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The villagers’ eyes fell upon him and quickly fell away as Rialto walked down the street with his guard at his side. Well over six feet tall and muscular, Rialto felt the guard unnecessary but his father demanded he never leave the castle without one at his side.
“I do not know why you wish to walk among these people,” the guard muttered. “They are all beneath you.”
“Are they my people?”
“Well, yes.”
“Is my family not supposed to care for and protect our people?”
The guard sighed. “This is where the servants shop and trade wares. You could associate with a higher class of your people.”
“I refuse to look at these people as if they are garbage simply because of a matter of breeding,” Rialto said as he rounded a corner and ran right into a small woman, knocking a small barrel of apples out of her hands. He quickly knelt down to help her.
“My apologies, Miss,” he said, gathering up apples along with the woman.
She looked up at him to respond, the smile that had been forming on her face froze as their gazes met. “Rialto.”
“Yes.” He nodded, not unused to strangers knowing who he was. His family was nobility and known throughout the village. Yet, this woman did not look at him the way others did. She was not young enough to be enamored with him as many young ladies were so that was not to blame for the strange awe that overcame her features.
Her eyes filled with moisture as she reached out and cupped his jaw. “Rialto.”
“How dare you touch the—”
“Leave us!” Rialto instructed the guard, extending his arm to block the man before he caused the woman any harm.
“She touched you.”
“I said leave us. I will have you replaced the moment we reach the castle if you do not leave us right this second.”
The guard sputtered for a moment, then left in a huff, unable to come up with a response that would not get him immediately removed from his position.
Once the guard had crossed enough distance to allow them privacy, Rialto stood, helping the woman up as he did. She was not old enough to be fragile, yet he took care with her. He placed her to be beyond her sixtieth year but not near her seventieth. She had once been a very attractive woman and still retained much of that beauty. Her dark eyes reminded him of someone. They held a familiarity that gripped his heart tight.
“Have we met before?”
“You would not remember me,” she said, as tears traveled her cheeks. “You look so much like your mother.”
Rialto frowned. He didn’t look anything like his mother. Then the woman blinked, allowing more tears to fall and he saw the image of the woman by the cliff crying. It was as if he looked into the same eyes.
The world around him seemed to spin as his chest grew tight and his head swam. He’d never looked like his mother. He’d never felt a bond with her as he should have. He’d always felt she hated him, resented him in some way. But the woman on the cliff… his guardian angel … He felt her love.
“Who is Seta?” he asked the woman.
“My daughter. Your mother. Your real mother.”
Shock rocked him to his core, but soon understanding settled him. It made sense why he’d felt drawn to the woman, safe. He’d never felt anything toward the countess but contempt. She was not his mother and did not love him. He was another woman’s child, a reminder his father had been with another woman, and she hated it. He’d been right that such a cold, dead on the inside, hateful woman couldn’t give birth. But …
“How did my real mother die?”
The woman before him, his grandmother, stood straight, staring him in the eye with nostrils flaring. “Count Roberto Garibaldi used her to gain an heir and when you were only one year old, he took you from her to be raised in the castle. Your mother loved you and she fought for you. He threw her over the cliff outside his castle. He killed her.”
Rialto looked into the woman’s eyes and knew she told the truth, about his father being a killer, and about his real mother loving him. She still did. She had never left him. Suddenly the mystery of the cliff’s pull on him had come to light and he knew what he had to do.
“Do not weep anymore, Grandmother. My mother’s death will be avenged this day.”
Seta's Fall: A Blood Revelation Prequel Page 6