The Beast of Renald (The Northern Knights) (37 page)

‘Darc. We need to talk.’

His warm breath reached her as he exhaled. ‘Aye. I agree. I shall go first.’

Caroline’s hope was dashed by what he said next. His gaze locked on hers.

‘This matter between us is not going to change. And I do not think you should be under such stress. It will be best that you go to a convent for a while. Until the child is born.’

‘What!?’ Caroline choked out. This was not what she had expected. It took her a moment to find her tongue to finish. ‘Nay!’

‘So be it. If not the convent then my man will escort you to Gest Manor. It is not that far from here.’

‘I will not go to your manor or the convent. I will not be held against my will because of the demons that plague you. I warned you, after Halvard I would not be shut away again. You cannot do this to me!’

He shrugged those broad shoulders nonchalantly. ‘Oh, but I can and will. I will not argue with you over this. It is for the best and you will go.’

Caroline slapped both her hands down hard, flat on the table top in front of him. ‘I care not if you beat me or what else you aim to do. But I am not going!’ she shouted firmly. He arched a dark brow and gave her look as if she’d gone mad with her unrestrained outburst. He looked like the devil in the flickering candlelight.

She saw the anger boil in him and his struggle to control it as he turned away from her. She did not care. She would not allow this. She watched him carefully pluck the lint from the edges of his embroidered green tunic.

‘You refuse the convent, so this is your only choice. At Gest you shall be allotted a bit of freedom. However-‘

‘Nay! ‘Tis not my only choice.’ She cried, swinging her arm across the table knocking everything to the floor, except the candle. ‘I can seek the king to be rid of you.’ She knew he knew it to be a lie as soon as she said it. His deep laughter sickened her and she fought not to raise her hand to her mouth to cover her cry of pain and despair. What had he turned into?

He was around the table in seconds in front of her. ‘Think you he will listen to you over me? What rights have you? None. Do not be foolish and make this worse than it already is.
Go
to the manor, Caroline.’

Her eyes burned with her tears. ‘You cold- blooded selfish bastard. Cast away aught which makes you remember. I came here with the hopes of mending this discord betwixt us. Never would I have thought…’ her voice broke on a ragged angry sob and she shook her head unable to finish. She shook her finger at him. ‘I faced my truths, but you, knight of the realm, William’s man cannot. You left a helpless child in the village without his father. You cast me away. Even with his death, you have made Raven the victor. Who is the true fool here, my lord?’

His fingers wrapped around her neck but Caroline was not afraid any longer. His physical brutality could not be any more hurtful than the mental anguish he’d caused.

‘Be careful of what you say, Caroline.’

She shoved at his chest, his hand dropped to her wrists encircling them and holding her prisoner against him. ‘Why should I when you do not? I am your wife, Darc.’

His hands tightened on her wrists before they dropped and he swung away from her. Caroline’s eyes followed him. His dark head lifted and he gave her a sidelong look empty of emotion that twisted her heart, his scar twitched and deepened in color.

‘You came to me with lies, now leave with them. I no longer have a wife.’

The piercing cry burst from her lips before she could stop it. If there was anything worse he could have said he just had. She flew at him and he caught her, braced for her attack and pummeling fists, saying nothing.

Exhausted and numb with her pain and tears, Caroline jerked away from him, disgusted. She abhorred that he’d forced her to mete out such abuse and what he had reduced her to. Her heart was breaking and in his eyes, she saw there was no hope.

Shaking uncontrollably she stumbled away from him. With her chest heaving and her throat raw she barely managed to get out each word.  ‘At first I did not wish to believe it to be true. Refused to accept what he said as truth.’

‘Believe what?’ he all but growled at her.

Not shaken by his tone, Caroline replied coldly. ‘But now I know I erred in trusting my heart. What a fool I have been.’

He stepped closer to her.  Anger is his movements that she was still evading his question. ‘Believe what?’ he repeated.

Caroline looked him squarely in the eye. ‘His lies. Planting seeds…Raven said you would believe them. That was his plan and he was correct. You do. ‘Tis bad enough I had one ghost to contend with. But two ghosts? ‘Tis a challenge I cannot win for you refuse to allow it.’

He breathed out the word in question. ‘Adelay?’

Caroline exploded. ‘Adelay! I am sick unto death about Adelay. The woman is dead. Raven is dead! Can you not let this torment go? Nay, obviously you cannot. You did love her deeply.’ She stated on a broken sob as the truth of it sucked the life from her.

Aye, he loved that woman so he could not even bring himself to love another. The realization stung and hurt her more than anything that he’d done.  Tears burned her nose, but she blinked them back. His lack of response did not help and Caroline said, ‘This will never end.’

‘Again, all I asked of you was for a simple aye or nay. The rest of your nonsense, this babble- I could have done without.’

Caroline fisted her hands and stamped her foot as she faced him. ‘What does it matter now? You would not believe me.’

‘Of course not.’ His scoff sliced another piece of her heart away. ‘But I need to hear it.’

His words nigh made her want to jump out of her skin. How could he be so cold? So different? What had killing his brother done to him?

‘Ah. Silence. It will have to suffice, I suppose as confirming what I need to know.’

Caroline was shaking and she stepped back from him. ‘You bastard.’

He shrugged, his eyes watching her like a hawk.

Caroline straightened her spine and shoulders. She thought she knew this man, but she’d been wrong. Very wrong. Sucking in a painful breath, she expelled it slowly before she was able to speak again. ‘I will take my son and my father’s ring.’

‘Nay.’

Her wide eyes shot back to him. ‘Nay!? They belong to me.’

‘The ring and the Kelbie stay here.’

Caroline came out of her shock, wiping her sniffles with the back of her sleeve. ‘Nay. He comes with me.’

‘Nay. He is my ward now. He stays here. Where I go so shall he.’

His stern tone only infuriated her further. She did slap him then.  His features hardened. Tears of indignation ran down her cheeks. He had some nerve and she told him thus.

He remained still and the only sign that he was affected by her act of violence was the brief flicker of something unreadable in those blue darkening eyes. He was tearing her apart, shredding her to pieces and he stood there like a cold unmovable mountain feeling naught.

On a ragged breath she continued. ‘You want me to just leave my son behind? He is mine. Not yours.’

‘Nay. He is not your son, remember. You did not birth him. He will be safe here till you settle wherever it is that you…end up.’

He licked his lips and his expression of disgust rankled her. Caroline swiped at a wayward tear. ‘Why take mine? Why keep him when you leave poor little Cal abandoned and alone?’ She wanted to hurt him as he was hurting her.

But his stoic expression revealed no change.

‘I will come back for Kelbie.’ The tightness in her chest made it difficult to breath.  He was right. Kelbie would be safe with him till she got everything together. Oh God, what was she to do?  ‘I would see him first ere I leave.’

‘Nay.’

‘You cannot mean to deny me of this too? I will not-‘

‘Aye, I do.’ His look was fierce as he shot to his feet again to glare down at her. ‘Try to see him and I shall tell him everything.’

Her eyes burned from the tears she held in check, her throat scalded from them and her pain. ‘Everything? That you think me a whore? A liar? I will not have him think I have abandoned him again!’

‘I will think of something.’

She leaned in, shaking from her fury and told him. ‘Beast of hell you are. I have done naught wrong. Casting me out will not change things, Darc.’

‘Aye, it will. I will no longer be reminded of what you have done.’ The vein next to his scar jumped and his gaze dropped to her belly.

Caroline’s head snapped back so hard, she nearly stumbled. Her heart breaking, she pressed a trembling hand to her belly. ‘I told you I was with child before your brother took me prisoner. You would have known that had we talked of what happened after he returned me here. I have never lain with another besides you.

‘You are willing to do whatever it takes to not face the truth of what truly eats at you. Fine! Stay the recluse, wallow in your malaise and keep yourself brooding for the rest of your life.  I must suffer for being the fool to believe my love could have ever penetrated that wall you have allowed to grow thicker between us.

‘When this child I carry is born, you shall never see it. Your brother lies dead and naught has changed in you. ’

 ‘Your aim to wound me has been a success. Seek your desires within your darkness. But know this,
I will return for my son and take him from you. And all else that which belongs to me.’
Her eyes fell on the ring. ‘I shall hate you forever for tearing me from his side. You Normans are all unfeeling beasts.’  Caroline choked on the last and saw him visibly wince at her words. ‘Twas too late now. She was too mad, too hurt to care about his feelings now and she turned from him before the torrent of tears shamed her even further and walked out.

Taking up a short lance left leaning against the curtained wall left by one of the bailey sentries, Caroline mounted the nearest horse by the group of soldiers in the yard. She managed to balance the sharpened weapon across her lap and pressed her heels to the horse urging it into a full gallop out of the ward as his men shouted behind her. Though the gatehouse guard and sentries nearby paid her no heed as she thundered past.  Aye, she had no true friends here, save Mildred and Laur. She knew the two women would see that Kelbie remained safe too.

With each heart breaking step, she hoped Darc would call her back but he did not. Caroline was across the drawbridge and almost to the trail near the wood when she heard his men shout not far behind her.  

She goaded her mount to go faster, the wind catching and slashing her hair across her face as she rode off blindly, her hot tears blinding her. But she did not care and kept going.

Darc swallowed the hard angry lump in his throat and watched Caroline long after she was gone. She rode like the wind on the horse she had taken from the guard. He watched the men below scramble and ride off quickly after her.

But he steeled himself to remain where he was. He would not go after her. He refused to.

The hurt etched across her beautiful face earlier burned into him. He should have gave in and pulled her into his arms and told her how sorry he truly was to cause her such vicious pain. She had pleaded with him to believe her, but the wall between them that she’d spoken of was too thick and he had not. She was right. Raven’s death had not rid him of the demons that plagued him nor the bad taste in his mouth over faithless bitches.

He had killed his brother, butchered him as he had lived. As he deserved.

He’d been wrong. He was more like Raven than he realized. Darc raged as he looked back once more to where she had disappeared into the forest. 

He tried to will his heart to remain hardened against what he’d done, but only pain and heaviness responded and the hole opened once more.

So be it. He could live with it. He would not yield.

How far could she really expect to get?

What did he care? They always lied. They always left.  Women. The feeling eating away at his gut belied his thoughts and he let out a feral cry that stunned those around him on the parapets and he turned and stormed back inside the castle. 

Like a raging bull he stomped all the way through back to his chambers. Time ceased as he paced like a caged animal and he picked up and threw the candle she had lit across the room. Let the room catch fire, he did not care. But he had thrown it so hard, it blew out.

When he finally dropped his large frame down into the chair in front of the hearth, his elbows on his wide spread legs, he dropped his head slowly into his hands and did what he had not done since that day Adelay had said she’d murdered their son.

He gave in.

The beast cried.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Caroline squinted in the darkening night to take in her surroundings. She was not sure how far she had ridden from Renald Castle or when she had lost her husband’s men.  She had given them the slip when she had hid behind a thicket of gnarled and heavily foliaged trees as they’d ridden past. Let Darc be furious when he discovered she had not gone off to Gest Manor. She would make her own way.

She crossed the back of towns, villages and kept close to the forest edge.

When the horse tired and slowed barely to a trot she dismounted on quaking legs and tethered him to a tree, where she crumbled at the base of a thick oak next to it to shed the rest of her sobs. She had never cried so much in her life and even now, as her eyes swelled, she was surprised she still could.

Damn his stubborn Norman and stupid arse!

Did she mean so little to him that he would cast her away without hesitation?  

Had she truly believed she could have breached that wall around his heart?

Aye, a part of her had.

What a fool she had been. To think the love she held for him would win out.

And she did love him.

Sharing her body with him had meant nothing to him.

He loved her son. Of that she was sure. But, her? Nay! He did not.

Carline sucked in a harsh breath. She needed her wits about her.

With an effort of sheer will she lifted her chin and rose to her feet. She straightened her backbone and took a steady step toward the horse. She ran her hands along its brown shiny coat and patted its thick neck. It was just the two of them now.