“You will excuse me,” she said to Maude. “I must see why my father has come.”
Maude started to follow her. “Mayhap he will join us before the fire,” she said hopefully. “He was very pleasant when last I saw him. Ask him if he will come in and sit with us for a time and tell us stories of his knightly adventures.”
Vesper didn’t even reply; she couldn’t. She was afraid that anything out of her mouth might clue Maude in on the fact that she didn’t want her father here. Rushing from Maude’s solar, she made her way to the stairs that led to the entry level, taking them far too quickly. Oddly enough, the keep and inner structure of Eynsford were still mostly made of wood and the stairs creaked as she rushed down them. To the entry door she went, bolting from the keep with her skirts gathered so she wouldn’t trip on them.
With every step, her anger grew. He had promised to stay away from her, but here he was, already breaking that promise. Vesper was so furious that she could hardly see straight, rushing through the snowy slush to tell her father exactly what she thought of his unannounced visit. She was just nearing the main gates when Desmond, speaking to McCloud, caught sight of her.
“Ah,” Desmond said pleasantly. “Here she is. Lady Vesper, your father has surprised us with another visit.”
Vesper forced a smile at Desmond, a genuinely nice man, but very quickly that smile turned to a grimace as she beheld her father. “So he has,” she said through clenched teeth. “What are you doing here, Papa?”
It was a rather neutral question and McCloud faced his daughter with a good deal of trepidation. The moment their eyes met, he could see her confusion and rage. Not that it surprised him; he rather expected it. In fact, it was a far calmer action than he had expected.
“I… I have missed you,” he said simply. “And I come bearing some news. I thought we might speak privately.”
Vesper was all in favor of that. She had a few things she wanted to say to her father, too, and none of them pleasant. She took him by the arm, leading him away from the gatehouse.
“Please excuse us, Des,” she said.
Desmond waved them on and Vesper practically dragged her father away, heading for the keep when she really had no intention of taking him there. She simply wanted to take him to some place without prying ears, which was a spacious area near the keep with a yew tree in the middle of it. People might see them there but they wouldn’t hear what was being said. She pulled him right underneath the tree before releasing him.
“Now,” she hissed. “You will tell me why you have come. You promised that you would stay away from me!”
McCloud held up his hand to calm her. “I did,” he said quickly, “and I am sorry. Please do not be angry, Vesper. You are all that I have now and I had to come.”
Her eyebrows flew up in a rage. “I am nothing to you!” she said. “I was a girl-child you cast off when my mother died and you’ve only had contact with me twice since then. I am nothing to you!”
McCloud gazed at her, knowing what she said was true. She had every right to be angry. He tried not to feel too foolish andtoo remorseful, for he’d had the entire trip from Durley in which to feel every emotion he could possibly feel– regret for his life, remorse for his relationship with his daughter, and guilt that he wanted to mend it. He knew she wanted nothing to do with him but he was here to press his case, anyway. Perhaps it was because he simply didn’t want to be alone.
“And I am sorry for that,” he said quietly. “It is true that I left you at Eynsford when your mother died, but that was because I was heading to France to fight. I could not remain home and take care of you and I certainly could not leave you with your brother. Can you not understand that?”
Vesper was vastly impatient with him. “I will not discuss this with you,” she said angrily. “You said you would stay away. What is so important that made you break your word to me?”
McCloud sighed faintly. “Everything,” he muttered. “I have had time to think since your brother’s death, Vesper. Burying my son did something to my soul… as if a flame had been blown out and all that remained was smoke. There was darkness there but, soon enough, I could see through it. I could see what I had done.”
Vesper grunted. “A pretty speech.”
McCloud shook his head. “It is not a speech. I have not always been a man of dishonor, Vesper. Once, I was a man of great honor and trust. Men looked up to me. But somehow… somehow poverty and starvation changed that man. Val remembered the man I once was, which is why he was so receptive to seeing me again. You must believe that your papa was once a great man.”
Vesper was still impatient. “And you have come all the way to Eynsford to tell me that?”
McCloud was starting to wonder if she could even understand what he was trying to tell her. “I have come to tell you how sorry I am,” he said. “It… it is not easy for me to speakthose words, but I find that I must. I have forsaken you, which I am extremely sorry for. I… I came to ask your forgiveness, Vesper. I understand if you do not wish to know me any longer, but I find that it is important to me to have your forgiveness. I have wronged you and, for that, I am sorry. I have shown you a man that I do not wish to be.”
He sounded quite sincere, enough to douse Vesper’s fire somewhat. She was innately compassionate but she didn’t want to be made a fool of. After everything that had happened, she wasn’t sure she could ever trust him.
“Mayhap all you say is true,” she said. “But had my brother not been caught, you would still be heading down the same path. You would still be conspiring to marry Lady de Nerra and eager for me to wed Val simply so you could have access to their money.”
McCloud cocked his head. “Mayhap that is true,” he said honestly. “But an event such as your brother’s execution has a way of forcing a man to re-think his life. I have been forced to take a look at mine and I do not like what I see. I wanted you to know that.”
His sincerity took her anger down another notch. She honestly wasn’t certain how to reply. “So now you have told me. Now what?”
“I suppose that is up to you.”
“Then I want you out.”
McCloud hung his head but he didn’t argue. He simply nodded his head, turning for the main gate. As Vesper watched him go, head down, she began to feel a wave of remorse. He was her father, after all. He’d made mistakes. Perhaps he was genuinely trying to atone for them. She’d always believed herself to be a forgiving person but, in this case, she hadn’t shown much. Self-protection had seen to that. But, perhaps, she wasbeing too hard on a man who was sincerely trying to seek forgiveness for his past.
Indecision clawed at Vesper as she watched her father walk away, dragging his feet through the dirty snow. He looked so beaten, so subdued. A once-proud man who had ruined his life. It was enough to force her to call out to him.
