the moment.
The only problem was that the windows overlooked the bailey and the duchess would soon be taking her women from The Wix, and it wouldn’t do for Jago to see that.
But Rickard had an idea. Since Jago was having difficulty looking at him, Rickard positioned himself over by the window to ensure that Jago more than likely wouldn’t look at him and, therefore, wouldn’t see anything happening beyond the windows.
He prayed that behavior wouldn’t change until the duchess left in her carriage, so he stood there by the window and waited.
And waited.
Time passed. Jago drank sloppily from the pitcher and Rickard simply watched.
He kept thinking of the duchess’ comment – it would not be a pity if he fell out a window in his drunken state.
They were on the ground floor, so falling from his solar window wouldn’t do any damage at all.
But if Rickard could get him up to the top floor and give him a shove…
aye, that would do some damage. He should have been ashamed in his thinking, but he found that he was not.
He wasn’t ashamed in the least.
But thoughts of pushing Colchester from a top floor window faded from his mind when he heard activity at the gatehouse.
He didn’t turn around because he thought it might have been the duchess leaving with her women, but he didn’t hear the sound of a carriage.
He only heard men moving around at the gate and the sounds of the great iron panels opening.
Curiosity force him to look and when he did, his eyes widened in shock, for what he saw coming through the gate was something he hoped he’d never see.
His brother had arrived, fully armed, ready for battle.
Oh, God… no….