Fantasyland 04 Broken Dove (35 page)

“In an hour,” Élan tried.

“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 outside 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 snow
woman
.

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.

She nodded, and she did this to his ear.

What in bloody hell?

When she didn’t move, he prompted, “Wine would be warming, poppy.”

Her eyes flitted through his before she skirted him and moved quickly down the hall.

He watched her until his attention was taken with the outer door opening. He looked over his shoulder to see Achilles and Gaston joining them.

“The children,” he said to them.

“Laures and Hans are patrolling the grounds,” Achilles stated, walking in and stopping close to Apollo. “You’ve spent the day with your children and there’s much to be discussed.”

Apollo nodded and moved into the room. This commenced their discussion which took them through dinner.

And through this, when his mind wasn’t on the matters at hand, it was on the fact that Maddie was there, but she wasn’t.

That was to say, she was there, smiling, answering a question if one was aimed at her from one from the men, talking to them softly, even laughing twice at something Remi had to say.

What she wasn’t was giving any indication she knew Apollo existed.

The only time he forced his existence on her was when Cristiana cleared the dishes. This was because Maddie rose to help her, but when she neared him, Apollo caught her hand and forced her into the chair beside him, a chair vacated by Gaston, who had gone to the main house.

He leaned into her and shared, “Lady Ulfr does not clear.”

She turned wide eyes to him then moved them through him and nodded.

It was at that point that his bemusement at her behavior turned to annoyance.

And this annoyance escalated when they moved from the dining table to the sitting room with their whiskeys (though Maddie was still drinking wine) and she continued to be jovial and animated with his men but distant with him to the point of ignoring him.

Thus he was glad when the business was concluded, the plans made, the men had their orders and they took their leave.

Apollo and Maddie saw them to the door.

And the minute the last farewell was thrown she ducked by him and moved into the house.

Much more slowly, he followed her.

Further irritating him, he found her tidying the glasses in the sitting room.

Her eyes slid through him once again as she passed him and he watched her walk to the kitchen.

He walked into the room, sat and took a deep calming breath.

She returned, her eyes avoiding his, but she bent not close, but not far, to grab a glass.

He bent deep, to grab her hips.

He then sat back, taking her with him, and planted her arse in his lap.