Chapter 20
After a barrage of thanks and good-byes and promises to return, we packed up and headed north. Jarrod rode a horse now, but it appeared he did so from pure pride as I could see his discomfort. He also walked slightly bent over, and I suspected he might never be the same.
My thoughts kept drifting to another matter though. Instead of riding a horse, I’d ask if I could sit on the wagon bench with the guard who was driving. I cited my preference for comfort, and Kai didn’t find this odd.
However, my reasons were my own. I had a secret and didn’t wish to tell him just yet.
The journey passed swiftly, and I was surprised when my heart lifted at the sight of Volodane Hall up on the rise ahead of us.
“Home,” I said.
For better or worse, this decaying keep had become my home, and the men who lived there had become my family.
Once inside the courtyard, we left our horses and luggage to the guards, entered the keep, and made our way to the great hall. From the archway, I saw three people inside. Miriam was sitting quietly, working on some sewing. Sebastian and Daveed sat near her, playing a game of cards. There was a large pitcher and two wine goblets on the table.
“Miriam,” I said.
Looking up, she broke into a smile and ran to me. I embraced her, thinking on how much she had been missed.
As Kai walked in, Sebastian watched. Kai’s limp was barely there.
“Look at you,” Sebastian said, closing the distance between them and clasping Kai in his arms.
“You’re here,” Kai said, patting his back. “I’d thought you’d be off to Rennes by now.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the air suddenly felt thick with tension as Sebastian looked to Jarrod.
“Father felt it best that I stay,” Sebastian answered, sounding bitter, with his words somewhat slurred.
“Are you drunk again?” Jarrod asked him.
“And I am glad to see you,” Sebastian continued, still speaking to Kai as if Jarrod wasn’t there. “But now that you’re home, I hope to take my leave first thing in the morning.”
Though I wasn’t certain what was happening, Kai seemed to understand and turned to his father. “May Sebastian set off for his holiday to Rennes tomorrow?”
Jarrod’s expression flattened. “Holiday? From what?”
Daveed kept his eyes on the floor.
Sebastian wasn’t looking well. He was thin and pale with dark circles under his eyes, and Jarrod had just suggested he’d been drinking too much. Before leaving for the coast, I’d not given much thought to how these two would fare for a month or more here at the keep on their own, with no other company for dinner.
Perhaps I should have.
Whatever had happened, it had sent Jarrod running to fetch Kai and me home, and it seemed to have pushed Sebastian into an unhappy state.
“May I go?” Sebastian asked tightly, this time speaking to his father.
Jarrod stepped closer to him. “Off to Rennes, to drink and spend my money and do whatever you please. What have you done this year to warrant a holiday? You’ve done nothing!”
“Lady Rosamund Monvílle might not agree. I suspect she rather appreciates being a widow.”
With his face going red, Jarrod stepped even closer. “When are you going start doing your part around here? Start seeing to the lands and crops like your brother.”
“Do my part?” Sebastian exploded. “You want me riding out collecting taxes for you? That was Rolf’s favorite pastime, being your bullyboy! Now you’re trying to put Kai in his place, and he has such a good heart he’ll do anything you ask. But I won’t! I’m not your errand boy, and tomorrow, I’m leaving for Rennes.”
Kai looked stricken at the things his father and brother were shouting at each other. I had a feeling this eruption may have been building the entire time we were away, and our return had ignited it.
Sebastian strode from the hall. Daveed got up quietly and followed.
“Father,” Kai said. “Should I go after him?”
Jarrod ran a hand over his face. “Let him go.”
Miriam reached out and grasped my fingers. “Are you hungry, my lady? I could have Ester put some supper together?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Once she left, the three of us remaining stood in awkward silence. I could say nothing to heal the growing wound between Jarrod and Sebastian, nor could I put Kai at peace in this regard. Yet, I wanted to do something to make them both feel better.
I decided it was time.
“Before we eat,” I said. “I have some happy news to share.”
Kai was still shaken but turned to me. I wasn’t sure Jarrod had heard the words.
“We’re going to have a new addition next spring,” I added, touching my stomach.
For the span of the few breaths, neither of them spoke.
Then Kai was at my side, looking down at my hand. “Is that why you wouldn’t ride on the way home?”
I smiled at him.
“A grandson?” Jarrod finally spoke, and his expression altered to joy. He came to join us. “In the spring?”
“Or a granddaughter,” I corrected.
“It’ll be a boy,” he said with great confidence. “The Volodanes breed sons.”
Soon after, dinner came in and we sat down, speaking together of which room might make the best nursery, and Kai could barely contain his excitement.
Jarrod’s painful argument with Sebastian seemed forgotten.
* * * *
That night, I was grateful to sleep in my own bed—with Kai beside me.
Exhausted from the journey, the family quarrel, and my revelation of news, we both fell asleep quickly, with my head on his arm.
I dreamed first of the sea, of riding high on the waves on Andre’s boat, but this shifted to a vision of running and playing in the apple orchards here on Volodane lands. A little girl and a little boy chased me, all of us laughing as we ran.
The shouts of laughter shifted to angry shouting, and the shouts grew louder.
I sat up. Kai sat up beside me.
The shouting came from down the passage, two voices.
“Unnatural!” one came. “I knew it! Spawned from some darkness, not from me!”
Somehow, I was out of bed first, and I didn’t bother throwing a dressing robe over my nightgown. I ran out the bedroom door with Kai behind me, wearing nothing but his underdrawers. I raced down the passage.
At the curve of the passage, outside of Sebastian’s bedroom, I saw Jarrod. His features were twisted in rage.
“Unnatural!” he shouted.
Sebastian stood before him, seemingly naked but for a blanket wrapped around his waist and a dagger in his right hand. Looking beyond him, I saw Daveed inside the room, near the rumpled bed covers, naked too except for a pair of pants he held in front of himself. I didn’t understand what was happening.
“And how would you know?” Sebastian challenged his father. “How would you know anything at all about me?”
Jarrod jerked a dagger from a sheath on his forearm. “I’ll see you dead!”
But Sebastian’s blade was at the ready, and I knew if anyone died here, it would be Jarrod.
“No!” I cried, running forward, between them, and trying to hold off Sebastian.
“Megan!” Kai yelled from behind me.
After that, things happened almost too quickly to follow. At the sight of me, Sebastian hesitated in his strike, but Jarrod couldn’t stop himself from his rush forward and knocked me into Sebastian, who caught me.
The next thing I knew, Kai had a hold of his father, pinning Jarrod’s arms to his sides, and shouting. “Father, stop! Sebastian, you stay there!”
Then he looked inside the room, probably still trying to reason out what was happening, and he saw Daveed. Something flickered across his face, and he held his father more tightly.
I pushed Sebastian backwards, and he let me.
“Close the door,” I said quietly.
His dark eyes lowered to mine, and he reached out for the door, closing it with Kai, Jarrod, and me outside in the passage.
“Unnatural,” Jarrod whispered.
“Don’t say that,” Kai answered. “Don’t ever say that.”
* * * *
Somehow, we got Jarrod to bed and decided to leave facing the aftermath in the morning.
Once back with Kai in my room, I tried to make sense of what I’d seen.
“Does Sebastian love Daveed as you love me?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I didn’t know such things were possible. No one had ever told me.
“Does it make you think of less of him?” Kai asked.
I thought on that and shook my head. “Why should it? It’s no business of ours who Sebastian chooses to love.”
Kai pulled me into his arms. “I fear Father feels quite differently.”
* * * *
The next morning, just as we were stirring, a soft knock sounded on our door.
“Kai?” a voice asked from the other side.
After quickly pulling on his pants, Kai hurried to the door and opened it, letting Sebastian inside.
“Are you all right?” Kai asked.
Sebastian laughed without humor. “I’ve no idea how to answer that question.”
I climbed from the bed and donned my dressing robe.
Watching me, he said, “You seem to have a penchant for saving my father.”
I didn’t answer.
He turned back to Kai. “I can’t face him, not now, not ever. I can’t stand to have him looking at me as if I have leprosy. You know I won’t be able to stand it.”
Kai wavered. “I know.”
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t stay here, and my income depends on Father’s grand generosity.”
Kai seemed on the edge of suggesting something, but he asked, “Are you sure you and Father cannot find a way to live together?”
“And how would that work now? He’ll dismiss Daveed before breakfast.” His voice broke.
Kai sighed. “I was thinking about something last night. What if I talk him into giving you the house in Rennes, with a yearly stipend?”
“What? He’d never do that.”
“He might. I hate to say this out loud... but I think he might want you gone as badly as you want to leave.”
Sebastian’s expression flickered between hope and pain. “You’d do that for me? You’d ask him.”
Kai nodded. His eyes showed nothing but sorrow.
* * * *
Two days later, Sebastian and Daveed rode out for Rennes.
Kai had made all the arrangements with Jarrod himself. Sebastian was to own the house outright with a yearly stipend large enough to cover paying for servants and expenses.
It hurt Kai to see his brother ride off, but this was the best that could be managed, and we both knew it.
The family living at the hall now consisted of Jarrod, Kai, and me.
Kai took up his duties riding out over our lands, and sometimes, Jarrod went with him. As the months passed, and Jarrod’s dependency on Kai grew stronger, Kai began expressing a voice of his own.
He managed to get his father to agree to cut back on taxes and to allow all the people living on Volodane lands to fish the streams freely, hunt game, and set snares.
I was proud of my husband.
One day, in midwinter, he asked me, “Are you happy?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything I could ever do for you?”
I had been waiting for this. “There is one thing.”
“Name it.”
“Lift your order that I’m not allowed to pass through the gate without your permission. No, don’t look at me like that. I assure you that out of consideration, I would not leave without telling you my destination, but it troubles me that I can’t leave without your orders to the guards. Do you understand?”
For a moment, I thought he might refuse, but then he nodded. “I’ll lift the order.”
That had been the only thing I wished.
The following spring, I gave birth to a baby girl. Jarrod went into a sulk, but Kai was thrilled. We named her Bridget.
Soon after, I found Jarrod in the nursery, humming her a lullaby, and I didn’t interrupt. I suspected he might be a better grandfather than a father.
Two years later, I had a boy. We named him Rolf.
As soon as Rolf could walk, we took both children to the apple orchard. I let them chase me around the trees, laughing, as Kai looked on. I saw peace and pride in his eyes.
I had my family, and I had love.