A Wager Of The Heart

30. The dragon returns

:::Charity:::

That infuriating man! I thought, still seething as I helped Geri into her night dress. Her ankle was healing well and she could walk short distances by herself before it began to hurt. I growled out loud and made Geri laugh.

"Calm down, Chari, I'm okay. Really." She said, trying to sooth me.

I grimaced and looked away, unable or unwilling to deal with the love and devotion shining in her eyes in reference to this brute. "Brandan is a good man." I said remembering how the kindhearted man had left Kent's side to tell Geri stories of his boyhood until she laughed without pain or fear. "How he can remain friends with a man like that is beyond me."

Geri laughed and crawled into her over large bed. "Everyone has something redeemable about them." I rolled my eyes and she laughed. "Come on Chari, I've let it go, can't you?"

I looked at her skeptically and decided she must be more in love with him than I thought. I sighed and sat down on her bed. "Have I ever?" I asked.

"No," she giggled again.

"What is this nonsense?" 

I recognized the voice but I still could not believe my eyes as Ursula strode into the room. Her pale blonde curls were tightly coiled to her head and her translucent blue eyes shown with anger and disapproval as she regarded me. "Grandmother." Geri said breathlessly.

"Don't get up child, you're injured." Ursula said almost kindly halting Geri's progress. "As for you..." She snapped looking me up and down, her nose wrinkling distastefully. "I should have expected you to behave as a brute, even here."

"The fact that you didn't, just shows you're getting old." I said with a smile on my face. 

Ursula's tiny face twisted with mortification. "I see they have no hovel for you to clean, however do you spend your time?"

I raised my brow at her in irritation. "The least you could do if you insist on insulting me would be to use your imagination."

"No need, the filth is so fitting."

"Grandmother!" Geri said shocked. "Enough, treat Charity with the respect due my sister!"

Ursula turned angry eyes on Geri and I watched in annoyance as Geri flinched under her assault. "She is the product of an unholy union, she is not your sister and if you speak to me thusly again, I will punish you myself."

"So Ursula," I snapped, drawing the older woman's ire, "what brings you here?"

"I've come to look after her welfare." Ursula scowled as she looked at me. "As such you are no longer needed. I've brought with me a proper girl who knows her place and will be acting as her maid."

"You have no right." Geri countered, her anger making her face hard and unrecognizable.

"Do not talk back to me." Ursula retorted. "I have feared and remained silent for too long. Your association with this bastard  has made your manners as deplorable as her. I will stand for it no longer."

"I forgot that being a Countess gives you the right to come into another's home and dictate how it is run." I said a note of humor in my voice despite my great anger. "Forgive us, oh great one."

Ursula snarled as she turned to me. "Give your compliance with sarcasm if you insist, but you will obey me." I shrugged my shoulders, there was little she could honestly make me do. "I have spoken, you are dismissed."

I laughed at her and leaned down to hug Geri and whispered in her ear. "I'll see you in a bit." I said quietly. I smirked at Ursula's outrage and confidently left the room. I found my father pacing on the other side of the door, his face flush with anger.