Vietta shrugged, moving towards the Cock and Bull once again and pulling Mimsy with her. “I will tell you what happened once when I was fostering at Pembroke Castle,” she said. “It was a very lucky thing I had that dagger with me.”
As much as Mimsy wanted to ask her about the event, she refrained. They had much more important things to deal withat the moment. Locating Annavieve was paramount, as now her secret mother and secret sister were coming to the rescue. Family ties could be hidden, or convoluted, but they could never be completely erased.
They heard the screaming the moment they entered the tavern.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Victor had draggedhis struggling wife all the way back to the Cock and Bull where he also had a room. Past the feasting hall and down the darkened streets, he had pulled her along with him. She had stopped struggling for the most part, he suspected, because she had a massive bruise on her left cheek and the beginnings of a black eye. She was stunned and she was hurt. It was minor damage as far as Victor was concerned, only the beginning of what he intended to do to her.
When they reached the Cock and Bull, Victor had to literally drag her up the stairs. She was starting to fight him again, realizing as he did that once he got her alone in a room, her life wouldn’t be worth a pence. She would be at his mercy. Right before Victor took her into his rented room, he hit her hard enough to daze her.
Opening the door to his chamber, he pushed her inside and threw her to the floor. Victor went in after her, shutting the panel behind him and bolting it. As Annavieve wallowed on the floor, stunned and dizzy and struggling to sit up, Victor went over to his rented bed and began to remove his gloves.
“What gives you the right to question my order?” he asked, oddly calm. “I never wanted a wife or a marriage. As long as youdid what you were told, I would make no move against you. I would feed you and house you and clothe you. But to speak out against me in front of an ally… it is unforgivable.”
Annavieve shook her head, trying to get rid of the ringing bells. She was terrified but she was also angry; angry for what Dorset had done to Kevin since the moment the man had sworn fealty to him. Annavieve was used to being treated as chattel, as a pawn, but Kevin was different. He was a proud and noble man who had worked hard for his reputation in life. Perhaps his reputation wasn’t as sterling as some; he was a killer, an assassin, and that was accepted. But his honor was beyond question. Rubbing at her right ear where Victor had boxed it, she glared up at the man.
“You are going to let him suffer for what you told him to do,” she said, assuming he was going to beat her anyway so she had nothing further to lose. “You ordered him to consummate your own marriage and now you intend to claim whatever child I might conceive with him. What you did was wrong and immoral, yet you blame Kevin for all of it and refuse to acknowledge your part in it. How can you do that to him?”
Victor turned to look at her. The left side of her face was swollen and bruised and the lovely dark orange dress was dirty from where he had dragged her around. He genuinely felt no sympathy as he gazed at her.
“You are in no position to ask me any questions,” he said. “You are in no position to do anything. You are my wife and I can do with you as I please. If I want to whore you to other men, I may. If I want to beat you like an animal, I may. You are mine to do with as I please. All women are chattel, simply chattel.”
He said it so coldly. Annavieve could see the contempt he held for her. She was fearful, that was true, but there was also an element of wonder about him, wondering why he hated the female sex in such a dark and permanent fashion. There wassomething so incredibly final to his words. After a moment, she shook her head in bewilderment.
“Why do you hate me so?” she asked, almost curiously. “I did not ask to marry you. I did not beg the king for you in any way. He forced me to marry you just as he forced you to marry me, so why do you hate me so? I did not cause your misery.”
Victor’s expression tightened. “You are asking questions again.”
Annavieve sighed heavily, lowering her gaze to the floor she now sat upon. She continued to rub at her ear, frustrated and increasingly despondent.
“Then do what you will with me,” she said quietly. “You are going to, anyway. But please… Kevin was only trying to protect me. He is a true and honorable knight, one who obeyed your orders implicitly. Whatever punishment you have in store for him, I will gladly take it. Please do not punish the man for doing what you told him to do.”
Oddly, Victor’s expression seemed to change. He began to appear thoughtful, even curious, as he thought on the mysterious Kevin Hage. “It would be my guess that he is quite taken with you,” he said contemplatively. “Only a man feeling great emotion would do something he knows could lead to harm, in this case, attacking me as he did. Is it possible that the Scorpion actually feels something for you? I would find that astonishing.”
Annavieve wasn’t sure what to say to that, but she assumed she and Kevin were already in enough trouble. One more element added couldn’t make it any worse. Moreover, if there was any capability of feeling in Victor, perhaps it might make him more understanding. Even more sympathetic. She doubted it, but it was worth the risk. It was a chance she was willing to take.
“Why?” she asked, looking up at him. “He is a man of flesh and blood and feeling. You forced him to bed a woman and spend time with her. You forced us together constantly. Why should he not succumb to feelings?”
Victor was quite interested to know. “Then he does feel something for you?”
Annavieve looked away again, thinking of Kevin and wondering where he was. Wondering if he was as frightened for her as she was for him.
“We love one another,” she finally said. “I am not sure why you should care. You do not care a thing for me or for him, so I am not sure why it should matter to you what we feel, but in answer to your question, we love one another. Kevin Hage is a remarkable man and I love him deeply.”
Victor seemed surprised by the admission. “Then it makes sense why he should attack me,” he said. “He was protecting his love.”
“He was protecting the wife you did not want,” she countered softly. “Ironic, is it not? He wants what he cannot have and you do not want what you have, so here we are.”
Victor saw the same irony she did in the situation. Still, the fact remained that both Annavieve and Kevin were two disruptive elements in his carefully controlled life. He simply could not allow either one of them to live– Kevin because he defied him and Annavieve because she spoke of secrets no one else should know.
Now, William knew of the orders he had given Kevin, but Victor was convinced he could coerce the man into believing that Hage was lying. He needed William as an ally and as a witness when Victor told Edward that both Kevin and Annavieve were dead– Kevin by execution and Annavieve by suicide. That was how he planned it and in Victor’s life, he got what he wanted.
“The irony is that Kevin killed my love,” he said after a moment, looking to Annavieve. He was rather upset when she didn’t appear surprised by his statement; he’d hoped to shock her. “He killed Roger. Aye, the man was my love. As I am sure you have figured out, women are not my taste. It is true that Edward forced you upon me and you had no choice, so for that, I do not blame you. However, Kevin has confessed to killing the man I have loved for over a year. No one can know that, of course, but it is true. Roger and I were lovers. Kevin took my love and the irony is that now I will take his.”
A spark of terror filled Annavieve’s breast. “You… you cannot kill me,” she said, feeling breathless. She had expected a beating but death… it was not something she had truly entertained. “The king would be displeased if I were to die. I am a royal ward!”
Victor was quite unemotional in the face of her fear. “You are my wife,” he said simply. “I will tell Edward that you and Hage were having an illicit affair and that when I executed Kevin for his attack against me, you killed yourself in your grief. Grief does very strange things to people. It can turn a sane person quite mad.”
