WolfeStrike (De Wolfe Pack Generations #2) - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,35

the news?” she asked. “He did not seem particularly hysterical when he saw my brother’s body lying there.”

“He took it bravely,” Tor said. “But I am sure that he is quite troubled by it. It is his son, after all.”

Isalyn’s attention was on the manse, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Her dark blue eyes reflected both turmoil and truth.

“Steffan was a disgrace,” she said quietly. “He always did as he pleased and my father never stopped him. Even before my parents decided to live separately, Steffan would do naughty things to me and he was never punished.”

Tor found himself watching her lush mouth as she spoke. “What did he do to you?”

She sighed faintly, thinking back to that time of youth, those days she didn’t like to think about. “Pull my hair,” she said. “He was always pulling my hair. Once, he tied my braids in a knot and my mother had to cut my hair to get the knot out. He would catch flies and pull the wings off of them just to see them suffer. He had a dog that he would kick constantly. I finally took the dog and hid it. It became my dog, but I had to keep it in my room always so Steffan would not find it. It became a very spoiled dog who slept in my bed and ate from my plate, but someone told Steffan I had the dog and, one day, the dog just disappeared. I never saw it again. When I asked Steffan where the dog was, he told me the animal got what it deserved and would not tell me more. I loved that dog.”

The memory of the dog brought tears again and they spilled from her eyes faster than she could wipe them away. Even so, Tor was coming to get a broader picture of Steffan de Featherstone. Not only was he a man who broke his word, but he was a tormenter as well. There were probably darker secrets, even more than that. Men like that usually had a few. Before he could respond, however, she looked at him and spoke.

“Do you have sisters, Sir Tor?” she asked.

He nodded. “Five, but I lost one many years ago.”

“But you are kind to all of them? Even the one you lost?”

He nodded faintly. “I do not pull their hair if that is what you are asking,” he said, his eyes glimmering with mirth. “I love each one, my lady. I would kill or die for them.”

She gazed at him a moment with big, bottomless eyes, perhaps pondering a world where a brother could be kind to a sister. Or a family that loved one another. After a moment, she smiled weakly.

“They are most fortunate to have you for a brother,” she said. “I envy them. Will you go home to them now?”

He shook his head. “They do not live with me,” he said. “I live at Blackpool Castle.”

“Where is that?”

“About twenty miles north of here.”

“And you live there alone?”

He nodded. “Without my sisters and brothers and parents,” he said. “My cousin lives with me, however. Christian is my second in command. Blackpool is an important outpost, a military outpost, so it is heavily manned.”

“But you are happy there?”

He wasn’t sure why she was asking so many questions, but he sensed something behind her curiosity. It seemed she wanted to hear that someone was happy, somewhere, because she wasn’t particularly happy with her circumstances. A dead mother, now a dead brother, and a father who seemed distant at best. Perhaps she simply couldn’t believe there really were happy families in the world.

It was a foreign concept.

She was looking for happiness, somewhere, even through a knight she’d just met.

“I am happy there,” he said. “When my uncle purchased the castle, it came with herds of sheep with black faces. Funny little creatures. There are orchards and gangs of geese that like to congregate in my bailey and bite my soldiers. But it is a happy place, at least for me.”

Her face was still pale and her eyes a bit watery, but she smiled at the thought of such a place. “There are some people in London that keep geese for protection,” she said. “Sometimes they are better than dogs.”

“If I had thousands, I’d send them after the Scots.”

She giggled, displaying a sweet smile. He was simply glad that the mood was finally lightening. It had been touch and go there for moment.

“Good,” he said. “You’re smiling again. Now, shall we