Caius could see that she was already becoming agitated, clearly emotional about the situation. He put up his hand.
“I have no intention of forcing you to do anything, especially not where Hawkstone is concerned,” he said. “But I would like for you to tell me, in your own words, what has happened between your father and Covington de Wrenville.”
Emelisse was blinking back tears, struggling with her composure. “May I ask you a question first?”
“What is that?”
“What haveyouheard about the troubles?”
Caius pondered that question before answering. “I would rather you tell me,” he said. “I do not want to influence your answer with what I know.”
It was a fair statement and not a cruel one, but she sighed and hung her head, giving Caius a moment to study her unimpeded. Already, he could feel his sympathies being pulled towards her purely because of her beauty, and that was a very stupid reason.
He knew that.
The Britannia Viper wasn’t given to weaknesses like pity.
… wasn’t he?
“It all started three years ago, my lord,” she finally said, breaking into his thoughts. “It all seems so long ago, yet it really wasn’t. It was only three short years ago. Our lands are northeast of here, sixteen miles to be exact, and we have unique features to our property. Coal is near the surface, as it is in many places in these parts, but we have a hill on our property that rises up out of the flatlands. It is covered in trees and limestone cliffs, with ponds and waterfalls and strange rock formations. The Welsh believe our lands to be full of magic, but the truth is that they are not. There is no real magic on them except for their beauty. The River Roden borders our lands and three years ago, men hired by my father to mine some of the coal deposits found two big diamonds. Did you hear about that? Most people in England have.”
Caius had been mesmerized by her smooth, seductive voice, almost realizing too late that she was asking him a question. He nodded.
“The Roden Twins?” he said. “Aye, I have heard.”
Emelisse looked up at him, her emotions for the moment under control. “The men brought the diamonds to my father,” she said. “We went back with more men and mined the area, but there were no more. We never found any. But somehow, word got out about diamonds on our property and people came from all over to dig up our lands. That was the beginning of the trouble because shortly thereafter, my father received a missivefrom Covington de Wrenville, asking to enter into negotiations for a marital contract between me and his son, Marius. My father refused. Within a few weeks, the first of the harassment from Baron Darliston began.”
Caius had heard all of this from Edward, so she wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already heard. She was simply confirming what Edward had told him.
“So you believe a spurned marriage offer started all of this?” he asked.
Emelisse shrugged wearily. “It never even occurred to me until today,” she said. “De Wrenville brought it up as I lay tied up on the floor of his great hall, begging to tend my dying father. He’s dead, you know. My father, I mean. De Wrenville’s physic said he choked on his own blood.”
Caius simply nodded, the disturbing details of her capture and her father’s death becoming apparent. She lowered her head again and as he watched, her shoulders began to gently heave as the silent sobs finally came. She’d been brave until this point, but no longer.
Truth be told, he didn’t blame her in the least.
“Covington de Wrenville and his bastard son have been harassing us for three long years,” she wept. “We never knew why. They never told us. They never sent any word or demands or anything. All they sent were men to burn our villages, kill our vassals, burn our forests, and attack our home. My father was a good man, my lord, I swear it. He loved his family and his home. He never hurt anyone if he could help it. He did not deserve to die the way he did. He did not deserve any of it.”
She was sobbing into her hand by that point and Caius let her. That pity he’d been feeling for her was back with a vengeance. It was everything he’d been told and worse; worse because now, the contention between Winterhold and Hawkstone had a face in the form of Lady Emelisse deThorington. She had humanized the conflict. A seemingly bright, beautiful woman harassed by a greedy warlord. Her father was dead because of it.
But her brother still held the keep.
He wanted to talk to the brother, too.
All of this was such a delicate situation, made worse now because if what he’d heard was true, and he’d heard it from more than one person, then it was Covington de Wrenville causing all of the problems. A greedy, ruthless lord with a son who was close to the king.
And a wife who was close to William Marshal.
God, how did I get myself into this position?
“I am sorry for your loss,” he said after a moment. “But there is something else I must ask you, my lady. Are you, or have you at any time been, loyal to France?”
Her head shot up, tears streaming down her face but fury suddenly in her expression. “Of course not,” she said. “Lady de Wrenville asked me the same thing and I will tell you what I told her– my father has always been loyal to England. He has never even been to France. Even when he returned from Richard’s Crusade, he said that his ship sailed from Tripoli and did not even dock until Gibraltar. It stopped in Bilbao and then on to Plymouth. I remember he told me that specifically because he ate strange food in Bilbao that made him ill the rest of the journey. He’s never set foot in France!”
Caius knew that would be her answer. This whole situation was just so ridiculous, so perpetuated by Covington, that Caius believed her without question.
“And your brother?” he asked.
