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“Not much of a bargain.”
“Who said anything of this being a bargain?” she gloated. “You do as I say or go home.”
“If you were a man—”
Alyce took a challenging step toward him, “You’d what?”
“My leader was right,” he admitted. “You are a woman to respect, but not one to underestimate.”
“Wise observation,” she said. “I’ll expect you at the keep at sunset.”
“I don’t seem to have a choice.”
“I gave you one,” she insisted. “Go home or come to the keep.”
“The keep it is,” he said reluctantly.
Alyce bid him farewell until later, and while Hagen and Dale followed her back to where they had met her, she couldn’t help but fret. It wasn’t over the meeting tonight, though she knew it would probably prove difficult. It was something Septimus had said.
Tell me so that I can return with your words and let your friends, who worry about you, know that you are happy.
He didn’t say your friends who sent me.
Who then had sent him?
Chapter 32
Lachlan sat alone at the table in the great hall. Cavan had the children moved to a safer section of the keep and so the hall was empty, not a person or a sound stirring but him. After Cavan had received word that Alyce had been met and safely escorted to the mercenary camp, and with plans for a surprise attack completed, only to be used if necessary, there was nothing left to do but to wait.
Normally, his patience could handle most any wait, but this wait was proving much more difficult. He understood that Cavan would have never allowed Alyce to ride off without being protected. Lachlan knew his brother would have their best scouts following her, but with Alyce having learned from Piper, Lachlan worried that Alyce could easily outwit them.
However, he trusted his wife’s word. Her only intentions were to go and speak with Septimus and once done, she would return. She wanted no bloodshed and neither did Cavan, so this particular matter could be resolved easily enough, or so he hoped. He still felt an itch to punch this Septimus, though knew it would serve no purpose other than to make him feel better.
He saw his mother approach and he honestly was pleased to see her. He had always found it easy to speak with her. She was never one to berate or judge, instead she talked, asked questions and made suggestions, and you suddenly realized a solution to your problem.
“May I join you?” Addie requested with a smile, though she didn’t wait for an answer. She sat beside her son.
“Are you here to lecture me?” he asked teasingly.
“Do you need one?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought I was doing well, being a good husband.” He shook his head again. “But Artair suggests that being a husband can sometimes get in the way.”
“While there is logic to Artair’s observation, it is being a husband himself that allowed him to learn that.”
“So he didn’t really become the all-wise-one until he got married?”
Addie laughed. “Your ability to see humor in life is what makes you so special.”
“I always thought I was special,” Lachlan grinned proudly.
Addie rested her hand on his arm. “Your uniqueness serves you well. While Cavan concerned himself with everything and everyone, and Artair sought logical solutions, and Ronan tried to be as brave and wise as his older brothers, you stood apart.”
“How so?” he asked, touched that his mother thought of him that way.
“You always smiled and always had a good word for someone, always treated others with respect and you were always confident in your decisions.” She smiled. “Cavan came to me once when he was about ten and you just six. He wanted to know why everyone liked you better.”
“Truly, he did?” Lachlan asked, stunned.
Addie nodded. “He did, and I tried to explain to him that it was your nature and you would always be that way and that he shouldn’t fret over it, for he had his own good nature.”
“So you told him that I was always going to be liked more than he,” Lachlan said with a laugh.
Addie laughed along with him. “I suppose that is the truth of it.”
“Cavan is a great leader and respected. I much admire his strength and courage.”
“And a leader needs both,” Addie said, “for he must make decisions that are not always easy and will not always please everyone and at times may cause him to be disliked.”
Lachlan had to grin. “So this is a lecture.”
“Nonsense,” Addie said grinning. “I wouldn’t lecture my grown son, though I will leave you with a reminder.”
“Which is?”
“You knew who your wife was when you married her.”
“Not so,” he said. “I first thought her a nun, then a woman named Terese, and then I finally learned she was Alyce all along.”
“Precisely,” Addie said, her smile spreading wide. “I must go. I will see you later.”
