The Loyal Heart Part 19

Crispin's expression darkened. "Like what? Injured?"

She shook her head and looked up at the flowers on the tall bedpost, blinking to keep herself from crying. "Defeated," she pushed the word out, being as honest with him as he was being with her.

"Aubrey." His voice was too gentle as he sank to sit on the bed and reached out for her hand. He was not angry with her, but the alternative was worse. "I have no wish to defeat you." Still she looked up until the tears she was trying not to shed broke loose and trickled down her cheek. "Aubrey, look at me." He rested his palm against her now cool cheek and wiped at a tear with his thumb. When she turned to face him, to look him in the eyes, he glanced away. "I ... I have no wish to break you."

She breathed out a shuddering sigh. She was miserable because she loved Ethan but had married Crispin. She was ashamed because she didn't want to see her brother, now or ever. And she was being eaten alive by guilt because it was obvious to her that her every breath she took and every word she spoke broke Crispin's heart.

She kicked at the bedclothes in spite of the daggers of pain in her side and muscled her way out of the bed.

"Aubrey, what are you doing?" Crispin looked like he wanted to shove her under the covers but he backed off as if she were dangerous. "You're not supposed to get out of bed, your wound-"

"Feels better." It gave her a thrill of power to know he wouldn't stop her, even though he should. "I just need to move for a second. Where is the music coming from?" She hobbled across the room to the window, Crispin inches behind her, arms at the ready if she should fall. He pressed himself against the wall right next to the window as she reached it and bent to look out.

The sight that met her made her gasp. All of Windale village was out in the streets and squares of the town. Festive tents had been set up and she could see people eating, dancing, laughing. Strings of lanterns and candles were being lit in the common. It was a celebration like any wedding would have.

"Lady Huntingdon!" a shout of joy welled up from an unseen villager. It was joined by more cheers and shouts from the other party-goers. Soon everyone had stopped what they were doing to shout felicitations and to cheer for her. Cries of "Lady Huntingdon! Huntingdon!" circled up to them. Aubrey couldn't help but smile at the happy clamor. She reached out a hand without thinking and squeezed it around Crispin's when he took it.

"Are you well, Lady Huntingdon?" a beautiful blond woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Toby skipped out of a group of dancers and rushed to the wall in front of the house. Her dress was fine for a servant and her eyes sparkled with life.

Aubrey didn't know what to say. "I ... I have been ill," she lied to the woman as she vowed she would never lie to her new husband. "I confess, I should never have come out to be married today." Well, that much was true at least. She felt Crispin stiffen as he stood very close behind her and swallowed hard. "But I am feeling much better now. I shall be well again soon I think."

Another cheer went up from the crowd below. It settled into Aubrey's heart in an uncomfortable way. The woman beamed up at her and curtsied before being swept back into the dance that resumed as she watched. She wondered how many of them had heard what she had confessed to Crispin, that she was the Bandit. She wondered if any of them had believed her confession or questioned the blood on her dress. She wondered why they seemed to love her so much when they hardly knew her.

"You are their mistress now," Crispin answered her question without her having to ask it. "They have been wanting a mistress for a long time." She leaned back from the window and drank in his words, trying to sort out their meaning. "You should be in bed." His whispered order made her realize she was leaning fully against his warm chest. She started forward with a gasp then winced as the pain in her side stung.

She wanted to give him a piece of her mind for treating her like a child but she used all of her energy shuffling to the bed and sitting on it. "I suppose I should be grateful that you have such comfortable beds in your guest rooms."

The pause that followed her words didn't bode well. "Aubrey...." Neither did the way he spoke her name.

She sat in the middle of the bed and pulled the coverlet to her chest. "What?"

"This isn't a guest room."

She blinked once. "No."

"We're sharing a room and this bed."

"No!"

"You don't have a choice in the matter." His sullen flare of anger almost made her feel normal again.

She threw the coverlet off and tried to summon the energy to stand. "No. This is your room and your bed, so fine. I will not sleep here. I will not sleep with you. I will sleep in another room."

He blocked her from getting up. "I am not referring to..." she glared at him, "the marriage bed," he finished.

She would have laughed at the embarra.s.sed flush on his cheeks under other circ.u.mstances. "Then I will sleep in this room and you can sleep somewhere else."

"No." He planted his hands on her shoulders.

"Yes." She shrugged them off.

"No, Aubrey, and that's final. We share a room. We sleep in the same bed."

"You will not touch me." She pointed a finger at him.

"No, I will not touch you!"

She opened her mouth to argue but shut it with a confused frown. He was agreeing with her.

"What kind of a monster do you think I am?" he asked her, then snapped, "Don't answer that." She was so tempted to find humor in the situation that it exhausted her. "I will not touch you when you have a dangerous wound in your side."

"A wound that you put there," she muttered, glancing at the pillow and deciding it was the only thing in the world she wanted in that moment.

"Yes, a wound I put there, and for that I am more sorry than you can know."

She wanted to argue with him but the pillow called to her. She lowered herself to it with a sigh. "I can't, Crispin, I just can't."

"Can't what?" He sat on the end of the bed.

"Sleep with you."

He sighed and rested his back against the bedpost, rolling his eyes. "What, too proud to share a bed with someone? Or are you afraid that I might decide to rape you in the middle of the night." She flushed with shame and buried her face in the pillow. He dropped his arms in frustration. "Do you really think I would?"

She wanted to spit at him and tell him yes. But even in her anger she couldn't convince herself that he was capable of that. Countless times in the past he had been alone with her, close to her. If he had wanted to take her by force then he could have done it a hundred times over. "I see your point."

"I'm glad," he huffed out a breath. "I will sleep on the side of the bed nearest to the wall. You will sleep closer to the door. If I try anything inappropriate you will be able to escape before I harm your virtue."

Her eyes snapped up, blazing with insult as they met his smirk. "Now you're just teasing me."

"What? Is your virtue not intact?"

She could see in the flash of his eyes that he was having a go at her but she was too livid not to take the bait, "Of course it's intact!" She kicked him and bit the pillow at the pain her outburst caused.

"That solves it." His voice was so serious that she knew he was laughing at her. "Remember, I've gone toe-to-toe with the Bandit. I'm sure if I so much as looked at you wrong you would knock me flat."

She cursed herself for wanting to laugh at the scenes his words brought to her mind. "I would kill you."

Heavy silence followed. She ground her head into the soft pillow, shaping it so that she could sleep. She shut her eyes and hoped he would take the hint and leave. He slid closer to her and pulled the covers up over her shoulders instead, then whispered, "Aubrey, I swear to you on everything that I hold sacred, I swear to you that I will not touch you until you ask me to."

She broke into an sweat at those words, that promise. Until. It implied that someday she would ask. She struggled against that. But she couldn't deny that the idea of intimacy with Crispin had crossed her mind once or twice in unwelcome daydreams, and it hadn't been entirely horrific.

"Thank you, Crispin." She kept her eyes closed, her face turned away. She wouldn't look him in the eyes until she was past the sickening feeling of 'until'. "Now for G.o.d's sake let me sleep."

He stood. She settled herself on the right side of the bed so that her wound didn't sting. He walked to the door and opened it with a creak. She let out the breath she had been holding, trying not to recognize how disappointed she was that he had left.

Chapter Fifteen.

The forest bled cold and empty into Ethan's soul. He had retreated to its dark, hidden depths, ostensibly so that they wouldn't be found while he searched for what to do next. Not only had he lost Aubrey, he had missed the Council of n.o.bles. The Council hadn't seemed important on the day of the wedding, but after a night sleeping out under the canopy of forest branches he woke sick with regret. He had lost his chance.

As the first rays of light were cutting through the branches he rose and roused his men. "Get up." He shook Toby's shoulder, kicking Jack in the back with the side of his foot. "Get up. We've got work to do." Jack rolled over and ignored him. Ethan had to shake and kick him several times before he stirred.

"Oy! What's so b.l.o.o.d.y important that we have to wake up at the b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.s-crack of dawn, mate?"

"We're meeting Matlock and the others on the road." There was still time to regain what he had lost.

They rode toward the north road as morning spread through the forest. As vast as the forest was, it wasn't uninhabited. The unbeaten paths and back corners of the woods was home to the dregs of the shire. Ethan noted them all: the rag-tag wanderer who slept on as they pa.s.sed, the small band of men who darted for cover, hiding their faces, the gap-toothed woman who grinned at them and hitched her skirts up. They were there to hide, the same as he was.

He pa.s.sed them all without a word until he crossed paths with a filthy, dark-haired young man with wild blue eyes. He pulled his horse to a stop and motioned for the others to stop as well. The young man met Ethan's stare without flinching.

"I know you." He dismounted.

He was no more than a boy. His mouth split into something that could have been a snarl or a grin. "You do."

The boy wore the same tattered tunic and ragged chausses as he had worn the night he had broken away from him and Tom when they tried to secure him in Morley's barn. The hair on the back of Ethan's neck stood up. "I'd have thought that a man accused of murder would run further than Derbywood."

The young man said nothing. Ethan crossed his arms and appraised the boy from head to toe. He had lost weight. His face was sunken and his eyes glazed with hunger.

"What's your name?" An idea took shape in Ethan's mind.

"Roderick."

Ethan nodded. "Hungry, Roderick?" The young man nodded. Ethan smiled at him and took a step forward. "If you join us and do as I say you'll have food."

"What? Sir! No!" Tom protested, drawing surprised glances from Toby and Jack. "He's a murderer!"

"He's a starving boy. Any lord worth his salt knows that he has to keep his people fed."

"My lord, you are not responsible for him." Toby kicked his horse forward.

Ethan ignored his man. He had lost his chance to oppose Buxton at the Council but that didn't mean he had to accept his fate. If he couldn't defy Buxton with words then he would do it with numbers. "Will you submit to my leadership?" he asked the emaciated young man. Roderick nodded. Ethan smiled. "Good. Walk behind us and make sure we're not being followed."

"How can you trust him?" Tom whispered as Ethan remounted his horse. He glanced to where Roderick had skittered behind them, eyes alert.

"Give a man trust and he'll be trustworthy," was all Ethan offered. He nudged his horse forward.

"What a pile of rubbish," Jack muttered to his brother, earning a bitter scowl. "Oy, what's gotten up your backside?" Jack's scowl deepened.

"You never know when to quit, do you?" Tom shook his head in disgust. Before Jack could reply Tom kicked his horse to catch up to Ethan's side.

They reached the road as the sun lifted into the wispy clouds on the horizon and slowed their horses to a stop. Any one of the n.o.bles he had spoken with in the previous months could take this road on their way home, but it was a direct route for Lord Stephen of Matlock. All they had to do was wait.

By the time they saw a large retinue coming along the road, the carriage draped with Matlock's colors and sigil, Ethan was too impatient to wait for the rest of his men. He kicked his horse forward to intercept them.

Matlock rode out to meet him a few yards from the road.

"Matlock." He nodded as the tall, graying n.o.ble approached.

"Windale." The reply was curt.

"What news from the Council?"

Matlock met the question with a short laugh. "You would know if you had kept your promises."

Ethan didn't flinch. "I am sorry that I wasn't there. I should have been. What was the outcome?"

"Buxton asked that taxes be raised and that we be diligent in collecting them. We agreed. Business as usual."

Ethan shifted atop his horse. "And?"

Matlock let out a breath. "And we are all to do our utmost to show our support for our royal protector, Prince John, when he arrives."

"Prince John?" Ethan started. "When he arrives?"

For a moment Matlock looked at Ethan in surprise. "Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?" Ethan turned to look at his men as they caught up. They all looked baffled, even Jack who liked to pretend that he knew everything.

Matlock studied Ethan with a frown. "The war will be over soon and Buxton wants Derbyshire to show its loyalty to the royal family in no uncertain terms. There's to be a week-long faire with the prince in attendance on the last day."

"He wants to show Prince John he'll support a coup," Ethan glared.

Matlock shrugged. "He could mean that. Or he could mean sacrificing virgins on the altar at the full moon to ensure royal prosperity. You know how Buxton is. And without Huntingdon there to keep his lid on he was in rare form."

"Oh yeah? What'd he do?" Jack blurted.

Matlock sniffed and turned up his nose at Jack. "He was in rare form." He glanced to Ethan. "You are not the only one upset by Huntingdon's recent nuptials."

Ethan's heart and stomach went cold at Matlock's accusation. "I should have been there." He didn't know if he meant Derby or Windale.

"There was nothing you could have done." Matlock's answer fit both situations. "He had more guards than usual around the castle, in the Great Hall. He was expecting you, and I believe he was disappointed when you didn't show."

"Well, I promise you this much," Ethan spoke as much to the fates as to Matlock, "I'll not disappoint him again."

For a week after the wedding Aubrey slept. The burning pain in her side had lessened, but the leaden weight in her heart hung twice as heavily. Each time she awoke, whether it was light or dark, Crispin was somewhere in the room, sitting in his chair staring out the window, working with a stack of papers at a small table, asleep in the bed next to her.

The first time she discovered him asleep beside her she was tempted to throw off the coverlet and run for the door. She expected him to be inches away, eyes open in the dark, breathing down her neck. Instead he was curled at the far edge of the bed, back to her, black hair tousled on the pillow. He was tense even in slumber and she imagined that one tiny tap would send him crashing over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. She'd found him in that position in the middle of more than one night.

One morning he wasn't there. The morning sunlight filtered through the bedroom window as she lay on her back with her eyes still closed willing the pain to return and remind her of how her heart was supposed to feel. She heard movement in the room and frowned. With a reluctant sigh she opened her eyes.

The servant who had reminded her so much of Toby busied herself at the far side of the room near the window brushing out her gowns. Aubrey blinked and sat up as quickly as she dared. "Where's Cr-" She clamped her mouth shut.