Chapter Fifteen #2
“Gaston,” Matthew said as he looked at him appreciatively. “It is very good to see you.”
Gaston smiled wearily at his dearest friend. “And you,” he said. “Although I had doubts that Boden would make it to Wellesbourne in one piece. Did you see his new stallion?”
Matthew grinned. “I did,” he said. “It has a crazed look to its eyes.”
“That is because it is crazed. I warned him, but he would not listen.”
“So Gage tells me.”
Gaston glanced over at his youngest son, who was in the process of disbanding the escort. “Gage listens to his father so he has a good horse,” he said. “Boden, however, does not listen to me and if that horse dumps him on his arse, I will not lift a finger to help him.”
“Some sons simply do not want to listen. I have a couple of those, too.”
Gaston returned his attention to Matthew, the smile fading from his weathered face. “Speaking of sons,” he said quietly. “I am sure you know why I am here.”
Matthew nodded. “I know.”
“May we go inside and speak?”
Matthew didn’t say a word. He simply led his friend across the bailey towards the keep, laughing softly when the man scolded Boden at a distance because the horse was still dragging the knight across the dirt.
Boden waved his father off, assuring him that everything was under control, and Gaston merely rolled his eyes. Clearly, his son was lying to him.
Matthew could only laugh.
Alixandrea was at the entry of Wellesbourne’s tall, proud keep to greet Gaston, and he kissed her cheek and greeted her warmly.
Gaston also greeted red-haired William Wellesbourne as the young man dashed past his parents on his way out to see his friends, Gage and Boden.
He moved so quickly that he nearly knocked his mother down, resulting in a motherly swat to the buttocks.
But William smiled that big Wellesbourne smile in response, which usually eased any anger his mother might have.
As Alixandrea went to see to the refreshments, Matthew took Gaston into his well-appointed solar.
It was a chamber the two men had spent a good deal of time in over the years, and Gaston immediately began to remove what armor he could.
He was in a place of comfort now, and he was exhausted from his journey, so he pulled off his helm and began to unfasten the leather straps he could get to, pulling off pieces of plate and placing them near the door.
Matthew, meanwhile, had moved to a table that contained a cut crystal decanter and several cups.
“Do you need help with that protection?” he asked.
Gaston shook his head as he pulled off the right vambrace, or forearm protection. “Nay,” he said. “Just let me get some of these pieces off so I can sit down. Christ, it was a long trip.”
Matthew poured the wine. Approaching Gaston with two cups, he held one out for the man. Gaston accepted the cup gratefully.
“I suppose we should get down to business,” he said as he sat heavily on a cushioned chair made from a cow’s hide.
“And I will start by telling you what Trenton has told me. He came to Deverill a few days ago, completely unexpectedly. I have not seen my son in six years, Matt. Did you know that? Six long years.”
Matthew nodded, taking a drink of the rich red wine. “He told me,” he said. “He hasn’t seen you since he married Adela.”
Gaston took a long swig of his own wine, draining half the cup in just a couple of swallows.
“It would be easy to say that if I’d known she’d drive such a wedge between us, then I would never have brokered the marriage between them, but that is not true,” he said.
“My relationship with Trenton was fracturing before that, even, ever since he went to serve Henry in the capacity in which he presently serves. Adela was simply the catalyst that drove in the wedge for good.”
Matthew went to take a seat near Gaston, his gaze on the man. He looked pale to him, or perhaps it was his imagination talking. Knowing he was ill made him see things that weren’t there.
“There is no wedge,” he said patiently. “Trenton still adores you. He’s still that little boy who looks up to his father and wants to please him.”
But Gaston shook his head. “The wedge between Trenton and me started when he was a lad, when his mother fed him lies about me,” he said. “Mari-Elle would tell him that I never wanted a child, that I did not want to be a father to him. You remember that.”
“I do.”
“I have always thought that there is some part of Trenton that always believed that, no matter what I did to prove otherwise.”
Matthew leaned back in his chair. “I do not think so. It is his adult life that has created these problems you two seem to share.”
Gaston looked at him, knowing he meant the situation with Lysabel. Now, the pleasantries were over, the small talk was finished, and the meat of the situation was upon them. Gaston drained the rest of his cup and set it down.
“Trenton has told me that he is in love with Lysabel, but you have asked him to leave her alone so that she may have a chance for a decent marriage,” he said. “Is this true?”
“It is.”
Gaston scratched his head, recalling everything he thought of on the journey to Wellesbourne.
There was much he wanted to say to Matthew but, in truth, there was very little he could say.
He didn’t disagree with the man, for the most part.
But he had a special perspective on all of this that he wanted to share.
“I will not argue the point with you, for it is your decision to make, but I want you to think back to the time when I met Remi,” he said softly.
“Do you recall? I was sent in to take command of Mt. Holyoak Castle, a property that belonged to her husband. Remington was married to a beast of a man, and I was married to a succubus in human form. You knew Mari-Elle, Matt. You knew the depths of her evil.”
Matthew nodded, thinking back to Gaston’s first wife, the cold and regal woman Gaston had been forced to marry. It had been a contract marriage, and a nightmare of a situation.
“I did,” he said. “Evil was exactly what she was. She would have ruined you had you let her and, in that sense, that makes her not too different from Adela. Both you and Trenton married women who wanted nothing more from you than your name and your money.”
Gaston sighed. “Adela was my doing,” he muttered. “I thought she would be a good match for Trenton, providing him with French support and connections. But I ended up forcing him to marry a woman who, in reflection, is much like his own mother was.”
Matthew thought he could see where the conversation was going.
“Gaston, I know Trenton is miserable with her,” he said.
“I know this is a hellish marriage and I would not be lying if I said that with Lysabel, he seems like a changed man. That morose, serious, and sometimes humorless man transforms around Lysabel and the girls and becomes someone kind and wise and generous. My granddaughters adore him, and so does Lysabel. But you must understand that I, too, condemned my daughter to a hellish marriage with Benoit de Wilde and the worst part is that I didn’t even know it.
It was Trenton who had to save her from a man who had been beating her for years. ”
Gaston had heard all of this and he wasn’t unsympathetic.
“I know,” he said, holding up a hand and preventing Matthew from continuing.
“Let me finish my train of thought and then see if you can understand my perspective. When I met Remi, I knew she was married. I was married, also, but I had never felt married. Still, I wasn’t one to take a lover, so in the beginning, there was no real romantic interest in Remi.
But those feelings developed quickly and I found myself in love with a married woman.
You know this, Matt, and you also know that my love for her was so strong that I tried to force the hand of the church to annul her marriage, and my marriage, so that we could be together.
Therefore, if anyone understands Trenton’s pain, it is I, for I went through nearly the same thing. ”
Matthew knew this was coming from Gaston’s personal experience and he stood up, wandering over to the hearth, which was dark now as the sun was setting. He began to pick up pieces of kindling and tossing it into the fireplace.
“Gaston, if you’ve come to beg me to change my mind, I’m afraid that I cannot,” he said.
“Lysabel has gone through hell for years. Do you think I will give my approval for her to become the mistress of a man who is married? Of course I will not. It will ruin any chance she has of a decent marriage.”
Gaston understood that. “I realize that,” he said. “But let me ask you this – you have said yourself that Lysabel adores Trenton.”
“She does.”
“And Trenton adores her. They are two adults, Matt. We’re not speaking of children who do not know what is best for themselves. We are speaking of two adults who deserve to be happy. If it is without marriage, then who are you to stand in their way?”
Matthew didn’t reply right away. He continued to stack kindling before taking a flint and stone and sparking the birth of a blaze.
“So you are asking me to permit my daughter to become your son’s whore,” he said quietly, turning to look at Gaston. “Is that what you are asking me?”
Gaston shook his head. “A whore is an object, a possession,” he said. “Trenton loves your daughter and that makes her far more than a possession.”
“And what title would you give her?”
“An adored companion.”
Matthew stood up and faced him. “If this was one of your daughters we were speaking of, I wonder if you would be so liberal.”