Chapter Six #3
It was dark in the vault, as usual, with the only light coming from the stairwell that led to the gatehouse above.
She could see a figure descending the steps, realizing it was de Llion simply by the sheer size of the man.
He came off the stairs and turned in her direction but she couldn’t see his face because the light was behind him.
All she could see as he approached were shadowed features.
It made it difficult to gauge his mood, which she could only imagine wasn’t too good.
When he came to the locked grate of the cell, he simply stood there.
Even though Allaston was looking at him, she couldn’t see his eyes.
“I was told to leave you down here to rot,” he finally said in his raspy, deep voice. “I should, you know.”
Allaston lowered her gaze from his shadowed face. “I would expect you to.”
He paused before answering. “I would except for two good reasons,” he said.
“First of all, in spite of what you did, it was astonishingly brave. It showed cunning and resourcefulness. I did not expect a female to show such courage. Second of all, you could have easily killed me but you did not. I want to know why.”
Allaston kept her gaze averted. “Because I am not a killer,” she said. “In spite of what you think, in spite of the de Velt name, I am not a killer. I could not take your life. I could not take anyone’s life.”
“Then why did you knock me unconscious?”
“Because I wanted to escape. That was my only motive.”
Bretton watched her lowered head from his position outside of the cell. After waking up with an excruciating headache almost two hours ago, lying on the floor of the chamber where Allaston had been, he truly had no idea what had happened. He remembered walking in the door and little else.
Pushing himself off the floor, he caught sight of the fire poker a few feet away.
A perusal of the chamber showed that he was quite alone and that had been his first clue as to what had transpired.
No prisoner and a suspiciously discarded poker.
Only when he had left the room and gone in search of a soldier to sound the alarm that Allaston had escaped had he run into Grayton, who was returning from the gatehouse.
Grayton had told him all he needed to know and Bretton had spent the last hour and a half listening to the man rant about Allaston and how Grayton had been mistaken to think the woman was worthy of being released from the vault.
But Bretton, strangely enough, couldn’t seem to agree.
So he sat and imbibed a couple of cups of wine to stave off his headache as Grayton fumed and the barber-surgeon put three stitches in the back of his scalp.
When the wine was gone and the stitches were finished, Bretton chased Grayton away before making his way down to the vault where he now stood.
Looking at Allaston’s lowered head, he still couldn’t bring himself to be angry about what she had done.
One small woman had managed to do what no one else had ever accomplished – she had managed to disable him.
Oddly, he found some humor in that as well as admiration.
“Where were you going to go if you escaped?” he asked quietly. “Do you even know where you are?”
Allaston’s head came up and she looked at him. “Cloryn Castle,” she said. “Your man Grayton told me.”
Bretton nodded faintly. Then he reached out and threw the bolt on the cell, pulling open the old, creaking door with the rusted hinges. He just stood in the doorway, watching her.
“Where were you going to go?” he repeated.
Allaston shrugged. “I was going to find a church,” she said. “I thought the priests would help me.”
“Did you not stop to think that I would find you?” Bretton asked. “Alberbury Priory could not stop me. What makes you think another church would?”
Allaston shrugged. “I am sure that it would not,” she said, some frustration in her tone. “I simply want to return to what I was doing before you came and tore me away from my friends and mentors. I want to return to the cloister. I do not want to be a part of your war games, de Llion.”
His gaze lingered on her. “And yet, you are,” he said, his voice soft. “What about your father? Did you plan on warning him about me?”
Her frustration grew. “Of course I did,” she said. “I planned on sending him word that I was safe and not to engage you. Do you not understand? I want him to stay well away from Wales and well away from me because I love my father and I do not want you to kill him.”
He was aware of her mounting agitation. “That is between me and your father.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You just said I was a part of your war games,” she said. “Therefore, this is between you, my father, and me. You have made me an unwilling participant in all of this.”
He nodded, once, as if he understood her logic. “I will agree with you,” he said. “But trying to escape me is futile. There is nowhere for you to go that I will not find you.”
Allaston sighed heavily, exasperated. “That is probably true,” she said.
“But I will ask you this question, de Llion, and you will be truthful with me. Think back to that day when my father besieged Four Crosses. If you could have done anything at that time to save your father, wouldn’t you have done it?
That is what I was trying to do by making an escape attempt – I was trying to save my father. ”
Bretton pondered her words. As he did, he took a few steps into the cell, standing a mere few feet from where Allaston was huddled. He crouched down so that he could look her in the eye, seeing her ghostly pale face framed by the dark cloak over her head.
“I would have done anything to save my father that day,” he said quietly, “but I was only five years of age and had not the strength, the knowledge, or the skill. Because I could not save him then, I have made it my mission in life to seek vengeance against the man who murdered him and you are a part of that plan. I am sorry if that if distasteful to you, but that is the way of things.”
Allaston stared into his bright blue eyes. There was pain in her features. “But I love my father just as you loved yours,” she admitted. “If you kill my father, you will be hurting me as deeply as you were hurt those years ago. Would you truly wish that pain upon me?”
Bretton found that he was having difficulty concentrating with her mesmerizing eyes fixed upon him pleadingly.
It unbalanced him because he could feel something more than just a mere fixation.
He could feel something warm spark. He’d never felt that kind of thing before and it startled him.
He didn’t understand his reaction. What he didn’t understand, he didn’t like.
“You are of no consequence,” he said, his manner bordering on cold. “Whatever pain you feel is not my concern. I must do as I must and you will have to accept it.”
Allaston sat back as if he had slapped her.
Tears began to form in her eyes as the weight of his words settled.
There was no changing his mind, she knew.
She had tried to reason with him, to be kind to him, to fight him, and to submit to him.
She had tried everything. Everything except one last final offering.
She was at her lowest point, knowing what she had to do and dreading it.
It took every last ounce of courage she had to speak the words.
“My father is my concern,” she whispered. “I cannot talk you out of doing such a terrible deed, for your mind is set. But if it is a de Velt you want to kill, then instead of my father, mayhap you will consider me. If it is only de Velt blood you seek, I can give you mine.”
Bretton’s expression didn’t change. “It is not your blood I want.”
“But you want de Velt blood,” she insisted.
“Killing my father will bring you nothing, but if you kill me, then you are assured of hurting my father as badly as he has hurt you. Take my life, de Llion. It is worthless now anyway, for as your prisoner, all will assume you will have had your way with me. Everything I stand for is ruined. Take my life and send my body back to my father and I can assure you that he will be greatly hurt. I will willingly let you kill me if you will only cease your bloodlust against him. If you truly want to make the man suffer, then you must take my life to accomplish that.”
She made sense, which concerned him. He didn’t like the fact that she made utter and complete sense and, to a logical man, it was worth considering.
Although he had always considered himself logical, he knew without a doubt that he could not kill her.
Something about this woman intrigued him like no other human being ever had.
She was fiercely loyal, intelligent, brave, and beautiful.
He had trouble accepting a de Velt could be all of these things, but Lady Allaston was.
“Mayhap,” he said after a moment because he didn’t want her to suspect his reluctance to kill her. He thought the best way to control her was for her to never know what he was thinking, especially in matters like this. “I will think on your proposal. Meanwhile, you will come with me.”
Allaston was emotionally edgy from her plea, now wary of his directive. “Why?” she asked. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the keep.”
Allaston blinked, bewildered by the thought. “But why?”
Bretton stood up. “Because it is warmer there,” he said. When she didn’t move, he lifted his eyebrows at her. “Do you prefer it here?”
She didn’t. Allaston shook her head unsteadily and struggled to stand. “Are you going to kill me there?”
Bretton reached down and pulled her to her feet. She didn’t weigh much and he ended up nearly launching her because he pulled so hard. That being the case, he had to reach out to steady her and stop her momentum.
“I am not going to kill you at the moment,” he said. “But I will punish you for trying to bash my brains in.”
Allaston wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “How am I to be punished?”