Page 85 of Historical Hotties
But this was the last time it was going to happen.
He’d had enough of his daughter’s lies.
“No more, Amata,” he said. Then, he lashed out a foot and kicked open the chamber door, smacking Claudia in the arm because she had been eavesdropping. “You! Go home and tell your parents that everything you told them about Dacia of Doncaster is a lie. Do you hear me? If you do not, you shall never be welcome here again!”
Claudia whimpered and fled. Hugh didn’t bother watching her go. He was more interested in his hysterical daughter.
“And you,” he said, his voice filled with disgust. “You are coming with me.”
He began to drag her towards the stairs. She tried to dig her heels in, but it was to no avail. Hugh was stronger, and bigger, and easily pulled her along.
“Papa, please!” she cried, trying to hold on to the walls as he tugged. “Please do not put me in the vault!”
Hugh had her on the stairs. She didn’t want to go down, so she sat, and he ended up pulling her all the way down on her arse.
“I am not taking you to the vault,” he said. “I am taking you to St. George’s, where you will tell the priests what you have done. You are going to tell everyone in the village that you have lied against Dacia and that she has done nothing of which you have accused her.”
When Amata realized that, she began to weep loudly again, trying to kick her father to force him to release her.
“Nay, Papa, please!” she wept. “I cannot shame myself so!”
Hugh had to heave because she was showing surprising strength. “If you feel any shame at all, then you will know how Dacia feels,” Hugh said, catching a flailing foot. They had reached the bottom of the steps and instead of dragging her by the arm, he was pulling her by a leg, all the way across the wooden floor. “I have let your wickedness go on for too long, Amata. Your jealousies have ruined you, but you are going tostart making amends. I do not know if you can undo the damage you have caused but, by God, you are going to try. And then, I am going to take you to Edenthorpe where you will apologize to your cousin for what you have done.”
Amata was screaming, trying to hold on to furniture or walls, anything she could, to prevent her father from dragging her from the manse and taking her into town. But everything was slipping from her grasp.
Everything.
Hugh ended up dragging her across the bailey, all the way into the stables where he forced the stable servant to find a measure of rope. He used it to secure his daughter’s hands and feet so she wouldn’t run away, and then he put her over his horse and took her into town tied up like a hunting trophy.
Once they reached the village, he took her into St. George’s where he forced her to confess her lies to Father Lazarus and Father Alfrick, among others. He forced her to confess every little lie she’d ever told, and the big ones, too. It was the priests who forced her to confess those same lies to the worshippers who came to attend vespers. Amata was a sobbing, exhausted, dirty mess by then, but Hugh showed no mercy and neither did the priests.
She would reap what she sowed.
Father Lazarus, in particular, was especially angry.
God frowned upon the wicked, and Amata’s confessions had revealed that she was the most wicked of all. So in penitence, they left her sitting in the sanctuary, all night, so she could confess her sins to those who arrived at dawn for matins. Amata was forced to humiliate herself in front of the entire village, including Old Timeo and his family, and Hugh finally untied his daughter and dragged her exhausted carcass over to Edenthorpe to perform the last of her penitence for this most egregious sin.
There was someone else she needed to apologize to. After all of these years of her lies and malicious behavior, Amata was finally forced to confront what she’d done to a woman who had never hurt anyone in her life. But Hugh seriously wondered if the damage caused by his daughter this time could even be undone.
They were about to find out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Edenthorpe Castle
“Dacia?”
Darian had been knocking at her door for several minutes before finally being bold enough to open the door and stick his head in. The first person he saw was Edie, sitting near the hearth in the large chamber, sewing on a piece of yellow fabric. He didn’t see any of the other maids, who were usually bustling around the chamber.
But these days, nothing was usual.
Dacia herself wasn’t usual.
It had been a difficult and uncertain time, ever since the day that Dacia had returned from town with Cassius and locked herself up in her chamber. There had been a good deal of banging as Cassius had pounded at her door on that day, begging her to open it, but Dacia didn’t comply. It was the first time in her relationship with Cassius that she didn’t do what he wanted her to do.
He wanted her to open the door.
Darian was understandably curious as to what was going on. He’d asked Bose, who had told him to mind his own business,but Rhori had taken him aside and explained about the rumors and about the priests, everything Cassius had told him about the situation. At least, as much as he could while they had been riding like the wind as they had departed from Doncaster. Rhori didn’t know all of it, or why Dacia wouldn’t speak with Cassius, but something serious had happened between them.
