Authors: Dawn Chandler
“
Amy, easy. This is a good friend of mine.” Van grinned when he shifted uncomfortably at her statement. He had told her once that she was the only one who would consider him a friend. “Verges, this is Amy Devant.”
She turned to Amy with a smile and let her arm drop away. “Amy, will you get us all something to drink?” Turning back to Verges, she smiled. “Are you hungry?” At his nod she instructed Amy to get something to eat as well.
Amy gave Van a look of relieved gratitude and nearly fled from the room. Van’s smile fell away. She nodded to the long couch sitting before the fireplace. “Please sit with me.”
Van took a seat on the couch and Verges took the chair that sat beside it. He turned the chair to face the couch and Van.
With a quick look toward the kitchen area, she sighed. Verges shifted to get more comfortable. She looked at his shadowed face. He looked at her expectantly as if he knew she wanted to talk.
“
You saw the men leaving without me?” She already knew the answer.
He nodded.
She shifted uncomfortably on the soft couch. She wanted to explain to him her situation, but she had come to realize that she did not fully know it. She did not know where she was going or who she was going to be with. What she did know was that her lack of knowledge angered her.
She took a deep breath, turned to face him, and forced the words out. “I am to be married. I do not know who my betrothed is or where I am going.” Her eyes narrowed and she scowled. She hated that she was not consulted on this, that she had had no say in who or when or even if she would marry.
She growled thickly and kicked at the small table before the couch. It shivered dangerously and she waited for it to collapse. It did not.
She looked at him and forced herself to relax.
He just smiled calmly.
“
You know who my father is. I will be there in a week. I will go there first, that is all I know.” She shifted her weight and cracked her neck for what seemed like the hundredth time since she had arrived at her mother’s home. “Go there and find out what you can. I am sure people there know of the arrangements.”
Even if I don’t, she thought bitterly and kicked at the table once more. “I need you to take some money to the girls.”
He nodded once again.
She heard Amy coming in from the kitchen and shook her head. “I need a day maid and someone to help me. Amy has agreed to do that for me.”
Verges shook his head and allowed the hood to fall across his face as Amy walked into the room with three plates of food balanced on a tray.
She joined Van on the couch, sitting almost on top of her as she drew away from Verges, almost spilling the food as she did so. Van felt a trembling shudder run through Amy’s small frame. Van took the tray from her shaking hands and laid it upon the table. “Easy, he will not hurt you.”
Amy looked at her as if she was crazy. “How do you know? How do you know him?”
Van could barely hear her small, scared whisper. She grinned even though irritation swam through her veins at being questioned. She was accustomed to telling people what to do and having them do it. “I know.” She took one of the food laden plates and handed it to Verges without taking her eyes off Amy. “Because, he takes care of my girls for me when I cannot.”
“
Your girls?” Amy’s attention was finally off of Verges as her head spun toward Van, a look of shock on her face. Van, having no intention of explaining her mistresses to Amy, just shook her head.
As the Dark Knight she had rescued many women all over the country and had taken responsibility for them. It was easiest just to say they were the property of the Dark Knight, that they were his mistresses and their children his. It protected them.
“
Aye, my girls.” Van grinned at Verges and he chuckled.
Amy cringed and glanced at him before looking back at Van.
“
He would never hurt one close to me, even if he might have the urge.” She knew that he had had those urges before. Some of the women she had rescued had been a handful. They had done nothing drastic of course, but enough to annoy the big Verges. He had always held his temper, allowing Van to dish out whatever lectures or punishment was required.
She smiled down at Amy and gently handed her a plate of food before taking the last one for herself. “And I met Verges three years ago.”
Without looking up, the big man interrupted her. “The Dark Knight saved my life. We were crossing a river that was swollen and flooded with a storm. Trees were uprooted and one hit my horse. I was left for dead by the men I was with. Van came along and pulled me from the river.”
“
You do not seem surprised that she is a woman.” Amy relaxed and pulled slightly away from Van.
Van was proud of her bravery as she questioned Verges and looked at him while she did. She was once again impressed by her ability to trust in the word of someone. Her mother told her that the Dark Knight was trustworthy and she trusted her. Van told her that Verges was trustworthy and, from body language at least, it appeared that Amy was taking Van at her word.
“
I am not surprised.” He shifted in his seat to face Amy better. The hood fluttered around his face, but revealed nothing. His voice thickened. “While she was bringing me to shore, a large tree hit her. She was knocked unconscious and luckily I was where I could touch, since I cannot swim.”
His voice took on an edge of disbelief as he continued. “She had seen me as the enemy and still knowing that, she had saved my life.” He chuckled again.
Amy tensed, but did not retreat away from him.
“
I could not let her die. I made a fire and had to get her out of her wet clothes.” He looked up at Amy, allowing the hood to fall away and his face to show in the flickering glow of the lamps that burned brightly in the room. “I have given her my life, in return for all she has done for me.”
Van felt Amy tighten in fear at the distorted face before her, not a pleasant sight at its best, but she did not retreat away from him. She just smiled, a sweet light shading her face. Verges looked surprised and then he flashed a gruesome smile. “I think you have made a good choice, my lord.”
“
I do as well.”
Verges rose to his feet. Gesturing for Amy to remain on the couch, Van followed him to the door.
He turned and looked at her with a soft smile.
“
Find me.” The two words sounded to her like a desperate plea and she supposed they were. He was her only link to her past and the only one who could help her if things went badly.
She watched him disappear into the darkness and told herself that becoming the woman she was supposed to be would be easy. She smiled and believed it.
***
The next few days were spent trying to make Van into Vanessa. Van hated everything that women were supposed to be. She despised the cumbersome dresses women were supposed to wear and she was beginning to resent Amy for constantly telling her to be more malleable, more docile.
Van’s doubts rose a little more every day. She worried that she would never make a convincing woman. She did not walk like one, she did not sit like one, she did not talk like one, and she definitely could never be docile and malleable.
She didn’t have any of the mannerisms of a woman and she hated the name Vanessa. “Milady,” she did not seem to have a problem with. She was, after all, a woman and she was not ashamed of that fact. What she hated was the name. It represented everything that she had had to fight to overcome, all the shortcomings she had started out with. Weak, soft Vanessa had been gotten rid of and she had been ever so glad to see her go. Now, she was reluctant to allow her back.
The nights were spent much the same way as they had been for the last three years. Van tossed and turned, lost in dreams of the man she had saved in battle. Night after night he haunted her, again and again rubbing his calloused hand along her cheek, telling her she was beautiful. The man she had loved ever since she was ten when he had welcomed her to the castle.
***
Five days later, Van waited in the door yard, watching her father ride up with several men. One was leading a horse with a sidesaddle and another led a pack horse ready for a trunk to be loaded onto his back.
Her father did not take his eyes off of her as he rode up.
Van was surprised by how much she looked like him. She was identical to him, even down to the thin, erect nose and the high, sharp cheek bones.
Van trembled as she willed her legs not to turn to jelly. She took a deep calming breath and shuddered as she released it.
She shifted self-consciously beneath the gazes of the men who rode toward them. She wore a long, dark blue dress, one of many that Amy had tailored for her over the last few days. Van felt exposed and uncomfortable as the soft breeze ran its fingers along her bared thighs and legs.
She wore a thick layer of face powder to disguise the telling scar across her cheek. The powder and the huge waves of pitch black hair that swam around her face did well to hide the mark.
Her flowing hair was another thing she didn’t think she could get used to. It had never been worn any way but braided and it now rubbed and itched against her face and neck.
The chalkiness of the face powder made her want to sneeze, but Van knew the makeup was necessary. If Eolian found out she was a woman, his revenge would be swift, and he would use anything that he could to get to her. That included the young girl who had put her faith in Van.
Her father, Matthew Fordella, Earl Thereamong, of Thereamong Estates, dismounted. He came confidently toward her. “Vanessa. I have been anticipating meeting you.”
“
Aye, so I have heard for years.” Her hand hovered near the dagger that was strapped to her thigh beneath her dress. She scowled irritably, knowing she could not easily get to it and thought it was fortunate for him that she could not.
Matthew took another step forward. “I am sorry I did not bring a carriage. It takes longer over the rough roads than riding astride. I did bring you a horse with a sidesaddle.”
“
I need neither your horse nor your saddle.” Her angry words brought a pained look to her father’s black eyes. She spoke in the arrogant, low pitched voice of the Dark Knight and instantly felt a violent tugging at her arm.
Van tried to pull her arm away, but Amy held firmly, pulling heavily on her sleeve as she pleaded with her. “Stop it, Mi
lady
.” She put an extra emphasis on the word lady, stressing it strongly.
The desperate tone in Amy’s voice cut through her anger more than the words themselves. Van scowled, sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to relax. When she spoke again it was in a lighter, phony voice.
She had attempted a soft feminine voice many times over the last few days. Much to her dismay and frustration it would crack and groan every time she tried. The only thing she could manage was a high pitched falsetto that hurt even her own ears.
“
I have my own horse and saddle, although I can use the mare that you have brought, and the woman’s saddle. This is Amy Devant.” She gestured to the annoyance behind her without looking back and kept her focus on her father’s tense face as she spoke. “She will be going with me.” Her voice rattled her teeth and grated at her nerves and she irritably hoped that it did the same for everyone else.
She took a shallow breath and held her arm toward the door in an invitation that she did not want to extend. “You and your men must be tired, please come in. Amy has prepared a mid-meal for us.”
Without awaiting a response, Van walked quickly into the cottage. She did not want to be cordial to the man. He had brought her and her mother much pain over the twenty years since her mother had run from him.
Once in the cottage, she said little to him. He talked to her about life in Junket and looked irritated when her answers were short and vague, but there was little she could tell him. She just didn’t know very much of what went on in the town, she was seldom ever here and when she was she didn’t leave the cottage.
Matthew took a deep breath and dismissed the seven men who had accompanied him. They would bed down in the stable.
Matthew arched one questioning brow that caused Van to think of looking in a mirror as he looked toward Amy Devant. “Should she leave the room?”
“
Nay.” It was the same monosyllable answer she had given since they had entered the small home.
He gave a tight growl. “I had thought you were going to give me a chance, now I see it is not to be so.”
“
My Lord, I am giving you a chance.” She glanced at him and dropped into the chair closest to her. Amy took a seat next to her. She shifted uncomfortably in the long skirts and tried to remember how Amy had told her to sit. Unable to get situated, she gave up. “That is the only reason you are here.”
Van wanted to stay angry with him. She had at one time been frightened of him, but the fear had left her long ago. She had thought she had held onto the anger, but now she found she was only curious. “Why have you come to find me after all these years?”
“
I have been looking for you since your mother left me. I am not sure of what you were told all these years, but I would like to tell you what happened.” He sat in the chair facing her and waited.