Unbidden (The Evolution Series) (42 page)

Ingrid returned with a steaming bowl of stew and a mug of warm spiced wine.

“Thank you, Ingrid,” Rochelle said. “You have been most kind.”

“Ah, yes, Ingrid,” Drogo sneered.
Ingrid flinched. “This foolish servant did not even tell us you had gone. She carried breakfast to your room, followed a few hours later by lunch. She even knocked and pretended to wait for your permission to enter. How much did you pay her to keep your secret?”

“Ingrid knew nothing of my plan,” Rochelle answered evenly
. “Though I will indeed reward her silence now that I know of it.”

Ingrid dashed away, glancing worriedly at Drogo over her shoulder.

David spoke, “You discovered my wife was missing when you went to fetch her for dinner?”

“I did.”

“She tells me you asked her to serve at your table.”  David said.

“Yes.”

“Were you planning to let them rape her here, where you eat?”  he asked personably.

“Now see here,” Drogo said, beginning to rise.

David shoved the enormous table toward him, pinning him in his chair. “Answer me!” he shouted. Rochelle watched her husband carefully, wondering if this was the moment she would see him come unwound.

Drogo curled his hands around the edge of the table, letting his fingers drum on it
. “It would not have come to that, son,” he cajoled. “I wanted to frighten her a little. Teach her some lessons. That is what you sent her here for, was it not?”

“I did not send her here at all,” David said harshly
. “Tell me, exactly how were you planning to stop a dozen men from doing as they pleased once you finished dangling her in front of them?”

“They do as I say.”

“Their absence indicates otherwise. Those men have no loyalty to you. They drink your ale and rut with your serving women. Take those two things away and you would have been sitting here alone long before now.”

Drogo smiled nonchalantly
. “So? You cleared my hall with a mean look. You have proven you are stronger than your papa. I suppose you can kill a man at will, as I used to do. Should I be impressed?”

“I do not know
. When was the last time you killed someone?”

The smile faded from Drogo’s face
. “A long time ago.”

David rose and leaned forward with his hands braced on the table
. “Yes, I think I was about three years old, which is why I do not remember her. How did it feel to beat your own wife to death?”

“I did not beat her to death,” Drogo protested, the first hint of emotion touching his voice.

“Pardon me. You damaged her until she bled to death, dying with your unborn child still inside her.”

Drogo tried to rise again.
David gave the table another shove.

The older man leaned back with a sigh
. “What are you going to do?  Avenge her?”

David sat back down to rest his elbows on the table
. “I have not decided.”

“Do you think it will take you long?  To decide, I mean?”

David shrugged. “You seem to have nothing but time.”

“That is true.”  They sat for a few minutes
. The silence would have seemed congenial to anyone who happened into the room. A man and his son, seated at the family table for a friendly conversation, except for the blade coated in drying blood. David fingered the pommel, itching to use it again.

“You are very much like your mother,” Drogo offered
. “The brown eyes. The deep thinking. I used to wonder what she thought about all the time.”

“H
ow to protect her children, perhaps,” David said sharply. “And herself.”

“Yes, she did coddle you boys.”

“Apparently not enough, considering you crippled one of us.”

Drogo nodded in apparent
agreement. “Doeg’s arm. That was a mistake.”

“You ruined his childhood and you are doing your damnedest to ruin his adulthood.”

Drogo laughed harshly. “If he ever becomes a man, I might be able to ruin his adulthood.”

“As of yesterday, I think he is on his way.”

“Indeed he might be if he finally found the balls to tell someone about his precious arm and his mother.”

David curled his lip at his father’s nonchalance
. “Let him have Calx, Father. You obviously do not want it.”

“If you kill me, then he will inherit it.”

David studied him for a moment. “Rochelle,” he said quietly. She startled. She’d again been mesmerized by the quiet tones of their conversation, in such stark contrast to the horrific topics they covered. She looked to her husband now, mystified by what he could possibly want from her. “What say you?  Does he deserve to die?”

Drogo laughed harshly
. “You defer to your wife?”

“My wife is a wise advisor
. She has never led me astray, although there have been times I have not heeded her words, or been too proud to ask for her help. We have both paid for that. She recognized, for example, what Doeg has become, almost from the first day she met him. Am I right, sweetling?”

Drogo groaned
. “Just kill me now if I am going to have to listen to a son of mine use love words on his wife.”

Rochelle could not suppress a smirk
. Her father-in-law was disturbed, unkind, even evil, but his wit was sharp.

David asked again,  “My beautiful, precious, darling love, what do you think I should do about my father?”

Rochelle studied her husband. The rage was still there, carefully contained. He wanted to lash out at something. Clearly, the execution of his own father was not a valid choice. He would trade a lifetime of guilt, for what gain?  She moved her gaze to Drogo who, while trying to look complacent, still had an air of eagerness about him. He watched David with paternal pride, enjoying the potential violence even if he might soon be the target of it. He craved brutality like most people craved the spring sun after a frozen winter. His season of savagery had ended with the maiming of his son and murder of his wife, yet he yearned to be awash in cruelty.

She took a deep breath
, unwilling to feed his desire any more than she would guide her husband to patricide. “I would not have you kill your sire because of my treatment here, though perhaps he deserves to die for his past sins.”  Drogo’s fingers tightened on the edge of the table as Rochelle continued. “In any case, I do not think it is your place to perform this service to your family. It is Doeg’s.”

David nodded
. “Do you see how wise she is, Father?  How she reasons through things?”

Drogo shrugged
. “It has been most refreshing. Now that you have wasted an hour of my life to decide that absolutely nothing will change, may I go to bed?”  Drogo said, unimpressed with his reprieve. “Or are you going to keep that table shoved into my chest all night?”

“Things
are
going to change, Father. Until Doeg claims his inheritance and takes responsibility for this pile of rubbish, I will send visitors here. Often. I do not care if they find you sitting in this chair wearing the same tunic from now until eternity, but I had better receive reports of crops being planted and fat happy peasants.”

Drogo rolled his eyes
. “I have an overseer to tend to all that.”

David glanced around the room
. “Really?  Where?  Was he one of those miscreants I ran off?”

“He was ill
. He went to Regensburg for medicine a few days ago.”

Rochelle shared a look of doubt with David
. “Yes, I am sure he went for medicine,” David said sarcastically. “It does not matter. You are still responsible to manage your estate.”

“Or else?”

“Or I will come back here with my wife who will show you
and
your overseer how to run your miserable estate from the chair at
this
end of the table. You will give Atrum Calx the attention it deserves, if you do not want a noblewoman in your hall doing your damned job.”

The aged blue eyes glittered to life
. “You have no rights here. Not you or your peerless spouse.”

“I may have no rights, old man, but I have a responsibility to protect Doeg’s interests until he gets his head out of his arse and you get out of the way.”

Drogo slammed his hand down on the table in frustration. “I will not stand for it,” he shouted.

David shoved the table again
. Hard. Drogo actually coughed. “You are right. You will sit for it, just like you have been sitting for God knows how many years. You will resume proper management of your estate or my wife and I will. I do not care if you agree. You owe Doeg at least that much, so that is how it is going to be!”

They stared down the table at one another, young against old, righteous against wrongdoer, son against father.

“I am going to bed,” Drogo finally said, shifting his chair back.

“It is barely dusk.”

“I am an old man. I get tired.”  He rose to totter stiffly to the narrow steps, climbing to the lonely middle door that he closed behind him.

Rochelle picked up the mug of wine, now cold. She took a deep drink, not surprised to feel the rim rattle against her teeth. “That was the strangest conversation I have ever witnessed,” she declared when the wine began to warm her stomach

“It is probably the strangest one I have ever had.”  David looked at his blade, unsatisfied, then peered around the hall
. “I hate this house. I have never been comfortable here. But we have no choice but to stay at least tonight.”

“I do not mind, as long as you are with me,” she said with a soft smile
. “What was it like, when you first came here?”

He moved to stir the fire into life
. “The estate was respectable, though looking back I now see that neither Father nor Doeg gave it any attention. Father welcomed me. He seemed genuinely happy at my homecoming. Doeg was more reserved. We became friends during the summers when Father was not an influence.”  He laughed bitterly. “Or at least, I thought we had become friends.”

Rochelle rose to hug him. “I am so sorry,” she whispered
. He wrapped his arms tightly around her. She rubbed his broad back for a moment, then pulled away to take his hand. “Come.”  She led him to the shabby pallet in the little storeroom. She tempted and pushed him in ways she had not imagined before. He trembled against her, then broke, letting the inaction he had accepted where his father and brother were concerned become action within her body. She reveled as he lost control and pulled her hands over her head.

He shouted as he spent, freeing her hands so he could grip her shoulder, pressing her body firmly down as he ground his hips against hers, releasing his seed with small urgent plunges.

He slumped on her, his face nestled against her neck, his panting breaths hot on her skin.

She rubbed her hands down his back, knowing he would need reassurance when he came back to himself
. “I love you,” she whispered.

He rolled off her, flinging his arm over his eyes
. “Fire and smoke, Rochelle.” 

“You have been holding out on me,” she said teasingly.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, worry clouding his voice. He had never lost control like that before.

“I am not made of glass,” she chided as she straddled him
. “But no, you did not hurt me. You pleased me a great deal.”

“Men are told that wives prefer gentle treatment,” David said, and she loved him for the cautious tone in his voice.

“This wife prefers to know exactly how you are feeling, and not only in bed.”

“Men do not have feelings,” he said imperiously, but his lips curved in a half smile.

She pulled his arm from his face. “You hold too much in, my lord husband. You may show the world your façade, but it is not enough for me.”

His brow furrowed
. “I do not know what you want,” he whispered.

“I want you to get rid of your infernal calm when we are alone together
. I do not want to be protected from the anger or hurt you feel. Tell me what is going on in this head of yours.” Her fingers pushed some hair off his forehead to gently trace his scar, waiting patiently for words he struggled to form.

“I am mostly angry with myself
. How many times did you spell out the truth for me?  I would not listen to you. If I’d believed you or Theo, I cannot even begin to say how different things could have been.
You
were endangered several times because of
my
blind allegiance and my brother’s continuing agitations. I could have lost you, you could have lost Alda, or ended up married to one of those barbarians. And to think, Doeg kept questioning
your
loyalty while stabbing me in the back. I completely failed you by believing in him.”

“You did not fail me,” she said sternly
. “You met each challenge, even those I put in your path.”