Page 85 of Her Dark Seduction
He dismounted and pulled me down beside him.
“Join us for dinner, my dear.” He planted a kiss on my forehead.
De Tourrard handed me to Papa’s man who led me through the courtyard. A thick post stood in the center, still charred from the day Maman was taken from me. I had returned to my home, the place where I had experienced such joy as a child when she was alive. But I was no longer that child. The experiences of the past year had shed the cloak of childhood and removed the blindfold to reveal the true nature of the world around me.
He led me to my old bedchamber and locked me inside.
I wanted to escape, but where would I go? De Tourrard would hunt me down. Not even the walls of the convent would keep him out. A traitor to the king, he hungered for power and would stop at nothing to seize it. But the king would not give me sanctuary: by association I would be branded a traitor also.
“Oh, Vane—Geoffrey!”
Sinking onto the bed, I let the tears flow while my body shook with grief. I had given up my son with no certainty he was alive; the man I loved had been murdered, his body desecrated by the monster to whom I now belonged. Vane had been found with a whore—proof, if I even needed it, of his indifference toward me. Yet still I loved him. Tarvin gave me written words of love, but Vane had given me life. He’d delivered me from Mortlock, shown me a respectable, honest life. Most of all, he had given me Geoffrey.
But now, everyone I loved had gone. It would be better to join them in death than to live a life with de Tourrard.
He could not watch me forever. Eventually he would drop his guard. I knew enough of herbs and plants to brew a poison that would deliver me. The battlements were high enough for my body to be crushed beyond recognition from a fall. All I had left was my life. De Tourrard would not take that from me. My life was mine to end when I chose.
I was ready to die.
