“Yet you did what she told you to do,” he said, sounding hollow and utterly hurt. “You heard everything from de Wolfe when he told me of the plans to join Edward. And then you, coincidentally, asked to send a missive to your mother the next day. You sent her the information that you had heard, didn’t you?”
Elizaveta nodded, the tears dripping off her chin. “Aye,” she whispered. “I had hoped… I hoped that if I sent my grandmother that information then mayhap she might not ask for anymore. Mayhap she would be satisfied. I prayed that the missive would not reach her but then I was terrified if it did not. I was terrified she would send men out to kill my father or me, or even you. You have no idea what she is capable of, my grandmother. She has ordered the deaths of more men than you know. She is capable of carrying out her threats.”
“And you fear her.”
“I do.”
Elizaveta wept quietly as Drake stood there and looked at her, feeling his guard go down. So much of what she said made sense, as shocking as it was. Perhaps he was foolish to believe her, but he did. At least, he thought he did. But there was a part of him that wasn’t so sure – it was possible she was telling him what he wanted to hear in order to save her skin. Torn, indecisive, and grieved, he had no idea what to think.
“Then I was a fool,” he confirmed, turning around and sitting heavily on a chair that was used when churning butter. “I was a fool because I was actually happy about this marriage, convinced I was married to a woman who had decided she wanted to be married to me. We had great moments of laughter and warmth and conversation… I was fool for believing this marriage could be something more than simply an arrangement. Now I know you only married me to use me. Well, it seems you got what you wanted. You devastated the House of de Winter. But you will never do it again, do you hear me? Your days of espionage are finished. If I have to lock you in the vault for the rest of your life, your days of sending information to your grandmother are over.”
Elizaveta broke into soft sobs. “The more I came to know all of you, the more I hated my grandmother for what she was forcing me to do,” she confessed. “With you and your family, there was such joy and happiness. I felt accepted. I have never felt accepted before, ever. I did not want to spy on you, Drake; with God as my witness, I will swear that a thousand times over. There were times when I thought to tell you what my grandmother expected of me, but I was afraid to, afraid you would think me a terrible traitor and afraid you would think everything between us had been a lie. It was not a lie! You are my husband and I adore you. Now I carry your child. But I feared my grandmother more than I adored you and for that, I must beg your forgiveness.”
Drake came off of the chair, staring down at her with shock. “You… you are with child?”
Elizaveta nodded, wiping at her face. “Aye,” she answered. “The morning you departed for Scotland, you commanded that I should conceive. Do you recall? I obeyed.”
Drake stared at her a moment longer before his hands flew to his head, overwhelmed to the point of being unable to retain his composure. He suddenly spun around to the old kitchen yard wall, put his hands on the wall, and bellowed at the top of his lungs. He beat his hands onto the wall, pounding on it and yelling as loud as he could. Grief and sorrow and pain were all erupting out of him, as he had feared, and for a few brief and terrible moments, he was mad with it. He pounded on the wall until his hands bled as Elizaveta, still cringing against the stone beneath him, wept and covered her head.
“Damnation!” Drake roared, pounding on the wall one last time. He looked down at Elizaveta as she cowered. “I love you! Do you know that? Damn it all to hell… I love you! I cannot remember when I have not loved you, Elizaveta! You are warm and kind, intelligent and humorous, and there is nothing about you that I do not love. But how can I ever trust you again after this? How can I believe anything you say? God, I hate you for this. I hate you for making me love you and then betraying that love. You betrayed me, do you hear? Your betrayal is what killed my brother!”
Elizaveta was weeping loudly at this point, her head still covered, sobbing her heart out at his words. “I am so sorry,” she wept. “I do not expect your forgiveness but please know how sorry I am. I did not have a choice, Drake. I did what I had been instructed to do and by the time I felt something for you, it was too late. I am more sorry than you can ever know for what I have caused.”
He was twitching and quivering. Every emotion he could possibly feel was swelling up inside of him. “Why did you not tell me any of this?” he demanded, his voice cracking. “Why did you not come to me and tell me what had been demanded of you? Why did you not trust me enough to tell me?”
Elizaveta’s pathetic sobs echoed off the stone at his painful, but true, words. “Because I was afraid,” she wept. “I did not know you well enough and I was afraid it would destroy everything growing between us. I was afraid you would think me a traitor and discard me. I was afraid you would hate me.”
“I hate you now!”
Elizaveta covered her face, sobbing into her hands. “I know,” she whispered. “But I love you very much. I would do anything to take back what I have done but I cannot. Whatever punishment you decide for me, I will willingly take.”
I love you very much. Drake felt as if he’d just been stabbed in the heart. It was the greatest thing he could ever imagine in his life and also the most sorrowful. He didn’t hate her; of course he didn’t. But he hated what she had done. Exhausted, grieved, and overwhelmed, he stumbled away from her and staggered across the yard into the bailey, where he disappeared from view.
Elizaveta continued to huddle against the wall and weep, struggling to come to terms with what had just happened. He knew she was a traitor and she would accept his punishment, but she suspected that, based upon the feelings he had just admitted to her, his attempt to punish her would only hurt him more deeply. She would do better if she simply killed herself to save him the trouble because she was quite certain that death was her only option. Death or dishonor.
Perhaps it would keep Drake’s honor intact if she was simply to leave and never come back, the dishonored wife fleeing in shame. It would prevent Drake from having to make any painful decisions against her. Odd how, at that moment, she remembered Cortez de Bretagne’s toast to them on their wedding day, a toast that now rang in her ears as if someone had shouted it to her. A toast that was coming back to haunt her:
May your life know happiness,
May your hearts know love,
And may the de Winter name be forever honored by this union.
Remember that the world is well lost for love, but honor is not well lost for anything
She had dishonored the union with her actions; more than that, she had dishonored Drake. With that in mind, she picked herself up and made her way to the stables of Norwich, where it was quite easy for her to take a palfrey from the stables and venture out of the castle without anyone attempting to stop her.
The main gate was open, admitting a few tradesmen to do business with the castle, and Elizaveta simply left when the gate was open. Out into the fogs of Norfolk she went, alone and ill-prepared, without food or money or adequate clothing, heading away from the pain and devastation she had caused. Trying to do the only decent thing she had ever done in her marriage to Drake de Winter.
She loved him enough to leave him to his grief, with his honor intact, and never look back.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Davyss and Devereux heard the entire story.
After leaving Elizaveta in the kitchen yard, Drake found his father and mother in their chamber, joined in grief over Dallan, but he was so overwrought with Elizaveta that everything came bursting out at his parents in a massively emotional display.
It was unlike Drake to show his emotions to anyone, at least not on the level he was exhibiting, and less than a minute into his hysterical speech, both Devereux and Davyss had pushed him down into a chair and his mother was pouring wine down his throat. Pushing aside their own
sorrow over Dallan for the moment, they were convinced it had been too much for Drake and that the man, so strong and stoic, was having a breakdown.
But it was a shocking and disappointing story Drake was telling. The vengeful grandmother forcing her granddaughter to do her bidding under threat of assassins. Davyss listened to the entire story as Drake told it with great regret and sorrow whilst Devereux, who had grown close to Elizaveta and loved her, sat heavily on the bed and hung her head. When all was said and done, Drake sat forward in his chair, buried his face in his hands, and sobbed. Davyss simply put his hands on his son’s head and let the man weep.
He’d earned it.
Devereux watched her eldest boy, the strength of the de Winter house, as he folded under the pressure of his brother’s death and his wife’s betrayal. The man could face a million Scots in battle and never show a crack in his powerful façade, but when the emotions of the situation cut too deep, like the death of Dallan and Elizaveta’s treachery, he didn’t have a weapon strong enough to fend it off. He simply didn’t know how to deal with it.
Truth was, Devereux was numb at the moment about Dallan. To her, he had only just left for battle and even though she saw him in his casket, the reality of his death hadn’t settled yet. She was still expecting him to return with his brothers so this episode was something of a nightmare, but one which she would not awaken from. Her Dallan was not dead, not in her heart or in her mind yet, and it was, in truth, easier to function if she thought of it that way because she knew that when the reality of his death hit her, she would be useless. She was quite sure that she would never be the same again.
It was, therefore, easier to focus on Drake for the moment, something to distract her from a parent’s worst fear. As long as she could focus solely on Drake and Elizaveta, she could keep from crumbling. Drake needed her help and, she suspected, so did Elizaveta.
The living, at the moment, needed her more than the dead.
She had to be strong, just a while longer.
“Drake,” Devereux said, her voice dull with sorrow. “Drake, you must listen to me. I have spent a good deal of time with Elizaveta since you have been gone and the girl never struck me as being underhanded or treacherous. Quite the opposite; she is loving and warm and kind. The only time she ever spoke of her grandmother, it was a brief reference and nothing more. I remember thinking it was rather odd she should be so cold towards her. Please understand that I am not defending what she did, but I would believe there is truth in what she has told you – mayhap she truly was forced by a vengeful, old woman and mayhap she is truly afraid of what the woman is capable of.”
Drake, after his outburst, was quickly wiping the tears and mucus off his face, embarrassed that he had become so emotional. “Elizaveta is a strong and brave woman,” he said, sniffling. “Mother, you did not see her in the battle of Spexhall. When de Witt’s wife tried to kill her, she turned the tables on the woman and held a knife to her throat. I cannot believe such a woman would be afraid of an aged crone.”
Devereux sighed faintly. “But we are speaking of her grandmother,” she said, trying to be gentle with him. “This is the woman who fed and clothed her, who provided for her. If what you said is true, then Elizaveta has been witness to the cruelty the woman is capable of. Of course she would fear her. She sounds like a terrifying woman.”
Drake sat back in his chair, running his fingers through his dark hair in a weary, agitated gesture. “Then why was she not honest with me about what her grandmother expected of her?” he wanted to know. “Why did she not tell me everything?”
Devereux lifted her eyebrows, somewhat knowingly. “Ask yourself that question,” she said softly. “Ask it and be honest with yourself; if Elizaveta had come to you three or four or six days after your wedding to tell you what she had been instructed to do, how would you have reacted? Would you have sympathized with her? Would you have been shocked by it? Or would you have even believed her? I suspect you may not have taken her seriously. You did not know her well enough, and she did not know you well enough, either. I am not entirely sure that you would have leapt to her defense.”
Drake was looking at his mother seriously. “Are you defending her, then?”
Devereux shook her head. “I told you that I am not,” she said. “But I am saying that I understand her position. I understand why she was afraid to confide in you. The poor woman was trapped between a husband she did not know and a grandmother who had threatened to kill her if she did not do as she was told. What would you have done?”
Drake thought on the situation the way his mother had phrased it and realized that he wasn’t entirely sure what he would have done. Put in those terms, he could see that Elizaveta was perhaps trapped, indeed. He was starting to feel pity towards her now. Confused, he refrained from answering the question.
“But she lied to me,” he muttered, standing up from the chair and struggling to compose himself. “She lied to me about everything.”
Devereux watched him pace. “How did she lie to you?”
Drake came to a halt and looked at her. “You are taking her side.”
Again, Devereux shook her head. “I am trying to see the situation from both sides, as should you,” she said. “Tell me how she lied to you.”
Drake could see that his mother was only trying to be fair. She was always supremely fair and he began to feel his confidence waver in his stance against Elizaveta.
“She never told me about her grandmother,” he finally muttered, looking away.
Devereux watched him as he moved towards the lancet windows in the chamber. “She did not lie,” she said. “She simply did not tell you. How else do you think she lied?”
Drake stood at the window, watching the bailey down below through the fog. He couldn’t see much.
“She told me she loved me,” he finally said. “Right now, she told me she loved me.”
Devereux glanced at Davyss, who had thus far remained silent. He had been observing his son, thinking on the situation, and trying to grasp what this day had brought his family. When he heard Drake’s statement and saw his wife glance in his direction, he shook his head.
“She was not lying,” Davyss said. “I have been around enough women to know when they feel something. Elizaveta spoke of you every day, several times a day, and it was always with the greatest respect and adoration. Trust me, lad; I know a woman in love and Elizaveta loves you very much. If she told you, she was not lying.”
Drake was calming now in the presence of his parents and their reasoning conversation. He knew they would never lie to him but he was still deeply hurt and confused. He turned to look at his father.
“It was her information that brought about Dallan’s death,” he said, pain in his voice. “How am I ever supposed to forgive her for that? How can I ever trust her again?”
Davyss drew in a thoughtful breath, moving to where his son stood against the lancet window. Cold, damp air was blowing in, mingling with the warmth of the room. Davyss rubbed his hands together, pensively, before looking at his son.
“Dallan was a knight,” he said. “Death is part of that. Elizaveta sent information that simply hastened his death, but it could have come at any time – that day, a month later, or five years later. It just happened to come for him at that particular time. I have seen enough death to know that hating her for it, or cursing her, will not bring Dallan back. It will not even make you feel satisfaction in the long run. It will only make you bitter and dark. That is not how I wish for you to be, Drake. If you did not love her, you would not be feeling such anguish, so if I were you, I would go and talk to her. Reason this out. Heal what has been wounded. We have enough heartache with Dallan’s death. I do not want to see you torn apart by this because you blame your wife for it.”
Over on the bed, Devereux spoke softly. “Remember something, Drake,” she said. “The world moves for love. It bows down before love in awe, it weeps at the beauty of it. If you truly love her, then allow yourself to
be led by love and not resentment. Give the woman you love a second chance to prove she is worthy of it. Love is the only thing that matters in the end.”
Drake listened to his mother, the tears returning to his eyes for reasons he did not understand. “How can you be so forgiving?” he asked. “Dallan died because of what she did.”
Devereux turned to look at him, a faint smile on her lips. “I am forgiving because I am led by love,” she answered. “I am led by my love for Dallan, for the years we had together, and for the beauty of his soul. Hating will not bring him back. It will not restore him to me. It will only damage my memory of what he means to me. Surely, I am shattered by Dallan’s death. My heart is in a million pieces that are bleeding rivers right now, drowning my very soul. But I cannot blame Elizaveta for doing what she had been forced to do. I cannot believe she did it of her own free will, with glee in hoping my son would be killed. Of course she didn’t. It was not she who killed my son, but her vengeful grandmother and the Scots who were aiming for him. Now, your poor wife must live with that horror for the rest of her life, of the betrayal she has been forced in to. That is a terrible thing to have to live with, especially with a husband who does not have the capacity to forgive and let his love for her overcome all.”
Drake had no idea what to do or what to think any longer. His mother was being incredibly forgiving, as was his father, evidently. Was it possible that what they said was right? Did love really have the capacity to overcome all? But he was starting to see their point, that Elizaveta’s grandmother was the villain in all of this. It was she who forced Elizaveta into the terrible position of spying on her husband. Elizaveta was simply a pawn.
Bewildered, depressed, and exhausted, Drake sat heavily on his parents’ bed, having no idea what to say or do. He didn’t want to hate Elizaveta; he loved the woman. What his mother said made perfect sense. He understood that Elizaveta had been trapped by a bitter, old crone who wanted to wreak havoc against the English. Perhaps he was mostly hurt because she didn’t feel as if she could tell him of the position she found herself in. He had thought their blossoming love had been pure and without reservations, so he was mostly hurt to realize his wife, the only woman he had ever loved, had been charged with a secret agenda she had been afraid to tell him about.