Chapter 16: Solutions

So where was Vincent’s honeymoon?

Would you believe that they went home?

On one of their shopping expeditions a week before the wedding. Ulani found a small flock of eight Uno’s with fleece that shone like silver. The man selling them said that while their fleece was pretty, it was almost impossible to get it to form a thread.

Plus, he didn’t have a boar to service them as the boar he’d purchased died on the trip here, and none of the ewes was pregnant. He’d tried two other boars that were good sires, but he’d had no kids from them in twelve months. He was cutting his losses.

Victor said he wanted them. So, Ulani and Vincent purchased the Unos for Victor. He also wanted two bitches he had found, to use as breeders for new Gardios for his flock. Ulani approved of both of the females saying they would be good additions to their breeding program. She had even decided to take the two male pups to train and sell.

Everyone at the manor was amused to find eight, silver Uno’s grazing on the grass and four, half-grown Guardios. Victor spent time with the Unos every day, and one of his Guardios was by his side within moments of him stepping out the back door. When he wasn’t outside, they were with their flock.

So why didn’t they go on a honeymoon? Victor was happy! Nope, not quite so.

Two days before the wedding, Victor said they had to go home. He wanted to go now, but they convinced him that they had to stay for the wedding. Victor had sighed, rolled his eyes and agreed. Vincent later went and got his son and took him outside to watch the Unos.

“Okay, Victor why do we need to go home? I thought you were enjoying being with the cousins?”

To Vincent’s surprise, Victor wanted up. Vincent picked his son up, and Victor snuggled into his father’s chest as he wrapped his legs around his waist and his arms around his neck. The Guardios pressed against Vincent’s sides and whined. Vincent, concerned, sat on the side of the fountain and spun Victor around, so he was straddling his lap. The dogs put their heads on Victors’ little knees.

“Daddy, Aunty Bess sick. We need go get,” Victor said looking up into his father’s eyes that were mirrors of his own.

“Damn! Can I send Caleb and Stan to find her?” he asked his son with worry.

Victor closed his eyes. His little hands tightened on his father’s arms, and he put his head on Vincent’s chest for about a minute. He then sat back and gave his father a brilliant smile. “Need Caleb.”

“Great,” Vincent answered. He happily swung Victor back onto his hip and went to find Caleb. Caleb wasn’t hard to find because he was sitting in front of a fire in the rec-room reading one of Vincent’s old law books.

Victor looked at the book quizzically and then reached out and touched it. He then gave his father another of his brilliant smiles. “Yes, Caleb find Bess. Caleb and Bess go school. All good.”

“How is he to find our sister, Bess?” Vincent asked.

“Can you point out where she is on a map, Victor?” Caleb inquired. He got up and moved over to the large map of their continent on the wall. “We are here, and this is Arron Hills, and this is where Vincent’s manor house is.”

Caleb didn’t think it strange to be talking to a three-year-old as he was. He, even more so than most of the rest of the household had long since realised that Victor was not the average toddler. Victor had after all healed his side from the gunshot wound. He had felt a stronger connection to both Victor and Vincent since.

Victor pointed to a different manor house. “Damn, Eddie said that Bess left there two months ago,” Vincent said quite peeved. Vincent looked at Victor, “Does Caleb need any medicines for Bess?”

Victor scrunched up his nose and seemed to be thinking hard, so the boys waited while he did his thing, whatever it was. They all looked up as Willow came in. She was carrying two small bags that she and Druid Williams had designed as First-Aid Kits for in the home and for travel. They were selling very well as a lot of travellers found they were handy to have in their carriages or saddle-bags.

Ulani also came in with a small package. “Darling, we need to order more of these tablets to take with us for the estate. Druid Williams said they are most effective for bad infections.”

Ulani was surprised when Willow took them off her and put them into one of the Kits. “Do you need anything else?” she asked the boys in general.

They all looked as Victor seemed to relax and the intensity that they realised had been around him dropped. Caleb raised an eyebrow, “I assume by his reaction I have what I need. All I’ve got to do is get Stan moving and go get my sister?”

Victor grinned at his uncle.

“And then you are going to school,” Vincent said.

Caleb groaned, and the others chuckled as he left to complete his assignment.

“Do we still need to go home after the wedding son?” Vincent asked Victor.

“Yes Daddy, things to do,” Victor replied.

Victor wasn’t going to get any argument from Vincent or Ulani, and they too felt they were better off going home. Ulani chuckled and said they’d had their honeymoon before they got married, so they were not missing out on anything. Vincent smiled and told his bride to be that, his life would always be a honeymoon as long a she was beside him.

That did earn him a big kiss sloppy kiss.

Duke Zintan was in a quandary.

He looked at the beautiful young woman seated before him. He could well see why his son had fallen for her charms. He had a suspicion that there was more to the story of Ronald falling into the river. But then, knowing his son, unless he was on a horse, he had two left feet, and he tripped over them constantly.

However, the man Albert Arrondale, who had been posing as his son, had caused him several problems. Influential people from Iceland to D’Jang had all believed that Albert was his son. When he’d received word of his son being in the hospice, he had sent a message back to his Ambassador in Iceland to do what was required to send him home.

The Ambassador had messaged Zintan that Carol was like a lightning rod to men. Many men found her irresistible, and if she stayed free without Albert’s protection for much longer, she would be raped for sure. Zintan did have to admire the woman in front of him. She had handled those court cases very well from all reports.

The Ambassador had contacted his friend Jamil to help him, and Jamil soon realised that the Hotel Manager was trying to set Carol up so she would have to come up with an alternate way to pay her bills. Jamil had since told Zintan it was the only way that they could find to protect her until they could get Ronald out of the hospital.

Jamil had hoped that by having female guards at the prison, she would be safe until he could get the couple onto his ship. He did mention that he had a tough time controlling himself and his own men even with her sneezing on them all the time and that it got worse on the ship.

Jamil had started to suspect the man calling himself Ronald, may not be the Duke’s son when he killed Stinky. That man knew how to kill, and he was quite sure that Ronald wouldn’t have known how to break a man’s neck, as he’d not had any military training according to the Ambassador.

However, he did like the man and couldn’t fault a man from protecting his pregnant wife. The fact that he looked so much like Duke Zintan and even acted like him had kept him quiet, as he was interested to see what the couple would do once they got to Sunland.

Neither he nor Zintan expected that Zintan’s moronic nephew, Brenan, would see Albert entering the hotel and then follow the couple to their room. Zintan was waiting downstairs in the cafe for Jamil to report when he had noticed Brenan get into the cable-car to go upstairs.

He grabbed Jamil, who was walking away from the cable-car doors and they had to use the stairs to get to the room, but they’d not been quick enough. They had arrived in time to see Carol shoot Brenan and for he and Albert to fall to the floor.

The woman had dropped the pistol and followed Albert to the floor. She had gathered him into her arms and sat holding him tight as she wept quietly and rocked the body of her husband as his blood drained onto her skirts.

When Zintan had looked at the face of the man believed to be his son, even he had to look twice. He even felt as if his son had just died and had to drop to Carol’s side as the feeling of loss clutched his heart.

Carol had been strangely calm once the officers had turned up and organised the removal of the bodies. She had simply sat in a chair and looked at them all working around her. She had even let Jamil and Zintan help her to remove the blood-soaked dress once the bodies were gone. She refused to have anyone else near her.

Zintan recognised that she was in a form of shock, as she calmly did as they asked. She didn’t argue when they bundled her and her possessions into a coach and took her to his mansion. Since she was posing as his daughter-in-law, it made sense. Jamil was also worried about the baby she carried, and Zintan agreed it was paramount to keep her safe.

A couple of days later when Carol answered his questions as to who the man truly was, the breath had hissed out between Zintan’s teeth. He was the second oldest child. Because his older sister had married a Duke in Ausland, by agreement between the Kings of Nirvana and Sunland, her line had no claim on his title in this country. It was if she had died and had no children thus dropping from the line of succession.

If his older sister had married in any other country or at home, her line of succession would have inherited from their father when he died, because she had still been alive. Albert, being her last living son, should have inherited the Dukedom that Zintan now held.

As far as Zintan was concerned by blood, and the old lines of succession, the child Carol carried was the next in the succession of the Pirelli line. It had a higher claim than Vera’s daughter did. Hence, the problem he had to ponder.

How was he going to make sure the right child inherited?

“You will have to marry me,” Duke Zintan blurted to Carol one night over dinner.

“What? Are you crazy? The dirt hasn’t even settled over your son and nephew’s graves, and you’re just going to announce to the world that you’re going to marry your dead son’s pregnant wife?” Carol spat out in shock.

Zintan gave her a crooked grin. Carol shuddered slightly. The man shouldn’t look so much like Albert. It was damn scary at times when she caught him from a corner of her eye and thought it was Albert. He had held his age well, and at fifty-five, he didn’t look that old. He was a very fit and healthy man with a vitality that was similar to Albert’s before he died.