Chapter Three #3
“Why must it be known?”
He shrugged. “Do you truly wish for everyone to believe that he could come back at any moment?” he asked.
“Forgive me for being blunt, my lady, but I heard what he did to you the night I was here, and I saw the results. You were bandaged and broken, so it seems to me that it is no secret how de Wilde treated you. Would it be incorrect of me to assume that?”
Lysabel averted her gaze. After a moment, she let out a hiss.
“I have spent such a long time suffering in silence and denying what was really going on that it is difficult for me, even now, to respond to your question,” she said.
“You and I have not seen one another in years and although we were never close, our families were. Our fathers are the best of friends. My father must never, ever know what has happened here, Trenton. Will you swear to me that you will never tell him?”
“I swear.”
That seemed to ease her a great deal. “Thank you,” she whispered sincerely. “Truly, it is of little matter now, anyway. Benoit is dead and he shall never return, thank God.”
Trenton could hear the emotion in her voice when he spoke. Wearily, he searched for a chair and, spying one, he pointed to it. “May I?”
She nodded quickly. “Please.”
Trenton moved to the chair and lowered himself down into it, feeling his exhaustion to his bones. But his interest in this conversation was stronger than his fatigue.
“You are correct when you say we’ve not seen each other in many years,” he said. “I was trying to think of the last time I saw you and your family, and I believe it was during the Christmas holidays nearly sixteen years ago.”
She smiled weakly. “At least.”
“I was twenty years and four, I think,” he said.
“Your father sent me to London on an errand to the king’s father, also Henry, and I never returned.
Somehow, the de Russe name meant a great deal to Henry Tudor and the man would not let me leave.
But I digress… it was a very bad winter when last I saw you and your family, although I’ve seen your father periodically since that time, but it has been a few years. How is Matthew faring?”
The subject of Lysabel’s beloved father always brought a smile to her lips. “Well,” she said. “Papa is as old as dirt now, and he surrounds himself with his grandchildren and grandnieces and nephews, but he is still the same. The White Lord of Wellesbourne will never change.”
“And your mother?”
“My mother is very well, thank you. She writes to me frequently to tell me of what is happening at home.”
He nodded. “I am glad to hear that,” he said.
“It is strange, really. I was so much older than my younger siblings, and older than you and your siblings, and I fear that you were all much closer to each other than I was. I always felt as if my brother, Dane, and I were off on our own, being that we were so much older.”
Lysabel’s smile broadened at the thought of Trenton’s brother, Dane, who was a year younger than Trenton.
Dane was his mother’s firstborn, and Trenton was his father’s firstborn, and when the pair came together, Trenton and Dane became instant brothers.
That bond was something that had only strengthened over the years, or so Lysabel remembered.
Trenton de Russe and Dane Stoneley, who took the name of de Russe after the passing of his father, had been inseparable, and she remembered that well.
“And how is your brother, Dane?” she asked.
“He is well. I saw him a few months ago and he was prosperous and happy.”
“I see,” she said. “I suppose it is safe to tell you that I was madly in love with him in my younger years. I vowed to marry him someday, in fact.”
Trenton grinned. “That swill-headed lout?” he scoffed. “What makes him so special? What does he have that I do not?”
Lysabel laughed, something that sounded like the chime of angels to Trenton. “God’s Bones, Trenton, you were too frightening for a delicate young lady,” she said. “Dane would at least speak to me.”
“But you never spoke to me.”
“I was afraid of you!”
He pretended to be miffed. “So Dane received your undying love,” he said. “I shall have to punch him the next time I see him.”
“Why?”
“Because all adoration should have gone to me, as the most handsome.”
Lysabel began to giggle uncontrollably. “Take heart, my fine lad,” she said. “My sister, Rosamunde, professed her undying love for you. At least she did until the next young man caught her eye.”
Trenton rolled his eyes. “Fickle woman,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me I could have had a Wellesbourne daughter all this time?”
Lysabel snorted. “Mayhap,” she said. “But you would have had to go through my father to get to us.”
Trenton cocked an eyebrow. “That would not have been difficult,” he said. “Benoit certainly did.”
That brought the light mood of the conversation to an instant halt and Trenton immediately regretted his words.
He wasn’t the most tactful man, and he wasn’t very good when it came to gentle conversation with a woman, and that lack of finesse was readily evident at that moment. He cleared his throat softly.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to say that. I simply meant…”
Lysabel lifted a hand, cutting him off. “I know what you meant,” she said, though she didn’t seem angry.
Simply depressed. “It is true, you know. Benoit charmed my father to the point where my father was his biggest supporter. In fact, Benoit was very charming in the beginning, and very kind. Everyone thought so. He came from a great legacy, the Sheriffs of Ilchester, so his pedigree was strong. When he asked for my hand, my father had no reservations and neither did I. It was only… afterwards.”
Trenton suspected something like that must have happened, because the Matthew Wellesbourne he knew would never have allowed his daughter to marry a man with anything less than a stellar character.
“So he pretended to be something he was not until he got what he wanted,” he said quietly.
Lysabel nodded. “Aye,” she said. “He very much wanted to be married into the House of Wellesbourne. As my father’s eldest child, I have a considerable inheritance due, and he wanted it.
He wanted it before my father passed away and when it became evident after a year or so that my father would not relinquish what Benoit felt belonged to him, that was when the trouble started. ”
Trenton had heard tales like that before, but never to someone he’d known. Wealthy women married by greedy men, only to be treated lower than a dog when the inheritance or money wasn’t produced. Already, he could feel the disgust upon his tongue.
“And your father never knew?” he asked, almost in disbelief.
Lysabel shook her head. “Nay,” she said firmly.
“Benoit made it very clear that if I told my father, he would kill me. I did not believe him, of course, because should he kill me, he would not get my inheritance, but even if he would not kill me, he made sure I wished I was dead. There were times when I hoped I would die.”
Trenton was watching her seriously, feeling the impact of her hopeless and sorrowful words. “But you never thought to ask your father for help?” he asked. “Surely he could have protected you.”
Lysabel shrugged. “I belong to my husband,” she said simply.
“My father had no say in how he treated me, so why tell him? It would only make him miserable. It would make him commit murder. How could I do that to my father, to have such a thing on his conscience? Killing my husband and knowing he did it because the man… because of what he did to me. My father is a sensitive man, Trenton. You know this. He is emotional about things.”
Trenton knew Matthew well enough to know that what she said was true. “Then you did not tell him to protect him?”
“Aye. I love my papa too much to make him realize that he condemned me to such a terrible life. That is not fair to him.”
Trenton understood, somewhat. It was an extremely noble attitude, protecting her father while she suffered so terribly. Not that he agreed with it, but he did understand her.
“When was the last time you saw your father?” he asked. “You are not too terribly far from Wellesbourne Castle. Does he come to visit?”
She nodded. “He and my mother visit about every year or so,” she said. “Of course, Benoit was always on his best behavior. Papa never saw anything wrong.”
“So he never knew?”
“Never.”
Trenton couldn’t imagine a world in which a father wouldn’t see the miserable existence of his daughter, but he didn’t pry anymore about it. He’d probably already pried too much.
“That is all over with now,” he said quietly. “Had I known this was going on, I would have come for de Wilde much sooner than I did. Mayhap you fear for your father’s soul in killing his daughter’s husband, but I have no such fear for my soul. I was happy to do what was necessary to protect you.”
She looked at him, hearing a chivalrous declaration. Simply kind words from an old friend, she thought, but she was touched nonetheless. It had been a very long time since she’d last heard anything chivalrous.
“Why did Henry want my husband?” she asked.
Because the man stole a mistress away from the king, Trenton thought. But he didn’t say what he was thinking; the woman had suffered enough indignity at the hands of Benoit de Wilde. He didn’t want to add to it.
“That was not made clear to me, my lady,” he lied. “All I knew was that Benoit de Wilde was my target. Henry wanted him, and as an agent for the king, it is my duty to carry out the king’s command.”
Fortunately, Lysabel seemed to believe him. She lifted her eyebrows in resignation. “Benoit had many dealings that were less than ethical,” she said. “I am not surprised he attracted the king’s attention.”
“Indeed.”
“I will not ask what you did with him, Trenton. But I hope you threw his body in a river and let the fish eat him.”