Chapter Sixteen #3
William understood well her logic; he had to admit that it was brilliant. But something more concerned him. “Where will you go?” he asked.
Avalyn met his gaze steadily. “To a little bread shop in London,” she said softly. “After that, I am not entirely sure. I will send you word when I know.”
William’s expression tightened dramatically at the realization of something he should have suspected all along.
Avalyn may have married Aubrey, but Brogan was not out of her mind, not in the least. Now that Aubrey was dead, there was nothing to prevent her from going to Brogan and finishing what she had started.
“So you will go to d’Aurilliac?” he hissed. “Avalyn, how can you do that? With everything you have put that man through, how can you return to him and continue his torment?”
Avalyn knew it would be his reaction and it was difficult not to react in kind. “I will not continue his torment,” she murmured. “I will marry him.”
William’s eyebrows few up in disbelief. “Marry him?” he spat. “What of the conversations we had where you acknowledge there was no possibility of a harmonious marriage for the two of you? What about everything you said whilst locked in the vault? Was that all a lie?”
She was growing increasingly defensive. “I said all of that because of my betrothal to Charles and you know it,” she fired back softly.
“I had to say that to save all of us from spending the rest of our lives in the vault. Now, with Charles dead, there is no reason why Brogan and I cannot be married. William, I love him. He is the father of my child. I will always love him and not being with him, to be a pawn in my uncle’s schemes for more power and wealth, have ripped out my soul.
I want Brogan and I will have him, right or wrong.
If I have to choose between love and my honor, I will choose love every time. ”
It was a passionate speech, enough to cool William’s building rage. He just stood there and stared at her, sickened to the bone.
“As I would choose love,” he muttered, “for I have loved you as long as I can remember. Forget about Brogan, Avalyn. Marry me and we will live here at Guerdley Cross as man and wife, and I will love you and only you until I die. Do me this honor; please.”
Avalyn’s defensive stance took a direct hit; she had been expecting a confession like this for a very long time and the expression on his face cut her to the bone. Her dear friend, the man she could not do with out… but she did not love him. It was a horribly painful thing to tell him.
“Oh… William,” she whispered sorrowfully. “You are my very dearest friend and I love you as such. But I do not love you as a wife would love a husband. You deserve a woman who would worship you, but that woman is not me.”
William knew that but to hear it from her lips cut him all the same. Still, he could not give up; he had loved her too long to give in so easily.
“Will you not at least consider it?” he whispered.
Avalyn’s expression was wrought with pain as she reached out, putting her hand over his.
“I cannot,” she murmured. “I love Brogan and I will do whatever necessary to be with him. As you love me, surely you can understand that. If we were separated, and in love, surely you would do whatever you had to in order to be with me.”
He could feel her palm on his hand, the heat searing his flesh. God, it was a painful moment for him, one he’d hoped would have gone more in his favor. But he could see that it was not to be. If he was honest with himself, he supposed he knew that all along. But letting go… that was the difficulty.
“Aye,” he whispered, barely audible. “I would do whatever necessary.”
Avalyn squeezed his hand and let go. “Then you understand that I must go to London now,” she said softly. “I will not expect you to escort me, but mayhap you can arrange for someone who will. I would be grateful.”
Jaw ticking, face lined with sorrow, he shook his head and averted his gaze, moving away from the desk.
“Nay,” he muttered. “I will take you myself. I have been with you this far. I will be with you until the end.”
Avalyn watched him go with tears in her eyes.
She wanted to say more to him but dare not; she was afraid any further exchange would end up in heated words and she did not want that.
Next to leaving Brogan in that dirty cell those weeks ago, it was the singularly most painful thing she had ever had to do.
William had always been so good to her; it would seem he would continue to be until his services were no longer required.
With a heavy sigh, she sanded the ink on the missive and rolled up the vellum, sealing it with the Aubrey seal.
Her entire life was sealed up in that document, and before the sun hit noon on that day, she and William were riding on for London.
When Richard read the missive two days later, delivered by Barton St. John no less, he was so angry that he burst a blood vessel in his eye. Whether or not she was physically present, it looked to all concerned that Avalyn had left her uncle with a figurative, and literal, black eye.
She’d won the war.