Cole chuckled. “You would only make them both miserable,” he said. “Essien is not ready for a wife yet.”
“Are you? Again?”
Cole looked at him, knowing he meant Corisande. “I do not know,” he said honestly. “All I know is that I am away from Corisande and I do not like it. I want to return to her so badly that I can almost taste it.”
“Are you going to tell your father?”
Cole nodded. “I must,” he said. “I promised Corisande that I would settle the marital expectations with Audie before I pursued her in earnest. She says she does not want to be the reason for another woman’s unhappiness.”
“She sounds like a wise woman.”
“She is,” Cole agreed. “Far wiser than I am. Do I want to marry her? I do not know yet. I hardly know her. But my instincts tell me that she will be the woman at my side for the rest of my life and that thought does not distress me at all.”
“Then I wish you luck,” Addax said. “You deserve happiness, Cole. I know you do not think so, but you do. What happened with Mary was very tragic, but the sun will shine again for you. Mayhap it will shine with Corisande.”
Cole lifted his big shoulders. Since it seemed to be a night for confessions, he felt less restraint than usual to confess his own.
“Mayhap,” he said. “I suppose I have always had the feeling of being cursed because of who my father is. After Mary and Lucy died, I remember hearing my father tell my mother that I was being punished for his sins. I do not think that, but I do feel as if I’ve been cursed by the de Velt name in some ways. But with Corisande… oddly enough, I do not feel any judgment from her. She does not seem to care that I am a de Velt. I feel comfortable with her, more at ease than I have ever felt with anyone.”
Addax’s eyes twinkled. “Good,” he said. “I am happy for you. In fact, I…”
He was cut off when the music suddenly stopped and something caught his eye. Both Addax and Cole looked over to where Essien had been dancing with the serving wench only to see that the woman had been yanked away from him and there were now three or four soldiers between the wench and Essien.
The implication was obvious.
Cole and Addax were on their feet.
“Who are ye?” one of the soldiers stepped forward, shoving Essien back by the chest. “Where do ye come from? I’ve never seen the likes of ye around here before.”
Essien was volatile. He didn’t take kindly to be shoved around, but Addax grabbed his brother before he could take a swing at the soldier.
Cole put himself between them.
“That was unwise,” he rumbled to the soldier. “He was minding his own affairs, as should you. Go sit down and I will pretend I did not see you shove my friend.”
The soldier looked Cole over. In fact, his companions did, too. They could see how big and fierce he was and those eyes… they were terrifying. The soldier stepped back but he didn’t leave.
“This doesn’t involve ye,” he said. “Yer friend was being rough with Matilde.”
“He was dancing with her,” Cole said. “He was not being rough with her and you had no reason to intervene, so sit back down. I will not tell you again.”
The soldier snorted, but it was all for show. He had companions that needed to see how brave he was.
“And just who are ye to tell me what to do?”
Cole didn’t take his eyes off the soldier. “I am de Velt,” he said. “Ajax de Velt is my father. If you’ve not heard of my family, then you are either stupid or daft. But if you have, then you know what we are capable of. Now, do you wish to continue this challenge?”
That brought a reaction from all four of the men. A couple of them reached out to pull the soldier back, away from Cole.
“De Velt?” the soldier repeated, sounding far less confident than he had only moments earlier. He was an older man and, suddenly, fear flickered across his face. “He’s the one who stormed the borders years ago.”
“He did.”
“I remember White Crag Castle,” he said, remembering those horrors from long ago and without the wherewithal to keep his mouth shut. “I remember what your father did to those men. I was serving at Etal Castle at the time and I remember how… God’s bones, what he did to those men. Your father is a monster!”
He realized too late he probably shouldn’t have said that and his companions pulled him away even further, out of the range of the enormous knight. He had drink in his veins, as they all did, which fed both courage and stupidity.
But Cole had seen that same fear in the soldier’s eyes too many times to count. He didn’t really care that the man called his father a monster because it was the truth. Ajax de Velt had done some monstrous things.
