Wynthall Manor- The Wynthall Manor Trilogy

by Brianne E Pryor

“Grey! I demand to know why I have been greeted with such disrespectful contempt!”

  “If contempt you so dislike, then I wonder why you took the trouble of coming to a place in which you knew you would not be welcome?”

  The duke’s brother sat atop his agitated stallion, attempting to keep the disgruntled steed from throwing his angry rider while barking words at all who stood before him. “How dare you treat me with such insolence!”

  “You will not come onto my property and raise your voice to me, Vastel,” Grey countered. “If you wish to continue this in a civil manner, then we shall, but otherwise, you will leave my land at once.”

  Lord Alex glared angrily at Grey, attempting to restrain his ire. “There is no need to cast me out. I only came to talk business. Am I not to be invited inside?”

  “No. Whatever you have to say you may say it here.”

  “You would keep the brother of the duke standing on the lawn?”

  “Yes, I would. Now what is it you’ve come for?”

  Though his expression displayed his anger, Alexander Vastel spoke calmly with an air of superiority. “I wish only to tell you that the search for my niece has been given up. She must be dead, and therefore, I shall be the Duke of Dawcaster in the place of my late brother. Of course, had you aided us in the search, perhaps she might have been found.”

  “I highly doubt any service of mine would have opted a different end,” Grey answered, not surprised by that which Lord Alex conveyed.

  “Do you now? I should have thought that of all the people in my acquaintance—perhaps in all of England—it would have been you above all the others who would despise my claim.” Vastel’s face now wore a satisfied grin as he lauded his title over Grey who only seemed apathetic to his self-praise knowing that Eva in fact was not dead and meant even now to claim her father’s title as her own. “The matters of Covingdell and the dukedom have little to do with me,” Grey commented. “I wonder why you bothered to come so far only to inform me of her ladyship’s decided death.”

  “Merely so that you might know the reason that I am soon to be the duke, because you failed in helping me locate my niece.”

  “I thought you said she was dead? In which case, finding her would do little to the effect of you inheriting the duchy.”

  Alexander Vastel’s expression grew all the more agitated with the baron’s uninterested demeanor. “Perhaps you are right,” he conceded, “but then again perhaps your refusal to involve yourself stems from a former antipathy?”

  “I harbor no malice toward His Grace the Duke or his daughter.”

  “No, perhaps not, but it was not my brother and niece of whom I spoke but of myself. It is well known, is it not, your dislike and may I say hatred for me? And after we were so close as children.”

  “That was your doing, not mine,” Grey answered plainly.

  “My doing? Come now, James, we are both grown men. Let us not act any longer like boys at play.”

  “Play you call it? What we did as children was not play, Alexander. It was a childhood filled with wrongful doings. I wanted no more of it than just as I do now. That is why I made no attempt to find your niece, because not once in my thirty years have I seen you accomplish anything for anyone but yourself.”

  Instead of being offended like all assumed Alexander Vastel only raised his brow. “Is that truly the reasoning, James? Did you offer me no help because you believe me selfish or have you another grudge against me?”

  “I believe you may now take your leave, Alexander,” Grey spoke with warning.

  “Too afraid to reveal the real reason for your hatred?” the duke’s brother continued, causing a spark of fire to ignite within his listener. “It is because of what happened to your beloved Dahlia, isn’t it! You will not help me find my niece because you blame me for her death!”

  At mention of her name, Grey stiffened and his face flushed a deep red. His servants watched in a helpless silence, preparing themselves for their master’s rage. “Get off of my property, Vastel.” The baron’s tone was low, filled with threat. “Get out of my sight!”

  Lord Alex’s lips turned up in a satisfied smirk. “By all means, Lord de Grey. Excuse me for interrupting your peaceful morning.” And just as quickly as he had appeared, the duke’s brother was out the gate again, riding down the path out of sight. Byrum, Merek, and the few gathered men looked upon the baron with anxious anticipation of his wrath, them being the only people toward whom he might display it. But without a word, Grey climbed the front steps and disappeared into the great hall, one of the tall doors slamming shut behind him. Moving through the lower level of the manor, he approached the kitchen, where he found Lady Eva and Mrs. Byrum awaiting him in the midst of the bustle. Cooks, kitchen, and scullery maids all paused their work to bow to the master as he descended the few steps into the large room.

  Looking only to Lady Eva, he gestured with a nod for her to follow him, saying not a word so that the onlooking servants might not suspect. Eva lifted her skirts and hurried silently after Grey into the lower corridors, where he continued his quick stride until they were out of earshot. “He is gone, my lady.”

  “Oh, Lord de Grey, thank you. If he had found me here there is no telling the scandal that would unfolded.”

  Grey nodded silently, knowing what slanderous and defamatory remarks would spread about them both should Eva be found in his home after having disappeared three months since. But the reputation of the lady and that of his own good name were hardly foremost in his mind as he excused himself and without another word left Eva alone in the great hall. Striding quickly down the corridor, he disappeared into the maze of the castle, bound for the seclusion of his library, where he might allow his emotions to get the better of him. Grey threw open the heavy wooden door, immediately slamming it shut again. Clenching his fists at his side, he attempted to control a desperate urge to bash his knuckles against the nearest bookcase or tea cart, where his breakfast now lay. There was none who angered him as Alexander Vastel whom Grey had aloud so close to himself that he knew every way in which to torture the baron with his knowledge of their connected past and of the girl who had walked into their midst and opened Grey’s eyes to the true character of his closest friend.

  How dare he talk of her that way! he screamed inwardly. How dare he even utter her name! With a cry of anger Grey struck his palm against the desk, feeling its smooth surface burn against his hand. “Oh, Dahlia …” His broken voice cried her name just as it had the night she died and every night since. Grey closed his eyes tightly, willing the memory of her cruel death to fade away. Still he could feel the icy chill of her body against him as he carried her through the rain, praying for the first time in his life that if there was indeed a God he might somehow intervene, save her from her injuries or even breathe a breath back into her after hers had escaped. But it had been too late.

  “It was because of me,” he spoke as if she stood before him and he admitted a terrible wrong to her. “If it had not been for me, you would be alive now. Happily united with a fisherman or farmer with children all about you. Had I not claimed you as my own, you would have lived a full life.” Grey felt tears begin to press behind his eyes, tears he was certain had long dried. The terrorizing memories from a night he relived would give him no rest. Still he could recall every moment as if it had only just passed, as if she had died again and again, striking his heart until he wondered if it would stop its rhythm. Even now, he was ready to join her, to finally end his own suffering after twelve years for he could bear it no more.

  As a single tear escaped him, a quiet knock was heard at the door, undoubtedly his butler or valet come to check again on their master’s welfare which only angered Grey further. “What is it!” his enraged voice echoed off the walls of the library and sounded in the hall.

  “Lord de Grey?”

  The rage of mingling emotions that had filled Grey so that they overflowed all so suddenly stood still as he turned his head toward the closed door. A
ll was quiet and a second passed before he called with a tremor in his voice which only stimulated his displeasure. “C-come in, my lady.”

  The door slowly moved inward and he could then feel her eyes on him as she stepped into the room. He heard the door click shut again, and all was silent for a long moment. His head bowed in fatigue from fighting his own emotions, Grey turned to face Lady Eva’s gentle yet somewhat frightened gaze. “Forgive me, madam,” he apologized, his voice drained of all anger.

  In response, Eva shook her head. “It is I who should apologize, my lord. I know my uncle must have not withheld any maliciousness.”

  “It does not matter.” Grey shook his head. “He says these things only to do me harm. If I would not allow his words to be taken so much to heart, then he would have no rule over me.”

  “Nevertheless, my lord, he hasn’t the right to antagonize you.”

  Grey huffed as he moved to his chair. “He has every right so long as no person or thing is with the courage to stop him. And so long as he is the brother of the duke, no one shall, there is not a nobleman who would go against him.”

  “Except yourself, my lord,” Eva’s still timid voice corrected. “You turned him away this morning, and I daresay it is not the first time.”

  “No, it was not, nor is it likely to be the last. But turning him off my property is hardly qualified as standing against the man. I allow him to make threats and trample over me as if I was dirt beneath his feet. My retorts of anger mean nothing to him for he knows I shall not challenge his authority outside the only place where mine takes precedence.”

  “But what of the day in which he attacked that poor girl? It was you, was it not, who stood against him and perhaps saved her life?”

  Grey looked away from Eva to the window, his eyes darkening as he saw an image only his mind could portray. “Yes, that day I saved her from the hands of a vile man.” Grey shook his head woefully. “But in doing so, I doomed her to a horrific end. I know not which would have been better.”

  Though he did not turn again to meet her gaze Grey could feel Eva’s eyes on him, filled with question as they had so often been. “How, my lord?” Her voice was quiet, ever still and yet curious to finally know of that which so plagued the baron.

  Turning his mournful expression on the lady, Grey answered her as simply as he could. “She was murdered, Lady Eva. Attacked and beaten so that she died. And it was all because I did not turn away and leave her that day. Because I saved her and then allowed her to fall as ardently in love with me as I was with her.”

  ~ 21 ~

  Eva’s stare grew wide as the baron’s words met her hearing. She had taken to assume that the girl whose name he had spoken so many times over the past days was no longer living, but never had she imagined that her life had been taken or that Lord de Grey supposed it to be of his own doing.

  The baron shut his eyes against the memory that had been brought forth. Never had he spoken of her death, never had he said a word to anyone of the night, which he felt as though he too had his soul ripped from him. Yet there had never been the need to explain for every member of his house knew of it and could recall the night in which he had returned with her body in his arms, her wounds staining his white shirt. Grey pressed his hand to his forehead, barely hearing the lady’s words as he attempted to stifle the growing pain that consumed him. “My lord, whatever happened, I am certain you were not to blame.” Eva’s words broke into Grey’s misery and he turned to her in rage.

  “What do you know of it?” he cried, his hand lashing out against the wall. Eva was startled by his outburst but remained still and quiet as the baron continued. “It was I who left her alone and unprotected in the middle of the night!” he cried, his fists and jaw clenched. “And it was I who could not find her when she called for my help! I could not even get to her before her attacker was well away after having accomplished his task. I could not get her to a doctor fast enough when finally I did come upon her. It was I who demanded she be mine when I knew the risk it posed! So you see, madam, had it not been for me, she would be alive even this moment!” The baron’s labored breathing was suddenly all that could be heard in the room as his nostrils flared with anger and his heart beat wildly. Bitterness and hatred toward his own self burned his innermost being and turned his face a dark red, his features contorted with grief. “It was because of me that she was doomed to such an ill fate,” his trembling voice conveyed his pain as he looked upon Eva’s timid figure watching him by the door, “and I despise my very existence for it.” Grey turned away from the lady, ashamed and filled with hatred for what he had caused.

  Eva looked upon his tortured figure with sorrow in her heart. He had truly suffered a vast deal over the death of this girl whom he had spoken of few times but each with a passion and love, which Eva knew still dwelt abundantly within him. She could know not of his suffering, but the look in his eyes when he spoke of her Eva knew well, a look she had often seen in her own father when he thought of his beloved wife, taken also in such an untimely manner that caused the duke to despair much as Grey now did. It was in the baron’s expression however that Eva witnessed a grief she could not recall in her father’s mourning, a grief so striking and powerful it had overwhelmed him and been the root of his own self-hate so that he desired nothing more than to see his own end. It was this that bereaved the lady as she recalled her own feelings the night she lay on the road, begging God to take her life. In this torment, Grey had lived not for a few hours but for years without relief, and now it gnawed away at him until he desired it to consume him entirely.

  “You are not at fault, my lord.” Eva’s words broke not the stillness of the room but joined together with it as she uttered them quietly, part of her fearing the baron’s rebuke but another disregarded the thought of it.

  Grey turned away from her, his fists clenching again as he faced the window. “It was!”

  “Lord de Grey, there can be nothing worth desiring the end of one’s life. God has given it and only He can take it again.”

  “God,” Grey spat. “What has He to do with it? From the beginning of my life, He has abandoned me. Why should I desire His wants now?”

  “He has not abandoned you, my lord. He cannot help you if you shun Him.”

  “Shun Him? You think I have not prayed before? You think I did not beg on my knees for Him to save her? And yet here I am twelve years since, her lying in the grave that I myself dug with a pick and shovel in the middle of the night! If, indeed, it was this God who gave me my life, then He made a mistake!”

  “Sir!” Eva could not help her scolding tone, though it did not appear to worsen the baron’s fury. “It was yourself, was it not, who saved me on the road when I desired to die? It was yourself who told me I knew not of what I spoke.”

  “You wanted your life to end because you thought there to be no escape from it, because you were feverish and thought the need to accept death was necessary because it was inevitable. I want it because it is what I deserve and I dare not live any longer without the woman whom I loved more than my own self!”

  “Lord de Grey, you must—”

  “I’ve said all there is left to say, Lady Eva. Now I want to be left alone!” The baron’s raised voice startled Eva once more but filled her with determination, allowing her to speak boldly. “My lord, you—”

  “I said leave me!”

  “Did Dahlia love you, sir?” The words escaped her mouth and settled a thick air over the library and perhaps all of Wynthall Manor as Grey’s body stiffened and his breathing slowed. “If she loved you as you still love her now, then she lived a full life,” Eva continued. “If she loved you, there would have been no way to shed yourself of her, to protect her from this evil that you believe came upon her because of you. In allowing her to be by your side, you gave her what no other person in this world could have, and she lived a very full life because of it. She is not here to speak for herself, but I know if she were she would tell you the very same as I do n
ow,” Eva addressed the baron’s back with surety, knowing her words were in the right. “I speak to you not on her behalf but in the understanding that if she truly loved you as you still love her, then she would have remained by your side even if she could see into the future and known her fate.”

  The lady watched Grey’s stiff frame slowly crumple into itself, his face pressed into one hand while the other fisted his black mane, his eyes shut tightly against a rain of tears that demanded to be released. “She did love me,” his broken voice stuttered though without any doubt for which he spoke. “She loved me more than anyone ever had before in my lifetime and ever will again.”

  “Then she would have wanted your happiness, my lord.”

  Grey turned to look at Eva where she beheld lines of misery on his face. “My happiness?” he cried as his tear-filled eyes looked upon Eva with sorrow too deep for words. “My happiness is gone forever!”

  Eva only shook her head. “Your happiness is in what you have left of her. In the place in your heart where you now hold her.”

  “I have no heart!”

  “Then how do you feel this great affliction? How do you live it every moment if it does not dwell deep within you? Your heart is so burdened with grief and sorrow that you cannot see it. But this is not what she would have wanted, Lord de Grey. I tell you, sir, she would have died a thousand times if it meant she could love you. Just as you would have for her.”

  Grey turned to lean his hands on the wall, bowing his head as a single tear escaped. His mind entangled itself with Eva’s words mingling with his own dreadful thoughts and feelings which would not subside. But above them all, he heard Dahlia’s voice as if she had spoken to him in that very room at that very moment …

  “I don’t care what happens, James. I only want to be yours for the rest of forever. I want us to be happy like this always, for all our lives.”

  “But the risk it poses is too much. I cannot put you in this danger.”