“What of the other two?” he asked. “Are they intact?”
The lady nodded. “They are,” she replied, now getting a better look at him. “Whom may I have the honor of addressing, please?”
Bretton shook his head. “My name is not important,” he replied. “Suffice it to say that I am the new Lord of Comen and you and your daughters are my prisoners. Do you comprehend, madam?”
The woman nodded respectfully. “Indeed I do, my lord,” she replied. “We are your humble servants. May… may I ask a question?”
For a woman whose home had just been overrun and her daughter raped, she was exceptionally brave and level-headed. A measure of respect sprouted for the woman.
“Not until I have finished with my questions,” he said. “You will tell me your name and the names of your children.”
The lady nodded. “I am Lady Amalia de Gault,” she said, then indicated her daughters in order from the eldest to the youngest. “These are my daughters Lucy, Isla, and Aurora.”
Bretton eyed the girls, who were still quite shaken. “No sons?”
Lady Amalia shook her head. “None living, my lord,” she replied. “There was one, but he died in infancy last year.”
Bretton absorbed the information. Strange that he was starting to see these women as living, thinking creatures and not objects. Usually, those he conquered were simply items, possessions to be had. With this foursome, he had names and he had a tragic event in their past. He was feeling emotion whether or not he wanted to.
Please show mercy….
“You had a question to ask me, madam,” he said. “What is it?”
Lady Amalia maintained her composure as she spoke. “I would simply like to inquire as to the condition of my husband,” she asked. “We saw the men taken away and saw… saw what was done to them. I would like to know if my husband was…”
She trailed off, trying to find the right words, and Bretton interrupted her. “Impaled?” he supplied.
The woman was incredibly brave, nodding stoically. “Aye, my lord.”
Bretton shook his head. “Nay, he is not among them,” he replied. “I have your husband and his father held in another location. I have not yet decided their fate.”
For the first time, Lady Amalia showed some emotion. “My lord,” she said. “I understand that we are your prisoners and you may do with us as you will, but I was wondering… I was hoping… might I see my husband one last time? I would consider it a great show of mercy and would be forever grateful, no matter what comes.”
A great show of mercy.
There was that word again. He looked at the family of girls. There was no point in killing them or letting his men have them. He remembered something Allaston had said to him once, that it could have quite easily been her castle he had conquered andthen she would have been fodder for his men. Looking at these girls, he could see Allaston among them, terrified and cowering, and he didn’t like that thought one bit.God’s Bones, what is happening to me? Am I becoming weak in my old age? Is that what emotion does to a man, weaken him? Or does it create bonds so strong that a wife would risk my wrath by asking to see her husband one last time?He wondered.
“Remain here and do not move,” he told them. “If you do, I will kill you. Is that clear?”
Lady Amalia nodded and Bretton left the structure, ducking underneath the low doorway and emerging into the kitchen yard where Dallan and several soldiers were waiting. He went to Dallan.
“Bring the two knights to me,” he told the man. “Make sure they are both stripped of all weaponry and armaments.”
Dallan nodded, heading off to complete his orders. Meanwhile, Bretton sent the soldiers gathered in the kitchen yard back out to the bailey where all the action was happening. The men left without question, happy to get back to the process of securing the castle and destroying their enemy. When they were gone, Bretton stood in the kitchen yard, alone for several minutes, until Dallan returned with the prisoners.
The old knight’s expression never changed but the younger knight, who wasn’t so much young as he was an adult male who had seen at least twenty-five years, appeared rather anxious. Bretton knew why– if Bretton had a wife and three daughters held captive, he would have been anxious, too. Crooking his finger at the men, he indicated for them to follow him to the kitchen structure. When the three of them reached the doorway leading into the warm, cluttered kitchen, Bretton stood back and indicated for the two knights to enter first. They did, and Bretton could hear the squeals of delight and relief as he entered behind them.
Bretton stood just inside the doorway, watching Lady Amalia hug her husband tightly. The woman’s stoic demeanor had broken down and she was weeping softly, kissing his cheeks, her hands on his face, studying him closely in an expression that was nothing short of adoring.
As Bretton watched, he realized that he wanted to see that in Allaston’s expression when she looked at him, too. He wanted that great, all-encompassing adoration that came with true love, something he’d always believed to be a fool’s dream until now. Watching Lady Amalia and her husband, he wanted what they had. He wanted that fool’s dream, too.
In fact, the entire family was hugging and weeping, and Bretton’s heart began to break, just a little. He remembered having that kind of love with his mother and father, too, a love that kept them safe and comforted no matter what happened in life. Even if Bretton was to kill the two men, or the entire family for that matter, they still would have shared something he himself had only had a fleeting taste of– true and pure love. All men searched for it but only the good, the true and spirited man, ever found it.
But he was not a true and spirited man. He was a man who had let vengeance and hatred eat him from the inside out. He was damaged and broken in many ways, whilst Allaston, who had lived a life of such love as he was seeing before him, was true and pure in many ways. She was, in fact, too good for him and it was only just occurring to him now that he did not deserve a woman such as her. She deserved better than what he was. She deserved that love that all women would be grateful for. At that moment, his heart, which was a closely guarded and fragile thing, shattered into a million pieces because he knew he didn’t deserve what he so badly wanted.
Allaston.
As the family before him hugged and wept softly, Bretton knew what he had to do. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy such purity, such unbridled emotion. It was so very rare and he hadn’t the right to destroy it no matter how envious he was of it. No matter if that old knight, one of de Velt’s original knights, had taken it from him. Allaston had been right in so many ways. Killing her father, or any of her father’s original knights, wouldn’t bring his family back again. It wouldn’t even make him happy again. It would just be more deaths in a long line of many, deaths that would never bring fulfillment to anyone. With that stark realization, as the pieces of his heart scattered to the wind, never to be reclaimed, he cleared his throat softly.
