Authors: Diane Davis White
His mouth turned down in an unconscious pout as he saw himself wronged in this matter, most sorely.
"Don't you pout, lad. 'Tis not a manly thing to do and will not show a good image to the boy, should he see his sire doing the very thing you dislike him to do."
"I do not pout." David lifted himself from his slouch, indignant in his words and posture.
"Aye, and that lip slung under, likely to drag the ground, is just a smile, then?" He grinned at David and reached out a hammy fist, punching him lightly in the shoulder, rocking the younger man with his strength.
His words rocked David as well, for he quickly drew his mouth into a grin, the pout disappearing as his even white teeth flashed between his lips.
"Very well then, old grandfather, I shall make arrangements today. Give me the direction and a letter for your cousin by way of introduction. We will leave tomorrow."
Gillian, like all the Strongbow clan, could read and write and cipher as well as any peer, for the noble blood in their veins had been nourished by the various men who had sired them, and they were a cut above others of their class in this matter.
He put down his knife and the doll and went into the house to find his ink and quill and a bit of paper to write upon. David did not follow him, for his mother was inside and he was not in the mood for a scold from her.
She had delivered a scathing set down the last visit, for she was fierce in her protection of his wife and he had come up on her wrong side, something that had never happened before. Something he hoped would not happen again, for he dearly loved his mother.
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* * * * *
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Hannah sat at the dinner table, her amber eyes fixed on her plate, her mouth a rebellious line of anger. The despairing silence in the room was palpable and thick with strife.
David sipped his tea, peering at her over the rim. He had said what he had to say and waited for her rebuttal, sure it would come soon in a spate of anger. He waited her out, staring at her and willing her to look at him.
He knew Hannah well, and she would not be able to keep her eyes away, for she had not the stubbornness in her nature to continue in this manner much longer.
Carlton had not joined them for this meal, as David had explained to him earlier what would happen and what his plans were, warning the fellow that dinner would most likely be an unpleasant experience, David's way of politely requesting his absence. Carlton had gone instead to share his meal with the boy and his tutor.
Hannah was thinking over what her husband had just told her. He'd delivered an ultimatum in an autocratic manner that reminded her of the old Marquis, which did not sit well. His plan to take her son away on an extended visit to some distant cousin in Salisbury, leaving her behind as though she were unworthy, or worse yet, a danger to the child, was unconscionable.
A cousin who lived, most probably, in some dirty, foul, little hovel near a pile of rocks called Stonehenge was not her idea of a place to take the child.
She understood not his reasoning, for if he wanted to spend time with his son, he could do so just as well right here. She strove to keep her eyes on her plate, vowing not to speak to him or show him her displeasure in any way but with her silence.
The anger and hurt aching in her breast would not be stilled, however, and she finally looked up, and her eyes went not to him, but to the window, where she fixed her gaze as she railed at him in a dissonant voice.
"You would take him from me? You think me an unfit mother then? How could you say so? I have loved my child well. If he is a bit spoiled, is it not a matter that cannot be remedied here, in his home?"
As she warmed to her subject, her righteous indignation grew apace with her anger. Her next words startled them both, for Hannah was not normally a vindictive or cruel woman, yet she had been pushed far by the circumstances of their ongoing argument over the raising of the boy.
She was hurt beyond measure that David would not allow her to give council in this most important matter.
"If you do this thing, I shall leave you. If I cannot have him, I will not sit here and see him driven into being a... mere peasant, molded so by your hand. You seek to make a peer of the realm into a common, ignorant groveling fool who knows not his worth."
"You have coddled Clay and allowed him unspeakable behavior, excusing it as childish pranks," David replied, his voice deceptively soft, for anger pushed at the edges of his mind. "You come to me begging that the boy be disciplined, but when I do so, you say that I don't love him. That I am unfair. "
Hannah stared at David, her anger growing apace with the headache pounding in her left temple. The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. "You, David Strongbow, are man who knows not his place in the scheme of things."
Hannah regretted the words but could not call them back. She put a hand to her head, the pain throbbing there repeating itself in the area of her heart, and she trembled with the horror of her speech.
Casting her eyes to the her plate, she sat quivering, waiting for his outburst, but it did not come. Still, she could not look at him.
The silence that followed was loud with unspoken pain. David, his heart folding within his chest, the sting of tears in his eyes, dared not look at her. Her words had done more than cut him, they had cleaved him in half. He floundered like a fish on the shore, his breath coming with difficulty, as he struggled to rise from his chair.
A glass fell at his hand as he used the table to bear his weight, for his legs were weak with the stunning blow she'd delivered.
After long moments of silence, during which only his harsh breathing could be heard, David went quietly from the room, not looking at the woman who had just killed him.
For though he breathed, he did not live. His heart was dead inside him and his spirit was done as well. Knowing he had no choice, however, he determined to follow through with his plan.
Hannah sat there, her heart as broken and dead inside her as was David's. How then had they come to this pass? They had loved so well and so truly, and she had considered him tender and caring.
She had thought this of herself as well, but she could see it was not true of either of them. For when the troubles came, they had both pulled hard away from that love, and there was no turning back.
Her words still echoed in the silence, and she wanted to call him to her, throw herself at his feet and beg forgiveness. She could not do so, however, for a part of her that knew it would only worsen her situation. Hannah, unloved and unneeded in her own eyes, was shattered.
Hannah, certain he would not accept an apology from her now, had not the energy to wipe away the single tear that ran down her face. She had seen his eyes and knew him implacable in this matter... and bitterly hurt at her outburst. She lifted her head at the sound of Challenger's scream of freedom.
Rising, she went to the window and watched David as he rode away on the stallion, black hair flying in the breeze, his powerful body one with the animal as he galloped hard away from the manor.
So in pain and anguish that she could not even cry, Hannah called for the small carriage and took herself off to see Mary Strongbow, for the woman would surely give her council and comfort.
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* * * * *
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Gillian Strongbow heard the familiar sound of Hannah's carriage and looked through the shop door, watching her alight, her face unreadable in the shadow of her bonnet. She held herself in such a rigid manner, however, he was certain of something amiss. Her roiling emotions fairly staggered him, as he sensed her spirit warring within her and the troubled vibrations of it came to him across the yard.
"Here Lad, watch the fire close, for I must leave a moment. Have a care now with that shoe, it will not bend properly if you heat it too little, and too long in the fire will weaken and shatter it."
Having given his absentminded instruction to the apprentice, who was accustomed to the old man's vagaries, Gillian went through the back door of his shop and slipped along the side of the house.
Stopping just under the window of the small parlor, open to let in the breeze, he leaned upon the wall and fixed his eyes on the road, as though casually awaiting a visitor, but his ears were fixed on the room above him.
He listened, as was his wont, when he needed to know what was afoot. Though shameless in his snooping, the old man knew the information he gleaned would possibly aid his loved ones, as it had done many times before.
Sometimes it took more than second sight to glean the answer to a problem and Gillian was adept at all manner of getting answers. That he was also a nosey old man did not occur to him at all.
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* * * * *
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Mary took Hannah by the arm and led the pale young woman to a seat by the empty grate, the day being too warm for a fire. Wordlessly, she went about preparing one of her herbal teas, to soothe the obviously agitated Hannah.
In the few minutes it took to prepare a small repast of fresh baked bread and jam and seat herself nearby, the only sound in the room was the ticking of an ancient clock on the fire mantle and Hannah's soft sobbing.
"Here you, dry your tears and drink this. Tears are cleansing, it is true, but too many will only bring on a headache and will not cure what ails you." Mary spoke gently but her voice also held a hint of sternness, for she needed to bring the girl back from her pain long enough to tell what was amiss... this time.
Hannah sipped, choked, and sipped again more slowly, and as she finished the brew—which held more than tea, including a wee drop of laudanum—she began to relax a bit, but could not smile. Her amber eyes were drenched with pain and shame. Mary learned soon enough why the shame lingered there.
"Mary I have done a most terrible thing." Hannah gulped back a sob and visibly controlled herself, then went on in a quivering voice, "I have said hurtful, horrible things to him I cannot take back. He will never forgive me, I am sure. I have said in so many words that he is unfit to raise a peer of the realm and I have told him..." She fell silent, unable to go on.
"What else then, have you told him?" Mary prodded—careful to keep her voice neutral—for though upset with her son, she could not like what the girl had said to him and her protective motherly instincts came to the fore. She pushed them back with a will and reminded herself this woman was the mother of her grandchild, and had no one else to turn to.
"I have told him that I will leave him. That he is not really a Marquis and that he is no longer my husband." She finished on a dry whisper, and looked toward the window where a small wren had perched for a moment, then flown a way, disappearing into the leaves of a nearby tree. Normally, Hannah loved to watch a bird in flight, but held hard to the ground by her anguish, she took no pleasure in the graceful soaring wings.
"Well, then, you can surely tell him you have changed your mind, if you wish to." Mary, unsure what had brought this argument on, waited for the girl to get to the meat of the matter. Until she did, Mary had no hope of advising her. "When his anger has cooled, you can go to him... "
"No. He will leave in the morning and take Clay away. He has said so." She looked her misery at the other woman, whose maternal breast understood all too well what Hannah was feeling at that moment.
"Take him where?" Mary knew well the answer, but she wanted to hear the girl say her piece, and find out what her objections were. It had sounded a good idea when she'd heard it from her father. The boy needed discipline, but he need a change as well, for he still clung to the old Marquis and his loyalty lay with the dead man, instead of with his father, where it belonged.
"He is taking a peer of the realm to a dirty hovel in the middle of the country, to visit with an old cousin whom he doesn't even know." She looked up, a spark of anger beginning to glimmer in her eye. "He says this old man is some kind of magician... can see into Clay's soul."