Warwolfe (de Wolfe Pack Book 0)(55)

Everyone was clearly in shock but they were working through it as their training kicked in. Moving the men off the road until the situation could be discussed was how some of them dealt with it while others, Téo and Luc and Denis, stood near Gaetan, waiting for a command to come forth. The hysterical messenger stood near Ghislaine and she pushed her revulsion aside long enough to pull the man away from Gaetan, pulling him back down the road towards his exhausted mount. When they reached the frothing horse, she grabbed the man by the collar.

“By all that his holy – what has happened?” she hissed. “How did my brother know I was following him? And how did you know to find me here?”

The young man had fluid leaking from every part of his face; mucus, tears, saliva. “Lady Gunnora sent me to find Lord Alary,” he told her. “She sent me last night. She said your brother had gone ahead of you and she wanted me to tell him to wait for you to catch up.”

That wasn’t what Ghislaine had expected to hear. Witchcraft or the devil’s own work had been on her mind, but not Gunnora’s intervention. Not her friend. When Ghislaine realized what the woman had done, her eyes widened dramatically.

“She did what?” she shrieked. “She told you to find my brother and tell him I was coming?”

The young man could see that the message he had carried from Gunnora had evidently not been welcome and, given what had happened this morning, he wasn’t surprised.

“Aye, my lady,” he said, now fearful of Ghislaine and her bulging eyes. “She said he should know. But Lord Alary… he was angry when I told him. He… he cut that poor man’s finger off.”

Hearing those words was like a blow to her gut, a sickening roll of nausea washing over her. “You were there?” she hissed. “You saw it?”

The young man nodded, wiping at his face. “Lord Alary… he was calm at first,” he sniffled. “He wanted to know why you were following him. He asked the man but the man did not know.”

“You mean he asked the knight why I was following him?”

“Aye, my lady. But the man could not tell him.”

“So he… he cut off his finger?”

The messenger nodded unsteadily. “The man fought against Lord Alary but in the end, he was subdued. Alary cut the finger himself.”

Ghislaine wanted to vomit. Little by little, the situation was becoming clear and she was aghast beyond words. Gunnora’s well-meaning gesture had ended up in a man losing part of a finger. She could hardly believe what she was hearing, now terrified for Gunnora when Gaetan found out what she’d done.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. She hadn’t told Gaetan yet about Alary having been at Westerham two nights past. They’d moved out of Westerham in the darkness of pre-dawn and she’d not even seen Gaetan until they began traveling on the road and the sun was rising. But the most tragic part of all was that she’d briefly forgotten about telling him because she’s been so swept up in the fact that Gaetan and his knights were warming to her, making her feel as if they were not entirely opposed to her presence, that Alary’s visit to Westerham had completely slipped her mind.

She’d been a fool.

“God in heaven,” she breathed. “What has she done? What has she –?”

“Lady Ghislaine!”

It was Gaetan. He saw her speaking with the rider and was making his way over towards her with Téo and Luc in tow. When Ghislaine turned to him, startled, she could see the fury and desperation in his eyes. Selfishly, she wasn’t only worried for Gunnora now; she was worried for herself, fearful of what these knights would now think of her. She had no idea how this situation could possibly be salvageable.

“My lord,” she said, feeling incredibly nervous as she spoke. “This messenger is not from Alary. He is from Westerham.”

Pale and slightly wild-eyed, Gaetan looked between Ghislaine and the messenger. “Westerham?” he repeated. “I do not understand.”

Ghislaine took a deep breath, praying that Gaetan wouldn’t strike her down where she stood when he found out what had happened. She had no choice but to tell him everything.

“Last night at the feast, Lady Gunnora told me that Alary had visited Westerham the previous night,” she said, watching his eyebrows lift in surprise. “I… I was going to tell you, as I knew you would want to know, but you… you seemed to be enjoying yourself so much during the meal that I did not want to ruin your mood. Jathan said that it was very rare when you were able to relax and we thought it best to tell you this morning. You could not do anything about the information last night even if I had told you. I thought….”

Gaetan didn’t let her finish. He was on her in a flash, looming over her, those bronze eyes flashing with rage.

“You sought to withhold this information from me?” he snarled. “By what right do you make a decision like that?”

“It was my fault, my lord.”

Jathan, who had been praying over the severed finger, had heard Gaetan’s rage and came to Ghislaine’s rescue. He quickly came alongside Ghislaine as he saw his lord was close to breathing fire upon her. He knew Gaetan’s moods and what he was seeing wasn’t good; the man had been known to strike out for lesser things. But something like this, something involving one of his men, could set him off to new levels of anger.