A Powerful Little Love

Chapter 57

Amorette felt a gentle touch upon her arm as someone tried to turn her away from her father's penetrative gaze but she couldn't shake it off.  She tried to focus on Henry's Scots accent, such an unusual sound to hear in Paris amongst the French who all but refused to speak any other language.  Even Buckingham hardly ever spoke in English whilst he was there.  Henry never shirked his Scots heritage for anyone though.  He didn't care if the French turned their noses up at his foreign dialect because it was now more than ever one of the only things he had left to rightly claim as his own. 

"I want to know he'll pay the ultimate price for my brother," the Scotsman said.  Amorette noticed that although he spoke in English he had the good grace to slow down his speech so that the musketeers who were not entirely fluent in the language could gauge some understanding of what he said.  "I'm sick and tired of him lording it over everyone else and name dropping his way out of everything."

Amorette finally turned herself away from her father's sneering face and towards the group.  Athos kept his hand upon her arm, his touch not as reassuring as Amorette would have hoped it to be.  His hand shook a little in rage despite his calm stance. 

Treville was shaking his head.  "I cannot be sure how the King will see the matter.  Once the English ambassador has intervened there will be nothing much more that we can do.  If it were a French citizen he had killed, then he would be a French prisoner out and out but with a Scottish rebel I think the King will more than likely want this taken out of his hands as quickly as possible.  He will want England to deal with it themselves."

"So, he goes back to England to be welcomed home with open arms?" growled Henry. 

"He would still face a charge of murder," confirmed Athos.  "In an English court, though.  I doubt the English king would be able to keep overlooking his discretions for too much longer when all is considered.  He's already a traitor and inciting a war with Scotland won't go down well with many of the English aristocracy.  England is almost tearing itself apart thanks to Monsieur Cromwell so the last thing England needs is a Scottish army of barbarians braced to attack.  The odds won't swing in his favour no matter who he has to speak up for him."

From the other end of the room Lord Barclay laughed lightly.  "I won't have need to name drop at all.  You forget one very important component in all of this Messieurs.  I won't be taken to your King or handed back over to the English in shackles."  Amorette felt his eyes burning into the back of her head and she turned to glance at him over shoulder.  "My daughter will aid me in any predicament that prohibits my immediate release."

"No I will not!" Amorette scoffed. 

But Lord Barclay was already beginning to stand.  He buttoned his open doublet and gave it a tug to straighten it.  "I don't believe that for a second.  You're my daughter.  You owe me that much at least.  I raised you and you still carry my good name with you despite your disgust of it.  You won't desert me now.  You can't because you don't have it within you to treat me that way."

Amorette dragged her arm out of Athos' grip as her own anger began to rise.  Without hesitation, she approached her father who towered over her.  She knew he would attempt to intimidate her, but she needed to prove both to him and herself that she was no longer susceptible to his manipulation.

"What on earth makes you think I'd help you in any way.  I said I wouldn't rejoice in your death, but that doesn't mean I'd therefore rejoice in your freedom.  After everything you have done do you really think I want you to be free to kill someone else, to hurt anyone else?" cried Amorette as she reached him and gazed up into his frowning face.  "You don't get to make the orders here!"

"It won't be the end you know!  I'll keep coming back," he replied as his hands balled into fists at his sides.  "We will all keep coming back because there will always be good for nothing sympathisers like you who want to placate everyone instead of letting the ensuing fight take place."  His gaze shifted slightly to look upon Henry then.  "You'd best be looking over your shoulder Fitzgerald because we want you dead.  We won't stop until you are in the same state as your bastard brother!"