Isabel simply waved them on. When both knights were through the door and the panel was shut, Isabel indicated for Jerome to sit in the nearest chair.
“Sit down,” she said quietly. “I wish to speak to you about this and we will do it calmly, just the two of us, without any swords or enormous knights hanging about. Agreed?”
Jerome seemed to relax a little now that Douglas was out of the chamber. “As you wish,” he said, claiming the chair. “But I will not change my mind. I must have justice, and the only wayto accomplish that is for you to give me what I want so that I may have another son to continue my lineage. That is only fair.”
Isabel sat down in a chair a few feet away. “I understand that you are grieving,” she said. “What happened is a terrible shock. But don’t you think your demands are hasty? Should you not have time to grieve before you make such a decision?”
Jerome shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I have been with Raymond since I was informed of his passing. He was my only child. If I am to admit it, he could be… difficult. You tried to purge him from Axminster because of his behavior. Kenilworth did the same.”
“I did not know that.”
Jerome sat back in his chair, vastly calmer than he had been. It was just him and Isabel, and truthfully, Jerome wasn’t confrontational by nature. He had a more reasonable personality than his son had, and last night he’d been quite amiable. But he was struggling with something that had upended his entire world and was so grieved that he was behaving irrationally, but deep down, something else was happening with him.
It was time for truth.
Ugly as it was.
Maybe if he told the truth, Isabel would be more apt to do as he wished.
“I will admit this to no one else, my lady, and if you repeat it, I will deny it,” he said. “But my son was not very likable. He was my son and I love him because he is my son, but sometimes, I did not like him. You were around him for years. You saw how he was.”
Isabel’s eyebrows rose. “Something you had denied to me,” she said. “When I wrote you about his behavior, you told me it was untrue.”
He nodded. “At the time, I believed it,” he said. “When Raymond left for Axminster, he did not have the naughty streak in him that you said he had. I assumed you were lying. But the master knights of Kenilworth had the same report, only worse.”
“Then they confirmed what I had been trying to tell you.”
Jerome nodded. Then his eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. “A father does not want to believe the worst about his son,” he said. “But he had gambling debts. And there were at least two young women he had forced himself upon. One conceived a child she later gave birth to and surrendered to a peasant family. I paid her family a great amount of money for her troubles.”
Isabel wasn’t entirely shocked to hear this, given her experience with Raymond. “You said your lineage had died out,” she said. “What about this child?”
“It is a girl. I do not want a girl.”
That explained it, a little. “I see,” she said. “So you want to marry again and have another son?”
He nodded. “As callous as this will sound, I do,” he said. “I will mourn Raymond. I will mourn the son I failed, because surely, I failed him or he would not have been the way he was. Don’t you see, Lady Isabel? This is another chance for me. In this tragedy, God has given me another chance to have a son who will honor the de Honiton name.”
Isabel thought that it was a strange way to deal with grief. Lost one son, then make another. The new son would ease the grief of the one lost. She’d seen that happen with widows—marrying again to ease the ache of losing a husband—but she’d never seen it done with children.
Still… Jerome seemed entirely serious.
“If that is true, then you will have to find a wife elsewhere,” Isabel said after a moment. “I cannot, and will not, provide you with one of the young ladies in my charge.”
Jerome looked at her. “And I meant what I said,” he said calmly. “If you do not give me one of them, I will do as I must. You will not know a moment’s peace. Nor will de Lohr. I do not care if his father is more powerful than God. I will make it so he is hunted and hounded every day for the rest of his life. And Axminster will never be safe. Not you, not your wards, nor your vassals. It will be my life’s work to see you ruined.”
He said it as if discussing nothing more important than the weather. Isabel couldn’t imagine that he was bluffing. He seemed quite sane and, in his own words, his lineage was finished. He had nothing to lose by harassing Axminster. The implications were great because if he carried through on his threat, she had everything to lose.
At this moment, noble families paid well for their daughters to be educated by Lady Isabel. It was considered prestigious. But if Axminster was not a peaceful place, courtesy of de Honiton and his grudge, then families would choose not to send their daughters there. Not if they knew the girls would be in danger. That would reflect poorly on Isabel and, eventually, she would lose what was a lucrative source of income. Her reputation would be in tatters. All because Raymond de Honiton couldn’t control himself. Therefore, she had some horrific choices to make.
Give Jerome what he wanted… or face ruin.
He wanted Mira. Isabel knew that wasn’t going to happen. That left Davina, Helen, or even Astoria because they were of marriageable age, but she didn’t have the authority to promise them to Jerome. The girls all had families who had that power. The only power Isabel had was over Mira or…
God help her.
There was one other.
It was all she had left to bargain with.
