WolfeStrike (De Wolfe Pack Generations #2) - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,60

better.”

Fraser watched him as he wrote out something in his deliberate script. “I never did ask you why you wanted her to come to Featherstone, my lord,” he said. “It is none of my business, of course, but it seemed to me that you were eager to have her here. Was I incorrect in that assumption?”

Gilbert dipped his quill in his ink pot. “She is my daughter,” he said simply. “My son wanted nothing to do with me and I had hoped that she… it was a foolish hope. When Millicent took her to London, years went by before I ever saw her again and with her mother gone these three years… I thought that I could get to know my daughter again and that she would want to come and live with me. Aye, I was eager to have her here. I am her father, after all. And she is my only living child now.”

The day after learning of his son’s death, Gilbert seemed steely for the most part, but that last sentence was muttered and, in it, Fraser could see that the pain was still there no matter how much Gilbert tried to cover it.

“My lord, we do not have to discuss this now,” he said. “Yesterday was a… difficult day. Your daughter is safe now and we can discuss this at a later time, if you wish.”

But Gilbert shook his head. “We will discuss it now,” he said, glancing at Fraser. “You need not worry about me, Fraser. I have accepted Steffan’s death, although to be perfectly truthful, it seems to me that he left me a long time ago. I will overcome this grief. You needn’t worry.”

Fraser didn’t press him. Gilbert had been known to be rather cold where his children were concerned, a dysfunctional life that had left him distant from both of them. Therefore, he simply nodded.

“As you wish, my lord,” he said. “What more do you wish to discuss about your daughter?”

Gilbert continued scratching on the vellum. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “Mayhap there is nothing more to discuss at all except my frustration with her.”

“I know, my lord,” Fraser said. “It seems that she is a woman grown with many bad habits she has formed from her years in the city.”

“Like traveling without an escort.”

“And doing whatever she pleases, whenever she pleases.”

Gilbert sighed sharply as he stopped writing. “And what skills does she have?” he asked, looking at Fraser. “She never fostered as far as I know. If she did, her mother never told me, but what skills does she have as a wife and chatelaine? A husband is going to want a woman who will not be a burden to him and I fear all my daughter can do is wander around like the village idiot. No man will want her for a wife.”

Fraser lifted his shoulders. “She is astonishingly beautiful, my lord,” he said. “Based on her beauty alone, she should command a high price.”

Gilbert cocked an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?” he questioned curiously. “Do you want her? Nay, forget I asked that. I would not burden you with her because she would drive you mad and I think too highly of you, Fraser. But I have been thinking…”

Fraser wasn’t quite over the question he’d just been asked. Do you want her? Gilbert hadn’t given him the opportunity to answer. Did he want her? She was magnificent, but she was as headstrong as a bull. Fraser had always hoped for a woman who was a little more cultured and knew her place in a man’s world. Isalyn did not. He also wanted a marriage with some political connections, perhaps connecting him to a fine warring family where he could find his place in the world.

If he married Isalyn, he would have a few manses, a merchant business, and unlimited wealth. But that wasn’t the life he wanted. Like Steffan, he didn’t want to be a merchant. He was trained for warfare. He pushed aside the confusion he felt at Gilbert’s question in order to focus on the rest of his statement.

But I have been thinking…

“What have you been thinking, my lord?” he asked.

Gilbert paused a moment before setting his quill down. Then he stood up, stretching his legs as he made his way to the lancet windows that overlooked the courtyard. There was a yew tree outside of this set of windows, one that created flickering shadows when the sun was in a certain position in the sky.