WolfeStrike (De Wolfe Pack Generations #2) - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,34
was clearly shaken, now being forced to process Tor’s question. “To… to the vault, I suppose,” he said hoarsely. “I have nowhere else to put him. We must take him to the vault.”
With that, he put his hand over his mouth, perhaps to hold back the horror of what he had witnessed, and turned for the door that led down into the storage vaults. Tor and Nat started to follow, but Fraser put his hand on Tor’s arm.
“I will take him,” he said quietly. “He has already been enough of a burden to you, my lord.”
It was a soft, polite statement. Tor didn’t sense anything hostile from the man, simply an offer to help. Fraser seemed to be quite on edge about a potential conflict with the House of de Wolfe, so he was on his best behavior. Therefore, Tor turned over his ends of the blanket to Gilbert’s knight, who assumed the load. Along with Nat, they followed Gilbert’s trail to the vault. Tor began to follow as well until he caught sight of Isalyn, standing over near a small animal pen.
His attention shifted.
Isalyn had her back turned and even from where he stood, Tor could see her shoulders heaving. It took him a moment to realize that she was weeping and it occurred to him just where those horrified screams had come from.
Her.
With regret, he made his way over to her. As he drew closer, he could hear her sniffling.
“My lady?” he said gently.
Startled by his voice, Isalyn whirled to see who it was and just as quickly turned away. “I… I do not need assistance,” she said, wiping her face. “I am well enough.”
Tor wasn’t a man immune to emotion but, truth be told, he was good at keeping it bottled up. He wasn’t one to take on someone else’s grief or even show much sympathy but, at the moment, he felt a good deal of pity for Isalyn. She had witnessed something that would have turned the stomach of the strongest man, so he felt sorry for her. She may have been brave and bold, but she wasn’t hardened.
Perhaps he felt a little more concern than he should have.
“I am sorry that you had to see that,” he said. “Had your father permitted you to remain in the hall, you would have known of your brother’s passing and you certainly would not have seen… that.”
Isalyn wiped furiously at her face, struggling to compose herself and pretend as if she were completely unscathed. “It is of no consequence,” she said. “Steffan is dead.”
“He is.”
“Then the business you had with my father was to bring his body home.”
“It was.”
She turned to look at him, watery-eyed. “It has occurred to me that my brother was that horrible smell you said was coming off the meadows.”
Tor couldn’t very well lie to her. “It was,” he said. “I apologize for lying to you, but I was trying to spare your delicate senses.”
Isalyn understood that but her manner suggested she was perturbed by his attempt to shield her. “I know,” she said. “But I am not a weakling. You could have told me the truth.”
Tor tried not to look contrite, as if he’d done something wrong. “You are definitely not a weakling,” he said. “But what I did, I did to protect you, my lady. It will not happen again.”
She looked at him. “Of course it will not happen again,” she said. “I only have one brother. You have many, but I only have one and he was not a very good brother at that. Mayhap I should not have said that, but it is true. I hardly knew him. Steffan and I lived apart for so many years that I never really knew the man.”
She was trying so very hard to pretend that none of this mattered, but her chin was still trembling, as if she were going to break down in tears at any moment. Tor wasn’t sure what to say to her, so he fell back on the obvious.
“I am sorry for your loss, my lady,” he said. “I hope you will forgive me my… mistake of trying to protect you from the truth.”
Her gaze lingered on him a moment before drifting out over the bailey, catching a glimpse of her father and Fraser and Nat as they ducked into the stairwell that led down to the vaults, carting that putrid mess between them. The rain was falling a little harder now, thunder rippling overhead.