Chapter Eleven
Linley Manor
“I knew it was de Wolfe!” Linley screamed. “I knew it was him!”
In the only habitable room of Linley Manor, the great hall that had known grander days, the big, heavy-set drunkard known as Lord Linley was in a rage.
His daughter, weeping, had finally confessed the father of her six-month-old son and, devastated, told her father that the knight refused to marry her.
Now, Linley was in a rage and there was no way to stop it.
“Papa, please,” Helene wept. “I do not need your anger. I need your help. Will you not help me?”
Linley, who had been stumbling around the room in his rage, came to a halt and threw up his hands. “What is it you expect me to do?” he nearly screamed at her. “If the man refused to marry you, all I can do is kill him! I will challenge him and I will kill him! It is a matter of family honor now!”
Helene shook her head. “Papa, no,” she insisted. “He is a knight, one of the most powerful on the Marches. He will kill you!”
Linley was inflamed by what he considered slander against his skill and, in a rage, he rushed at his daughter and slapped her several times across the face as she screamed.
In her struggle to get away from him, she ended up falling backwards over her chair, ending up on the dirty floor and crawling away.
“Silence your foolish mouth, girl!” Linley said, trying to kick her as she crawled away.
“When you named your son Wolfe I should have known. You told me it was because you liked the name but I knew better. I knew Gates de Wolfe had somehow managed to steal your innocence but now that you have confirmed it to me, I will kill the man, I swear it!”
Sobbing, Helene was over by the wall, huddled in a fearful ball. “Mayhap you will not have to kill him if you can convince him to do the honorable thing and marry me,” she said, wiping the mucus from her nose with the back of her hand. “Mayhap he will change his mind if you ask.”
“You already said he refused!”
She nodded, wiping at her eyes, hoping he didn’t charge her again and try to slap her. “He did,” she said, sniffling. “But… but should you approach his liege, mayhap it would be different. De Lara can command Gates into marriage or punish him!”
Linley pondered that a moment, coming to an unsteady halt.
He was weaving unsteadily, the result of drinking cheap ale that had been made from grain with mold on it.
It had a tendency to make him see things that weren’t there and give him horrible nightmares.
But when one was dependent upon drink, one was not too particular where one got it from.
“Mayhap,” Linley agreed, scratching at his louse-ridden head.
“I will see de Lara, then, and demand he force de Wolfe to marry you. It is the only honorable thing to do and surely de Lara will not stand for a dishonorable knight in his service, especially when I tell all who will listen how disgraceful de Wolfe is. Imagine the man seducing my vulnerable daughter. I will not have it, I say!”
Helene remained huddled against the wall, listening to her father rant, hoping for two things – that Gates would, when challenged, kill her father and that afterwards, he would feel so terrible about it that he would agree to marry her.
Aye, those two things were her wish because, for certain, living with a father such as Huw Linley was worse than a death sentence.
He’d sold everything of value from the manor to support his drinking habit and any money that came up after that was also used for drink.
He bargained with local brewers, trading them servants and livestock for stores of cheap and toxic ale, and sometimes the ale was so poisoned by bad grain that he saw his daughter as a demon and tried to beat her.
Once he even tried to throw her in the fire.
Aye, living with the man was hell, which was why marriage to a knight had held out such hope for Helene.
In her view, there was still hope now that her father intended to challenge de Wolfe.
Perhaps Gates would not want to fight the old man, believing it a dishonorable thing to do, and simply give in.
It was among the many hopes that Helene had at the moment.
The last hope that her son would indeed have his father.
The last hope that she would know a better life than this with the only man who had ever been kind to her.
With the pearl necklace, the amethyst necklace, a gold necklace adorned with crimson stones, and a bejeweled hair piece of emeralds packed safely away in a locked box that they had purchased from the jeweler along with the jewelry, Gates and Kathalin emerged from the stall to find Alexander and the men waiting for them.
It seemed that Alexander had found an establishment on the Street of the Bakers that produced little pies with chicken and gravy, something that had smelled decadently delicious, so the group had proceeded across the avenue to the Street of the Bakers to partake.
The smells of baking bread and roasting meat were coming fast and heavy as they entered the street but Kathalin wasn’t much interested in it.
She was not very hungry, in fact, since Gates had turned down her marriage proposal.
Well, it wasn’t exactly a proposal but certainly he’d discounted her offer.
She’d never known such disappointment in her life, and heartache, for at St. Milburga’s she had been insulated against such things.
Now, she wanted to go back more than ever.
She didn’t even want to look at Gates de Wolfe any longer.
She wanted to go home.
Oblivious to what had happened in the jeweler’s stall between Kathalin and Gates, Alexander was his usual congenial self.
He had reserved an area between stalls on the Street of the Bakers with upturned logs and a few benches where patrons could sit whilst eating their food.
Normally, it was a pleasant place to eat but with the melting snow, it was a bit of a swamp.
Still, Gates gathered his men there as Alexander and a few of his soldiers went to purchase food for a midday meal.
But there was brooding silence all around after he departed.
It wasn’t difficult to notice that Kathalin had fallen silent since their visit to the jewelers.
She sat on one of the wooden benches, wrapped up in her blue and fox fur cloak, staring at her hands for the most part.
Gates, who had been acutely aware of her silence all along, couldn’t get more than one or two word answers out of her.
It didn’t take a great intellect to realize that she’d become this way after he’d turned down her suggestion of marriage and her shift in mood told him, increasingly, how serious she had been.
His heart, so hardened against women, wasn’t hardened against her.
The more she ignored him, the worse the tightening in his chest became.
He very much wanted to explain the reasons behind his answer to her but he was afraid if he did, it would open him up to a confession he didn’t want to make to her.
A confession that would have him telling her what a terrible man he’d been at times, deflowering virgins and running from responsibility.
Nay, he didn’t want to tell her that at all.
Of all people in the world, he wanted her to think of him as a strong and upstanding man, with no vices and of great moral character.
He didn’t want her to know of the Dark Destroyer, the destroyer of women’s hearts.
He only wanted her to know Gates de Wolfe, the man she’d known kindness from.
That was the only legacy he wanted with her.
… could have with her.
So he kept his mouth shut, not speaking to her as they waited until Alexander finally returned with enough food for, literally, an army.
He had more than two dozen small pies with dark brown crusts and a filling of chicken and gravy, or filled with mutton and carrots.
There was also fresh bread and almond pudding in dried-out gourds, but before the men could jump at them, Gates gave Kathalin her choice and she selected, without enthusiasm, a chicken pie.
That was all. Once she took it for herself, the men dove in and it was a feasting frenzy beneath the cold, clear afternoon sky.
“Is the plan still to remain here tonight?” Alexander asked as he walked up to Gates, shoving pie into his mouth. “There is a festival going on later today, you know. It should go all night.”
Gates was eating his own pie. “What festival?”
Alexander, chewing, pointed off to the square where the big cathedral was.
“Some kind of pagan celebration local to the town,” he said.
“Something about a sheep queen or a snow queen. I do not recall what I was told. In any case, they will have fires and food and dancing, so I am told. It might be fun to attend. There will be women there, after all.”
Gates looked at the man. “In case you haven’t realized it, we are guarding a woman right now,” he said. “I will not go off and leave her unattended.”
Alexander’s gaze lingered on Kathalin’s lowered head. “I did not mean to leave her unattended,” he said. “She may like to attend.”
“Having come from a convent where festivities like that were not allowed? I doubt it.”
Alexander could see his point. He continued to watch Kathalin as she picked at her pie.
“I heard that Jasper and Lady de Lara intend to throw a party for her in honor of her return home,” he said.
“My parents have been invited, in fact. By next week, we should have families here from all over the Marches to welcome Lady Kathalin home.”
Gates simply nodded, taking another bite of his pie, unaware that Alexander was watching her closely. “She is a beautiful woman,” he continued. “Rumor has it that de Lara is looking for a husband for her. Have you heard that, also?”