<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #40BF80"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;">Gregorio Pescari</span><br/><span style="font-size: 120%; line-height: 116%;">The Lord of Euganea</span></span></span></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/o793/Galvin_Fugazi/53cd9d89-d20b-452d-91a2-9d91f5ba5abc_zps00e843d7.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #80FF00">"I don't intend to stop her father on my own, Gregorio, but it seems to me that as men of honor that we should all have some part in protecting the little lady here. Why would you not offer your own hand to her if you think marriage is the answer?"</span><br/><br/>Gregorio shook his head as reaction to this offer. As if it would be so simple. As a lower noble he knew pretty well that they got always pushed around by the mighty ones and that Sir Damian would never accept a husband like him for his daughter. Unless he would cast her out of his home.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"You know pretty well, that her father would never accept me as a husband unless he would forget about his daughter at all. Sir Damian is some old, grim, thick-headed bastard with patience running thin, but he had never made a heal about his deeply routed hate for the folks from the North and the East who have made his life a hell. He is looking for allies and not to get his daughter of his back. A Sir Alexander or a Sir Leon would be the ones he is looking for and not some lowly noble from the South who is no help to him. As much as I pity Lady Danielle and I guess I learned more about her the last night than you probably know of her, but unless her father throws her out of his castle there is no chance that I may help her by marrying her."</span><br/> <br/>Maybe the implicit suggestion of a possible marriage if Danielle really lost her home may offer some comfort for the battered young lady, but Sir Gregorio knew that even then it would be a long way to go. Danielle probably had higher plans than him.<br/> <br/><span style="color: #FF8000">“I doubt that it will be so easy to remove Sir Damian from the equation. What has he done to call for this? He wounded me, but even I would find it troubling to ask for him to step down because of that. He threatened to kill his daughter, mainly because of some misinformation, but would he do it? Oh, don't get me wrong, I believe that he is capable of it and he may have done it, but he could anytime say that it was never his intention. And Lady Amena may know best, that there are a lot of ways to make a daughter suffer without killing her. No, better live it, Sir Damian will return in some days and he will ask for satisfaction. From those he believed did his daughter wrong and from her too. I wouldn't have mentioned a marriage, if I wouldn't have talked with Danielle last night a lot and if I wouldn't know that all her actions towards you were only based on your reputation but never actually on your actions. You know, a night in the dungeon after you got deeply humiliated sometimes opens up your mind...”</span><br/> <br/>Sir Gregorio avoided to look at Danielle while he spoke of last night. He hoped that she understood that he was only trying to reconcile her with Sir Alexander. If she believed that he did it out of humanity, then it would be all right with him. That he had far more profane motives shouldn't matter to the young lady.</div>