Chapter Eighteen #2
She was marching away from him, but she suddenly turned around and marched towards him.
“Hope?” she repeated as if he’d said something outrageous.
“Why should you want to bring me hope? When you learned of my betrothal to Cassius, you would not speak to me at all, so why now the sudden need to be kind to me? Save your breath, Darian. I do not want to hear it.”
That was a blow to his ego, but he resisted reacting. “I am sorry I did not speak to you when I learned of it,” he said. “I suppose… I suppose I needed to reconcile myself to it before I could speak to you. I am sorry if I offended you with my silence.”
Dacia had started pacing with pent-up nervous energy that was verging on rage. “You did offend me,” she said. “You hurt me, but I left you alone. Now I am asking you to leave me alone. I do not want to talk about anything and I most certainly do not want hear anything Amata wants to say.”
Darian wasn’t leaving. He watched her pace in circles, wringing her hands, before deciding to tell her what their business was. He could see that she wasn’t going to agree to see them, so perhaps she needed an incentive.
“Hugh de Branton forced Amata to confess her lies about you,” he said.
“Amata confessed them to the priests of St. George’s and she was forced to confess the lies to all of those who came to worship for vespers and matins.
She told everyone that she spread those lies about you and Cassius and that they were not true.
She wants to apologize to you personally. Now, will you see her?”
As he hoped, that brought a big reaction from Dacia. She stopped pacing, turning to look at him with eyes so wide they threatened to pop from her skull. For a moment, she simply stared at him, trying to process what he had said.
“You must be jesting,” she said, sounding weak and hollow.
He shook his head. “I am not,” he replied.
“Her father has brought her here so that she may apologize to you. Dacia, she told everyone that she had lied. Now the entire village knows that you are innocent. According to her father, the priests know that you are innocent as well. Will you not at least let her apologize personally?”
Dacia stood there, her entire body quivering. Her gaze lingered on Darian for a few moments before looking away, struggling to digest what she had been told.
It was a hard fight.
“Where is she?” she finally asked.
“In your grandfather’s solar.”
Dacia flew from the chamber, slamming the door behind her and trapping Darian until he could yank it open and pursue her.
But by that time, she was already down the stairs.
The duke’s solar was on the first floor and even as Darian raced down the stairs, he could hear Dacia’s voice as she called Amata by name.
He was running for the solar when he suddenly heard Amata scream.
By the time he entered the solar, Dacia had thrown herself at Amata and was pounding her with her fists as she lay on the floor. Hugh was trying to pull them apart, but the duke was doing nothing. He was sitting at his enormous table, watching Dacia beat on her cousin as Amata screamed.
Darian flew into action.
Reaching down, he yanked Dacia off of Amata as Hugh pulled his daughter to her feet. Dacia was still struggling against Darian, still trying to beat her cousin to a pulp.
“For everything you have done to me, I hate you until my last breath, Amata de Branton,” she shouted.
“You have spent years turning everyone against me so that I had no friend but you. You made me dependent upon you, craving your companionship, and manipulating me and lying to me all the while. You have tried to ruin me for the last time, do you hear? I will kill you if I see you again!”
Darian was having a difficult time holding on to her. He pulled her back towards her grandfather’s table, his mouth by her ear.
“Stop, Dacia,” he said. “Calm yourself.”
Over on the other side of the room, Amata was weeping loudly. “Forgive me,” she wept. “I am sorry I hurt you, CeeCee, truly. Please do not hate me.”
Dacia’s surge of anger faded and the tears began to come. In Darian’s grasp, she began to tremble as a wave of emotion washed over her.
“Why?” she finally hissed. “Why did you do it? What did I ever do to you that you would hurt me so?”
Amata was exhausted and ashamed. She’d spent all night confessing her lies, telling her friends from town that nothing she had ever said about Dacia had been true.
Girls that had been her friends for years looked at her with disgust and walked away, and now she was seeing that same disgust in Dacia’s eyes, only worse.
There was anguish there.
“I… I do not know,” she sobbed. “I suppose it was because you had everything and I had nothing. You are to be a duchess. I will be nothing unless I marry well and I hated you for what life had given you and not me. Never me! I wanted to see you suffer.”
Dacia was unmoved. “Then you accomplished your task,” she said, her voice quivering.
“I suffered. I suffered all of my life, and I suffer worse now because you took away the only man I ever loved. You knew when you told those lies that you would be separating Cassius and me. That was your intention and it worked. He is gone and I am nothing without him. I will hate you with everything for the rest of my life, Amata. Go home and never come back. I do not want to see you ever again.”
Amata was a pitiful sight. “Please, CeeCee,” she begged. “Please forgive me. Do not turn your back on me. I am so sorry for everything.”
But Dacia simply shook her head. “You are only sorry because you were caught in your lies and forced to confess,” she said.
“If you had not been caught, you would still continue perpetuating these falsehoods against me. Ruining me. Therefore, I do not accept your apology. You have wasted your breath.”
It was a harsh response, but there wasn’t one person in that chamber who blamed her except for Amata. She frowned.
“Have you no soul?” she demanded. “A good Christian would accept my apology. It would please God.”
Dacia smiled without humor. “As you have told everyone for years, I bear the marks of a witch,” she said. “Mayhap it is those marks that prevent me from accepting your forced and insincere apology. Now, get out of my sight. You are no longer welcome at Edenthorpe.”
Amata looked at her father for support, but he gave her no comfort whatsoever. He simply took her by the arm and pulled her towards the solar door.
“Lady Dacia,” he said quietly. “I hope you can find peace someday. Know… know that I am very sorry for my daughter’s actions. I am sure it is of no comfort to you, but I am sorry just the same.”
Dacia couldn’t even reply. She genuinely liked Hugh, or at least she had, but he had bred that horrific beast and she could not spare him the attention. Not now. She simply turned away, pulling herself out of Darian’s grip, as Hugh took the sobbing Amata away.
When the door to the solar shut behind them, there was a finality in the gesture.
It was over.
Amata was gone, for good.
When the solar was quiet, Dacia sat down in the nearest chair, exhausted and overwrought. Darian watched her a moment before looking to the duke, who was still sitting there.
“You did not stop her from attacking Amata, your grace,” he said with a hint of reproach. “Why not?”
The duke was watching Dacia carefully. “Because it needed to be done and it was best that Dacia do it,” he said without remorse. But his next words were directed at Dacia. “What do you intend to do now?”
Dacia was pale and shaking. Slowly, she looked over at him. “What do you mean?”
“Just that,” the duke said. “Amata’s confession has made you blameless, child. The priests know it, the village knows it. Everyone knows it, but I wish you had let me settle this matter sooner. This dragged out far longer than it should have.”
Dacia shook her head. “How, Grandfather?” she said.
“There was nothing you could have done. The priests were going to believe what they believed, as were the villagers, and anything you did would have simply made it look as if you were defending your guilty granddaughter. The only resolution to this had to come from Amata and, quite honestly, I am shocked that she confessed. She has never accepted blame for anything.”
The duke grunted. “Her father forced her,” he said. “Hugh is a good man, Dacia. You must not hate him for his daughter’s crimes.”
Dacia looked away. “He let her get away with it,” she said. “He knew what she was doing and he had for years, yet he did nothing and he said nothing. He is not innocent in my torment, Grandfather, and he knows it. Mayhap I will forgive him someday, but not now.”
“You are holding a grudge, child.”
“Of course I am!” she practically shouted. “Because of Amata, I have lost something that was more important to me than anything on earth. I’ve lost my moon and my sun. How can I forgive or forget that?”
The duke sighed faintly. “You should have never sent him away to begin with,” he muttered. “Cassius wanted to help you and you would not let him.”
Dacia shot out of her chair. “I could not let him be tainted by those lies,” she fired back. “I was the target and he would have been damaged simply by his association with me, and I could not stomach that. I loved him enough to let him go.”
“You sent away a man who wanted to protect you.”
They hadn’t really spoken of this subject since it happened, mostly because Dacia refused to.
In fact, she still wouldn’t be talking about it had Amata’s appearance not forced her hand.
To think of it tore her guts to shreds. To imagine Cassius’ face brought her heartbreak that shattered into a million pieces of pain.
She’d never experienced anything like it but she would always believe, until the end of all things, that she had done the right thing for him.
Her grandfather simply didn’t understand.