Devil's Dominion (33 page)

“By what right do you believe you can dictate what I feel or how I live my life?” he wanted to know. “You presume too much, lady.”

She looked at him, then. “This is a conversation we have over and over,” she said. “I grow weary of discussing the same subject, your hatred of my father and me trying to talk you out of such a thing. You have my offer. It is your choice to take it or not.”

He thought on that. “I have decided to take it,” he said. “I will take you and your castle and your dowry. But my vengeance against your father is my own.”

She returned her attention to her toes. “Then you will have a wife who hates you,” she said simply. “I hope you can live with that.”

Bretton could see that she meant every word. That was not what he wanted. He wanted a wife who was pleasant to talk to, someone to keep his house, bear his children, and someone he could even grow fond of. He realized, as he looked at her, that he was already fond of her. God help him, he was. The feeling both frightened and uplifted him. But to know that she would hate him if he carried out his revenge against her father… he wasn’t sure he wanted to live with that. He was fairly certain he couldn’t. He cleared his throat softly.

“When I came to Alberbury to find you, it was with one goal in mind,” he said gently. “I wanted to capture the daughter of my mortal enemy and use her as bait to lure her father to me. I kept her in the vault for the first three weeks of our association before a comrade pointed out that a living prisoner was of more use to me than a dead one. That is the only reason I permitted you to be released from the vault, you know. Had you remained there, you were going to die.”

Allaston kept fussing with her toes and Bretton, not receiving a reaction, continued. “I tried to stay away from you in the beginning because the very name of de Velt was like acid upon my tongue,” he said. “Every time I looked at you, I saw your father. But I eventually realized that you were
not
your father. You have traits I have not seen in a very long time. You have compassion and understanding, and the comprehension of those traits are buried deep in my memory. My mother and father had them, but thinking of them brings me back to that five year old boy who had his parents brutally torn away from him. Seeing you, coming to understand you as I have, takes me back to the time in my life when I was the happiest. I am not sure I want to go back there, knowing how badly it can end.”

Allaston was looking at him by the time he was finished, surprised by his admission. She thought seriously on her reply because she didn’t want him to think she was mocking him, or worse, taunting his show of emotion.

“What you say is very deep and thoughtful,” she said, eyeing him a moment before grunting with both confusion and hesitation, as if she were at her wit’s end. “You have moments, like now, where I can see a man of feeling, but then you have moments when I truly believe you are a barbaric beast. You are a paradox, de Llion. I do not believe you are this ruthless mercenary because you want to be. I think you became him because you have had no choice. That soft, tender boy is still in there, somewhere, and he wants to become a man who shares in the same happiness as the boy did. You must not be afraid to love or feel emotion. You had it once and you can have it again.”

He shook his head, hanging it. “I do not know how,” he said quietly. “I am not sure I can let go of what I have become.”

“I will help you if you will let me.”

He looked up at her, feeling an ache in his heart that he couldn’t begin to describe as his eyes locked with hers. The ache spread out from his chest, into his limbs. He very much wanted her to help him but he truly didn’t know where to begin. The only love or affection he had ever received had been long ago, or post-de Velt, if he had paid for it. Was it really possible that affection, even love, would cost him nothing if it was with the right woman?

“Do you…,” he began, swallowed, then started again. “Do you think… that is, as my wife, that you could feel something for me? Mayhap even become fond of me?”

Allaston had the same aching feeling he did, something that made her limbs tingle and her heart flutter. The way he was looking at her made her feel so warm and liquid inside. She’d never known such feeling until she had met him and now, as she came to know him better, the feelings only grew strong. Strange, wonderful, alien feelings. But she was deeply torn.

“You are a killer,” she said softly. “You have killed so many. You want to kill my father. But I think you are correct when you said you had no choice in what you have become. You had to become this killer, this mercenary, in order to survive. I could not have feelings for the killer. But I could have feelings for the man beneath. I think I already do. And I want to help him.”

Her unexpected response hit him like a hammer, so much so that he actually emitted what sounded like a strangled gasp. He could hardly believe what he was hearing but, in the same breath, it was empowering. All of his thoughts and feelings started to come out whether or not he wanted them to.

“Already, I know I cannot be without you,” he said. “You have grown on me but I cannot describe what I feel more than that. All I know is that I want you with me, for always, and if you were to hate me, I could not abide it. But my hatred against your father… it has made me what I am.”

“It also brought me to you,” Allaston reminded him quietly. “How can you hate my father when he has given you someone you have feelings for?”

Bretton shook his head, baffled and bewildered. Then, he came off the stool, slowly, crawling the few feet to the tub and sitting next to it. Allaston unwound herself from her protective ball and leaned against the side of the tub, next to him, her head very close to his. He was looking at his lap and she was looking at him.

“I do not know,” he whispered. “I find myself in a great quandary. I have plans and aspirations, plans that have been set for twenty-five years. Now, suddenly, I find myself uncertain about those plans. I do not want you to hate me, but I swore vengeance against Jax de Velt and I must see that through.”

The mercenary, the killer, the warlord was fighting against something stronger than all of the armies and all of the hatred in the world. He was fighting against love, something that was creeping into his heart. He was so very afraid of it and so very confused. Allaston could see that confusion in everything about him. Sympathetically, she impulsively leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek.

“Mayhap that vengeance could take the form of something else,” she whispered. “You do not have to kill a man in order to seek vengeance.”

He felt the kiss lingering on his cheek as if she was still touching him. It was warm and wonderful. He looked up at her. “How could I possibly accomplish that?”

Allaston’s green eyes twinkled. “By marrying his daughter who was meant for the cloister.”

He looked at her a moment before breaking down in a weak grin. “I am already going to do that,” he said. “That will not be any of measure of vengeance against him.”

“Untrue. He will consider it a great insult against him.”

Bretton chuckled again and shook his head. “Mayhap, but not enough of an insult.”

She looked stricken. “It is not enough to marry me?”

He lifted his eyes, looking at her. “It will be everything, I think,” he said, resignation in his tone. “But my vengeance against your father….”

Allaston could see that he was weakening his stance slightly and she leapt on the opportunity to expand the gap. “Mayhap if he gives you more properties, that will help ease your sense of conquest and vengeance against him,” she suggested helpfully. “And… and if he were to apologize, Bretton… would you accept? I told you that the man he is now is much different from the man he was those years ago. The man he is now, the man I know, would feel badly for depriving a young boy of his parents. I am sure he would feel badly to know how you have suffered since then. Won’t you at least consider these things as an alternative to such vengeance?”

He was looking at her seriously. “You truly believe that an apology will right all wrongs?” he asked. “I will not consider it. I cannot.”

“Then what will right the wrongs?”

“His death.”

“Then what happens after you kill him?” she asked. “We have had this conversation before, too. Will it instantly make you a happy man? Will it cause your father to rise from the dead? It will do neither of those things. But something will result from it, I assure you – my hatred of you. If you are willing to risk that, then there is nothing more I can say.”

He just sat there, looking at her. He was torn and indecisive.
Damn her!
She had made him that way. She was tearing away at his resolve. For lack of a response that she hadn’t heard before, because he too was growing weary of their circular conversations, he reached over to the table against the wall and grasped a folded linen rag that was on top of it. Dipping it in the warm, scented water, he wiped it over his face. Perhaps cleaning up would make him think more clearly as his clear-cut vengeance against Jax de Velt was growing less clear-cut by the minute and it was all Allaston’s fault. She made him think about something other than revenge. She made him think about her.

Allaston sensed his conflict and she was glad, glad that she was causing him to reconsider killing her father. She could only pray that she could sway him enough. Too many times had they argued about this, fought even, but this was the first time she started seeing any progress. He was weakening. As she watched him wash his face, lost in thought, she patted him on the shoulder to gain his attention.

“Will you please hand me that drying linen over on the table?” she asked, pointing to it as he turned around to see what she meant. “I would be grateful.”

Silently, his mind wracked with confusion from their conversation, Bretton reached over to grab the linen, but the moment he did so, the door to the room opened and the innkeeper’s wife entered, shutting the door swiftly behind her. She nearly tripped over Bretton, sitting on the floor.

“God’s Bones!” she cried, catching herself from falling. “Forgive me, my lord. I didn’t see ye!”

Bretton waved the woman off as he rose to his feet. He noticed she had something in her hands. “What is that?”

The old woman held up some kind of garment made from unbleached linen. “A robe for my lady,” she said, pointing to Allaston, still in the bath. “I will take her clothes with me and clean them. I will leave them outside yer door so she will have something clean to wear come morning.”

Bretton took the robe from the woman, handing her Allaston’s dark blue dress and shift in exchange. “Make sure her clothes are ready before dawn,” he told the woman. “We are leaving before sunrise.”

The old woman took the garments. “Will ye be wanting a meal?”

Bretton nodded. “We will eat it on the road.”

The old woman departed, shutting the door behind her. When she was gone, Bretton held up the robe to Allaston, but she shook her head at him.

“The drying linen first,” she said. “I will put the robe on after I dry my skin.”

He silently set the robe down and picked up the drying linen, handing it to her. Allaston reached out to snatch it from her position sitting inside the tub.

“Turn around,” she said. “I will not dry myself with an audience.”

He just shook his head at her as if baffled by her stance. “Must we go through this again?” he said. “I have seen many naked women in my time. Unless you have a third teat or something out of place on your body, nothing you can show me is any different from what I have seen before.”

Allaston tried not to laugh at him because he sounded genuinely perplexed. “Turn around.”

He sighed with exasperation. “Why?” he demanded. “I will marry you soon. Let me see what I will be getting.”

She scowled. “You cheeky devil,” she said. “Turn
around
.”

Fighting off a grin, he did. He pretended to be quite put out by it because that was the tone of the conversation. They were actually laughing at one another, a rare and unexpected occurrence. He could hear the water sloshing behind him as she got out of the tub. The linen was still in his hand and she grabbed for it, but he held it fast.

“God’s Blood,” he hissed. “Is there something you do not want me to see?”

Wet and naked behind him, Allaston tugged on the linen. “Give it to
me.
”

He wouldn’t let go, his back to her. It was rather fun taunting her and he had so little opportunity to taunt anyone. It was rare, rarer still with genuine humor involved. He was actually enjoying himself.

“You are hiding something, aren’t you?” he asked, suspicious. “What is it? Do you really have a third teat? Or mayhap a fourth? Do you really look like a nursing dog, with rows of breasts down your torso, and you just do not want to show me?”

Allaston started giggling as she yanked at the linen, finally getting it away from him. Snatching the robe, she scurried behind the screen that had been partially blocking the tub. Once behind it, she began to quickly dry herself.

“You should know what I look like because you stole a glimpse of it,” she said, reminding him of two days ago when he had tried to take advantage of her. “You do not need to see it again until it rightfully belongs to you.”

He bit his lip to keep from smiling, crossing his big arms across his chest. “You clearly do not understand the concept of being a prisoner,” he snorted. “You are one of two things to me - either my captive or my wife. In either case, you belong to me and I can look at you any time I please.”