Chapter 25 #2
“My bairn and I will be just fine without ye. There’ll be nothin’ of ye in her, nae a bit of yer wickedness or yer weakness.
Indeed, I pray she never has to hear yer name spoken, for when she asks me who her faither is, I’ll tell her she doesnae have one,” Kristin roared on.
“Ye deserve everythin’ that is comin’ to ye, and when my brother is finished pickin’ ye piece from piece, I will spit on yer unmarked grave. ”
Charles’ brow arched, though the rasp of his tone belied inner outrage. “Are you quite finished? I can barely understand you with that barbaric brogue of yours, but then I was never interested in hearing you speak.”
As Victoria had feared he would, Arran snapped.
He tore his arm from Victoria’s grip, and his sword was drawn with such fluidity that she barely saw the man move before he was halfway across the room.
She could not even imagine what it must be like to face him on a battlefield.
It happened so fast that she could not conjure a single word to prevent him, though her heart feared the worst.
The Earl, too, seemed to be struggling to catch up with what was happening.
He floundered in his attempt to draw his own weapon, awkwardly pulling his sword from the scabbard in jerking tugs while yelling for reinforcements.
Although even Victoria knew that was a bluff, from what Neil had said about the small party approaching the castle.
Arran’s bannermen all drew their weapons as the sound of stomping boots and clanging metal filled the room almost instantly, the supposed reinforcements spilling into the Great Hall. No more than a dozen, just as Neil had said.
But how did they get inside in the first place? Victoria knew that would be a question for afterward, when this was all over.
Charles might not have brought many men with him, but they certainly seemed to know what they were doing. He had probably paid an extortionate sum for mercenaries that did, rather than those who would take less and run off with it.
An organized sort of chaos broke out around the room, the maids, servants, elderly, and unseasoned fighters withdrawing to the sides or out through the two narrow doorways that the servants used.
Meanwhile, the soldiers clashed in the center, steel sparking against steel, creating such a mess of bodies that Victoria could not see Charles anymore.
Suddenly, Kristin was grabbing the sleeve of her dress and pulling her into a recess carved out of the closest wall.
Ruby was crying, and Kristin was doing her best to hug her child into her chest, shielding her head and attempting to muffle the noise.
But Victoria knew that they were both far more focused on the entrance of the room and where the Earl had gone.
“You should get Ruby out,” Victoria whispered.
Kristin shook her head. “I have to see this. I have to ken he’s been dealt with. And when I have, I’ll box that maid’s ears for bringin’ me daughter down here.”
At that moment, Victoria spotted the wretched cretin.
The coward had half retreated into the hallway outside the doors…
and he had her father clutched against him like some sort of human shield as Arran descended upon him.
There was something oddly satisfying about the way that Charles’ eyes widened in true fear before Arran’s dirk was pulled, and he hurled it the rest of the distance between himself and the Earl.
Victoria was never going to forget the sound that the smaller blade made as it lodged itself in Charles’ throat, so clean and precise that, at first, there was no blood.
There was just a gurgling sound as the man staggered backward into the hallway wall, but it was quickly overshadowed by the loud groan of pain from her father.
That sound spurred life back into Victoria’s limbs.
She did not have time to think about the fact that Arran might have actually killed the Earl. Certainly not while her father was slumping slowly to the ground as Charles’ grip around his neck faltered, both fighting for life, though one seemed to be rushing toward death much faster.
Arran just barely managed to catch the older man before he hit the flagstone floor and injured himself further on that cold, hard stone. With the utmost care, the Laird carefully laid Victoria’s father on his side, his large hands already searching out the spot of injury.
“No… Oh… Oh, no, no, no…” Victoria caught the flash of something silver winking in the low light as she continued her slow approach, weaving through the soldiers who were still fighting.
It was a small blade, pulled from her father’s back and slicked with red.
The pain must have overwhelmed the older man, as he passed out in Arran’s arms, his body going limp. To Victoria, however, that awful stillness looked the same as death.
She did not even make it all the way across the room before her knees gave out, and she found herself slumping to the floor, her shaky hand covering her mouth as she stared at her father and willed him to get up.
In that moment, none of his transgressions mattered; she just needed him to be alive.
He had evaded debt collectors and thugs and furious gentlemen demanding their money; surely he could evade death, too?
The sounds of fighting around her were already starting to fade, as if the small battle was over just as quickly as it started.
The men who had been in Charles’ employ all seemed to stop their combat the moment that their patron was no longer alive.
Later, she might reflect on the fickleness of it all.
But for now, she could not tear her eyes away from the rapidly paling face of her father.
If he died… what was she going to do?
Would she ever find Melody again? Was Melody safely with Emma, or had Charles managed to get his hands on her? The two men who might have been able to answer were both lying on the same floor, their blood trickling across the dusty stone.
She might not have thought of her father fondly of late, but she had not wished him harmed. She had not wanted him dead.
And Charles had stuck a knife in his back.
Suddenly, the phrase “an eye for an eye” made so much more sense to her.
When the insults and the torture and the suffering had all been her own, she had not wanted anyone killed for her sake.
But now that Charles had done this, she could better understand why Kristin and Arran had leaped to killing as their primary choice for vengeance.
But now was not the time to apologize for the way that she had been behaving.
No, she struggled back to her feet, staggering the rest of the distance toward Arran, as he lifted her father’s limp weight as if it were nothing, and he started to hurry down the hall.
Arran did not seem aware that she was there, so she had no choice but to follow him on her unsteady legs.
Behind her, she could hear Kristin yelling for her maid to come and take Ruby to safety at once.
Victoria’s feet would not move quickly enough as she lumbered along behind Arran as he moved over to the next unoccupied room and laid her father out on a table that he cleared to the best of his ability.
Neil, his man-at-arms, popped up behind Victoria, poking his head around her body, frozen in the doorway.
He wore the blood of another, and muttered something about fetching a healer—and then he was gone.
Meanwhile, Arran’s hands seemed to dance across her father’s body, tearing fabric, wrenching at clothes, pressing down hard upon the older man’s back as if he meant to crack her father’s shoulder. She stared, unable to truly conceive of what Arran was doing.
In fact, she could not seem to make it past the doorframe.
The room tilted, her vision swimming once more—and then everything went black.