Chapter Seventeen
Castle Questing
Northumberland, Seat of the House of de Wolfe
William hadn’t been aware of just how long he’d been staring at the missive from his daughter.
The faded yellow vellum sat on his massive desk, illuminated by the light from two banks of candles, one on either side of the table.
He always kept the desk well-lit because his eyesight wasn’t what it used to be.
Hell, he’d lost his left eye in Wales over forty years ago, and he’d learned to compensate.
But now as the years advanced and his body grew older and more tired, his one remaining eye wasn’t very good.
He had difficulty reading and, sometimes, difficulty seeing the smaller details in things.
But he pretended like everything was fine.
He always pretended that everything was fine because he didn’t want his family to worry over him, but worry they did.
His family.
He’d sat staring at that vellum, pondering the contents with a mind that wasn’t quite apt to believe what he’d just read.
He’d had to read it four times before setting it aside and simply staring at it.
He didn’t want to believe any of it, but he knew that his daughter, Penelope, wouldn’t lie to him and he further knew she wouldn’t have sent the missive unless she had just cause.
That was what the missive was all about – his family.
As William pondered the contents of the missive, he realized that every part of his body was aching with stress and anxiety as a result.
Damnation! He thought. He’d allowed the contents of the missive to get past his logical mind and into his veins, where it would pulsate through him and turn his shock into a physical manifestation.
If he wasn’t careful, it would tear him apart.
He could already feel it, pulling at him, tugging at his arms and legs and chest, and if he allowed it…
God, if he allowed it… it could easily destroy him.
Nay… he’d come too far in his life, and he was too happy in his legacy, to allow anything to destroy him. He was William de Wolfe, the Earl of Warenton and the man known as the Wolfe of the Border. Nothing could destroy him.
Nothing but a missive bearing one name that had nearly sent him into oblivion.
James.
It just wasn’t possible. Five years after James’ death in Wales, to receive a message that suggested his son hadn’t died in Wales was foolish at best. Ludicrous, even, and stupid when all else failed.
Outrageous! All of these words rolled through William’s mind as he looked at the missive.
But in the midst of an explosion of adjectives, one small word also filled his mind, something that had the strength to push aside all of the others.
Hope.
But he couldn’t allow himself to feel any hope at all. It was preposterous. Furthermore, he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, tell his wife the contents of the missive because she, too, would be filled with the same stress and anxiety that he was.
William and his wife, Jordan, had ten children total, with nine living to adulthood, and only one of them lost as an adult – his beloved son, James.
It was no secret in the family that William had never quite recovered from James’ death, which was why the missive from Penelope had him reeling.
He’d never gotten over the guilt of having left his son behind when the English had retreated at Llandeilo.
He had no body to bring home for James’ wife and mother to mourn, and that had made him feel so very weak and guilty.
And now this damnable missive, dredging it all up again.
He felt sick.
But he also knew he needed help. He needed the calm, rational eye of someone he trusted, so when he’d finished absorbing the contents of the missive, he stood up and collected the vellum, rolling it up tightly and holding it against his heart as if that somehow brought him closer to the son he’d lost. With the missive clutched to his chest, he quit the lavish solar of Castle Questing and headed to the upper floors of the enormous keep.
Castle Questing was William’s seat, and had been for forty years.
Most of his children had been born here, as had many of his grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.
The keep itself was more of a rectangular building, with three floors and more than two dozen rooms. There was more than enough space for a large family or two, and he shared the home not only with his wife and two of his sons, but he also shared it with another family.
In the days long past when he had served at Northwood Castle as the Captain of the Army, he’d had a dedicated knight corps of nine men.
Paris de Norville was his closest friend, a man who also became family when four of William’s children married four of Paris’.
Kieran Hage was also his closest friend, a bear of a man who had been third in command at Northwood, and a man who was also family by virtue of the fact that two of William’s children had married into the Hage family, including James.
When William had been granted Castle Questing by Henry III, he’d taken Kieran with him to help him establish his new seat, leaving Paris at Northwood as the Captain of the Army for the Earl of Teviot.
But it didn’t matter that Paris was thirteen miles from William and Kieran; the men were as close as they’d ever been, and nothing could change that.
Nowadays, William and Kieran and their families still occupied Castle Questing.
Considering Kieran had married Jordan de Wolfe’s cousin, Jemma, long ago, it made the families that much closer, so they were literally one giant family.
William saw Kieran daily and had for the past forty years, through good times and bad, and even though William had brothers, he considered Kieran closer to him than a brother could ever be.
And that was why William was taking the missive to Kieran.
Taking the long flight of mural stairs up to the third floor of Castle Questing, William entered the east wing of the keep, a floor and section of the castle that was exclusively used by Kieran and his family.
He was heading for Kieran’s chamber at the end of the corridor, a room with windows that faced northeast so Kieran could watch the sunrise.
He didn’t move much from his bed these days, something William refused to acknowledge.
But he was the only one.
Everyone else had resigned themselves to the fact that Kieran was growing weaker by the day. His heart hadn’t been particularly healthy for the past several years. But only in the past year had they begun to see a steady decline in a man William had called the strongest man in the north.
In Kieran’s prime, there wasn’t a man in England or Scotland who could best him in feats of strength.
A massive man with a big neck, broad shoulders, and hands of steel could rip men apart without the aid of a weapon, Kieran was an immovable object on the field of battle and had survived wounds that would have killed a lesser man.
But this mountain of a man had a calm manner about him and always had; he was cool in any circumstance, cooler still in the heat of battle.
He also possessed an ageless wisdom, something that William now sought.
He needed Kieran’s level head to help him decide what to do about Penelope’s missive.
There were decisions to make and William feared he couldn’t be objective about them.
As he approached Kieran’s door, the panel opened and a small, round woman appeared.
She had a tray in her hands and she closed the door behind her, glancing up to see William approach.
Lady Jemma Hage had been a lush Scottish lass in her youth, and she was still lovely even in her advanced years.
The fiery woman Paris had branded a banshee those years ago had been the rock of Kieran’s family, her strength beyond compare. William smiled when their eyes met.
“How is your husband today?” he asked.
Jemma’s forced smile told him something he didn’t want to know. “He is eating better,” she said in her thick Scots accent. “He finished his entire nooning meal. He hasna done that in a while.”
William looked at the tray she was carrying; there was a small empty bowl, a wooden plate with crumbs, a cup, and little else. To him, it didn’t look as if there had been much food to begin with, but he didn’t say anything. He simply smiled.
“Good,” he said. “He shall be back on his feet in little time. May I see him?”
Jemma’s smile faded. Like everyone else at Questing, she knew that William was in denial of Kieran’s health. To him, Kieran was simply resting and would soon resume his place as the commander of the de Wolfe armies. But it wasn’t the case, and Jemma as well as Jordan had tried to tell William that.
He simply wouldn’t listen.
“Ye may,” she said. “But I must speak tae ye first.”
William’s expression lost its warmth. If she was going to say what he thought she was going to say, then he didn’t want to hear it.
“What is it?” he asked warily.
Jemma sighed faintly, seeing that William was already on his guard. “William,” she said quietly. “I know ye dunna want tae hear this, but ye must know that the physic says that Kieran is growing weaker. We’ve been trying tae tell ye this, but…”
As she knew he would, he averted his gaze and pushed past her. “He is not,” he said, cutting her off. “He is simply growing old; we are all growing old. It is age and nothing more.”
Jemma reached out and grabbed his arm before he could get past her.
“Would ye stop?” she hissed. “I know ye dunna want tae hear such things and surely, I dunna want tae say them, but Kieran will not rise from his bed as ye hope. The physic says his heart… ye know he has a bad heart. It is only a matter of time now before…”
William cut her off again, yanking his arm out of her grip. “It is not true,” he said, moving to the door. “I cannot believe you.”