He gaped at her. “See? You care nothing for the ruination of such a costly item.”
“Why should I? I didn’t pay for it or evenaskfor it—it was all Sybilla’s doing. If you fancy it so much,youmay have it.”
“Do you blame everything on your sister?”
That stung. “Go to hell, Piers.”
“Oh, poor Lady Alys,” he mocked. “Forced to live as royalty, her every whim attended to. Who must run away with a commoner to have a bit of excitement. Don’t think for a moment I don’t know what will happen once we reach London.”
“And what exactly is that?” Alys demanded.
“After your little adventure, you’ll beg Edward for haven until you can be carried back to Fallstowe. You’ll recuperate from your time in the wild with such an uncouth commoner and live out the rest of your days as a well tended, married lady in pampered decadence.”
“The only haven the king would likely see me to is a cell should I dare step foot in his court,” Alys argued. “He would hold me ransom in Sybilla’s place.”
“And she would come running to your rescue, no doubt,” Piers sneered.
“Not bloody likely. Sybilla would not give herself up to Edward for the likes of me, I assure you.”
“No? No, of course not,” Piers said sarcastically. “She only sees that you live like a fucking princess. She very clearly hates you.”
“She’s marrying me to Clement Cobb!”
“After she gave you your choice of men and you refused them all! If she hated you, she would have married you to the first one who didn’t run away screaming!”
“Oh! What’syourexcuse?” Alys went on the attack. “Why is it that you didn’t claim your rightful place as one of your father’s heirs before now, hmm? It’s not a secret that you’re Warin Mallory’s son, is it?”
“No,” he gritted through his teeth, and Alys suspected she was pushing in just the right area. “But before he died, I was nothing more than an embarrassing mistaketo him. Bevan was his sole, legitimate heir. That was made very clear.”
“So why challenge that now? Why not years ago, when you could have avoided such poverty, such humiliation, such cruelty from Bevan and his mother?”
“Because I didn’t know I could!” he shouted. “My own father didn’t even know!”
“He didn’t know for certain that you were his son?”
“He didn’t know that Bevan was not!”
There it was—the truth, at last. The crackle of the fire and the shush of the river were the only sounds filling the rock overhang. The air seemed to tremble in the wake of Piers’s announcement.
He walked to the edge of the shelter and stared into the night, his back to Alys.
“Judith Angwedd cuckolded your father?” she asked quietly.
He nodded jerkily, but did not turn.
“Then who is Bevan’s sire?”
“My father didn’t know to tell me. He only overheard Judith Angwedd and Bevan talking when the pair of them thought him asleep. The day he died. He had just enough time to send for me, and give me his ring. He told me to carry it to the king, and to ‘seek my blood’ on my journey. He said that would lead me to the answer that would save Gillwick and myself. I still do not know what he meant. Perhaps the king will.” Piers paused. “Once Bevan inherits Gillwick, he and Judith Angwedd plan for his true father to also claim him as heir.”
“Uniting the lands for Bevan,” Alys surmised.
“More likely for that greedy viper Judith Angwedd. She’s always aspired to a greater station than she’s ever deserved. Gillwick—and my father—were naught butstepping stones to her. And Bevan has never cared about more than his drink and his cruel perversions.”
“What of your own mother? Other family members? Did they not know?”
“My mother died when I was six years old. I have no idea what she knew or didn’t know. Her father—my grandfather—abandoned her in shame, shortly before I was born. He never returned to Gillwick, and my mother never spoke of him. I presume he is dead. Anyone I ever had blood ties to is dead. That is why my father’s final words to me are such a riddle.”
Alys’s heart clenched. “And up until the day he died, your father never acknowledged you.”
