Chapter 11 #2
The tall dark shape stepped forward into the light, and it was no longer just a bad dream.
Miles. He looked thinner, older. As if recent times had been hard for him.
His clothes were still fine, but they appeared frayed, and not as clean as they could be.
Miles had been running and hiding from his enemies, and it did not suit him.
The sensation of walking on, and breathing in, frigid water was passing. Miles was here and he was real. And Ivo knew, with a twist of nausea in his belly, that if he was to get Briar to safety he must not let Miles guess what she meant to him.
“I did not think to see you here in York,” he said calmly, knowing his lack of emotion would annoy his brother. “Last I heard you were in Normandy.”
Briar glanced warily back and forth between the two men. “Who is this, de Vessey?” she asked bluntly. “Another mercenary?”
Miles turned to look at her with sudden interest, his cold gray eyes lighting, and Ivo felt his heart stop. ‘Twas not a good thing to draw the attention of Miles de Vessey, not if you were a woman.
“This is no one, demoiselle. Do not concern yourself.”
Miles laughed quietly, mockingly. “No one? Brother, you do me a grave disservice.” He turned back to Briar and bowed low. “Let me introduce myself, lady. I am Sir Miles de Vessey, the brother who is not disgraced.”
Wide-eyed, Briar turned to Ivo. He knew he looked white and strained, but he hoped there was nothing more to be read in his face.
Their safety depended on him playing a part of indifference.
Briar return to Miles with a practiced smile, suddenly very much the great lady.
“ ‘Tis good to know one of the de Vesseys is still in favor, Sir Miles. Tell me, what do you here?”
Miles cast an indifferent look about him and shrugged. “I was passing and I saw you enter. It hardly seems the sort of place for an assignation—though I doubt my brother has ever made an assignation with a woman in his whole life. I was curious.”
“This is my father’s house,” she said bluntly.
And that told Miles who she was.
Ivo saw it in the narrowing of his cold eyes, the twist of his lips. Aye, he knew her, but would he make use of the knowledge? Miles had many schemes spinning in his head, but he always had room for another.
“I have been in this hall,” Miles said. “I was in the service of Lord Fitzmorton, so I knew your father slightly. And your mother, the Lady Anna. A most beautiful woman.”
If Briar was surprised by his quick understanding she did not show it. “Stepmother,” she corrected him haughtily, her polite smile fading.
Take care, thought Ivo, while his own tongue felt frozen.
Why was it Miles had this power over him?
A combination of regret and fear and guilt and hate.
Regret, because Miles could so easily have been his friend, was still his flesh and blood, and Ivo could not help but remember it.
Fear, because he knew of what Miles was capable, guilt because he always felt as if it was his fault that his own brother loathed him.
And hate, because of what Miles had done to him ever since they were children.
Miles was bowing his acknowledgment of Briar’s correction. “My own mother was not Ivo’s,” he said with a smile. “We have that in common, lady.”
Ivo shook his head, and his voice came out like that of a stranger. “You have nothing in common with her, Miles. Come Briar, ‘tis time to go.”
Briar looked as if something had just occurred to her, and she ignored Ivo, turning again to Miles. “You say you were in Lord Fitzmorton’s service, Sir Miles? I have heard he was very fond of Anna—her death must have upset him greatly.”
Miles nodded, his gray eyes fixed on her face. “I believe they were close. Is that what you wished to know, lady?”
Briar looked chagrined that he had so easily seen through her question. Miles’s smile broadened—pleased, predatory. Ivo felt the hairs rise on his neck. He spoke without thought, attempting to draw Miles’s eyes away from Briar.
“And what of you, Miles? Were you close to Anna, too?”
“I do not tell tales, brother. You should know that.”
“Aye, brother, you are too busy telling lies.”
Miles laughed. “As you will, but it is you who is disgraced, Ivo.”
That made him angry. So angry that there was no way to conceal the flare of pure rage in his eyes, or the iron-hardening of his body.
How could Miles do this to him with mere words, after all this time?
To his utter frustration, he knew that nothing had changed after all.
Despite all that lay between them, he still felt like a child.
“You would know better than I why that is so,” he managed, but his voice sounded choked, ineffectual.
“You must try not to blame others for your own shortcomings, Ivo. “Iis a fault you should have grown out of long since.”
Briar’s eyes widened. She was clearly fascinated by their bitter exchange.
Perhaps she mistook it for brotherly bantering.
Miles turned his smile at her, his gaze cold and possessive, as if she were a strange and interesting object that he coveted.
But not to love, thought Ivo wildly. Miles could not love; it was an ability he had always lacked.
Ivo felt fear run through him, like a fire in dry grass catching and leaping and burning, unstoppable. He knew better than anyone of what Miles was capable. The thought of his brother with Briar in his hands was enough to make him want to retch.
“Ivo may no longer be a knight, but he has not stopped rescuing damsels in distress.” She glanced at him as she said it, her slanting eyes flirtatious, warm. We are together in this, she seemed to be saying. And did not know it was the last thing he wanted her to do.
Miles, too, glanced at Ivo, slyly, knowingly. “My brother was always one for rescuing those in distress. It is just a pity he does not always arrive in time.”
The world went red. Ivo’s rage swallowed him up, and he lost the ability to reason. His words spewed from his mouth.
“You talk as if all that means nothing to you! As if it were a forgotten joke. Why are you here! To torment me again; to make my life a living hell? Go away, Miles! Find a corner and curl up in it and die!”
His voice echoed, raw and shocking. Briar looked astonished at his outburst, her eyes huge in her pale face, her lips apart. And throughout it all, Miles watched him. And then he sighed.
It was the sigh of a man who had suffered, who was deeply wounded by what he had just heard. If Ivo had not known Miles through and through, he would almost have believed it was the sigh of a man who despaired of his beloved younger brother.
“That is what you want me to do, Ivo? To die?”
“Aye!” Ivo managed. His voice was hoarse, his fingers white as he clenched them on his sword. “That is what I want, Miles, above all things. Jesu, you deserve nothing less.”
“You disappoint me,” Miles said quietly. He looked to Briar, his gray eyes brimming with sorrow. “Lady, Ivo has always been the black sheep of the de Vessey family, but he is still my brother. Forgive him.”
Briar frowned from one to the other. “I—I do not... Ivo?”
Ivo ignored her, concentrated on his brother. Telling himself that as long as he kept his eyes on Miles, he could not harm Briar.
“If I see you again I will kill you. This time I will not let anything stop me. Do you understand?”
Miles made a face. “How can I not understand such blunt speech, brother? So be it. We will part now.”
Before Ivo could do more than draw breath, Miles had taken Briar’s hand, raised it to his lips, and released it.
All in a heartbeat. Too late, Ivo grabbed Briar’s arm and pulled her away, causing her to stumble on the rubble.
Miles’s gray eyes gleamed, amused by Ivo’s tardiness, but his face maintained the expression of sad courage he had affected for Briar’s benefit.
He has turned me into a clumsy fool. A vindictive oaf. Just as he intended...
Briar struggled in his grip, but Ivo would not let her go. He pulled her after him by force, marching her from the building and out onto the street. There they stood, Ivo still feeling dizzy and ill, Briar glaring at him like an angry little cat.
“What is wrong with you, de Vessey?”
I wanted to get you away from him, Ivo thought. He is evil, and he will hurt you. He will hurt you because he destroys anything I love... Aye, he loved her. The truth shone like a torch in a dark hall.
Ivo blinked and turned away. No time for that now. And he could not discuss Miles, either, not with her. His lips were stiff with all the terrible memories aching to spill out, as he prepared to mount his horse.
Briar’s voice followed him. “You are a disappointment, Ivo, just as your brother said. Why can you not be as charming as he?”
Ivo started, and then he threw back his head and laughed. But it was a wild laugh, without any humor. “Like Miles? Oh, demoiselle, you would not like me if I were like Miles.”
Annoyed at his strange, secretive behavior, Briar sniffed and tossed her head. “Well there you are wrong, for I would like you very much better!”
Does she mean it?
Ivo flinched, and felt the pain of her words go deep, tearing and ripping like an arrow bolt through soft flesh. She could not have hurt him more had she tried.
She doesn’t understand, he told himself. You must explain to her.
But he couldn’t. The words would choke him.
And more than that, when she learned how he had failed his sister, she would look at him with new eyes.
She would no longer think him capable of daring feats, she would no longer nestle so confidently into his arms. She would know he deserved to suffer, as Miles was making him suffer now.
So she preferred Miles?
Then God help her.
God help them both...
“Come with me, Briar,” he said, and his voice had turned dead and cold. He felt both. Miles had come to York to destroy him, and this time Ivo had more to lose than ever.