The only person who was mad in the room was Victor as far as Annavieve was concerned. She couldn’t help the horror that reflected upon her face.
“But you cannot simply kill me,” she said. “It would be murder. I have done nothing to deserve such a thing!”
Victor didn’t respond to her. He simply moved to his baggage. His fine white carriage carried a good deal of baggage for him and it was all shoved into a corner of the chamber. As Annavieve watched in apprehension, Victor rummaged around in one of his smaller leather satchels and pulled forth a slender, wicked looking dagger. It was bejeweled and quite lovely, in fact, but all Annavieve felt when she looked at it was pure panic. Victor unsheathed the blade and admired it.
“Roger gave this to me,” he said, inspecting the very sharp end. “I find it most fitting that I will use it on you. It would seem that Roger will have the last word against Hage, after all.”
Annavieve struggled to stand up, forcing aside her aching head and wobbly legs. There was a bucket near her with implements for the hearth: a shovel, a poker, and a straw broom. Lurching forward, she grabbed the poker and held it up in front of her with both hands.
“You may try to kill me,” she said, her voice trembling. “But I will fight back. I will not make this easy for you.”
Victor frowned. “If you fight me, then I can promise you that Kevin’s execution will be as painful as I can possibly make it.”
Annavieve sucked in her breathe at the terrible threat. “You… you are amonster,”she exclaimed. “How can you think such horrible things?”
Victor’s gaze upon her was colder than it had ever been. “Put the poker down.”
“I will not!”
“Then both you and Kevin will know a painful death.”
He suddenly moved in her direction and Annavieve screamed, jumping out of his way as he came close. Poker in both hands, she swung it as hard as she could, clipping him on the side of the head. Victor staggered sideways, into the wall, but immediately came back at her as she darted around the room trying to avoid him.
From that point on, the brutal fight was on. Annavieve, knowing that she could not stop fighting him, not even for a second, swung the poker at Victor with all her might, several times. He tried to grab it but then she would lash out a foot, aiming for his gut or groin. Making excellent contact more than once, she gave Victor pause to back up and reassess his strategy. Then he came at her again and she swung the poker, like an axe, hitting him on the shoulder.
It hurt and Victor flinched, grabbing at the wound. He still had the dagger in one hand and he slashed it at her, catching her arm. Annavieve cried out in pain but did nothing more than that; she could not stop to look at it. This was a battle to the death, more than likely hers, and she would not give up. She would not slow down and she would not surrender. She had to fight Victor off and escape so she could find Kevin and help him.
That was all she truly thought about. True, she was in a fight for her life but she had no idea where Kevin was or what had become of him, yet she knew she had to find him and help him. She did not expect that he would come for her because the last she saw of him, he was surrounded by many men. He was a prisoner and more than likely in a vault somewhere. But she was determined to find him and help him.
She had to survive.
Victor was coming at her again now and Annavieve swung the poker at his head again. This time, however, he grabbed it and they wrestled over it for what seemed like a small eternity before he was able to yank it free. Weaponless, Annavieve darted away from him. She was trying to make it to either the door or the window so she could escape, but Victor seemed to know her intentions and he kept her blocked off from either exit route.
He charged her again and grabbed her, his hand in her hair and one on her wrist, and she screamed in pain before biting the hand on her wrist. With a roar of agony, Victor released her and she ran to the door. Throwing the bolt, she yanked it open just as he slammed it shut.
With a grunt of utter frustration and fear, Annavieve rammed her fingers into his right eye and Victor fell away from the door, howling in pain. Jubilant with relief, ecstatic with his pain, Annavieve yanked the door open only to come face to face with a sight she thought she would never see.
Mimsy and Vietta were standing at the door.
Before Annavieve could say a word, Mimsy rushed in with a very nasty looking dirk in her hand. As Victor hunched over in pain from his blinded eye, Mimsy raised the dirk and plunged it into Victor’s back, again and again. The woman didn’t hesitate in her actions; she was acting on instinct alone, in protecting something that meant the world to her. Her daughter was threatened and she would do all she could to eliminate the threat. It was a mothering compulsion as old as motherhood itself.
As Annavieve watched, stunned, Mimsy drove steel into Victor’s back. Vietta took hold of her and yanked her from the room. The two women fled the tavern hand in hand, out into the night, but Mimsy remained behind. She had a task to complete. She was finally standing up for the daughter she had given away so long ago. She had the opportunity to prove to her child that she had indeed loved her, that she would indeed fight and die for her. Those years ago, she had been given no choice in the matter. Now, she had a choice.
Her choice was Annavieve.
Victor died beneath Mimsy’s maternal hand that night before Mimsy, unwilling to shame the de Lohr family or her daughters with her actions, turned the dagger upon herself. All that mattered was that Annavieve was now safe, free of a husband who had tried to kill her. Sliding the blade into her chest, the one that still had Victor’s blood on it, her last thoughts were of the beautiful young women she had brought into the world.
Lady Alys, the mother, was finally at peace.
Farewell, my loves….
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was thetime of night when the diners began to rely more on the wine in their hands and less on the food on their plates. In the old meeting hall of Longcross, most of the diners were fairly well inebriated, including William.
Convinced that Victor was in the process of killing his wife, he was drinking heavily, wondering how he was going to stand by and allow Victor to execute Kevin. It wasn’t even about Roger’s death any longer. William believed Kevin when the man said it was an accident. Drunk, and without his usual denial mechanism of sober sanity, William knew that his heir had been a rotten, spoiled human being at times. Very petulant, and with a huge sense of entitlement, Roger was not a son William had been particularly proud of.
He also knew that Roger could be quite rash. He traveled around with four brutish men, men Roger would use as his muscle. Roger would tell them to beat or maim someone and they would do it. Therefore, William could absolutely believe that Roger had charged Kevin with a broadsword because it was something the man would have done. He also believed Kevin when he said the death was accidental. A man of Hage’s caliber had no reason to lie on such things and he certainly would nothave deliberately killed Roger. A man like Roger, who was not a knight or a warrior, would have been beneath Kevin’s skill to fight. Therefore, it was logical to assume the death was, in fact, an accident.
