Dark Deceptions: A Regency and Medieval Collection of Dark Romances(114)

Chrystobel d’Einen knew that all too well. Her cheek was red as a result of a simple misspoken word to her volatile brother. She didn’t even know what it was. One moment they were speaking, the next moment he snapped. It had been thus for as long as she could recall. She spent a good deal of time avoiding the man and the pain he inflicted. It was one of the darker secrets they endured in the place the locals called the Nether World.

“What of Izlyn?” she whispered to her father. “I will not allow her to stay in the vault one moment longer. She has done nothing to warrant being caged in that awful place.”

“Shush,” Trevyn d’Einen put his fingers to his lips in a hushing motion. He didn’t want Gryffyn to hear their conversation. “She has done nothing except to have been mute all of these years. That is enough for your brother.”

Tears threatened Chrystobel but she fought them. “God damn him to….”

Trevyn shushed her again. “I will release your sister, have no fear. Your brother will be occupied with the English and his thoughts will not be on your little sister. I would suggest that you see to the meal and stay clear of your brother for the time being.”

Chrystobel nodded. “Aye, Father,” she murmured. Her gaze lingered on her brother a moment before returning her attention to her father and lowering her voice. “Perhaps you should also clear the hall.”

Trevyn shook his head, rubbing his jaw where his son had struck him. “In a moment,” he said with more bravery than he felt. “You will go and see to the meal.”

Something in Chrystobel’s gaze begged her father to leave with her, but the man refused to go. This was his hall, after all, and he would not be chased out by his bullying son. Chrystobel knew this. With a soft sigh of resignation, she turned back to her brother.

“Do you have any requests for supper, Gryffyn?” she asked politely.

Gryffyn had reclaimed the chalice so carelessly tossed aside and was in the process of pouring himself more wine. His mood shift was instantaneous, back to an almost pleasant countenance.

“If the parsnips are bitter you shall feel my wrath,” he said steadily. “Do we have honey?”

“Aye.”

“Then I would have honey cakes with walnuts.”

“As you wish.”

With a last glance at her father, Chrystobel quit the hall just as an unfamiliar soldier entered. She steered well away from the man, hardly giving him a glance as she quit the great hall and headed for the kitchens on the opposite side of the keep.

There was a storm brewing overhead and she glanced up as a few stray raindrops pelted her face. They felt cool and soothing on her red cheek which, she knew from experience, would not fade before the English arrived. Since she was well aware that she would be meeting her future husband upon that event, she silently cursed her brother for his beastly actions. She was always silently cursing him but that was as far as it went. Anything more and he might seriously hurt her. She could not take the chance.

So she struggled to move past the latest slap her brother had brought against her and focus on the meal. Now the English were coming and Nether Castle would be garrisoned for William Marshal. Gryffyn had been furious that his father had consigned their ancestral home to the English, but with the promise of richer English lands and coinage, Gryffyn’s anger had soothed. Still, he wasn’t entirely happy about the English at Nether Castle. His mood swings had been worse since his father had struck the deal. Chrystobel felt some resentment that Gryffyn was so incensed about the deal when she had every right to be the incensed party in the proposal. She was the one, after all, who had been made part of the bargain.

The thunder rolled overhead and a few more drops pelted her face. Chrystobel crossed through the smaller inner wall that sectioned off the kitchen yard from the rest of the castle. She could see the kitchen straight ahead, a structure with a roof and three walls. One entire side of it was open to the elements, but it was a cozy and functional place nonetheless. As she approached, the slender cook with only one good eye informed her that the meal was well underway. A sheep was being turned on a big spit, fat from the carcass dripping into the open flame and creating bursts of flame. Chrystobel spoke to the one-eyed cook long enough to inform the woman that Gryffyn had requested honey cakes with walnuts. The woman listened but seemed more interested in inspecting Chrystobel’s red cheek.

It wasn’t bad enough that her brother struck her but that the servants, long-time pledges of the d’Einen household, could not be discreet about the marks she bore. Most of them had known Chrystobel since she had been born. They had watched the little bully Gryffyn grow into the bigger, stronger bully who seemed to take delight in taking his frustrations out on his sisters. The eldest, Chrystobel, was a glorious goddess of beauty while the younger girl, Izlyn, was a mute; sweet, silent, lovely little Izlyn. They were all extremely protective of the girls and they had all paid the price at one time or another. Gryffyn viewed it as interference in his world and he would not tolerate it from anyone, not even their father. Trevyn was the recipient of his son’s wrath as well.

Chrystobel left the fretting cook, not wanting to get sucked up into the woman’s emotional turmoil. Her first impulse was to leave the kitchen yard and go back to the hall to make sure the room was prepared for the English, but she remembered that her brother was there the last time she saw him and she did not want to run into the man again. She couldn’t take another welted cheek. The postern gate was to her left, tucked into the wall of the kitchen yard, and she made way for it immediately.