“We saw the woman in the closet, Madam,” he said, his voice low. “Who is she?”
Nicola was somewhat confused by the question. “The woman in the closet?” she repeated.
“The one at the base of the stairs, near the entry.”
The light of recognition went on in Nicola’s eyes. “Ah,” she said. “That is my husband’s mother.”
Kenton was rather surprised by the answer. “Hismother?” he confirmed. “What on earth is the woman doing in that closet?”
Nicola snuggled with two out of her three boys, almost too much for her petite lap. “She has been in that cubby as long as I can recall,” she said, kissing Teague’s head gently. “She is quite mad but quite harmless so long as she is left alone.”
Kenton mulled over the information. “She hissed menacingly at us.”
“She will do that if confronted.”
“Your sons believe she is a ghost.”
Nicola shrugged. “She comes out at night and dances through the lower floors in her tattered clothing and wild hair,” she said. “If you were a child, what would that look like to you?”
Kenton conceded the point. “A ghost,” he admitted. “She will be removed, however. I cannot have the woman disrupting my keep.”
Nicola gazed up at him, her brow furrowed with concern. “But I told you she is harmless so long as she is left alone,” she said. “If you try to remove her, she could become quite violent.”
Kenton’s face was like stone. “That is not my concern,” he said. “I will do what is necessary in order to remove her. There will be no mad relatives loose in my keep.”
Nicola regarded him a moment. Then she looked away, shaking her head. “Yourkeep,” she muttered. “You have been here less than a day and already it is your keep.”
“I told you it was my keep the moment I entered the gates of Babylon. What part of that statement did you not understand?”
Nicola sighed softly. It was evident she was very weary and somewhat defeated, but the fire of resistance was still in those beautiful eyes. Kenton could see it. He suspected a woman as strong and fiery as Lady Thorne would never be completely subdued, ever.
“It took you days to breach Babylon,” she muttered. “It did not come so easy. It was not as if I easily gave it up to you.”
Kenton’s jaw ticked. Now, she was touching on a subject he had been wondering about since nearly the moment he’d breached the gatehouse–whowas in charge of Babylon’s defenses?
“And so it did not,” he said, forcing Tiernan down to his feet. As the boy ran to his mother, Kenton crouched down a few feet away, watching the four of them very carefully. Mostly, he was watching Nicola. “As impenetrable as Babylon is, the fact remains that there are only a handful of soldiers and knights seeing to her defenses. You held off a substantial army for days with very few resources which is to be commended, but in the end, you still fell to me. That is a fact.”
Nicola’s head jerked to him, her eyes flaring with rebellion. “You mounted our walls with ladders,” she said. “We stemmed your tide for almost five days before the end came.”
“But the end did come and Babylon is mine.”
He said it with such finality, such arrogance. Nicola, who had thus far remained somewhat calm and submissive throughout the conversation, began to feel the fire of resistance surge in her veins. She didn’t like le Bec’s attitude or his possessiveness when it came to something that did not belong to him. This was the home that her boys would inherit and for no other reason than that, she had to fight for it. She held no grand memories of Babylon. In truth, she equated the fortress to her marriage to Gaylord. It was a cold, sometimes painful, and always an intimidating thing. But it was her children’s legacy and she would fight for it, no matter what.
“It is yours and Henry’s for now,” she said, hazard in her tone. “But soon enough, Edward shall regain it. I hope I am here to see that day.”
Kenton heard the hatred in her words. Hatred of him, of Henry, and perhaps of war in general. It was difficult to know. But he could see such strength in the woman as she spoke. Thatfire he’d seen since the beginning of their acquaintance was still there, smoldering, waiting to flare once more. She could still be a viable threat to him and he knew it. The logical thing would be to get rid of her for his own protection but he couldn’t seem to make a decision about it, which confused him.
Threats must be eliminated!
“It is quite possible that you will be,” he said evenly. “But until that time, your fortress, and everything within it, belongs to me.”
Nicola held his gaze a moment longer before turning away. She simply couldn’t stomach the triumph in his eyes. “It would not be yours if I had more men,” she murmured, “and if I was better at commanding. If I’d had those two factors, you would still be outside the walls and I would be laughing at your futility.”
A twinkle came to Kenton’s eye, suspecting he now had his answer about the leader of Babylon’s defenses. In hindsight, he knew it all along. He wasn’t surprised in the least and he found himself impressed with a woman that should be strong enough to hold off an army.
“Where are all of Gaylord’s men?” he asked in an oddly conversational manner, as if there was no force or demand behind it. “Babylon has been known to carry thousands.”
Nicola was still looking away from him, her gaze averted to the darkened shadows of the vault. There wasn’t any reason not to tell him everything. It wasn’t as if she had any secrets left to keep.