Chapter Fourteen
“Where is William?”
The question came as half-demand, half-plea.
Avalyn wasn’t sure she should make demands at all given the circumstances, but she wasn’t going to let Charles assert his dominance over her, either.
Even with St. John in the room, fuming quietly in the corner and shooting hateful glares in her direction.
Suddenly, the sunny solar that she had adopted as her own had taken on a black, ugly ambience.
It wasn’t a comforting place any longer.
For almost two days, it had been the place of her sorrow and her captivity.
“As I have said to you innumerable times, my lady, I will be asking the questions at this time.”
Charles was angry; that much was certain.
But more than that, he was embarrassed and hurt.
Embarrassed that he had been made a fool of and hurt that Avalyn had deceived him.
He had tried so hard to be kind to her, to show her what kind of man he was.
She had responded by betraying him. He paced back and forth across the wide-slat wooden floor, his expression worn and weary.
“I would ask that you kindly answer my question,” Avalyn said.
She was exhausted and frightened. She was terrified they had done something horrible to William, as she’d not seen him since the night she and Brogan were discovered.
“Just tell me where he is. I’ll not ask that he be brought to me, but I want to know where he is. Please.”
Charles was exhausted, too. This was turmoil he wasn’t used to and didn’t need, though in truth, he wasn’t particularly surprised.
The lady had made her very strong feelings for d’Aurilliac clear, though Charles had hoped beyond hope that the past few weeks would have seen that infatuation dissolved.
But he should have guessed that it would not be the last he heard of the man.
Maybe he had been the one deceiving himself all along, not the lady.
She’d never been less than truthful about her feelings for another.
Fat jaw ticking with frustration, he looked at her.
“If I tell you where he is, will you tell me what is truly going on?” It sounded strangely like a plea. “I have been asking you for two days to be truthful with me and you’ve yet to tell me what I wish to know. I have a right to know what has happened, my lady. I have every right in the world.”
Avalyn gazed up at him, her golden eyes dull. So far, they had not made the connection with The Sirens yet, but Brogan and St. Alban were in the vault. The women were still free as far as she knew. She intended to keep it that way, for their sakes.
She still did not know how Charles had come to discover Brogan’s identity; he’d not said.
But the fact remained that he did know. Perhaps she needed to be truthful with him and hope that he would show mercy.
Certainly, they could not keep up this stalemate much longer.
Moreover, she knew that she was in the wrong; she had chosen to mislead him.
She had allowed Brogan to infiltrate his knight corp with the intention of stealing her away.
She’d known all along that Charles was a decent man and had been prone to moments of great guilt for her actions.
Gazing into his face, her pity for him made a weak resurgence.
“I will tell you what you wish to know,” she finally sighed, lowering her gaze. “Just tell me where William is.”
Charles watched her lowered head, feeling a strange tug of compassion. He wasn’t a strong-willed man as it was, and Avalyn seemed to bring out his weaknesses, mostly because he wanted to please her so much. Even now, after her betrayal, he still did not want to see her unhappy.
“He’s in the vault,” he said.
Her head shot up, eyes flashing. “What? Why is he there?”
Charles lifted his eyebrows. “He knew d’Aurilliac on sight. He knew that Gervaise was not who he said he was. He knew, my lady, and he did not tell me. His action cannot go unpunished.”
She flushed a dull red. “How do you know that? William is a knight. He does not involve himself with the common soldier.”
“He told us, my lady.”
Avalyn closed her eyes tightly, lowering her head.
He confessed! Damn him; why did he do it?
But she knew the answer even as she asked it.
William was an honorable man. He must have been asked a direct question and could not lie.
She needed to see him, if only to apologize for pulling him into something horrible.
He had lied for her and now he was in the vault for it.
“It is not his fault, my lord,” she said softly, raising her head to look at him. There were tears in her eyes. “He did as I ordered. He was following my directive. You do not need to keep him in the vault.”
Charles gazed at her, his expression fairly neutral. After a moment, he pulled up the nearest stool he could find, a small three-legged thing by the hearth. He sat several feet away from her, his small brown eyes beseeching.
“Tell me everything and I will consider releasing him,” he said, that strange pleading tone in his voice again. “Was this planned all along? Is this something that has been simmering ever since you and I left London for Guerdley Cross?”
Avalyn blinked away the tears that were threatening. “Yes and no,” she sniffed. “Brogan was going to come for me, but I did not find out later just how he planned to do it.”
“And Inglesbatch came to help him?”
“William came to help me.” She suddenly stood up, her face pale and her hands shaking.
“Charles, you once told me that you loved a woman so much that you wanted to marry her. If that is true, then surely you understand my feelings for Brogan. What we did, we did for love. We did not do it to shame you, or hurt you, or cause you to be the source of ridicule. We did it because we love each other and would do anything to be together. If you loved your lady as you said you did, then surely you understand how we feel. Would you not do anything to be with her also?”
Charles was looking up at her, his expression morphing into one of sorrow and, surprisingly, anger. He twisted his fingers in his lap. “She is married. There was never any chance.”
“But if she was not married, only betrothed, would you not do anything to claim her as your own?”
He wouldn’t look at her. “It is… impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible!” Avalyn threw her hands up.
“Charles, Brogan is a foot soldier, a lowly fighting man. I come from the most prominent family in England. If anything is impossible, it is even the remotest possibility that Brogan and I could be together. But even stronger than class and social standing are what we feel for each other. When I look at Brogan, I do not see a mere soldier. I see a man of flesh and blood and emotion, and I see so much goodness in him. You must understand that kind of devotion. I would do anything to be with him and I would gladly die in the quest for the opportunity.” She moved towards him, her eyes and voice pleading with him.
“Please, Charles, you must understand this. We were not attempting to hurt you. But we must be together.”
She was standing very close to him; he was having difficulty maintaining his firm stance when she was so openly beseeching him. Avalyn suddenly fell to her knees beside him, her soft hands closing over his big calloused ones.
“Please, Charles,” the tears were coming now.
“Please let me go. Tell my uncle I ran away; there will be no shame on you. But I am begging you… please let me go. Just because you were denied your opportunity at happiness with the woman you loved, do not deny me mine. Let me have what you were unable to. You have this power over my life. Will you not show your benevolence?”
He continued to gaze back at her, feeling her emotions spilling out onto him. Every tear from her eye was like a small dagger to his heart. “And you could not be happy with me?” he asked softly.
She smiled weakly. “If I had never loved Brogan, I believe I could. You are a warm and generous man. I would not deliberately hurt you for the world. But I am a selfish woman; I want my happiness more than I want yours, and for that I am sorry. I pray that you can forgive me.”
Charles just stared at her, not trusting himself to make any manner of decision. She was begging him and he was in chaos because of it. “Barton?” he spoke to the knight in the corner even though he was looking at the lady. “What do you think?”
The focus not shifted to the knight. Avalyn looked at Barton, lingering in the shadows; fear crept into her expression, for she knew the man did not like her and she did not blame him.
There had always been a strain between them after her uncle’s interrogation episode.
Barton’s pale blue eyes gazed at her steadily, his expression emotionless.
“My opinion is of no matter, my lord,” he said after a moment.
“It is to me. Tell me.”
Barton sighed imperceptibly. It was clear that he did not want to speak. “Do you wish for me to be frank, my lord?”
Charles nodded, his gaze still on Avalyn. Barton pushed himself off the wall, walking towards the pair very slowly. He was still looking at Avalyn, the glittering eyes calculating a thousand ways to condemn her.
“I believe the lady is very good at manipulating you, my lord,” he said.
“I believe she is very good at manipulating all of the men around her. She excels at this. She is, after all, a de Neville and it is well known that the de Nevilles control their surroundings.” He came to a halt, his eyes boring into her.
“But I also believe that people do strange things where emotions are involved, and I think her devotion to d’Aurilliac is admirable. Futile, but admirable.”
Avalyn had averted her gaze somewhere in the middle of his speech. She couldn’t look at the man.