The Shepherd could scarcely breathe. He realized he held the furs close to protect him from the frost in the air.
It had snowed during the night. The fresh layer made the silence so peaceful.
The Shepherd was startled when fresh-faced servants came in with silver pitchers of hot coffee and prepared their cups.
He looked out to the snow again and saw the reflection was a rosy pink, reflecting the first rays of the sun coming over the horizon.
It had taken Adrianna all night to finish that tale.
The Shepherd was reeling from the images in his mind, horrified at the fate that befell the proud Patron’s Daughter. The image of Ella Bandita’s tower of stolen hearts came to mind.
The Shepherd’s throat was tight when he spoke.
“You mentioned that she married and went on with life.”
“Yes.”
“And that her brother came to live with her after he lost everything.”
“That’s right.”
“How could you know that?”
“Of course, I wasn’t there to witness the ensuing years of her life. But once I was established here, I made inquiries every six months over the years until she died.”
“So she died?”
“Yes. Twenty years after that season, the Patron’s Daughter died. She had been a widow for years, and died with no children. As did her brother.”
The Shepherd closed his eyes, the image of Ella Bandita’s tower of stolen hearts coming to mind. He shook his head to make the disturbing image disappear.
“How did she die?”
“Dipsomania. Sometime during her marriage, she took excessively to drink until it killed her. From what I heard, there was never a time of day when she wasn’t out of her mind from drink. They say she stank of liquor when she was found.”
The Shepherd shook his head slowly.
“How was all this possible?”
“How was what possible?”
“That she was never discovered, never caught.”
Adrianna shrugged.
“If I had to guess, I believe the Sorcerer had a lot to do with it.”
“So what was her marriage like?”
“I highly doubt it was filled with love and romance,” the Courtesan quipped. “Why are you badgering me with these tedious questions, Shepherd? All things considered, the Patron’s Daughter got off lightly. Most of The Sorcerer’s conquests ended up cast off from their families or locked away in a convent. She was very lucky.”
“I beg to differ from that.”
“You can differ all you want to,” Adrianna snapped. “She continued to go to him.”
“What!”
“Exactly. After she knew the Brute was really the Sorcerer, even after she knew how much she had been deceived, the Patron’s Daughter still went to that cabin every week until the night when the Brute wasn’t there.”
The Shepherd looked up sharply.
“What happened?”
“I can’t really know. However, by that time, she was much older and past the bloom of youth. Perhaps the Sorcerer finally grew bored with her and stopped coming. Perhaps the Sorcerer had run the Brute’s essence dry. Or perhaps his desertion was due to death. It may have been after Ella Bandita killed the Sorcerer.”
“How did you know about the essences?”
Adrianna shrugged.
“I don’t know. The Sorcerer must have explained it to me.”
“You didn’t mention that in your story.”
“There was no need to. My story wasn’t about the Sorcerer or his magical powers. How do you know about the essences?”
The Shepherd ignored the last question.
“How do you know Ella Bandita killed the Sorcerer?”
Adrianna smiled slowly.
“I will answer that question, darling Shepherd, after you share more of yourself and more of your story with that woman you can’t bear to talk about.”
Adrianna rang a bell to summon her servants.
“We’ve had a long night,” she murmured. “We need to get some sleep before this conversation becomes a quarrel.”
“But-”
“But nothing,” Adrianna said and stood up. “I’m going to bed. If you wish to exhaust yourself, be my guest.”
“So you think you can just walk away?”
“Walk away from what, Shepherd? All this happened a long time more than forty years ago.”
“You ruined that girl. How can that mean nothing to you?”
“I admit I led her down the path. But the Patron’s Daughter ruined herself.”
“Any chance of happiness she could have had was destroyed! And that wouldn’t have happened without your interference.
The beautiful golden eyes of Adrianna narrowed and her mouth tightened.
“Did you not pay attention? The Patron’s Daughter didn’t have the qualities necessary to be happy. That was not my fault.”
“To deceive somebody like that is…is…Innocence violated-”
“Innocence! Are you joking, Shepherd? I took you to be a man of common sense!”
The Shepherd stopped, at a loss for words.
“The Patron’s Daughter was never innocent, not even as a child.”
“She trusted you.”
“She was a fool to do that, given how much we despised each other our entire lives.”
“You said yourself she had no tools to protect herself from predators.”
“She was foolish and had no experience. Nor did I at the age of eighteen. I was even more inexperienced as she was.”
“She never had a chance.”
“Don’t be absurd! She always had a choice. Plenty of choices! Why do think she continued to make the choices she did? Because she was getting what she wanted.”
“She would never have known of these desires had you not baited her.”
“I didn’t bait her. The Sorcerer did.”
“Your part in it was mercenary and cruel.”
Adrianna raised her brows.
“I beg your pardon, Shepherd. What do you think the fate of the Patron’s Daughter would have been without my interference? Do you think she would have had a life filled with love and joy? Really?”
The Shepherd was silent.
“Somehow or another, the doom of the Patron’s Daughter was inevitable. She inspired hatred. And if she hadn’t inspired mine, she would have inspired somebody else’s. Most likely, she would have been murdered eventually. How dare you judge me!”
“You led that girl to her ruin! That was wrong.”
“Are you trying to be a fool, Shepherd? There’s an art to taking chances. Morality has no play in that.”
“Therein lies the problem,” the Shepherd muttered.
“We both risked ourselves, the Patron’s Daughter and I. Her ruin was my fortune. That kind of thing happens all the time. It’s a fact of life.”
Adrianna’s face was white with anger, and her beautiful golden eyes narrowed as she stared him down.
“Darling Shepherd,” she said, with menace in her tone. “Your self-righteousness is rather mystifying given your taste for wicked women.”
“Do not bring her into this!” he snapped. “She was not that monster back then!”
“So what kind of monster was she? The night you met her, Ella Bandita killed the Sorcerer, an act that you witnessed. Yet mere hours before that she destroyed the most generous and benevolent Patron in the country, and possibly the continent. Her father.”
The Shepherd was shocked into silence for a moment.
Adrianna scowled and bowed her head, cursing under her breath.
“How do you know all this?”
The Shepherd suddenly realized that there was far more to Adrianna’s story about Ella Bandita than a desire to kill the woman who destroyed the men who made up Adrianna’s livelihood.
“You knew her, didn’t you?”
