When Apollo lost sight of him, he turned to the other men and asked, “Was it Derrik’s decision not to stay at my castle in The Vale?”
“He did decide our route, Lo,” Achilles answered quietly.
“Did he share the reason he steered you from such luxurious accommodation when it was along the straightest route to the port? Not to mention, he seemed quite keen on showing Maddie much of this world. I’ve asked and she’s seen not a single castle except from afar, when she spied Bellebryn from the ship.”
“No,” Draven replied shortly.
Apollo looked back to the lane, murmuring, “He is not right.”
“Lo, you should know, he seemed quite taken with her from almost the beginning,” Achilles shared.
Apollo looked back to his cousin, repeating, “He is not right.”
“He’s a man in love,” Achilles returned carefully, his astute eyes on Apollo. “They do many things that are not right.”
“You, alongside me, grew up with that man, cousin. That man who just rode away is not the man we grew up with. Again, he…is…not...right.”
“I agree with Lo,” Draven stated. “He’s not right.”
“And what do you think this is?” Achilles asked.
“I think that after what Minerva forced Tor and Cora to endure, the blackness of soul that Baldur has always had, the magic at their command, we should be very aware of anything that is not right,” Apollo replied. He looked at Draven. “Set a man to following him.”
Draven nodded and turned instantly to the house.
Apollo looked at Achilles.
Achilles spoke and he did it quietly.
“He may not be acting as Derrik, but he was not wrong earlier. You spent the night with Maddie.”
“And this is your concern?” Apollo asked.
“It’s been just days. Has it come so far so fast, cousin?” Achilles asked back.
“I’ll repeat, this is your concern?”
“You just noted we should be aware of anything that is not right,” Achilles pointed out.
He did indeed.
Apollo sighed and shared, “The witch with the green magic introduced her to adela tea.” He paused and held his cousin’s eyes before concluding. “And I was close.”
Achilles brows shot up. “You took advantage?”
HAApollo straightened his spine and is tone was low when he stated, “Maddie and I have worked through that.”
“You took advantage,” Achilles murmured, studying him.
Apollo felt his skin prickling. “I’ll answer my earlier question for you. This isn’t your concern.”
“She’s vulnerable,” Achilles warned.
“Agreed. This is why she needs me.”
His gaze never leaving Apollo, Achilles tipped his head to the side and he noted, “You care for her.”
Apollo didn’t hesitate and his voice was firm when he replied, “Greatly.”
His cousin’s lips twitched. “It’s not a surprise that that didn’t take long.”
Apollo had no reply for he spoke truth.
Achilles continued to hold his eyes and remarked quietly, “She also shared with me, cousin, and she would not take him.”
Apollo felt his brows draw together. “Pardon?”
“It is hers to share with you, the knowledge she trusted to me. But you need to know so the seed Derrik planted does not grow. She would not take him to her bed. Not of her will. Never again. Whatever they had, he killed a long time ago. If she’s taking you, it’s you she’s taking.”
Apollo felt the tension ebb from his body at these words.
Then he jerked up his chin and moved to the steps, murmuring, “I’m off to have breakfast with my children.”
He was nearly to the doors when Achilles called his name.
He stopped, turned and looked down at his cousin.
“Years, I have watched you mourn,” Achilles started. “It saddened me. Now, it pleases me to see you again reaching to happiness.” He paused and finished, “I wish you speed in grasping it.”
His throat prickled but his lips said, “Your heart is too soft for a soldier.”
“Says the man who grieved for his wife for four and a half years,” Achilles swiftly returned.
Unfortunately, to that, Apollo had no retort.
Achilles knew it and this was why he smiled before he turned and sauntered away.
Apollo sighed again and headed to his children.
* * * * *
“When is the fire-haired lady going to come and see us, Papa?”
Élan was on her knees beside him on the sofa, leaning in, resting her little body on his side. She was also, for some little girl reason, curling the ends of his hair around her fingers.
But as she asked her question, Apollo’s eyes stayed locked on his son.
Christophe was on his belly on the floor, knees bent, ankles crossed, feet in the air. He had a board in front of him, chalk in his hand. He was drawing, but at his sister’s question, the chalk arrested on the board.
This did not bode well.
He turned his head to look at his daughter, and watching her closely, being cautious with his words so as not to rekindle her fears of the night before, he said, “She rode with me through the night as well as the day to get to you, precious girl. Because of this, she was tired and today she’s resting.”
Not showing any signs this reminder distressed her, Élan nodded but asked, “Will she come tomorrow?”
“Perhaps,” Apollo answered.
Élan tipped her head to the side and noted, “She’s very pretty.”
“She is,” Apollo agreed.
Élan screwed up her mouth before she stated, “She looked very angry.”
Apollo felt something coming from his son but he kept his eyes on his daughter. “She was upset you were frightened.”
“I was upset I was frightened too,” she declared.
He smiled, turned to her and pulled her in his arms. She screeched in mock protest, as she always did. But when he blew a wet kiss on her neck, she giggled.
When he lifted his head, she put her hand on his face and told him, “I’m glad we’re not at school anymore, Papa.”
Apollo was glad as well. Even when times weren’t troubled, he disliked them being so far away. It might be wrong but he felt this especially this year, Élan’s first. But he was a father and she was his daughter and he couldn’t imagine any father happily sending his little girl two countries away to school.
His son was not only a boy but the oldest child. He was also much like his mother, extremely intelligent and self-assured. Christophe uncannily had displayed signs of both from a very young age. Although Apollo had not liked sending him either, it had caused less unease.
However, Ilsa had gone to that school, as her father had before her and his before him. It was, in truth, the finest school in the Northlands. And it had always been her wish that her children would attend it.
So he gave into that wish, even after her death.
Maybe especially after her death.
When she was alive, they had had plans, of course, to spend much of their time in Benies while the children were at school. And when it was safe for them to go back, Apollo decided that he and Madeleine would do just that.
“I’m glad you’re home too, darling girl,” he replied then arranged his face into mock severity. “But don’t think with your papa home today and me allowing you to be away from your studies that you can be lazy every day. It’s back to your tutor on the morrow.”
She made a face, clearly not looking forward to this, and he again smiled.
“Élan, my love, bath time,” Bella, the children’s maid called from the door.
“Oh no!” Élan cried, twisting and sitting in her father’s lap to look to her maid. “I don’t want to take a bath now.”
Bella put her hands on her hips. “Then can you tell me when you’d desire your bath, little miss?”
“In an hour,” Élan t
ried.
“In an hour, you’re to bed, eyes closed, dreaming good dreams,” Bella returned.
Élan gave it a moment and came up with a different plan.
“How about I skip it tonight and take one tomorrow?” she pushed.
“I don’t mind if you don’t bathe,” Apollo put in and his daughter’s happy eyes came to him. “In fact, you are more than welcome never to bathe again. However, this would make you stinky and I wouldn’t hold my girl in my lap if she was smelly.”
Élan made another face, this time scrunching her nose. But his words also served to get her moving. She jumped from his lap only to dash two steps toward Bella, stop and dash back.
She jumped back on the sofa, threw her arms around Apollo and whispered in his ear, “I’m happy you’re back, Papa.”
Apollo wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close and took in her scent, which was far from unpleasant.
Then he returned her whisper in her ear and said, “Give your father a goodnight kiss and go to Bella.”
She pulled back, grabbed his face in both hands and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek before she again jumped off the couch and ran to Bella.
Taking her outstretched hand, she followed the maid out as Bella called, “Chris, you’re next.”
“All right, Bella,” Christophe called back and Apollo’s eyes went to him.
“Son?”
Christophe looked up at his father.
“Sit with me,” he ordered.
Rolling side-to-side as only a child would do, he got his feet under him and came to the sofa.
Apollo studied him as he did so.
Christophe had, some time ago, eschewed what he called “little boys’ clothes” and demanded to wear breeches, or trousers and high boots, not just breeches and ankle boots. He’d also taken to wearing full cloaks that fell to his calves, not short ones that fell to his backside.
Apollo had allowed this. If his son wanted to be a little man, there was no reason why he couldn’t be. He did excellent at his studies and was talented on a horse, not to mention, showed great promise with a bow and his wooden sword.
And anyway, Apollo had hated ankle boots when he was Christophe’s age so he saw no reason to force his son to wear them until he was thirteen.
Apollo watched as Christophe sat on the sofa at the opposite end to him, arranging his boy’s body in his father’s exact pose as best he could with his much shorter frame. That was to say, leaned back with one leg crossed, ankle resting on the other knee. However, he didn’t have his arms spread wide along the back and the arm of the couch as his arms didn’t reach.
Apollo quelled his smile and caught his son’s eyes.
“With your sister gone, I thought we’d talk, man to man,” he began.
Christophe’s chest swelled up and Apollo was forced to quell another smile.
“You’re well?” he asked quietly.
Christophe nodded. “Yes, Papa. I’m all right. And Élan is too. I knew Achilles and Derrik wouldn’t let them get to us.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, son,” Apollo noted carefully.
Christophe looked to the carpets. He knew what he was talking about.
“Look at me, Chris,” Apollo urged and Christophe looked back to his father. “Madeleine, which is what she wishes to be referred as in this world, is very anxious about meeting you, knowing how she will appear to you.”
Christophe said nothing for long moments but he didn’t look away from his father.
Then, he blurted, “Nathaniel told me.”
Apollo blinked.
Perplexed at this change in subject, he asked, “Nathaniel told you what?”
“He was watching through a crack,” Christophe went on, still not making sense.
“Son,” Apollo started. “Explain.”
“A crack,” he hesitated, “in the gardener’s shed.”
Apollo drew in a sharp breath.
Christophe took his ankle from his knee and leaned into his hand in the sofa, asking excitedly, “Did she really stick a man with a knife, Papa?”
Apollo stared into his son’s bright eyes and did not answer. Instead, he stated, “Nathaniel should not have been doing that nor should he have shared what he saw with you.”
Christophe held his gaze.
Then he whispered, “She did.”
Bloody hell.
“She was tired and cross,” Apollo told him.
He watched his son’s mouth quirk before he remarked, “She’d have to be very tired and very cross to stick a man.”
In other circumstances, not these, he would agree with his son that this was amusing.
This time, he didn’t.
He had other concerns.
“What else did Nathaniel tell you he saw?”
Christophe sat back, his shoulders slumping. “Nothing. Lees saw him when he was taking the lady…I mean, Madeleine out and he pointed at him so he thought it best to run away.”
Apollo relaxed.
“He said she was meaner even than Laures,” Christophe went on.
“Again, she was not in a good state,” Apollo replied.
One side of his son’s mouth hitched up as he commented. “Nathaniel said it was grand. She grabbed his face and took Laures’ knife and—”
He stopped talking when Apollo took his arms from the sofa, leaned into him and quietly shared, “Do you remember what I told you on the ship on the way home about the two worlds?”
“Yes, Papa,” Christophe answered.
“In her world, she lost you and Élan.”
Christophe snapped his mouth shut.
“In that world, your twins were never born. But she carried both and your twins in that world were taken from her before they took their first breaths.”
Christophe held his father’s eyes, his now stricken.
Nevertheless, Apollo kept speaking.
“She grieves this still. And when she saw the children she never had, and saw them frightened, she reacted. She did what she would have done if you were her own. It is not grand what she did, Chris. It is beautiful. Don’t you think?”
Christophe nodded slowly.
“Your sister doesn’t understand this because she doesn’t remember losing her mother. But I think you do. She lost her Christophe and Élan. You lost your mother. Of anyone, you and I, we understand. Do you agree?”
His son again nodded slowly.
“She will need some time to gather the courage to meet you and your sister. Can you help me contain your sister’s excitement in order to give her this time?”
“Yes, Papa,” Christophe whispered.
“Thank you, son,” Apollo murmured, lifting a hand and cupping it on the side of his son’s neck. “Now, go to your bath. I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”
“Al’right, Papa.”
Apollo watched him jump from the sofa and he got no hugs from his son. Even at eight (nearly nine), Christophe was far too old for that.
But he still turned at the door and called, “When you see her, will you tell her Élan’s excited to meet her?”
This meant something else entirely.
Apollo felt the tightness in his gut loosen and he answered, “I will.”
Christophe nodded and dashed out of the room.
Apollo took in a deep breath and let it out. He then straightened out of the sofa and moved from the room. He found a servant and ordered a horse to be brought around. He then found Laures and told him of Nathaniel. He also ordered him to find Nathaniel, discover all he’d seen, extract a promise he would cease talking about it as well as another he wouldn’t do anything as foolish again.
Finally, Apollo went to his cloak and swung it on, left the house and moved to the horse saddled and waiting for him at the front of the house.
It was not a sedate walk at which he rode to the dower house.
But when he came into the small clearing, he pulled back the reins at what he saw.
Two torches o
utside lighting the front door and casting a glow on the glade.
And in that glade were not one, not two, but three snowmen.
He peered closer and saw he stood corrected.
Two snowmen and a snowwoman.
Maddie clearly had found a way to keep herself occupied that day.
His lips twitched before he clicked his tongue against his teeth and led the horse to the stables. But when he went to stall his horse for the night, he saw three stalls were taken.
This meant when he walked into the front room, he saw Remi, Alek and Draven lounging on his dead mother’s furniture. Maddie was sitting on the floor. And a game of tuble was in progress on the low table they were all seated around.
All the men had mugs of ale. Maddie had a glass of wine.
He also walked in on them all laughing.
Remi saw him first and immediately shared, “Maddie has mastered the art of the cheat.”
Apollo crossed his arms on his chest and asked, “Indeed?”
“She’s taken every hand!” Alek exclaimed and went on. “She has very nimble fingers.”
His eyes went to Madeleine to see her head tipped back and hers on him and his voice was much changed when he repeated, “Indeed?”
Pink crept in her cheeks as she looked away.
“Sit for a hand?” Draven asked, gathering the cards to shuffle them.
“I would like nothing more, but, you see, my lady and I were set upon only two nights’ past and my children last night, so I’m afraid I won’t have my mind on the cards.”
The men looked at each other, grinning, and Maddie quickly got to her feet.
“I’ll get you an ale. Or do you want wine?” she asked.
She asked this to him, he knew, however, strangely, she didn’t ask his face.
She asked his chest.
“Wine, dove,” he told her.
“There’s a lady, um…in the kitchens. She says she’s to cook and serve. I’ve told her the men are staying for dinner,” she shared, this time to his shoulder.
This did not please him. He’d wished to dine alone with her. However, he did not share this with her in a room full of his men.
What also didn’t please him was that, for some reason, she seemed unable to meet his eyes.
“I hope she told you her name is Cristiana and she’s to keep this house for you, Maddie,” he murmured.