Chapter Eighteen
“How does it feel to know your sister married the man I was to marry?” Zora said through clenched teeth. “Proud of yourself, are you?”
Ansel was sitting next to a woman he didn’t much like.
He never had. She was petty, pushy, greedy, and selfish just like he was, so in that sense, they were very much alike.
Listening to her talk was like listening to himself, only tonight, he wasn’t in any mood for it.
He’d never had much use for Zora de Allery.
“Shut your lips, you stupid chit,” he growled. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”
Zora looked at him sharply. “How dare you speak to me like that?”
Ansel grabbed at a cup of wine a servant had put in front of him. “Who are you going to tell?” he said. “Your father? Go ahead. He will not do anything about it. He’s as weak as you are.”
Zora was inflamed, but she didn’t bite back.
She’d seen what Ansel was capable of when it came to verbal sparring.
They’d spent the past few years managing to remain apathetic to one another, and she had no desire to buck the trend.
Ansel was one of those people with a black soul that could be dangerous when engaged.
She wasn’t willing to chance it.
At least, not at the moment.
“Mayhap I am,” she said. “Weak because I have been betrayed by the House of de Wolfe and my father will do nothing about it.”
Ansel snorted. “Betrayed,” he mumbled, watching his sister in conversation with her new husband. “You have no idea.”
“I think I do,” Zora said. “Lord Berwick agreed to a betrothal between me and Titus, but he has gone back on his word.”
“And you have this in writing?”
Zora looked at him, lips pursed irritably. “It was a promise,” she said. “He told me that I would marry Titus, and that is enough. But then he brokered a marriage with your father and betrayed me. Your sister has taken what belongs to me.”
Ansel took a long drink of the rich red wine, a fine drink, brought all the way from Lyon. “There was no brokered marriage.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked at her then. “Haven’t you been listening?
” he said. “Take the pudding from your ears and you’ll learn something.
There was no brokered marriage. Titus and my sister married without anyone’s permission, least of all my father’s.
The first I heard about the marriage was when I received an invitation to the wedding feast.”
Zora’s eyes widened. “There was no contract?”
“None at all,” Ansel said, annoyed. “My sister has been living in London because my father hoped she’d find a husband there. Instead, she marries Titus de Wolfe, the same bastard who appointed himself her protector when we were children.”
Zora’s brow furrowed in confusion. “He did what?”
Ansel waved her off irritably. “We fostered together for a time at Roxburgh Castle,” he said.
“Somehow, Titus appointed himself my sister’s protector, and that meant against me especially.
Now he’s gone and married her. He’s robbed me of my ability to make a decent fortune off what rightfully belongs to me. ”
Zora was still confused. “What belongs to you?”
Ansel looked at her in frustration. “Are you daft?” he said. “Did you not just hear me say that he married my sister without permission? Now I cannot sell the woman or broker a deal of my own with her, which would ensure a fortune. Now do you understand?”
Zora did. She turned to watch Titus and Katiana crossing the floor of the great hall toward a group of men who had just entered. “Damnation,” she muttered. “Look at him… tall and handsome and proud. Everything that should belong to me.”
“He belongs to my sister.”
“But he married her without permission,” Zora said. “Why do you not complain to the church? You have your rights, you know. She should belong to you to do with as you please.”
“I know.”
“Now who’s weak?”
He didn’t reply. In fact, he didn’t seem willing to fight at all, which surprised Zora.
The Ansel she knew was adamant about having his own way, in all things.
But as she watched Katiana with a host of very tall, very big de Wolfe knights, it occurred to her why Ansel wouldn’t fight for his rights.
More than likely, he wouldn’t survive such a thing, so perhaps being accepting of the situation was, in his case, for survival.
The House of de Wolfe wasn’t one to be trifled with.
It was a depressing thought.
“It is a pity you cannot steal her away and sell her to the pirates,” she muttered, thinking aloud. “Or the Scots in the north who live like animals. I’m sure they’d pay a princely sum for her.”
Ansel finished the wine in his cup and poured himself some more. “I could steal her away, but de Wolfe and his pack would come after me,” he said. “I could not hold her. They’d burn Callerton down around my ears to get at her, and then I’d have nothing.”
Zora observed Katiana as she spoke with a big blond man who faintly resembled the Earl of Berwick.
Katiana was quite beautiful and clearly charming, unlike Zora.
No man had ever looked at her the way Titus looked at his wife.
In fact, the whole family seemed smitten with her.
They all looked at Katiana as if she was the sweetest thing they’d ever seen.
That realization spurred Zora’s jealousy as it had never been spurred before.
A pity you cannot steal her away…
Ansel said he could. He also said he couldn’t keep her. Of course Titus and his family would bring their massive army to Callerton Castle, a relatively small castle, and raze it.
But what if…?
“If you could take her somewhere else for safekeeping, would you?” she ventured.
Ansel was already half-finished with his second cup of wine, and the question confused him. “What are you talking about?”
“Your sister,” Zora said plainly. “We are not looking at this logically, Ansel. You want your sister. I want Titus. What if you were to get your sister away from him and hide her somewhere? Hide her at Thornton Tower, for example. Hide her in the vault because my father never goes down there. He would not even know she was there. That would give you time to find a buyer for her.”
Ansel was quickly becoming drunk, but Zora’s words penetrated his brain. As he made sense of them, his head came up and he looked at her.
“Are you mad?” he asked, incredulous.
Zora fixed him in the eye. “You said yourself that Titus stole your fortune from you when he took your sister,” she said.
“What if I were to give you everything I have? I have my own fortune, you know, left to me by my mother. I will give it to you if you take your sister away from Titus. My fortune is the price I will pay to have Titus a grieving widower. Or at least thinking he is a grieving widower. What you do with your sister is your own business, but with Titus unmarried—or thinking he is unmarried—surely the only way to ease his aching heart would be with another marriage. I can be the salve for his broken heart.”
Ansel leaned away from her. “You are mad.”
“Nay,” Zora said, grabbing his arm so he’d listen to her.
“I’m not mad in the least. Think of it! I will give you everything I have, and you send your sister to the highest bidder.
That way, you have the last word. You punish de Wolfe for marrying your sister and ruining your chance to make your fortune from her without having to go up against those knights.
Don’t you see? It’s the perfect solution! ”
Ansel nearly dismissed her again, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. Perhaps she had something. Or perhaps the wine was making him weak. In any case, she had him thinking.
And interested.
“How much money do you have?” he asked.
Zora could see that she finally had his attention. “One hundred and sixty gold marks,” she said. “That is more than enough money, don’t you think?”
It was a princely sum. Ansel pondered the offer, the circumstances, and the consequences, his gaze drifting over to his sister as she spoke with several very large men.
It seemed that all the de Wolfe men were beasts, which was a concern to him.
It was perhaps the only thing keeping him from immediately agreeing to Zora’s offer.
If he was caught trying to abduct his own sister, he knew his life span would be measured in minutes.
Seconds.
But the lure of punishing Titus de Wolfe, and having the final word in the situation, was too great to resist. He was a better man, wasn’t he? He could bring Titus to his knees in one swift action, couldn’t he?
But only if he was he brave enough to consider it.
… He was.
“If I do it, I will need your help,” he said after a moment. “I would have to do it while I am at Berwick because I do not know when I would get another chance.”
Zora’s eyes lit up. “Then you’ll do it?”
“I’ll consider it.”
Zora couldn’t keep the smile off her lips. Ansel was conniving and sly, as she’d seen before, and now… now, she had those attributes at her fingertips. She’d seen the way his eyes glittered when she mentioned the money. She knew that was what he wanted.
She knew what she wanted.
“Do it and I’ll add another one hundred gold marks for your trouble,” she said.
He looked at her. “Where are you going to get it?”
“I’ll steal it from my father.”
Ansel’s gaze lingered on her for a few moments, and Zora was positive she saw a hint of a smile.
To her, that was as good as an agreement.