The Vow (Lady Quill Chronicles, #2)

The Vow (Chapter Five)

Chapter Five

The noise in the great hall was deafening, laugher carried across the smoky air to where Finan sat at the head table. He would have much preferred a seat with his men at one of the lower tables, however he had learnt long ago that there were some battles it was best not to begin. To be more precise, any argument in which Lady Ebba would have a part.

With a slight smile he remembered his arrival at Valrek as a child. Powerful and landed though his family were, he was a fifth son and there had been little left for him. Old Lord Gournay had known that his youngest sons would need to make their own way in the world, and that marriage to an heiress was a preferred method.

Finan shook his head, he had always known his sire to be a wily old fox but could not help feeling that in placing him here, with the obvious intent to align him with one of the daughters of Valrek, he had overreached himself. Lady Esme and Lady Aisly were extremely rich women in their own right, their dower lands alone enough to inspire the most salacious of greed.

However even Finan could see that, added to that incentive, was the fact that both women were well looking. Indeed, Lady Aisly was held to be the most beautiful woman in all of Wessex.

His father had been mistaken if he supposed his unimportant fifth son would be an attractive marriage partner for either young lady. Besides that Finan had no wish to marry, whether it be a daughter of Valrek or one of the serving wenches.

He was happy with his life, his position gave him purpose and he knew that he more than paid his keep. No army in the whole of King Ine's realm was as well trained as Valrek's. Rafe might inspire the men to unthought-of heroics, but it was Finan that kept them steady, who imparted to them the stoic calmness to carry on.

He needed no more than he had. Although his father had not been pleased to see his son waste a golden opportunity to form a great alliance, Lord Gournay had not pushed him to do his will.

Instead he had sent Evoric.

Some of Finan's enjoyment faded as he thought of his long dead brother. Tonight was a happy night, a night when the House of Valrek finally put the horror of Calis behind them. It was a celebration of Rafe and Adele's forthcoming nuptials and Finan would not ruin it with thoughts of the past.

Beside him Lady Adele and Rafe had their heads bent together, Rafe was laughing with customary freeness and Adele looked as serene as ever.

Lord Brogan and Lady Ebba sat beyond them at the centre of the table, and further along Esme and Aisly laughed merrily together. Finan experienced a strange sensation of loneliness, of having no part and no place at this gathering. It was a surprising feeling, one that he had never before felt in the twenty six years he had sat at the head table.

Lord Brogan had taken his responsibility to the boys fostered with him very seriously. The day that Finan had arrived at Valrek and taken his oath of fealty, Lord Brogan had impressed one fact upon his mind with searing clarity. Finan, in taking his oath, had become a son to him, a child of Valrek.

That day Finan had gained a second family, a second home, a place and a purpose. He had been treated just as Rafe had been. Together they had shared a room, lessons, meals with the family and, on many occasions, the rod of discipline. Finan had felt more at home in Valrek than he had with his own family and more of a brother to Rafe than to his blood brothers, excepting Evoric. To suddenly feel an interloper was confusing and unwelcome.

He glanced around the room again. Further down the hall a few of the younger soldiers were holding their fellow trapped against the table and pouring the contents of a tankard down his throat. Finan smiled a little in reminiscence. Once that had been him, Rafe, Evoric, Rand and Leofric.