“Damn him,” Otto swore quietly.
If it were anyone else, he would see him chased from the castle grounds. But for his many sins, Althalos was the closest family Otto had left. More importantly, he was a man of great wealth and substantial following. It would not do to alienate him, especially when Lord Ulric was not yet cold in the ground. Otto knew that amongst his own people, many held Sir Althalos in high esteem. Would they march behind him if they were forced to choose?
He did not wish to find out.
Bone weary, he leaned forward in his chair and ran his fingers through his tousled hair. He had been married for less than two days, and already the institution had proven more than troublesome. Mayhap he should forget the whole sorry affair. Push the incident from his mind and leave Ariana to entertain her doubts and suspicions as she saw fit.
But no sooner had this thought crystalized in his mind than he pushed it away.No.His bride did not deserve that. He pictured her steady green gaze and her dark cloud of hair. The softness of her lips. The steely determination he had glimpsed on more than one occasion. The unexpected connection which drew him to her like a magnet. After the honest conversation they had in the tower, he could not leave her to imagine him bedding his whore under the same roof as she.
His lip curled in disgust. Only a man with the moral deficit of Althalos would have planted such an idea in her head.
He should approach Ariana then, not Althalos. Tell her the truth.
He paused at that.Could Ariana handle the truth?
“Damn them all,” he swore again, pushing himself up from the chair with a surge of impatience and pacing the length of the room. He paused beneath a life-sized frieze of his father, Ulric, Earl of Darkmoor, which had been painted onto the white-washed wall when Otto was a boy and Ulric still stood tall and strong with a full head of dark hair.
Bold tempera had brought life and energy to the portrait. His father’s imperious gaze seemed to look straight out of the painting to land, scornfully, on Otto.
“Show no weakness, show no mercy,”Otto imagined him saying.
Lord Ulric would have wasted no time in pondering the wellbeing of his wife, nor anyone else for that matter. He believed in action, not words and certainly not sentiment.
But was that the sort of man Otto wanted to be?
Was that the sort of husband he wanted to be?
Seized by a new idea, he walked back to the desk and began to hunt through its multitude of drawers. It was many years since he’d last glimpsed the object he sought, but he had an idea Lord Ulric would have secreted it somewhere here. After all, it was not costly enough to be locked away in the vaults. Its value was purely sentimental, and therefore measured little to his father.
Finally, he glimpsed a flash of bronze metal, and his grasping fingers retrieved a medium-sized broach set with glittering amethyst stones. His mother’s. Otto closed his fist around it, clamping down on a swell of emotion. He had never known his mother and had learned little about her from Ulric.
“What’s past is past,” his father had told him. “Your future lies on the battlefield boy, not in grasping after ghosts.”
He brought the broach closer to his face, squinting at its condition. The metal had grown dull, but a quick polish would restore its shine. He would make it a gift to Ariana, in return for the token she had bestowed upon him after the joust. The idea felt good and right, and his lips turned up at the corners.
A brisk knock sounded at the solar door, jolting him out of his reverie. He opened his mouth to invite entry, but the door was already opening.
Althalos walked into the solar with a confident gait and his head held imperiously high, as if he was the Earl of Darkmoor and Otto some lowly servant.
“The men have been asking where you are,” he stated.
Otto folded his arms across his embellished tunic. “Good morning, Althalos.” He put his head to one side, considering his uncle.
“Shall I tell them you will be out soon?” the old man asked irritably.
Otto walked over to the window with deliberate slowness. It was a lovely morning, with sunlight dappling through the distant trees. “Out where?” he enquired, his voice mild.
“To morning training.” Althalos took a few steps towards him. “It would not do for you to miss it.”
Otto slipped the broach into his pocket and grasped the back of his ornate desk chair. “Would not do for whom? I am the Earl of Darkmoor. Can I not do as I please?” His rhetorical question was calmly delivered, and he sat down to busy himself with a roll of parchment before Althalos could answer. Otto kept his eyes affixed to his desk, though he would have dearly liked to glance up and see the effect his question had on a man unused to being challenged.
Althalos cleared his throat. “Nephew, I speak only out of concern for Darkmoor and the estate passed down to you by my own brother. Your skills have always been in combat, notgovernment. You must know this?” Althalos paused for an acknowledgement, which the younger man was not inclined to give. Instead, Otto templed his fingers beneath his chin and waited with a display of patience for his uncle to continue. “The knights follow you because you are a formidable warrior. But if they cease to see you as such. Well…” Althalos finished his sentence with an eloquent shrug of his shoulders.
Otto leaned back in his chair, trying for now to control his rising temper. “I hardly think the men will leave Darkmoor in droves if I miss one training session.”
“It is your opportunity to demonstrate your right to be earl.”
“A right I have demonstrated many times.” Otto’s voice rose in warning. “And I shall continue to do so. But not today. I’ll ask you to leave me now, Althalos.”
