WinterofThorns

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  Throwing his leg over his stallion’s head, Seyzon slid to the ground with a groan. To those who were looking at him, they saw a rich, red blush pass over his cheeks. He staggered, sucking in the pain the jostle had caused.

  “What ails you, boy?” Frederick inquired, stepping forward.

  “I was wounded,” he mumbled as he came toward his mother.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “The healer had to remove my spleen.”

  His mother stepped forward and, with the assurance of having borne the young man before her and having every right to do so, yanked up his shirt to see for herself. She clucked her tongue when she saw the bandage had a pale-pink tint spread out in a two-inch section of it.

  “Get this addlebrained boy to his room, Freddie. Have him stripped and I want you to bath him. He reeks of horse and other less savory things.” She put her nose close to his chest and sniffed. “What is that stench, Seyzon?”

  “I was in the dungeon,” Seyzon defended. “There was no shower or tub there.”

  “Dungeon?” his mother repeated, casting a narrow look at Gilbert.

  “Better than a whipping post,” Frederick commented.

  “Get those shackles off him,” his mother ordered Gilbert.

  “Aye, milady.” Gilbert was quick to respond. He stepped forward to unlock the manacles, casting his cousin Frederick an apologetic look.

  Frederick nodded his understanding then clapped a meaty hand to Seyzon’s shoulder. “Let’s go, brat.”

  “Carlson,” Millicent called to another man. “Have the healer go to my son’s room and wait for him.”

  Feeling as though he were five years old again and the sturdy warrior striding beside him had just been hired by his mother to take him in hand, Seyzon looked up at the man he suspected was not only his mother’s Master-at-Arms but her lover, as well.

  “How’s she been?”

  “Mean as a cornered ghoret,” Frederick replied. He looked down from his six-foot-seven-inch height and frowned. “Is this shit you’ve stumbled into bad?”

  “Aye,” Seyzon said, his voice gruff. He put a hand to his wound and grimaced.

  “Talk to your mama,” Frederick advised, and when Seyzon nodded, he hip checked his charge. “Good to have you home, brat.”

  Millicent waited until Seyzon had shaved, bathed and eaten a hearty bowl of stew before she joined him in the dining hall. He was sitting alone with his elbow on the table, chin propped in his hand, staring at the painting of the father he had never known. The Baron Daniel Montyne had been a strikingly handsome man with a thick thatch of curly black hair and eyes the color of a summer sky. There was a twinkle in those merry, blue eyes and the smile that pulled at the baron’s lips held the unmistakable hint of mischievousness about it. Seyzon regretted never having met the man. He knew in his heart Daniel Montyne would have been a wonderful father.

  As it was, Seyzon had grown up at Wicklow among a gaggle of women. Vindan’s father, the king, had been noticeably absent from the castle. When he wanted to see his son, King Nolan sent for the boy to be brought to him at the capitol in Devonshire. Not once had Seyzon ever laid eyes on the man his mother had often called Raphian’s Right Hand—referencing the demon known as the Destroyer of Men’s Souls. Millicent Montyne entertained no love for Nolan Brell and whenever the man was mentioned, fury gathered in her slender body.

  “How was the stew?” she asked as she came to the table.

  “Good.”

  She looked down at his bowl and realized he had eaten little—if any—of the savory fare. “All right, boy. Out with it. What happened?”

  “I need some fresh air,” Seyzon told her.

  “You’ll not get it. You are under house arrest and in the keep you will stay. I’ll have a window opened.” She pulled out a chair and sat down facing her son. “I’m waiting.” She frowned. “And pray sit in that chair like an adult instead of a disrespectful ten-year-old.”

  He sat back, curled his fingers over the end of the chair arms then took a long, shuddery breath.

  Lady Millicent’s gaze went to his hands and was dismayed to see he was gripping the chair so tightly his knuckles were white. His arms were stiff. “Zonny, look at me,” she said softly. When he raised his head and his eyes met hers, the despair on his face was heartbreaking. “What happened?”

  His eyebrows drew together. It was obvious he was striving to hold back his emotions. She reached out to place a hand on his taut forearm.

  “Tell me,” she coaxed. She felt him tremble and watched as his chin quivered, but motherly instinct warned her not to press any further, to let him speak in his own time. Even when his eyes shifted from hers and sought refuge across the room she held her peace. The steady tick-tock of the great clock in the main hall was the only sound breaking the silence for the longest time. Then a single tear wound its way down his cheek.

  “He…” her son began then had to swallow the anguish he struggled to contain. “He came into the chapel at the moment the priest pronounced us man and wife.”

  “He?”

  “Vindan.”

  Millicent raised her chin and released a long breath. “I take it you did not know he was coming.”

  Seyzon shook his head. “No.”

  “Was he angry?”

  “He was smiling,” he answered. “But I knew he was furious with me. I could see it in the way he was smiling. It was that sneaky smile that means he’s about to do something to you that you’re not going to like. You know the one I’m talking about.”

  “All too well,” she said then pursed her lips. “What then?”

  “He took me into the sacristy and let me know just how angry he was then he had me call my lady in.”

  “He spoke to her?”

  Seyzon nodded. “Aye, but I don’t know what he said. He sent me out of the room and when she came out, she wouldn’t speak to me. She ran from the chapel.”

  His face crinkled, his chin trembled, and his eyes were so bleak Millicent feared what he would say next.

  “He had sent her to her room and me…” Another tear fell. “Me he sent to the dungeon then he…”

  His chest heaved. Pain shifted across his face. A low, keening sound came from somewhere deep in his chest—barely making it past his tightly pressed lips.

  “What did he do?” his mother asked, her own eyes filling with tears as she dreaded his answer.

  “He went to her room.” He sucked in a great gasp of breath and crumbled under her gaze. “He took what was mine.”

  Millicent slowly closed her eyes then dropped to her knees beside her child. She put her arms around him and he twisted sideways, collapsed against her, the terrible, racking sobs exploding from his chest like molten lava. She ran one hand to the back of his head to hold it tight to her shoulder. Buffeting his forceful weeping, the low keening that punctuated each breath, she kissed the side of his face.

  “Let it out, son,” she told him. “Let it all out.”

  She would never know how long his pitiful crying lasted but by the time he pulled back from her—his handsome face ravaged by unspeakable grief—the shoulder of her gown was soaked from his tears. She smiled as he put his fists up to rotate them against his eyes, for the gesture vividly reminded her of when he was a small boy.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” he whispered.

  “There is nothing for you to be to be sorry about. The blame lies with Vindan Brell, not you,” she stated. It took some doing but she pushed up from the floor to sit once more in her chair. She laid her hand on his knee. “Have you spoken to her since that night?”

  He shook his head. “He wouldn’t let me. He took her to Wicklow with him and sent me here.”

  “I see,” she said, and when he lifted his face to lock eyes with her, she squeezed his thigh. “You fear he has taken her from you. That he will annul the Joining.”

  “He says he won’t.”

  She patted his knee then removed her hand. “Jealousy,” she said, sitt
ing back in the chair. “He is jealous of her.”

  Seyzon flinched. A muscle clenched in his cheek. Clenched again.

  “You know I am right,” she said. “If he were bent in another direction and so were you, you know where that would have led long ago.”

  “That is a wicked thought, milady,” he told her.

  “Though a true one,” she replied. “If it is any conciliation, I am sure he used protection.”

  Seyzon winced. “By the gods, I pray so.”

  “Best you know so. Vindan does not need a bastard child running about Wicklow and certainly not one he got on his best friend’s wife.”

  “He calls me the brother he never had,” Seyzon said, running his arm under his nose, his next words muffled by the cloth. “Some way to treat a brother, eh?”

  “Stop that,” she said. “That is nasty.” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and fluttered it at him until he took it. “Well you know what they say.”

  He blew his nose, looking up at her over the handkerchief. “What do they say, Mama?”

  “That incest is best when it’s kept in the family,” she said with a grin that made him laugh.

  And laughter was one step closer to healing the heartache stamped on her son’s face.

  * * * * *

  A week later, Frederick walked over to where Lady Millicent was seated in the solarium. She was gazing out the window as her son strolled aimlessly in the glassed-in greenhouse attached to the solarium.

  “He is hurting,” Frederick said, putting his hands on her shoulders and kneading gently.

  “Aye, and there is nothing I can do to help,” she replied then slowly smiled. “Unless…”

  Frederick cocked an eyebrow. He leaned down so he could see her face. “Millie?” he questioned suspiciously and when her smile turned nasty, he sighed. “I’ll hitch up the buggy.”

  * * * * * *

  She saw him striding toward her and thought back to the night he’d been born. Even then the young prince made his presence known far and wide. He’d bellowed so loudly the moment he was thrust into the world the women gathered at his mother’s bed had cringed.

  “A pair of lungs on this one,” the midwife had proclaimed as she’d handed him to his mother.

  “He’ll have no trouble getting the attention he seeks,” one of the ladies-in-waiting quipped. “Look at those blue eyes!”

  Tall, handsome and with the regal bearing of a man who knew who and what he was and that the world was his to command, he plowed through the simpering toadies milling about the Great Hall and left them in his wake. His broad shoulders were like a battering ram and the chiseled set of his strong jaw gave mute evidence that he was a man with whom to reckon. The steady glint in his pale-blue eyes warned off those who would delay him and raked speculatively over the comely females who batted their eyelashes at him as he passed. Those fearless orbs were like spotlights as they swept across everyone visiting the Great Hall.

  The moment he saw her, he changed course—causing those behind him to crash into one another—and made a beeline to where she stood.

  “Lady Millicent. My favorite godmother,” Vindan said, grinning broadly. He took her hands and brought each to his lips.

  “Your only godmother,” she reminded him.

  “And her dearly loved.” His eyes twinkled. “To what do I owe the honor, milady?”

  “As if you need to ask, Vindan.”

  “Am I in trouble?” he inquired.

  When she cocked her head to one side and lifted her eyebrows, he drew in a long breath then slowly exhaled. “Ahh.”

  She hooked her arm through his. “Let’s take a stroll through your beautiful garden where we may have a bit of privacy, shall we?”

  “I am at your command, milady,” he agreed. He covered her hand with his where it rested on his arm. “You had a pleasant journey I hope.”

  “Quite pleasant,” she replied, nodding regally at a few courtiers and their ladies they passed.

  “Could use some rain,” he commented.

  “True, but the stormy season will soon be upon us and we’ll wish for the rain to stop,” she countered.

  He laughed. “Aye, we will.”

  They walked into the lush gardens of Wicklow—strolling slowly down the herringbone brick path that wound its way to the massive fountain in the center of the garden—and spoke of the plants growing there. After pausing to gaze at the fountain and its rainbow assortment of koi swimming in the bubbling waters, they moved on to the far reaches where a lovely white gazebo perched among vibrant red rose bushes. Upon gaining the gazebo, he escorted her up the three broad steps to the interior. She walked to the wicker swing, tucked her flowing gown carefully beneath her and took a seat in the direct center of the swing, forcing him to stand beside her.

  “Ouch,” he said. “A silent reprimand if ever you’ve issued one to me.” He wrapped his hand around one of the silver chains that held up the swing.

  “Do you remember your fourth birthday, Vindan?” she asked, smoothing her skirt, not looking at him.

  “I am afraid I don’t, milady.”

  “I do,” she stated.

  “I would imagine so, else you’d not have brought it up,” he said with a light chuckle.

  “That was the year I gave you the replica of the latest Fiach runabout. It was black with a red Reaper emblem on the bow.”

  “I don’t recall it, milady,” he said, his brows drawn together.

  “The next day I gave your friend—my son—a Fiach, also but his was red with a black Reaper emblem.”

  “I remember that one,” he said with a fond smile.

  “You should,” she said. “You snatched it from Seyzon and gave him yours—which you had broken within hours of me giving it to you.”

  The smile slipped from the prince’s face. “I don’t remember doing that.”

  “I’m sure you don’t, Vindan, but you should because you repeated that gesture time and again when your friend had something you wanted. If the queen was present at Wicklow she would make you return whatever it was you took from Seyzon but you’d always throw quite the tantrum afterward.”

  “Your point, milady?” He was looking at the chain in his hand and not at her, picking at the rust on a link.

  “Only that whenever you were ordered to return something to my son that you had taken from him, you usually broke it before you did so. You can be a very spiteful boy, Vindan.”

  His gaze fell to hers.

  “Tell me, Vindan. Did you enjoy breaking his lady-wife as you did his toys all those years ago?”

  He stiffened, his hand leaving the chain. “That isn’t what happened.”

  “No?” she asked gently. “Did you not break her just a little bit, Vindan?”

  “I did the lady no harm. I was very gentle with her.”

  “I am sure you were but that isn’t the point, is it?” she questioned. “A crystal vase is broken no matter how gently it is thrown to the carpet. Once broken, it cannot be made whole as it once was.”

  All congeniality vanished from his face. “He defied me,” he snapped.

  “And you hurt him very badly in response,” she said. “You broke his heart. You humiliated him.”

  “Better that than being publicly whipped like a gods-be-damned dog!” he stated.

  “Language,” she replied calmly.

  He cast his eyes down. “Beg pardon,” he murmured.

  She slid over to the far side of the swing then patted the empty space beside her. “Sit, Vindan.”

  “Woof,” he responded with a quirk of his lips.

  “Good boy,” she said and patted his sleek dark hair. It was a banter they’d shared many times over the years and it broke the heat of the previous moment. She reached for his hand and he took hers.

  The loud skirl of a passing peacock drew their attention and they watched the bird strutting about for several minutes.

  “How is he?” he asked after a while.

  “
Damaged. As is the friendship the two of you have shared all these years. The question is, can that friendship be repaired?”

  “I told him I would not annul the marriage,” he said.

  “For that, I am sure he is grateful. I—on the other hand—will reserve judgment on whether or not I think an annulment would benefit my son.”

  He turned his head toward her. “You think her unworthy of him?”

  “Is she?”

  “Not in the least. She is as beautiful as a day in spring. She is intelligent, kind.” A smile traced over his lips. “Her laughter could bring the birds down from the—” He stopped for Millicent was looking at him with raised brows. “Aye, she’s worthy of him.”

  “And of you, it would seem,” she said, eyebrows lowering. “Has there been more contact between the two of you, Vindan, than on her Joining night?”

  “Good gods, no!” His face turned a most unbecoming shade of red. “I have maintained perfect propriety where Jana is concerned.”

  “Jana,” she repeated, her attention riveted on him. “Not Lady Jana nor Lady Montyne but simply Jana.”

  “She is his wife. In my mind nothing has changed in our friendship so naturally I consider the woman he chose as his mate to be my friend, as well.”

  “But is she your friend or perhaps something more?” Millicent inquired. “Does she harbor ill-will toward you for what was done or was she pleased by the outcome of that night?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “You are a prince. Seyzon, a mere baron. Perhaps the lady in question aspires to a higher rank.”

  “No, she does not,” he stated. “She loves Seyzon and she misses him. She has no interest in me whatsoever! She is polite but she avoids me as much as she can.”

  “And that pricks like a thorn under your fingernail, doesn’t it?” she asked softly. “It hurts even worse.”

  “This conversation has run its course,” he said, getting up from the swing. He held his arm out to her. “Milady?”

  Millicent looked up at him for a long moment then allowed him to assist her to her feet. She walked in silence beside him back to the keep. Once there, he dropped his arm.