He moved away from the wall, heading towards the stairwell with his mother behind him.
“Did Addie see any of this?” Kellington asked. “Lista and de Rhos, I mean. Does she know?”
Julian took the first steps down the steep spiral stairs that led down to the bailey, but he held out his hand for his mother.
“She knows,” Julian said, taking his mother’s hand and steadying her down the stairs. “She came to me after it happened.”
“What did she say?”
Julian didn’t want to answer her. He’d spoken about the situation as much as he wanted to because the return of Addington and knowing how she tried to talk him out of leaving Felkington was weighing heavily on him. Truthfully, he didn’t want to see his sister.
He didn’t want to hear her version of events again.
“You’ll have to ask her,” he said as they reached the bottom and he let go of her hand. “I’m weary, Mama. I shall retire for the evening and see you on the morrow.”
Kellington called after him but he kept walking just as Addington and Ashton rode in through the great gates of Pelinom, followed by their escort. Kellington watched her son as he headed for the keep before turning her attention to her daughter as the woman brought her steed to a halt and dismounted. Addington spied her mother and made her way toward her, but Kellington simply stood where Julian had left her, lost in thought. Perhaps the only other person who could tell her what had happened had just arrived and she was going to get to the bottom of the situation.
Something told her that all was not as it seemed.
“It’s not true,Mama,” Addington said. “Julian thinks he knows what he saw, but that’s not what happened at all.”
Kellington had the courtesy to wait until Addington came into the keep before pulling her into the old solar that had once belonged to Kellington’s father, Keats. Jax had left his mark on it over the years, but it had become Kellington’s retreat now that the males of the family had passed on. Now, she faced her youngest daughter with the simple question of what had transpired at Felkington.
What Addington said did not surprise her.
“Then tell me everything,” she said.
Addington was reluctant to tattle on her brother, but she did as she was asked. She knew it was for his own good.
“This morning, Julian saw Lady Lista in the arms of another knight,” she said. “His name is Louis de Rhos and he is the son of the Earl of Sunderland.”
Kellington nodded. “I know,” she said. “Julian told me of him.”
“He seems like a good man, Mama,” Addington insisted softly. “He helped Julian fend off a Scots raid and he was kind and polite. I do not think poorly of him at all. But Julian saw him with Lista in his arms this morning and when I asked Lista what happened, she told me that she had twisted her ankle in the mud and Louis was carrying her into the keep. Louis said the same thing– that Lista hurt herself and he was helping her. It was not a passionate embrace that Julian saw, but one of assistance. Still, he does not believe it. He refuses to.”
Kellington digested the information, an expression of distress crossing her features. “I was afraid of that,” she said, sinking into a chair that had once belonged to her husband. It dwarfed her as she sat in it. “Julian has never been one to stand up to something hurtful. He learned that as a young lad. He would simply walk away from the situation rather than confront it. Your father tried to convince him to stand up for himself and to fight those who would persecute him, but Julian never did. He felt that it was safer to ignore it, to walk away from it.”
Addington went to her mother, kneeling down beside the chair. “Julian isnota coward,” she said. “Lista was very hurt when she realized Julian’s misconception of the situation and she said… well, I know he is not a coward. I told her so. I think he was falling in love with Lista, Mama. I know she was falling in love with him. She is a good woman with a good heart and she only saw the good in Julian. But he’s hurt her terribly with his behavior. She feels that if he really cared for her, then he would have asked her to clarify what he saw with Louis.”
Kellington reached out, stroking her daughter’s dark head. “But he ran instead.”
“He did. I had to come home quickly to try to fix the damage done. We left your carriage at Felkington so we could move faster.”
Kellington sighed faintly, thinking on her second-eldest child and his fragile heart. “The carriage is of no concern. Julian is a man grown now and has been for years,” she said. “It is time he stopped behaving like that bullied squire. Addie, have a servant summon Julian to my solar. I will speak with him.”
Addington nodded, scurrying off to find a servant, who was never very far away from the heart of Pelinom, the very solar that had been witness to so many battles and deeds and transitions. She returned quickly only to find her mother seated behind the big table where her father, and grandfather, used to conduct their business. Kellington had a vellum in her hand, reading it.
“I sent for him, Mama,” she said. “Shall I remain?”
Kellington nodded, still looking at the vellum. “You shall,” she said. “Where is Ashton?”
“I do not know.”
“Send for him, also,” Kellington said. “He met the de Rhos knight?”
“He did.”
“Then I want him here, too.”
