Chapter Twenty-One #3
Isabel stiffened. “And you probably would,” she said.
“You came to Axminster yesterday under the pretense of being an ally. You pretended to be kind and amiable when the truth was much darker. Although I am sorry that your son was killed, it does not give you the right to behave as you have. The truth is that your son was killed in the course of attacking a weaker woman. He paid for it with his life. Instead of accepting that your son is responsible for his own death, you have blamed everyone else for it. You have threatened those you feel responsible to get what you wanted and, fool that I am, I let you. Now, the fact that you would break our bargain and fail to see the gravity of your actions tells me everything I need to know about you. You are not worthy of the earldom of Axminster, Lord de Honiton. I would rather give it to a pig than a worthless bastard like you.”
Stinging words that should have been said much sooner in the situation, but Isabel had been trying to keep the peace.
She had been trying to keep de Honiton from harassing Mira, Douglas, and anyone else he felt was involved in the death of Raymond.
But that had been a mistake. Clearly, a very big mistake.
She was finished placating a fool.
But he was a combative fool.
After that, Douglas would swear that everything moved in slow motion when the truth was that events happened so quickly that he barely had time to react. For a man of action like Douglas was, his reflexes often saved his life, but in this case, things had moved too quickly for him.
Before he realized it, they were in a fight.
He and Jonathan and Davyss were standing several feet away from Jerome and Isabel, too far away to stop the man from slapping Isabel across the face.
Her head snapped sideways and she stumbled back, stepping on Mira, who scrambled to get out of the way and ended up tripping.
As Mira fell back and quickly crawled out of the battle zone, Isabel brought up a fist and clipped Jerome on the side of the head.
As he reached out to grab her, she kneed him in the belly.
Her hands were moving as quickly, and she slapped at him several times before he got a grip on her arms to stop her.
Meanwhile, Eric was rushing to save her.
But Isabel didn’t need saving. She was using her hands and knees to pummel Jerome, who had his head down so she wouldn’t hit his face.
He was trying to push her back, away from him, but she just kept coming.
Her movements were almost frenzied, as if she were terrified what would happen if she didn’t gain the upper hand, but that meant Jerome couldn’t open his eyes.
He didn’t see that his right foot was nearly on the ledge.
But Douglas did.
He’d been so busy watching Isabel throw herself at Jerome that he noticed the position of the man’s foot too late.
He shouted, but Jerome thought he was shouting at him.
Out of corner of a peeped-open eye, Jerome saw Douglas move and knew the man was coming to help Isabel.
Jerome could survive an angry woman but knew he couldn’t survive the knights who served her.
In an effort to move away from Douglas, and Eric, he stepped sideways and his foot bumped into the low lip of the wall. It was enough to cause him to stumble.
Over the wall he went.
But it wasn’t just him. Jerome was holding on to Isabel, and they went over together.
Eric, who was closer to Isabel, screamed her name and grabbed for her, managing to get hold of her ankle, but Jerome’s body weight had pulled her over the side.
Eric refused to let go of Isabel, which meant he also went over the side as Douglas managed to reach out as a last-ditch effort and grab Eric’s booted foot.
The boot came off in his hand.
Jonathan and Davyss grabbed Douglas before the momentum could take him over the side, too, and the three of them watched in horror as Jerome, Isabel, and Eric fell to the base of the wall, down the side of the cliff, and continued to the very bottom of the rise.
It was all over in a matter of seconds. As they remained frozen, staring at the bottom of the cliff, a scream brought them back to reality.
Mira had seen everything.
She had been witness to the fight, the fall, and Douglas nearly going over the wall after them.
As terrifying as that was, the very real fact was that she’d just seen the death of Isabel, a woman she loved dearly, and she began to wail in horror.
Douglas scrambled away from the ledge and went to her, half walking, half stumbling, and pulled her into his arms.
“Wolfie! Davyss!” he hissed, both arms around her and a hand over her head, holding it against his chest. “Get down to the base of the hill. Find them. Take men with you. Go!”
Jonathan and Davyss rushed past him, heading for the turret stairs, as Douglas picked Mira up and cradled her against his broad chest.
“I’m so sorry, love,” he said, feeling as bad as he possibly could. “My God… I am so very sorry you had to witness that.”
Mira was weeping loudly, her arms around his neck as he held her tightly.
She couldn’t even speak. Horrified and sickened by what he had just witnessed, Douglas took Mira down the stairs, carrying her toward the keep in a weeping, heaving mess even as the castle around him came alive with men rushing out to see what had become of Isabel, Eric, and Jerome.
Douglas and Jonathan and Davyss hadn’t been the only ones to see the fall—other sentries on the wall had seen it, too, and word had spread like wildfire.
All of Axminster was in chaos as the main gatehouse opened, purging men and horses onto the road.
All the while, Douglas held Mira tightly and carried her to the keep.
There wasn’t anything he could say. There wasn’t anything he could do.
He’d gone to the wall with his comrades in arms, preparing to rid Axminster of a viable threat for the sake of a woman who had become a good friend, but somehow, the fingers of fate had twisted up that plan and spit it out as a jumbled mass of pain and suffering.
He could hardly believe it.
Maybe this was their punishment for planning the death of Jerome, or mayhap this was simply a way to put Isabel and Eric at peace.
If they could not be together, there was no point in living.
They were together in death as they could not be in life.
Douglas wasn’t going to try to rationalize what he just saw.
All he knew was that he was heartbroken by it. Absolutely heartbroken.
But it wasn’t over yet.
Not in the least.