“What is your name?”
The little girl shivered, her little arms going around her spindly body as if to block out the chill. The rags she wore as clothing hardly did the job. “Poupée.”
Avalyn smiled faintly. “So they call you Doll, do they? You certainly look like one. You are beautiful.”
The little girl’s smile broadened, if such a thing was possible. She was already smiling broadly. She held up her hand. “Do you have a coin?”
Avalyn’s smile faded. The child was starving and begging was a way of life. A glance at the children staying to the shadows behind her suggested that they sent Poupée out to beg for their group, as no one could resist such a beauty, including Avalyn. She could imagine that once the child gained a coin that she would see little benefit; the ‘biggers’ probably took it from her for their own use. The little girl looked as if she hardly ate at all. It was survival on the streets and little Poupée was only the bait, the bottom of the food chain.
A strange sense of anger rushed through Avalyn. She would not contribute to the child being taken advantage of. Touching the little face, she stood up and snaked her hand into the crook of Brogan’s elbow. Without a word, she resumed walking.
Brogan didn’t say anything as they moved down the avenue; he was more intent on watching her face, discerning the emotion that crossed her lovely features. He had refrained from saying anything at all as she spoke to the child, mostly because orphans littered the streets aplenty and he saw nothing unusual about them. But it was clear that the lady did. He was intrigued with her show of compassion, something he was most unfamiliar with. Compassion was not something he entertained on a regular basis. Just as they neared a small intersection on the dimly lit street, they could hear cries and sounds of impact behind them.
Avalyn froze, whirling in the direction they had just come. More cries and more sounds of impact. It sounded as if someone was being beaten. Horror surged into her chest as she took off at a run with Brogan on her heels. By the time she reached the place where she had last left the little girl, the sounds of crying and beating were very loud. In the shadows along the alleyway that ran beside the pub, she could see several children in a writhing mass. The cries were coming from the center of the huddle. Outraged, she plowed forward and began pushing older children aside. In little time, she saw the tiny little girl huddled in a protective ball against the wall of the pub. Her head came up and enormous blue eyes were spilling with tears.
“Stop it,” Avalyn hissed to the older children standing around her. “How dare you attack this child. Keep your hands off her!”
There was no possible way any older child, no matter how brave, was going to tangle with the lady and the massive man at her side. Brogan stood next to Avalyn as she picked the little girl up and covered her in the folds of her cloak, wiping her tears and the trickle of blood from her nose. He covered her retreat back to the street, backing up and keeping his eyes on the gaggle of astonished children. When he was finally convinced they weren’t all going to rush them in a fit, he turned to Avalyn.
She was holding the little girl tightly, rocking her gently as the child’s sobs died. Brogan stood there, watching, thoughts of his own boy filling his mind. He remembered when Shaw was very young and his mother used to cradle him the very same way. There was such kindness to it, such tenderness. He could see the same intense motherhood instinct in Avalyn and it warmed his heart as nothing in his life ever had. To most, it was just another orphan. But to Avalyn, it was a sweet little life.
He could tell by the look in her eye what she was thinking. Had he been a betting man, he would have wagered on it.
CHAPTER SIX
“My lord, ifit is any consolation, I told him to stay away from her also,” St. Alban was in a dire predicament. “I told him that it would not be healthy for him.”
Having been awoken from a dead sleep by angry de Neville men, St. Alban sat in the middle of the chamber he shared with Brogan, wondering where all of this madness was going to take them. A bulldog of a knight with a round face and big blue eyes stood over him, firing questions at him as if to wrest a confession. Several other de Neville soldiers milled about, some of them upending the chamber searching for something they had not, as of yet, made clear.
“We spoke with the Master of the Barracks and he says that you live with d’Aurilliac,” Inglesbatch said with very little patience. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
“He also said that you are the only man who can remotely communicate with him. Surely he has told you his intentions towards Lady Avalyn?”
St. Alban shook his head; he wasn’t about to betray whatever information Brogan had divulged to him. “He never stated his intentions, my lord.”
“Do you know how they met?”
“An accident, I believe, my lord,” St. Alban said calmly. “He saved her from her runaway horse.”
“What runaway horse?”
“Last night. Her horse spooked and Brogan saved her from sure death.”
William fell silent a moment. He knew she’d gone to the stable the previous evening to check on her horse and she had returned unharmed. He had heard nothing about a spooked horse, but that would explain why both Avalyn and d’Aurilliac were sighted at the stables examining the high-strung colt. Now it made sense. There had been a time when Avalyn used to tell William everything and he was feeling the slightest bit hurt. Her brief infatuation with d’Aurilliac was growing, no matter how hard he’d tried to stop it.
His envy began to seep into his manner. “Be that as it may, it does not give him excuse to take license with her,” he hissed. “She is a woman of the highest noble order and, I might add, betrothed to a powerful lord. D’Aurilliac is playing with fire.”
That drew a reaction from St. Alban. He looked at William, horror and shock in his eyes. “She is betrothed?”
Inglesbatch nodded slowly. Then, he suddenly bent over the man threateningly, his mailed arms braced on either side of the heavy chair. “I do not know what magic d’Aurilliac seems to have over the lady to cause her to behave so, but I have caught her in clandestine situations with him twice already. And tonight, she was out well after midnight, roaming the grounds of the Tower in, I can only assume, her quest to rendezvous with d’Aurilliac. But before I could forceably escort her back to her apartment, I was hit on the head and knocked unconscious. I do not have to guess who did that.”
St. Albans tried not to look shocked. “So what is it you want from me?”
William exhaled sharply and pushed himself off the arms of the chair. He paced away from the old man, his agitation evident. “I want you to tell me where he has taken her. I want to find her before her uncle does.”
Though his guard was up, still, St. Alban could sense that this was growing from bad to worse. “What do you mean?”
