Chapter Sixteen #2
He still wasn’t over the fact that Addax had beaten him badly when he discovered Maximilian’s role in Emmeline’s accident.
It had never even crossed his mind that Addax would turn on him like that.
Maximilian had operated his entire life with so much impunity that it never occurred to him that he would be punished for doing something that in his mind was necessary, but most people would view as heinous.
But a few simple words from his father explained it all—He’s in love with Emmeline.
So much made sense when he understood that, but there was no sense of jealousy because he had no feelings for Emmeline. There was simply a sense of regret.
He regretted everything.
Still, he was married to Emmeline, and the marriage wasn’t going to go away.
Emmeline wasn’t going to go away. Maximilian would have gladly given her over to Addax as a mistress, but he knew that wasn’t what Addax would want.
He had too much integrity. But that accident, and that beating, had changed the tides of Maximilian and Claudius.
After Emmeline’s accident, Claudius started visiting nearly every week to make sure she was still in one piece.
He feared Addax so much that he had to make sure personally that she was alive and healthy.
But also during that time, a strange thing happened.
The lady showed what she was made of in a way Maximilian could understand.
She’d changed, too.
It all started a couple of weeks after Maximilian had been beaten.
He had broken arms, broken bones in his face, and somewhere along the way he had managed to break an ankle, so he wasn’t able to walk.
Servants mostly saw to his needs, and his father did for the first couple of weeks, but after that he started seeing Emmeline in his chamber, making sure his meals were delivered hot and his bandages were regularly changed.
The very woman he’d tried to kill was taking charge of his care.
Given that she was the chatelaine, that wasn’t unusual, but it would have been completely understandable had she remained far removed from him.
Quite honestly, he had expected her to. She had lost their child because of him, and he was quite sure her aversion to him had become part of her very fabric.
But he watched the woman make sure he was taken care of even though she was still recovering from his attempt on her life, and that understanding of her character did something to him.
He started to rethink everything.
Maximilian had once been a man of reason, or reasonably reasonable, but the forced marriage had done something to his spirit.
His rebellion against it had gone beyond even what he thought he was capable of.
It had all been rebellion against his father’s wishes, but it had taken a near-death beating to realize there was nothing he could do about it.
He had a wife that he didn’t want, a wife who was showing her true character by tending to a husband that had tried to kill her.
From that moment forward, things changed.
He still didn’t want a wife, but he could see that she was a good woman.
The woman in Penrith who had given birth to his son was a merchant’s daughter who was selfish and vain, and quite pretty, but she was petty.
He had seen it. He was still fond of her, however, so his opinion of her had never changed, but in seeing Emmeline go about her duties even as she healed from her own wounds made him think that maybe she wasn’t as bad as he’d thought she was.
Maybe there was something redeemable in her after all.
Therefore, a fragile peace settled at Alston.
There were no more screaming matches or battles with fireplace pokers.
Maximilian became aware that when he spoke civilly to her, she would be civil in return.
He couldn’t quite bring himself to be kind or even interested in her, but he could be marginally amiable. It made his life much easier if he was.
Maximilian had to admit that living this way was much more pleasant than living the way they had before. He wasn’t a man prone to chaos, in spite of his nickname on the tournament circuit, so the peace at Alston Castle was to his liking these days. Even his father had commented on it.
He was glad his father had lived long enough to see it.
Frankly, he was surprised he had lived long enough to see it.
But the fact remained that he had a mistress in Penrith who had just delivered his son.
He figured that if Emmeline didn’t make a fuss over it, then he wouldn’t either.
He once thought to marry this woman, this daughter of the merchant, but the more time passed and the more he saw how Emmeline was truly suited to the life of a countess, the more he didn’t want to get rid of her.
Besides, she was well loved at Alston Castle and in the villages within the property boundaries, so he knew her absence would be felt.
He saw value in her management skills, and with her he knew that Alston would remain prosperous.
With his father’s death, he would also inherit Raisbeck Castle, which wasn’t quite so prosperous, but it was quite large, and there were a few things he thought that Emmeline would be able to help with.
The merchant’s daughter would have been useless.
Odd how his thinking had changed these days.
There had been a time when he would have been very happy to see Emmeline go, but he had finally come to terms with her value.
Now that his father was gone, it was oddly comforting to know that she would be there to help him manage the estate.
He really had no head for management, so the future of the Bretherdale earldom would fall to the new Lady Bretherdale.
And he was content with that.
As Maximilian took the road southwest, heading toward Raisbeck Castle, he could see the smaller road that led to Penrith branching off to the west. That was the path he always took to go into town, and after a moment’s deliberation, he decided to go to Penrith and inform his mistress of his father’s passing.
It wasn’t that far out of his way, and he wasn’t in any hurry to get to Raisbeck, so he directed his horse onto the smaller road and headed into Penrith.
The closer he drew to the village, the more he thought about visiting his mistress.
Anna was her name—or Anna Maria, as her father called her, because the man had been born in Navarre.
Her father knew that she had given herself over to the son of the Earl of Bretherdale, and because he hadn’t been born in England, he didn’t want to create problems for the earl by protesting the behavior of his son.
He might find himself thrown out of the country altogether.
He was a merchant, his business selling imported items, and he didn’t want to offend any potential customers, because his business was dependent upon word of mouth.
That meant he’d looked the other way when his daughter delivered a bastard.
As difficult as it was.
By the time Maximilian reached the village, he had thoughts of Anna Maria’s body on his mind.
There would be no better comfort for a grieving son than her soft flesh and talented mouth.
Her father’s merchant stall was toward the center of town, which had a narrow street and buildings crowding right up to the edge of it.
The merchant had a yellow and red flag painted over the doorway, indicating his store sold goods from the Continent, and Maximilian reined his horse into the alley behind the stall.
Taking his purse and his broadsword with him, he went inside.
Usually, Anna Maria worked the front of her father’s stall, and this day was no different. She was helping a woman select silk from across the sea when she caught sight of Maximilian entering. She smiled at him, leaving the woman to fend for herself as she joined Maximilian by the entry door.
“Greetings, my lord,” she said in her seductive voice. “I did not expect you today, but it is all the more pleasurable to see you.”
Maximilian smiled weakly. Anna Maria was a small woman with big breasts and big, round hips, made rounder after childbirth, but she had a pretty enough face. Emmeline was prettier, but that was of little matter to him. Anna Maria was what he needed.
He needed her now.
“Can we speak somewhere privately?” he asked.
She nodded quickly, leading him to the rear of the stall, where the stairs to the living quarters above were.
She took him up a rickety flight of stairs, into the rooms that she shared with her father and brother and grandmother.
The old woman was watching the baby as he slept peacefully in his cradle, and Anna Maria stood over him proudly, indicating for Maximilian to admire what they had created together.
“Look at him,” she said dreamily. “Is he not perfect?”
Maximilian nodded to the dark-haired infant. “Young Claudius is quite perfect,” he said, but he was distracted. “Speaking of Claudius, I came to tell you that my father passed away this morning. I was on my way to Raisbeck, but I wanted to detour to Penrith to tell you.”
Anna Maria’s features softened with sympathy. “I am sorry to hear that,” she said. “How do you feel? Are you terribly sad? I know you and your father did not always get on.”
He shrugged. “I am saddened, of course,” he said. “He was still my father.”
“But now he can no longer tell you how you can live your life. Now you can live it as you choose.”
He eyed her. “I always live it as I choose. Why would you say that?”
Anna Maria shook her head. “Because you have told me he controlled your life,” she said. “He forced you to marry a woman you hate. He was only thinking of himself when he did that. He was not thinking of what you wanted.”