His Redemption, Her Legacy

Part 13

'So it's true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.'

-E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly,
***

Hayworth Estate;

No!

Scarlet’s eyes widened with terror when she realised her blunder.

No… Zachary would never forgive her for this!
What had she been thinking!

But she knew it was too late to salvage the situation.

Brandon felt a visceral rage streaming like poison through his veins.
He could not hear or see past that. It was destructive and all-consuming. And there was only one person whom he wanted to unleash it upon.

Averey saw his brother; saw the blind anger and anguish on his face.
He then looked at his grandmother. Lady Margaret seemed to have aged a decade in the last few seconds. She looked frighteningly frail.
He knew Brandon could not support her for long. He had his own anger to deal with.

Averey quickly made his way to them, shifting the stooped figure of his grandmother in his own arms.
Brandon hardly noticed this. His eyes were fixated on the floor. His knuckles were white as he tightened his hands in fists.

“Bran…”

Averey’s started to speak in a tentative whisper.
An eerie silence had surrounded them and no one seemed willing to break it.

Brandon gave no indication of hearing him. Averey gulped through the emotions clogging his throat.
It was then that he glanced at his mother’s face. Her eyes were wide and panicked; tears streaking down her face. And at that moment, Averey truly hated her.

Scarlet saw the shame and disgust in her son’s eyes and the little of what was left in her, crumbled.
She gave a broken sob, looking at him pleadingly. His only answer was to avert his gaze.

She could not bear to look at Lady Margaret, whose face had turned pasty with shock; eyes unseeing and blank as they shed a string of tears.

She had done this.
She had destroyed their family. Scarlet felt the weight of her actions in their entirety- from her ultimate betrayal to Saya, to this very moment.
The guilt overwhelmed her.
And when Brandon abruptly turned to march away from with a feverish intensity on his face, she knew things would never be the same.

They all stood still, too stunned with the revelation.

It was only after he was gone for a moment or two, that a broken sob escaped Lady Margaret.
She clutched Averey’s hand in a tight grip and looked at him with frightened eyes.

“No! Bran… ”
__________________________________

Zachary was sitting in the library, going through the reports and revenue of the month when the doors swung open with force.
The Knight in him, immediately sprung up in defence, ready to face the intruder.

But he quickly relaxed when he saw his eldest son enter, stamping his way to the middle of the room.

“Oh! It’s you.”

His relaxation was short lived however, when he noticed the condition his son was in.
His first instinct as a father was to worry.
Brandon looked positively ruffled. His red-rimmed eyes were glistening and his jaw was clenched, painfully tight.

Brandon stood staring at him with a vehement look on his face, breathing hard, like he had run a hundred miles.

“Is something the matter?”