Chapter Fourteen
“You truly believe she is trying to manipulate the man?” Orion asked. “Manny, I’ve known Aidric St. John for some time now. I’ve served with him. He is not a fool.”
Orion and Gerard were in the Guard of Six gathering room, lingering over the carved oaken table, smelling the leather from the chairs and the dust from the beams overhead. The chamber was always semi-dark, simply because it was never meant to be a bright and cheery place.
It was a place where men met and conversations were had.
And this was a difficult conversation.
“I am not saying he’s a fool,” Gerard said in a low voice. “I am simply saying that he is involving himself with one of the Seven Jewels of London. These are the most sought-after women in the world. He is greatly attracted to this woman and that is clouding his judgment. That is all I am saying.”
Orion wasn’t sure about that assessment. He eyed Gerard a moment before shaking his head.
“Let me ask you something,” he said, watching Gerard nod.
“Is it possible that you are so hardened that even when a perfectly honest man tells you the truth or displays humanity, you simply cannot see it? You are a de Velt, Manny. Your family was born in the blood of others. It is in your nature to see the worst in men. Mayhap that is what has happened here, because the Aidric I know would not allow himself to be manipulated. That is saying he is a weak man and I know he is not weak.”
“Not weak,” Gerard said. “You are putting words in my mouth. I am simply expressing a concern to you, Orion. You needn’t get nasty about it.”
With that, he stood up and paced away from the table, clearly unsettled with the discussion in general. He’d sought Orion out because they knew one another and he hoped that Orion might help him see clearly about the situation.
But Orion didn’t seem to see his side of it.
Gerard had been dwelling on the meeting from that morning since he returned to Westminster.
He had heard the lady’s words and he’d heard the entire conversation between her and Aidric, but he still wasn’t sure what her game was.
Certainly she sounded sincere, and if he were a less skeptical man he might believe her, but the problem was that he was skeptical and he didn’t believe her.
But, then again, he might not have even believed his own mother if the woman told him the truth.
As Orion said, it was simply in his nature to be suspicious.
But that nature had served him well in his line of work.
At least, it had until the day he was exiled from the Executioner Knights.
It was ironic, truly, that perhaps the real reason he was so keen to disbelieve Lady Cleodora was because something similar had happened to him on the last mission he’d undertaken for the Executioner Knights.
There was a rumor that he had done something so egregious that it caused him to be thrown out of the unit, but the truth was that it wasn’t so sensational.
The truth was that the Executioner Knights had been on a mission involving an English earl who had ties to the French and was secretly allowing French mercenaries to come ashore on his lands in the hopes of causing trouble for King Henry.
Henry had had his share of trouble during his reign and in this instance, the mercenaries were supposed to harass some of his most ardent supporters.
The Executioner Knights were solely in existence to prevent threats to the crown before they ever reached the king.
While the Guard of Six was the circle of protection around the king, the Executioner Knights were in place to prevent danger from ever reaching them.
Sometimes it did and that was something that couldn’t be helped, but in the instance of the earl and the French mercenaries, Gerard had infiltrated the French mercenaries in the hopes of reaching the earl and capturing him and sending him to the Welsh marches for imprisonment.
Everything was going quite well until the earl’s daughter got involved.
That was when Gerard began to lose his grip.
The earl’s daughter was, in fact, a warrior herself.
As it turned out, she was the driving force behind the French mercenaries and not her father, but by the time Gerard discovered that, he was already in love with the woman.
She knew that and she used it, something that cost the life of an Executioner Knight operative, and Gerard had no excuse for it.
He had no defense. It had been enough to have him removed from a position he truly loved and was truly good at.
He didn’t want Aidric making the same mistake he had.
But he couldn’t tell Orion that because his dismissal from the Executioner Knights was something he never spoke of.
To speak of it actually made it real and, in truth, it brought his failure to reality.
As long as he never spoke of it and he never thought of it, none of it had ever happened.
But the truth was that it had happened. He had paid the price for falling for a woman’s charms and when he saw the same thing happening with Aidric, he simply could not be silent about it.
No matter what Orion said.
“May I make an observation?” Orion said.
The soft question broke into Gerard’s unsteady thoughts. He paused by one of the lancet windows that overlooked a small courtyard. “If I deny your request, you are going to say it anyway,” he said. “Say what you must.”
Orion was sitting in a chair, big boots on the tabletop, as he watched Gerard pace. “It seems to me that you are taking this far too seriously,” he said. “It also seems to me that you are not trusting a seasoned knight to complete his duty. You are acting as if there is something personal here.”
“Personal for what?” Gerard turned to look at him. “What could possibly be personal? I do not even know Aidric.”
“That is my point,” Orion said. “You do not know him, yet you are already condemning him to failure.”
“I am not.”
“Manny, this is not an Executioner Knight operation,” Orion said, taking his boots off the table and sitting forward.
“This is not some critical operation that involves a dozen agents and five hundred soldiers. It will involve just a few men, Aidric included, and it seems to me that you should trust him to do his duty. Kings have. Why can’t you? ”
“Because he is afraid I am going to fail.”
The voice came not from Gerard, but from the doorway, and they both turned to see Aidric standing there. He was looking at Gerard even though he’d answered Orion. Somehow, he’d entered the chamber and neither one of them had heard him.
But here he was, addressing something that directly concerned him.
Facing it head-on.
“Is that not what you are afraid of?” he said to Gerard. “You are afraid that I will somehow fail in this operation. You are afraid I will let myself fall into the clutches of one of the Seven Jewels of London.”
Gerard hadn’t meant for Aidric to hear him, but here they were. “I have not said anything to Orion that I have not said to you,” he said evenly. “You know my concerns.”
Aidric was trying very hard not to view Gerard as an adversary. They were in the same unit and they were supposed to get along, to trust one another, but Gerard was making that difficult.
“I know,” he said. “You have made it abundantly clear.”
Gerard could hear the irritation in Aidric’s voice and he pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking on how he could bring down the level of animosity between them.
“Aidric, you told me once that Lady Cleodora intrigues you and that you feared there may be a point where you would not be strong enough to resist,” he said with some passion. “Is that true?”
“It is.”
“You also asked me to be truthful with you about anything I heard or saw or suspected,” Gerard said. “Is that not also true?”
Gerard cocked an eyebrow. “That is exactly what I am trying to do, but you do not seem to appreciate it,” he said. “Even now, you stand in front of me as if you’re ready to start a fight. I will point out that I am only doing as you asked.”
He was right. Aidric didn’t have the moral high ground to stand on at that point since he had, indeed, said all of that.
After that, it was Aidric who backed down a little.
“I suppose what I do not like is that I walk in on a conversation that was clearly about me,” he said.
“You can say anything you want to me, but you do not need to say it to others. Men like Orion have worked with me for quite some time. Speaking to them about a matter between us is stirring the pot and causing trouble.”
Gerard threw up his hands. “Point taken,” he said. “It is simply that we do not know one another and I was asking for Orion’s opinion on the matter because he does, in fact, know you. I did not mean to cause trouble. I’m simply seeking answers.”
Orion, who had remained quiet thus far, looked at Aidric and nodded his head. “He speaks the truth,” he said. “He was not trying to speak ill of you, simply seeking clarification.”
Aidric believed him. “That is fair,” he said, looking at Gerard. “But from now on, you and I must speak about every concern you have or we will never learn to trust one another.”
“Agreed.”
“Then come with me,” Aidric said. “Orion, you can come also.”
He started to move with the other two knights following. “Where are we going?” Orion asked.
“To see Edward,” Aidric said simply. “I believe it is time we tell him what is happening, for his own safety.”
No one disagreed with that.