“Bruison, you may join us if you like,” Raehan Hembry called out her front window. “The spring sun is too oppressive for you to stand around thus on our doorstep.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” the guard replied, ducking to step through the stoop. “It is a tad stifling.”

As the gracious Mistress Hembry placed a plate of cold meats before him, Bruison tried to catch a glimpse at the lovely, young Miss Aylee where she sat in the corner of the room, staring out the window toward the marsh.

His time with the Hembrys had proven as pleasant as any he had spent since striking out on his own at the age of fifteen. Mistress Hembry always welcomed him, Master Hembry often trained him on the fireshot, and Chester educated him on the proper care of his horse. Even Miss Aylee often spoke to him, a light and engaging conversation that kept his duty from turning to misery.

Still, Miss Aylee spent more time staring out of windows and running through the pastures than speaking to anyone in the house, so Bruison felt grateful for any sort of conversation from her.

“Have you heard the news from the castle?” began Master Hembry, addressing Bruison with cordial confidentiality.

“I have heard little here. I simply await my orders from Friend Jess, though your family has made the duty as pleasant as any duty could be.” As he spoke, his eyes darted again to Aylee, and Raehan Hembry shook her head internally. Under normal circumstances, she would have prodded her daughter to pay attention, pointed out the virtues of the gracious young man who now spent most of his day looking after Aylee herself. Instead, though, Raehan could only work to lessen the young man's disappointment by offering him stew, or pie, or pastries. He did not seem overly enamored with Aylee – just slightly fascinated – so such an affinity could suffer without too much damage.

“Well,” Everett Hembry continued, “apparently, the Duke of Wilmington had not turned his troops to commit evil in his name,” he explained. “Instead, Bennigton's very own Malchus had appropriated the identity of Lord Capigan fallen from grace, and he had traveled from city to city in order to ransack and pillage. Stole the idea from a stranger he met here in Bennigton, actually.”

For the first time since Bruison had known Aylee personally, she perked up. He attributed her interest to the undertakings of a man who had once attacked her. Though few knew the details, everyone knew that Malchus had treated Aylee infamously. For some reason, she glanced at her mother who wore almost a smug look as the tale unfolded.

“Did you say that Malchus was the rogue noble?” Aylee begged, turning back to her father.

“I did,” Everett affirmed. “When he escaped Capigan, the law sent around a crude drawing of him, and several of the townspeople of the region recognized him as the man who had destroyed their villages and homes. Now that Lord James is back, I imagine that all such destruction will stop. Malchus took advantage of a tenuous situation, but James is not tenuous. He would no more allow such infamy than sanction drought in the season of rain.”

At the memory, Aylee stopped her ears. When she thought of the destruction, she inevitably thought of Jess. He was the true ‘rogue noble,’ the political sponsor behind the façade of Malchus Lorne? Had he intended to unseat the Duke? Part of her wanted to ask her father if he had heard of any conspirators, and who they might be, but did she even care Jess’s identity anymore? He was a scoundrel.

“...and the young earl alive after all,” her father was saying. “Our land will require much healing after the wave of violence that Malchus has spread. And at the behest of the Duke's highest adviser!”

“I knew Counselor Maximus,” Bruison spoke up. “So completely guarded at all times, one only knew as much of his mind as he chose to reveal. And all the time scheming to wrench the government from James.”

“And Malchus worked for Maximus?,” Aylee probed.

“Yes,” her father confirmed. “He was a political sponsor of sorts for Malchus and his raids. Apparently, Maximus had set in motion a plan to endear himself to the populace. It was to be an extended campaign. The first portion would involve the meticulous destruction of commerce and infrastructure across the region – that part was Malchus's job, posing as the late Lord Capigan. Then, once the people cried out in desperation, Maximus would arrive with his plans and restore order. He had already set in place a cadre of nobles who would offer him support once he took power. He planned to keep James alive until that time so that no one would question his rulings. As long as he could say, 'I have spoken to James, and he says something or other,’ no one would question Maximus. By the time he began to reign, no one would be able to distinguish his own policies from those attributed to James. He would have begun the second part of his campaign within the week.”

With every word her father spoke, illness washed farther into Aylee. She did not concern herself with the politics of the region, but she had concerns that ran so much deeper. She stood suddenly to her feet, rushing from the room and into the meadow beside the barn. After running for several minutes, she heard Bruison calling her name, and she purposely collapsed into the middle of the tall grass. Though he would no doubt consider losing her a dereliction of his duty, she did not wish at the moment to let anyone find her, so she could offer him no sympathy for the time being. Instead, she turned her face up to the afternoon sun and closed her eyes, letting the bright light blind her through the closed lids. When she turned her face back to stare at the grass in front of her, she saw nothing but a white glow that blotted out everything but the sides of her vision.

She allowed the emptiness to open her mind to the thoughts that whirled within it, and the ramifications of what she had just heard sent her into a cloud of abject misery.

Paulus Maximus, high counselor to the Duke of Wilmington, had set Malchus Lorne loose upon the towns of the region. In return, Malchus had received a title, limitless funds, and plenty of resources to enact his most base desires. He had pillaged, compromised, burned, and destroyed over twenty towns. All of this bothered Aylee no more nor no less than it had for the prior weeks, but the probability that accompanied the information gripped her heart.

With stilted breaths, Aylee berated herself mercilessly. Why did Jess’s goodness seem so much more reasonable a possibility now that he had moved out of her reach? And if she were wrong, how would her accusations and disrespect present to a spurned and betrayed noble? If Itchy had shared her speculations, as she suspected, it would likely explain Jess’s fury as he left her behind. It would explain why he had not come to find her now that Malchus Lorne had been stopped. How she despised the pain she must have unleashed on him on that fateful night when she let her temper flare and kissed another man! A man whose reception of the kiss would create the most possible discord between the closest of friends.

If Aylee had insulted Jess in mere gossip, exchanging conjectures with Lady Willen about an unknown noble, Aylee might not feel so utterly devastated. She, however, had maligned and insulted a man who had not only treated her with near regal regard, but had set her apart for preference. From almost the moment she had met him, she had wished to exonerate him, but she feared her own vulnerability – that she would absolve Jess of guilt just so she could pursue a relationship with him. Such an indulgence would have satisfied her base desires, but it would have compromised her conscience, and she hadn't thought she could live with such a discrepancy.

All of her conscientiousness, however, had proven an exercise in unnecessary self-immolation. Not only had she broken her heart by accusing him, she had refused him without cause. Suddenly, his secret identity seemed much less relevant to her desires. Once her greatest fear had found an answer, his lack of forthcoming seemed almost insignificant. She had not minded her ignorance of his identity; she had despised the identity she had supplied him.

She laid her face in her hands and let the tears flow. In trying to protect her virtue, Aylee had sacrificed her heart unnecessarily. Though she could not regret her intention, the result seemed futility. Her only hope lay in the thought that when “Jess the noble” finally recalled Bruison and came to exact whatever justice he had determined for Aylee, she might offer him an apology. She could not deceive herself that he would renew his attentions, but she wished she could offset a portion of the offense she had caused him.

Apparently, he had deserved significantly more honor than she had bestowed upon him. If she could in any way make up for her transgressions, she would utilize everything in her power to do so.