Chapter Twenty-Two
Giselle rose as the first of the sun’s rays were sneaking through the shutters. She hurried off to the hall where she found Ramsay, clearing up the remains of a meal and several mugs of stale ale. Lyall must have supped with his visitor last night.
‘What do you want?’ snarled Ramsay, in his usual manner.
‘I am looking for Lyall, is he up?’
‘You shouldn’t go looking for trouble, girl,’ he said ominously, ‘but if you insist on following him around like a tame bitch, then I can tell you he is in the stables.’
Giselle rushed out and ran into the stables. Lyall was saddling his horse, and so she paused at the door just so that she could look at him. He was so broad and tall, so much of a man. Would she ever be able to hold him?
‘Lyall,’ she called out and rushed up to him. But he did not turn to her in greeting. Instead, he stopped what he was doing and bowed his head. His jaw was clenched.
‘Will you not speak to me?’ she said, putting her hand on his arm. He looked down on it with distaste.
‘When were you going to tell me?’ he said coldly.
‘Tell you what?’
‘Our visitor last night was the Abbot Aifric.’ His eyes met hers, and there was a storm in them. ‘Aye, Giselle, he came with news of your ransom, or rather your lack of it. Seems there is no ransom coming, and there never was. Seems your family estate was taken from you by the King, forfeit for your father’s lack of loyalty.’
His voice was rising to an angry shout. He took a step towards her, and put his face in hers.
‘The Abbot tells me that your father is penniless, he is out of favour, he has lost all his land and wealth and more than this, the man has been dead these last six months or more.’
Giselle’s stomach twisted into a knot, and she took a step back from him. Lyall’s jaw was clenched, his fists were balls of rage, and a muscle was twitching in his cheek. His fury was such that she felt she was back at Wulversmeade, that first night when he had approached her covered in blood. This was not Lyall, this was that dark, vicious stranger who had terrified her. Whatever the Abbot had told him he had been stewing on it all night and building himself up to a righteous fury.
‘All along you have been lying to me, Giselle. Even last night when we…after I…what a fool I am to trust in you. To think I told you about my feelings. I bared my soul to you, and for what? I even said you were free to go but, of course, you can’t go, can you, for there is no one and nothing left for you back at Ravensworth?’
‘Lyall I tried to tell you last night.’
‘Was that why you have given of yourself to me, because you wanted to trap me, because you had nothing to go back to? You sought to get your claws into a husband, someone who was a good prospect? Did you seduce me so that I would take pity on you?
‘Me seduce you?’ she cried.
‘God, I have felt such guilt in wanting you. Are you even Baron de Villers’ daughter, or did you lie about that?
‘Of course, I am. And I am here because you took me for ransom. I did not choose to come, and now you shout at me because there is no coin coming your way, nothing in it for you.’
‘I don’t care about the ransom. It is the lie that wounds me, Giselle.’
‘Please Lyall, can you not forgive the lie. I was alone, and I did not know what to do. I thought if I told you the truth you would cast me adrift, leave me on a Scottish hillside somewhere and just ride away. I was frightened, so I lied about the ransom, but I never lied about how I felt about you, how much I like you, indeed I think I…
‘Don’t say it. Don’t you dare! You have come here, ingratiated yourself with my family, dangled your charms in front of me, and all to feather your own nest. I have been the worst kind of fool to fall for it. Still, at least I got some pleasure out of your lies last night, for you gave up your virtue easily enough, like all lying whores.’
Crack. Giselle’s palm hit his face hard, leaving a red mark. Lyall took her viciously by the shoulders and glared at her, and then flung her away from him. Both of them froze for a moment, and the only sound was his rapid breathing and her blood thumping in her ears.
‘Why are you so angry?’ Her voice came out as a squeak. ‘It was one small lie I told, amid all the fear and uncertainty of being taken hostage. I wanted to buy time to think on what to do.’
‘Why did Edric say your father was rich when he was not? Did he lie too?’
‘Yes. Edric was only marrying me because his father forced him into it. He told you a lie to get rid of me because he didn’t want me.’
‘Well, that makes two of us.’
His words were like a punch to the stomach.
Lyall mounted his horse and rode out past her, in a fury of hooves, scattering chickens and geese in his haste to get away. Giselle could do nothing but sink into a heap on the hay and weep.