WolfeBlade: de Wolfe Pack Generations

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Harman didn’t agree with him. “Then you do nothing to help her?”

  Merek glared at him, teeth clenched. “To help her is to let this incident fade away as if it never happened,” he growled. “To help her is to let this lie. It will be forgotten, eventually.”

  “But you have an army…”

  “I have an army of eight hundred men,” he shouted like a man who had wrestled with this exact question too many times to count. “I cannot take Hell’s Guardhouse with only eight hundred men. It would be futile and I would lose many men in the attempt. What happened to my daughter was… unfortunate. Of course I am outraged. But I am outraged that she allowed it to happen and to punish de Soulis would mean starting a war with him that I cannot win. And he knows it.”

  Harman was at a loss. He simply couldn’t understand the man’s perspective of his daughter’s participation in an attack. “My lord, I do not believe your daughter allowed anything to happen,” he said. “I was told there were several men who abducted her from the village. She had no control. But is certain that de Soulis knows about the child and now he wants it. Mayhap he even did this deliberately. Even if you will not seek vengeance for what has happened to your daughter, surely you will not let them take her or the child.”

  Merek seemed to calm unnaturally fast, but he still looked like a man who was struggling with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “She is not here,” he said, sounded exhausted. “The child is not here. I have sent them both away so there is nothing to be concerned with. They are gone and this situation shall pass. It will be forgotten. Things like this always are.”

  Harman though that Merek was relying quite a bit on the hope that the situation would just go away by itself. But given what he had heard from the de Soulis father and son, he wasn’t so certain that was the case.

  He just wasn’t sure what more he could say.

  “I have come here to warn you about their plans, my lord,” he said. “I hope that I did not waste my breath. Your daughter and the child need your protection, not your apathy. Do you truly wish to see John de Soulis get his hands on your daughter and grandchild? You know his unsavory reputation. You know what the man is capable of.”

  Merek simply nodded. “It does not matter,” he said. “She is gone and the child is gone. I thank you for your concern, Harman.”

  Harman couldn’t help the disgust he was feeling as he looked at Merek. “My concern is for myself, too,” he said. “I will bring my wife to Falstone and you will protect us from de Soulis. The man intends to kill me because he has involved me in the situation. I know things that I should not know.”

  “Then fetch your wife and return at another time. But for now, you will go.”

  Harman was being dismissed. Baffled at the man’s reaction to the situation, he did as he was told and left Falstone Castle, wondering if fear of the strength of de Soulis was truly outweighing de Leia’s sense of responsibility to his daughter.

  I have sent them both away so there is nothing to be concerned with.

  That was only one concern of many in this dangerous situation. Sending his daughter away could have meant anything, anywhere, but he was clear that de Leia thought that would solve the entire problem. Was the man truly living in such denial? But Harman wasn’t going to try to figure him out. He’d done what he’d come to Falstone to do – the rest was up to Merek de Leia.

  And God.

  Harman made his way back to Deadwater on the little pony he’d had for twenty years. It had been a foal when he’d first come into possession of it, given to him by a man in payment for treatment Harman performed on the man’s wife. It was a sturdy little pony and Harman treated it like one of the family. The animal had its own room attached to Harman’s cottage where the little beast was kept warm and fed well.

  Harman and his little pony made it home in time for supper.

  Two days later, however, the door to his little cottage burst open at dawn.

  Harman’s wife, who had been preparing a morning meal at the hearth, shrieked when the heavily armed men entered the little cottage. Harman was with his pony, feeding it, but he heard the commotion and came inside to see John sitting at his table while Nicholas had stolen the loaf of bread Harman’s wife had made for their meal. He was shoving it in his mouth when Harman entered the common room.

  “My lords,” he greeted, clearly displeased at the chaos they were creating. “You are always welcome in my home. Will you break your fast with us?”

  He was politely inviting them to a meal. As if he had any choice. John yawned, putting a leg on the table and scattering the utensils that were there, as Nicholas continued to stuff bread in his mouth.

  “I was told you went to Falstone a couple of days ago,” John said casually. “Undoubtedly, you know my men are watching this village. And you. They knew you went to Falstone. Tell me what you discovered and mind you leave nothing out.”

  Harman came to stand by his wife, who was very nervously cooking their meal. “I asked about the children born there during the spring, as you instructed,” he said. “I came away with some interesting news. It seems that Lord de Leia sent his daughter and the child away.”

  Nicholas frowned. “Away?” he repeated. “Away where?”

  Harman shook his head. “I asked, but no one could tell me,” he said. “I was only told that they had been sent away.”

  Nicholas’ frown turned into a scowl as he looked at his father. “Why would he do that?” he demanded. “He was not supposed to send them away!”

  John was far calmer than his son. In truth, he didn’t seem all that surprised. “So de Leia rids himself of his daughter and the bastard child,” he said thoughtfully. “To a nunnery, I wonder?”

  “Or mayhap there is a grandmother, somewhere, to watch over them,” Harman suggested.

  John looked at the old man. “And you know nothing about de Leia’s family or allies that might take in a daughter and her child?”

  Harman shook his head. “I received the impression that Lord de Leia kept the girl… confined, shall we say,” he said. “She was not free to run about, probably kept locked in a chamber until the child was born. Once it was delivered, Lord de Leia sent them both away.”

  John stroked his chin. “I wonder why,” he said after a moment. “A dutiful father would keep his child with him, protecting her.”

  “Lord de Leia does not seem to have the protective instinct when it comes to his daughter,” Harman said, realizing he might have given away more than he intended. He didn’t want John to know he’d spoken directly to Merek. “At least, that seems to be the general opinion at Falstone.”

  John mulled over the information for a few long moments before removing his leg from the table. “I do not suppose it would do any good to send you back there to find out where he has sent his daughter and the child,” he said. “De Leia has no reason to tell you. He would think you were trying to probe him for information and he might become suspicious.”

  “That is true, my lord.”

  John didn’t say anything more after that. He simply sat there as Nicholas, still unhappy, finished up the loaf of bread. Harman wasn’t sure what more he could tell the pair, but something told him this wasn’t finished. John and Nicholas had their answers, but not satisfactory ones.

  “Well,” John finally said. “It seems to me that we must discover where they have gone and if Harman the Wise cannot discover that for us, then we must send someone to Falstone who can.”

  He really wasn’t speaking to Harman at that point, but to his son. Nicholas swallowed the last bite in his mouth.

  “Who?” Nicholas said. “I surely cannot go.”

  John shook his head. “Not you,” he said as if his son were an idiot. “I suppose I could take an entire army there, lay siege, and demand answers, but that would take too much time and effort and money. Nay, we must be more subtle than that. A spy, in fact. Someone we can send as a traveler seeking respite or a devoted servant, a gift from one o
f the de Leia allies. Someone who can ask the right questions of de Leia and find out answers.”

  Nicholas frowned. “Directly ask him?”

  “He is the one who knows.”

  That was true. Nicholas noticed that there was a covered dish on the table, one his father had missed kicking off when he’d put his leg upon the table, and he pulled off the cloth to reveal boiled eggs underneath. He began stuffing them in his mouth.

  “Then you send someone to get close to de Leia,” he said, his mouth full. “The man isn’t married, so mayhap we send a mistress to him. A woman who can get into his bed and into his mind. Women can work wonders on men if they are skilled enough.”

  John looked at him as if a thought had just struck him. “Giddy.”

  Nicholas’ eyebrows lifted. “You feel giddy?” he said before he realized what his father meant. “Do you mean Giddy Garwald?”

  John nodded. “The same,” he said. “The woman can suck the steel off a sword. She’d discover what we want to know, straight from de Leia himself.”

  Nicholas knew the woman his father was speaking of – a loose woman from a local village who had warmed John’s bed many a time. She was a little older, a little rounder and fuller, but she was pretty. And she knew how to use her mouth and what God gave her between her legs.

  Given enough money, the perfect spy.

  John smiled as if quite pleased with himself.

  “A few coins to Giddy and she’ll do as I ask,” he said as he stood up from the table. “In fact, there’s an apothecary in Gretna Green who has all manner of potions. Potions for truth, among other things. If Giddy’s feminine wiles do not work on de Leia, then mayhap we can find a potion that will do the job for her. We’ll send her on to Falstone well-armed. She’ll find out what we want to know.”

  Nicholas simply nodded, grabbing more boiled eggs, as John grabbed his son and pulled him from the cottage without another word to Harman. They simply left, slamming the door behind them.

  But that wasn’t the end of it.

  John had spoken of his plans in front of Harman, which had been careless, but in hindsight, he didn’t really care. The old man was no longer of any value to him, so the moment Harman delivered his information, he had outlived his worth. It didn’t matter if Harman had heard them speak of the whore named Giddy because the old man wasn’t going to live to see the sunset.

  John paused before he mounted his horse.

  “Barricade every door, every window, and light the cottage on fire,” he said. “It would not do for Harman the Wise to tell Merek de Leia what he knows.”

  Nicholas wasn’t distressed by the command in the least. They had about twenty men with them, so he sent some to light torches and still others to barricade the doors and windows of the cottage, which shared a common wall with another cottage. Anything they lit on fire would carry to other homes.

  But that didn’t matter to Nicholas or the de Soulis men – they did as they were told.

  Harman must have sensed that something terrible was going to happen because he and his wife slipped out of the cottage through the rear, through the pony’s chamber, taking the little beast with them. They had only what they could carry, moving far enough away that John and Nicholas could not have seen them.

  Then, they stayed to the shadows and watched. It wasn’t long before they saw men swarming their little cottage, barricading doors, tossing lit torches in through the windows. The cottage went up in flames remarkably fast as Harman grabbed hold of his wife with one hand, the pony with the other, and made their way out of the village to the southeast. They had their lives, but de Soulis thought they were dead, so it was best that they leave – permanently.

  He thought about returning to Falstone to tell Lord de Leia what John de Soulis had planned for him. He considered it carefully. But if valuable information involving the life of his daughter didn’t move the man, surely the plan to send a spy to discover her location wouldn’t move him, either.

  Harman didn’t feel inclined to help Merek de Leia one way or the other.

  He headed east.

  Back at Deadwater, the de Soulis men ended up burning down nearly half the village that day.

  CHAPTER TEN

  London

  She could see him across the street.

  Gavriella’s heart leapt into her throat when she realized Andreas was across the street, waiting for her just as he said he would.

  He’s here!

  Truthfully, she’d been watching for at least two hours. Ever since she had woken up next to Camilla about three hours after she closed her eyes. It wasn’t nearly enough sleep, but she had been too excited, too nervous, to go back to sleep, fearful she would sleep all day and miss something she very much wanted to attend…

  Andreas.

  It was funny how that fearful, quiet, nervous woman who had arrived at The Asher not long ago was now starting to come out of her shell. Before she met Andreas, meeting a man she’d only just become acquainted with for an unchaperoned excursion would have been unheard of. She was fearful and jumpy, and suspicious of every man she saw. But somehow over the past several hours, that had changed.

  The man she saw from her window didn’t threaten her at all.

  Now came the matter of breaking out of the fortress-like manse.

  From the jaunt last night, Gavriella knew where the postern gate was, but she had to go through the maze-like corridors of the house to get there and she wasn’t entirely sure that she could. The only other alternative was the main entry door. The Asher was surrounded by an enormous curtain wall, but the entire front part of the manse was on the street. It wasn’t set back from the avenue, nor was there a wall between the front door and the main street where people were going about their business. The entry door was right on the street, an enormous iron structure built into the wattle and daub walls.

  Fortunately, she was already dressed and waiting for him.

  But that had been an odyssey unto itself.

  When Gavriella had awakened after those rough few hours of slumber, Camilla had still been asleep, snoring softly in the feather-filled bed. Listening to the faint sounds of the street outside mingling with the snoring, Gavriella had crept out of bed and went about dressing very quietly.

  Her first order of business had been to bolt the chamber door. She didn’t know where Aurelia was and the last thing she wanted was for that woman to enter the chamber just as she was getting dressed for a rather scandalous meeting. She didn’t want to have to explain herself to Aurelia, especially not after the fight they’d had, so Gavriella had gone about dressing very quickly in the hopes of avoiding Aurelia altogether.

  She also had a special reason for wanting to avoid her – she didn’t want Aurelia to see that she was wearing one of Camilla’s dresses, in yet another dress to potentially ruin. Gavriella had no real need for fine clothing in the north because her father’s castle was in a rural setting and it wasn’t as if their lives were a gay social whirl. In fact, it was quite the contrary.

  Because of this, Gavriella owned just a couple of good dresses and she had already worn those several times since she had arrived in London. Both of those dresses had been taken to the laundry and she had nothing left but the simple broadcloth dresses she had brought with her, and quite frankly, she didn’t want to wear those plain and unassuming garments for Andreas.

  She wanted to look pretty.

  Which meant she had to borrow another dress.

  Therefore, Gavriella was very quiet as she opened Camilla’s wardrobe and pawed through the dresses that were hanging on the pegs. She didn’t want to wear one of the really nice garments, expensive with gold and jewels, but she wanted one that was better than her simple broadcloth. She found a red garment, made of a lightweight wool and a sheer white shift that was worn underneath it. It seemed simple enough, without any adornment, so she pulled on the shift, which was very nearly transparent, and the red dress over it.

  Being that Camilla’s father w
as an earl, her bedchamber was well equipped, including a bronze mirror that was about five feet high. It was positioned on the wall next to the dressing table and Gavriella went to look at herself in her borrowed garments. With her fair skin and blonde hair, the rich red dress looked absolutely stunning on her. Because Camilla was a little smaller than she was, the dress was snug, but it made her look quite delectable.

  In fact, Gavriella had never seen herself look so… beautiful.

  It was a little startling. As she ran her hands over the material, she realized that although the design was simple, the material was, in fact, expensive and the dress very well made. This was no cheap piece of clothing. It had a low neckline with the shift peeking out and long sleeves with cutouts so the nearly transparent shift could be seen underneath. The bodice was snug to her hips whereupon the skirt flared quite beautifully. In truth, it was magnificent.

  And she looked magnificent in it.

  Feeling confident in the lovely garment for the first time in ever so long, Gavriella combed and braided her hair, draping the braid over her right shoulder and tying it off with a red silk ribbon she found on Camilla’s dressing table. The thrill of looking pretty was something she hadn’t felt in a very long time. She’d just spent the past year feeling ashamed and ugly, and this was the first time in many months that she actually felt attractive and young and alive.

  There was something in her that desperately wanted to live a normal life again.

  Emboldened by the lovely dress, Gavriella went to her satchel and found a silk purse very deep at the bottom that contained her jewelry. She pulled forth a large golden cross on a long chain that she put over her head. Fine leather slippers went on her feet and she fastened her coin purse to a golden belt that she draped over her hips. The belt also belonged to Camilla and she silently thanked her cousin for her generosity. She knew she was going to have some explaining to do when she returned home but, at the moment, she wasn’t concerned about it.