Page 395 of Historical Hotties
She looked away, down at her hands, and Sparrow could see that she was struggling with her tears.Poor Gigi,Sparrow thought.I wish there was something I could do for her.
“I will go and see if our morning meal is ready,” Sparrow said gently. “I will return shortly.”
Gisella merely nodded her head and Sparrow fled down the corridor, passing the broken windows and the broken doors, smashed by the Armagnacs as they ransacked the house. A few local carpenters had been hired to come and make repairs, but they had not yet arrived at this time in the morning.
Sparrow descended the staircase, catching sight of the big reception room on her right. She could see through the door, into the room where the card deck still sat on the card table and the Chess set was still on the big feasting table. Nothing had been moved, everything was as she and Braxton had left it. She wasn’t sure those things should ever be moved. The raiders from the other night had taken some valuable pieces from the reception room but they’d left the games untouched as a tribute to the lives they disrupted.
Sparrow came to the bottom of the steps, gazing into the reception room with some sadness. Shaking off the grief, she turned for the dining room with its door to the kitchen beyond when she heard horses out in the courtyard. Curious, she went to the entry door, opening it in time to see two big knights come to a halt in the courtyard. She saw the big white stallion and she didn’t have to look any further. She knew that Bastian had arrived.
Sparrow didn’t know why she felt like weeping at that moment, but she did. She stood in the doorway, rooted to thespot, as Bastian practically ran to the front door with another knight on his heels. He was without his helm, his long dark hair slicked with moisture, running with armor on his body dragging him down, indicative of his level of angst. She found herself looking into a very pale, very anxious face.
“Lady Sparrow,” he said with pale lips. “I have come. Where is my wife? Is she well?”
Sparrow nodded, feeling tears sting her eyes. “She is well,” she said. “You received our message?”
Bastian’s pale face grew even paler and he exhaled a massive sigh of relief, so loud and powerful that he ended up slumped against the doorjamb. After a moment, he wearily pulled off a glove and wiped a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes, struggling to regain his composure.
“I received a message that Braidwood was attacked,” he said. “I received word that my father was killed in the attack. But my wife is well?”
Sparrow nodded. “She is quite well,” she said, seeing the utter relief in the man’s face with the news that Gisella had not been injured in the assault. “She is with your father. She has sat with him since the night he died. She has hardly left him.”
Bastian stared at the woman, digesting her information. He was so incredibly brittle that it was difficult for him to control any emotion he may be feeling. All of it seemed to be bleeding out of his pores with no way to stop it. His eyes welled as he looked at Sparrow, exhaustion, relief, and gratitude finding its way to the surface.
“Where is she?” he asked hoarsely.
Sparrow pointed up the stairs. “In your father’s chamber.”
Bastian didn’t ask any more questions. He bolted up the stairs as fast as his weary legs would take him, making his way to his father’s chamber, feeling more emotion than he could possibly imagine. He wanted to take Gisella in his arms and hewanted to see his father. Nothing else seemed to matter to him at that moment. He jogged down the hall, singularly focused on his father’s chamber, unaware of the broken doors and destruction as he passed by. All he cared about, all he wanted to see, were his wife and his father. All else was a blur.
Reaching his father’s chamber, he rushed inside and was hit by the stench of death. He’d been around enough warfare to recognize the smell of the dead so he wasn’t bothered by it. The first thing he heard was his wife’s startled gasp at his appearance and his gaze fell upon her, sitting in a light blue dress next to his father’s bed. She was healthy and whole, if not a bit pale. But she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Then, his gaze moved to his father’s corpse on the bed, lying upon the mattress and covered with a fine blanket. He would have looked as if he were merely sleeping but for the greenish tint to his skin. Bastian stared at the man, the tears that had been welling in his eyes now spilling over. He couldn’t stop them. Weakly, he stumbled to the end of the bed, grasping the canopy pole for support.
“Father,” he breathed. “God, then it is true. He is really dead.”
Gisella watched her husband weep silently at the sight of his father. His tears brought her own and she struggled to quickly wipe them away. She was filled with sorrow at the sight of him. Sorrow for the passing of Braxton and sorrow for the lies Bastian had told her. She didn’t know what to think or how to feel, so she simply lowered her head. She found that she couldn’t look at him because she was fighting off her instinct to run to him.
Bastian came around the bed, sitting heavily on the mattress beside his father. He reached out, touching the man’s hands as tears of grief poured down his cheeks. His father was clearly dead, and had been for some time, his eyes sunken, and from the smell of the room it was obvious that he should be buriedimmediately. But Bastian squeezed Braxton’s hands, struggling not to openly weep.
“I knew that I was going to have to bury him someday,” he whispered tightly. “But I find that I am wholly unprepared for such a thing. I miss him already.”
Gisella was still looking at her lap, holding back sobs of grief and pain. Bastian reached out his free hand and grasped the small hands she had folded in her lap.
“What happened?” he asked her hoarsely. “We received word that Braidwood was assaulted and my father killed. Who killed him?”
The question hit Gisella wrong in so many ways.Who killed him?The question was ridiculous to her and her grief overwhelmed her common sense. She was a woman who was usually quite careful about what she said, but at this moment, her heart was being ripped apart and she had no way to stop it.Who killed him?
“Men overran Braidwood three nights ago,” she said, looking at his hands as they held hers. “They killed all four gatehouse guards and broke into the house. Your father heard the alarm and shoved Sparrow and I into a secret room in the dressing room. Did you know that room was there?”
Bastian was still looking at his father’s face, struggling to process her words. “Aye, I know about it,” he said. “He put you there to keep you safe.”
Gisella’s emotions were beginning to surge. “I realize that,” she said through clenched teeth. “He would not join us, however. He remained in this chamber and because the secret room has holes in it, we could see and hear everything, Bastian. Everything. Men were destroying and ransacking Braidwood all around us and as Sparrow and I watched, a man burst into your father’s room. Your father had his sword, prepared to protect himself, but the intruder didn’t engage him. He simply askedyour father if he was Bastian de Russe’s father. Your father confirmed that he was.”
Bastian tore his gaze off of his father’s face and looked at her with a mixture of great curiosity and great dread. “He mentioned me by name?” he asked. “Who was this intruder?”
Gisella still wouldn’t look at him. “I could hear what they were saying,” she told him. “The intruder told your father that he would not hurt him provided that he give him some information. It would seem that the men who broke into Braidwood were looking for a relic you took from the Maid of Orleans’ funeral pyre.”
Horror began to creep into Bastian’s expression no matter how hard he tried to keep it away. “He asked for information on a relic?” he clarified. “Those were his exact words?”
