Chapter 10: Memories

Carol had started playing up to Vincent.

She acted as if she was his old lover and that Ulani was in the way of them being together because he had to marry her. She staged little scenes to make it look like Vincent was pursuing her. She would give Ulani little guilty looks but then look at Vincent as if he was the love of her life. She was really pissing Ulani off.

Vincent had noticed the tension between the two, but with all his other problems, he didn’t realise what Carol had been doing until he had stopped outside the parlour one evening at the beginning of their third week, before entering. He’d told them he would be late and not to have dinner wait for him.

He had also come in via the servant’s entrance, so Kevin’s butler hadn’t announced him coming home. Kevin often retired early to his study to read or write, and they had few visitors. He’d washed up in the back bathroom and had stopped to do up a button he had missed.

He heard Carol say, “It’s a shame dear Vincent didn’t consult you about the colour scheme when he picked the new paint. We’d discussed doing the downstairs in that off-white colour to brighten it up. The old place also desperately needed the bathrooms redoing. I hope he still uses the blue tiles I picked out. I’m sure you will like them.”

Vincent frowned. She was telling Prue the truth in respect of the colours and the bathrooms. She had come over to visit while he had been discussing the refurbishments he wanted with Mathew and Ty the last time they had been home.

The thing was she was making it sound like they had done it as a couple, not that she had added suggestions to the discussion. Her next words put a sour look on his face and made him really cranky, when he finally realised what she was doing. Her intent was as clear as clean water to his ears.

Carol went on, “At least the new nursery will be large enough for you dear. We decided to move it from upstairs to the rooms near the main bedrooms. Vincent wanted the kids closer to us, like Ty and Willow.”

Vincent walked into the room. He could feel Ulani’s distress at the conversation. He dropped to his knees in front of her and picked up her hand with the ring on it. He kissed the ring to remind her of its significance. He looked into her face and felt the ring warm between their clasped fingers.

He smiled his love at her, “Ty suggested those rooms as the nursery. Yes, Carol was there the day Mathew, Ty and I were discussing the refurbishments. She was visiting, as she knew we were home, and Kevin wished to invite us to dinner to discuss business.”

“I’ve never hinted at or suggested a relationship between us, and I have not, nor do I ever intend to pursue any form of relationship with her even if you hadn’t agreed to be mine.”

Carol stood and said in indignation, “How can you say that? You know how I feel about you. You were mine long before she came along and hadn’t stolen you from me.”

Vincent stood and looked at Carol. He gently shook his head, “No, I was never to be yours nor have I ever been. By the Gods woman, do you honestly think I could even touch you after you have been screwing my father?”

Carol looked at him in shock. Albert was careful never to approach her in public. As far as she knew, only her father knew Albert had been with her, and she knew that he wouldn’t say anything. Vincent sighed, “You shouldn’t have let him screw you in the woods on Ty’s property.”

“I believe you had followed him when he was going to meet Maria and you two had an argument. He threw you on the ground, and I was going to go get help, but I heard him laugh and say to you that you were a jealous little spitfire and he had enough cock to satisfy both of you. Do I need to say any more Carol?”

“No, no, no, he raped me, you let him rape me,” she screamed at Vincent.

“Yes, I suppose he did, but he always raped his girls if they were willing like you. He had always liked a little force, and he did like his girls young. We could never keep maids long unless they were old or ugly. He always managed to coerce them into letting him fuck them.”

“I’d seen him come up behind a maid, bent her over whatever was Hardy and stick his cock in them. The more they struggled, the more excited he got. I tried to stop him one day, and he laughed and held the girl for me.”

“He said: ‘you will be ten tomorrow, pull that cock out and come and get it wet, Son. Show me you are a man.’ He then stuck his fingers in her and pumped her hard.”

“He then said to me, ‘She’s nice and wet and not too stretched. But Maisy likes it hard and fast boy, don’t disappoint her.’ I then realised he liked to play games with them, and some of them loved his games, when the girl gave me a look that said she wasn’t sure I had what it took. I remember looking at them in disgust and ran out of there.”

“I went to go to Uncle Iain’s, but it was dark, and I got lost in the woods. I slept there that night and made it to Prue’s later the next day. Uncle Iain got me on a coach and back to school. Prue later told me, he and my father had a blazing row over how he treated me. I spent the next holidays at Uncle Henry’s and with Ty.”

He looked thoughtful, “Ulani, I think I may have been thrice gifted?”

“Why, my love?” she asked.

“It’s strange, but I haven’t thought about sleeping in the woods that night for a very long time. I remember when I went back to school that was when I decided I wanted to study the law and management. I wanted my people to be treated better than the way my father treated his people.”

“I wanted to bring people like my father to face the law and be punished for their wrong deeds. I found reading and studying very easy after that. I could never force a woman, nor have I ever promised one something I couldn’t or wouldn’t do.”

Ulani stood and kissed him deeply, “I know my love, that’s why I didn’t believe you had ever touched her or made her think you would marry her. Plus, the ring told me.”

Vincent looked at her and smiled, “It did? How?”

“Every time she told a lie about you and her it got icy as if it was angry. But when you touch me and say you love me, it gets warm, and I feel it is content and happy.”

“Hum, I’ll have to remember you have your own personal lie-detector when it comes to me,” he said, but he grinned.

Ulani didn’t feel he was worried about it as she had a feeling, he planned to be honest with her. He had always been honest except for admitting that he loved her, but she knew that was because he wasn’t ready to commit to her. She wrapped her arm around his waist and directed him to their room.

They totally forgot about Carol. She was left standing in the parlour watching two people who were obviously in love dismiss her as unimportant. She was fuming. How dare they treat her like that in her own home?

She would find a way to make them miserable like she was.

Vincent still hadn’t learned any more of the whereabouts of his father.

There were rumours but not hard and fast facts. Vincent had a feeling that his and Ulani’s lives may be in grave danger if his father had indeed come this far south. Darren’s challenge for the use of, ‘Right of Conquest’ had him worried. If his father could kill him, he could claim the Dukedom that he had always desired.

The fact that he was in the country when he should be in exile will become a moot point if he can get his claim to the King before the Constables arrested him. He would be untouchable unless someone challenged him in turn. Vincent knew full well that Ty and Tah wouldn’t be able to stay out of it if anything happened to him or Ulani.

Like Ty and Prue, Vincent believed Albert was responsible for the death of Prue’s parents and Ty’s father. The house hadn’t caught fire by accident. If it weren’t for Prue’s old Nanny getting her out of the house, he’d have lost his wonderful cousin as well. The world would have lost a genius scientist if Albert had managed to kill her.

He knew that Prue blamed herself for telling her mother what she had seen Albert doing several days before. Prue believed that Albert had tried to kill her again when he tampered with the carriage, but fortunately, their driver had been smart enough to stop it when the wheels had become wobbly.

The irony was that it had been Prue’s seventeenth birthday and they stopped in a sacred grove. The Gods had smiled upon her and added to her Gifts. She still had the burn scars on her legs to remind her of her close call, but it was not something she dwelled on much anymore.

Ty had also mentioned to him at one time that he believed Albert was also responsible for the death of their mothers. He didn’t believe that the carriage accident that claimed both their mother’s lives was an accident. He had read through his father’s reports into the incident.

Henry, Ty’s father, had received conflicting reports, but no one would go against Albert. Ty’s father also had the ability to tell when people were lying, and he believed he had been told a pack of them. He hadn’t pushed as the naked fear in the eyes of those he questioned told him they truly thought his brother would kill them.

Albert had always been a wild child, and he had only gotten worse after the death of his mother. He’d not had a happy marriage as he had been forced to marry before the old laws changed. Vincent knew that his father’s philandering had upset his mother. She also didn’t like his games. He had heard her crying on more than one occasion, and he believed Albert never took ‘no’ as an answer.

Vincent had even walked in on his father with his mother laid over his desk. He was old enough to know what they were doing. She was crying, and his father cuffed her then pushed her back down onto the desk, telling her she was his wife and he would fuck her whenever he wanted to.

Vincent knew his father tended to leave his mother alone if he found someone new to screw. His father hadn’t been sad when she had died. He had, however, gone a tad crazy as far as Vincent was concerned. He replaced half the maids and then worked his way through the new ones in celebration.

When they were in Bavindor, Albert started having wild parties and invited a lot of ladies and men, whom Vincent didn’t like. Vincent had learned to lock his door and bar it as several of his father’s so-called friends had tried to come into his room. He had heard enough talk at the Academe to know not to let them in unless he was happy to service them. At eight going on nine, he wasn’t.

He wasn’t happy to hear rumours that his father liked screwing the pot-boys and stable lads when drunk or high or both. Several of the lads had also gone missing from their employment after some of his rougher parties.

Maids had also left under strange circumstances. His father told him they hadn’t suited him, and he had fired them. Considering what he now knew, Vincent suspected they had miss-adventures with the unsavoury crowd his father had started hanging around.

If possible, Vincent tried to go to his Uncle Iain or Uncle Henry’s homes rather than be left with his father. They always took him in if he asked; else, he stayed at the Academe. He had to go home for his tenth birthday as it was expected. He never did tell Iain why he had turned up at their house on his birthday.