Page 42 of The Trials of Alaric
His brother turned, a look of such loathing and disgust on his face that Alaric stopped in his tracks, his hand falling away.
“Redhaven,” said Claddach. “Be seated, please. You too, Stavely. Redhaven, Viscount Stavely has made a serious allegation against you. I am giving you the opportunity to speak in your own defense.”
“He admitted it,” Tarquin insisted. “I told you.”
Alaric looked from his brother to the man he hoped to soon call father-in-law, and then back again. “I do not understand.What allegation? If this is about Eloise, it was her choice, and anyway…”
Tarquin lunged at him, yelling imprecations. Alaric grabbed at Tarquin’s hands in time to stop them closing around his throat even as his brother’s velocity knocked him and the chair he was in backward onto the floor.
Chapter Seventeen
“Stavely!” Lord Claddachroared. “Sit down!”
Tarquin slunk back to his seat and Alaric picked himself and the chair up, keeping a cautious eye on his brother. What was wrong with the man?
“Redhaven,” said Lord Claddach, “do I understand that you claim your former betrothed, now your husband’s wife, consented to being bedded by you?”
“He forced her!” Tarquin insisted.
Alaric was about to resume his seat. His knees gave out and he landed in the chair with a thump. “I never touched her!” he said, hotly. “Bedded? She would not even let me kiss her.”
Tarquin swore again, quite vilely, then said to Lord Claddach, “He lies. My wife told me…”
Alaric stared at Tarquin, aghast. “How can you think I would do such a thing. Tarquin!” He felt bereft all over again, the loss of two years ago repeated and made worse.
“You admitted it,” Tarquin insisted. “The day of my wedding. I asked you why you did it, and you said it was Eloise’s choice.”
With a determined shake of the head, Alaric denied that charge and corrected it. “You asked me why I broke it off with Eloise,” he said. “I told you I didn’t. After she met you, Eloise informed me she did not want to marry me, and then a week later, the pair of you announced your betrothal.”
Tarquin’s face worked, as if he was fighting to contain an angry response.
“Can you remember the exact words you said, Stavely?” Lord Claddach asked.
With a frown, Tarquin admitted he was not certain. “Something like, ‘I know what you did to Eloise. How could you, Alaric?’ That’s more or less what I said.”
“That sounds right,” Alaric agreed. “You wanted to know why I jilted her, but I didn’t.”
“I wanted to know why you raped her,” Tarquin roared. He looked as anguished as Alaric felt.
“I didn’t!” Alaric found himself roaring in return as a slew of emotions—anger, fear, sadness, disgust, betrayal—washed through him. He fought to gain control and to remain civil in spite of them, but he could not keep back the words, “And if she says I did, she lies!”
Tarquin dived for him again but slunk back to his chair when Lord Claddach bellowed. “Gentlemen, we are going to go nowhere if the pair of you keep making accusations. Now, Stavely, I take it—and I apologize for the indelicacy—that your wife came to her marriage bed—or, from the sounds of it, her pre-marriage bed—not intact.”
His cheeks red, Tarquin nodded. “I asked her. I thought she and Alaric might have anticipated their vows, as she and I were doing, though only by a day. I was not blaming her, Lord Claddach. I just wanted to know if any child might be my brother’s.”
“And she told you your brother had forced her.”
“She did, my lord. And she is not a liar!” He glared at his brother. “Still, I couldn’t believe it. My own brother. My twin! Then, Alaric confessed.”
Lord Claddach sighed. “I think we have determined, Stavely, that your conversation with Redhaven might possibly have been misunderstood on both sides.”
“Yes, but…” Tarquin trailed off when Lord Claddach held up a hand.
“Up until that point, would you have expected such behavior from your brother?”
“Never,” Tarquin declared. “It was against everything I knew of him.” Tears started to his eyes, and he grimaced as he tried to suppress them. “It broke my heart, to think he was not the man I believed him to be.” He shook his head again. “But she was forced, my lord. She was… I will not discuss it, but it has taken a long time and much patience to… She was forced. If not Alaric, then who?”
That was the question. And why would she blame Alaric? That lie had cost him his brother’s love. It had sent him into exile, and into a life he didn’t want and wasn’t good at. Alaric had never complained but he knew he’d never been the same since, lost in a world without the one person he had always been able to depend on—his twin.
