Page 40 of Waking Roslyn

“He could be fun and adventurous, taking me fishing or hunting one moment, and then turn mean and critical—threatening—the next. ” I was proud of myself for finding the words to explain something that was so deeply wounding to me.

“That must have been awful.”

I nodded. “He did the same thing to my mother, and I could see the way it jerked her heart around. The hope that swooped in when he was kind. The fear that returned when he would slam a cup down on the table.”

She chewed on her lip for several seconds before asking, “Did he hurt you?”

I shrugged. “Not much. He rarely resorted to physical violence. Only enough for us to know the threat was real.”

She shook her head and blinked her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. It was mostly just intimidation. He was a very tall man, so he specialized in berating us while he loomed above with all his height. He would sneer and push his face so close that I couldn’t make my eyes focus.”

Her mouth twisted to the side in a tight, lopsided frown.

“Then he’d laugh it off and pat my shoulder as if he’d just told a good joke. I used to call him the two-faced demon. Jolly and fun, or snarling and mean. No in-between.” I tapped my hand against my thigh, taking courage before I said my next words. “Lord Rockwell can be like that.”

Her brow and her mouth were both in a deep frown as she looked at the ground ahead of us. “Yes, I suppose he can. He’s never been violent though, never even threatened it.”

I tipped my head in acknowledgement of that. “And for that, I give him credit. And it took me a long time before I saw his darker side. At first I was drawn to him. I looked up to him.”

Her eyes pulled up to meet mine in surprise. “You did?”

I nodded. “I was eleven. Small for my age. My father called me puny and shook his head on a daily basis. So when Lord Rockwell asked me to help him with a task—a task he claimed he could only give to a strong, trustworthy young man—I fell over myself to do it. He praised me and kept giving me assignments. The idea that I, a small kitchen boy at the time, could become a trusted servant to the lord of the manor himself left me elated.”

“Of course it did.”

Her immediate understanding meant a great deal to me, but I couldn’t help the self-deprecation that came with it. “In the end though, he was just using me to betray someone else. And when I was caught, he was not kind about it.”

“I’m sorry he didn’t treat you well.”

I gave a little shake of my head. “It all happened long ago. I doubt he even remembers it.”

“And your father, did he…pass on?”

I smiled at her delicate wording. “No. He just left.”

She looked over my large frame. “And did he ever get to see how not-puny you became?” she asked with a smile that immediately lightened the oppressive mood that had settled over me.

“Yes, he did. That’s one of the reasons he left.”

Her eyes widened. “How so?”

“My father was tall and could certainly be imposing.”

“You got your build from him?” she guessed.

“I got my height from him, but he was not all that broad,” I clarified.

Understanding dawned in her eyes. “You got bigger than him.”

I nodded. “When I was fifteen. And not just in height. After training with Falstone for several years, it became clear that my father was no longer a physical threat to me. So when he would get angry and try to tower over my mother or sister the way he used to, I would just put my hand on his shoulder, give it a firm squeeze, and say, ‘Pops, why don’t you take a walk?’ or ‘Why don’t you have a seat?’ or something. It didn’t matter the words. The point was that he knew I wouldn’t put up with it. I kept putting myself between him and my family, and he knew he couldn’t win. Not when I was bigger, faster, stronger. Not when I was trained to protect.”

She drew in a long slow breath, and I wished I knew what it meant.

“Anyway,” I continued, “after more than a year of not being able to assert his dominance over the rest of us, he left. He tried to make my mother feel bad, told her that clearly she didn’t need him so why should he stick around? I honestly think he expected her to beg him to stay.”

“But she didn’t?”