Tremors racked her as he held her. He began to rock back and forth, holding her nearer and willing the heat in his body to warm her. Whispering to her as he had those weeks before, he called to her and, God forgive him, he told her of his love for her. He even allowed himself to kiss her softly on the cheek and forehead as he urged her to wake.
After a while, her shivering slowed and her breathing became more regular. William continued to hold her, checking her skin for its color and warmth. A deep shudder and gasp told him she had awakened even before her eyes opened.
“Shh, Isabel, fear not.”
“Where…?” Her lips trembled so much that more words did not come out. William adjusted the blanket higher and tighter and rubbed her cheek gently.
“We are safe from the storm’s fury in my cottage. I found you in the forest.”
“The dog…” Her teeth chattered as she spoke. He lifted his leg, draped it over hers and pulled her nearer. It would kill him, but she needed his warmth.
“The mutt saved you, leading you here and getting my attention with his whining and noises.” The dog whined from his place in the corner of the cottage.
“My chest hurts.” He felt her hand move to her chest inside their cocoon of blankets. Every touch, even a glancing one, created more heat in him. Holding her this close, almost skin to skin, was pure torture and both punishment for his sins and reward for his deprivations.
“The dog jumped at you to push you from the broken branch’s path. He may not be big, but the force with which he hit you was greater than his size.”
“He saved my life?” Her eyes searched his face for the truth.
“He did just that. And brought me to you. And I brought you here.” A frown marred her face and he decided she must have become conscious of their position and lack of clothing.
Would she object to his embrace? Would she be horrified when she comprehended their state, or rather his state? Another wave of shivers passed through her, moving from her head and face through her body and down to even her feet. She clutched at him and moved herself closer.
What had sent her in such a condition of agitation to seek him out during a dangerous storm? Isabel was overwhelmed even before the rains soaked her thoroughly. What had driven her out of the safety of the keep? To him?
“Isabel, why did you leave the keep?”
“I had to find you. I had to tell you…” She shivered again and he rubbed his hands down her arms and back up again, trying to cause some heat.
“Tell me what? What was so important that you risked your very life coming out in this storm?”
“I was confused, Royce. I tried to sleep as Lady Margaret suggested, but the dreams have been so terrible.” She leaned her head against his chest and remained there for a few moments. He waited for her to go on and fought the urge to kiss her head while she was awake and would feel it.
“You are safe. Tell me of the dreams.”
She let out a deep breath and spoke. “It was the attack that I remembered. I was with a traveling party when a small group broke off and headed down a road we had not used before.”
“Do you remember where you were going to or coming from?” He hoped his small nudges would help her remember some of the details. She shook her head.
“They stabbed the man. I saw the sword go through his body. Then the blow came, knocking me from my horse and onto the ground.”
“What man did they stab?” Her eyes had glazed over as she once again watched the events she described to him.
“It was my fault, he said. My failures had brought him, us, to this. I do not know who he is, but he was surprised by the attack, too. He landed next to me and whispered that it was my fault.”
This accusation pained her; he could feel it in her voice as she said it to him. She had been blamed before and had accepted that she was the cause. Of what?
“What was your fault, Isabel? Do you know?”
She shook her head. Her eyes were still focused elsewhere and he waited for more of the tale. Another tremor overtook her and he waited for it to pass.
“I knew they would kill me, so I ran. I could not see much for the moon had gone behind the clouds and I knew not the road we were on. But I could smell the marshland nearby.”
Her body was shaking now, but he thought from fear and not cold. William gently rubbed his hands on her back, trying to soothe her as she tried to put the pieces of this memory together again. “You are safe now. I will protect you.”
“There were many of them, mayhap six or seven, and they followed me. I did not know how close they were until the club broke my leg and I fell.”
He flinched at her words, for she spoke in a cold and unfeeling voice. The horror of this was real to him as Isabel continued. “I dragged myself up, knowing that death was at hand, and I tried to get away. I could not.” Another shudder. “They surrounded me and passed me one to the other, hitting me with their fists. Then, one came into their midst and drew a dagger.”
“Isabel,” he said, even as he dreaded asking her to dwell on this any more than was necessary. He asked because, while fresh and clear in her mind, she might remember more now than when this had passed. “Do you recognize any of them? Are any familiar to you?”
He watched in dread as her eyes moved around those she saw in these memories. One by one, she stared at them and shook her head. Then she did not move her gaze and he could tell that she was looking at someone she knew.
“Who is he?”
“His brother.” She began shaking again and he urged her to speak of what she saw. “He slashed at me, not trying to kill me, just…”
He knew what this man was doing for he had done it himself in battle and in challenge. He was playing her, weakening her, tiring her out for the kill. “Go on,” he whispered.
“I kept trying to run, but my leg would not hold me up. I dragged it and struggled away until he kept striking with the dagger. He cut at my gowns until my arms bled, then he aimed at my face.”
He could not help himself this time. He pressed his lips to the ragged scar and kissed her there. William held her close, touching his mouth to her forehead and waited for her to calm enough to tell the rest.
“As I saw the determination in his face, I struggled with myself. Part of me wanted to live, but part of me was in so much pain that I wanted to surrender to it. I confess that I wanted to die then. I knew he was not done and I did not think I could face any more of it.” She leaned back and looked at him now; she was with him. “I know it is a mortal sin, and may God forgive me, but I wanted to die in that moment.”
The church taught that it was a sin. William had accepted long ago that the many times he’d wanted, nay invited, death to visit him had simply added to the blackening of his soul. He feared he was past the point of redemption.
“’Twas the fear in you, Isabel. It overwhelmed you. Surely God knows that and will forgive any transgressions.”
“But Royce, if this attack was my fault, how can I be forgiven?”
He shook his head. “Do not believe that, Isabel. Ruthless men will say what they must to avoid taking the blame for their actions.”
Guilt stabbed through him as he knew he spoke of himself and his own transgressions of the past. He had blamed those who challenged him or those who had tried to resist Prince John’s desires or those who had encouraged his misdeeds. Anyone but himself. For accepting the blame meant acknowledging that he was wrong, that he was guilty of sinful acts and grievous misconduct. It had taken losing everything and everyone he cared about before he could accept that blame. His throat was thick with emotions he thought he had banished when he asked her his question.
“Do you know what he accuses you of? Mayhap that would tell us more about you?”
Isabel shook her head. “Nay. I know only that the one killed and the one killing hated me. I could see it in their eyes. As the one lay on the ground after being stabbed, his hatred poured out at me, in his words and in his eyes.” Her tears
began to flow and she tilted her head down so their gazes would not meet. He felt her humiliation.
He held her quietly in his arms. She had been deeply hurt by these memories and by the words spoken against her by these men. He suspected strongly that one of these men was her husband, but he did not voice that to her for fear of frightening her even more. William waited a few minutes, listening to her breathing and to the storm raging outside, letting her regain her strength. Her words startled him, for he thought she’d fallen asleep.
“He pushed me back, slashing with the blade. I stumbled as much as I could, but then I began sinking into the mud beneath my feet. I could not move fast enough to avoid his blade and when he struck me in the side with a deep cut, I began to faint. I remember falling backward into the water and feeling it surround me. I began to welcome the blackness that overtook me.”
She paused, taking and releasing several deep breaths. “He laughed then. I heard him clearly through the silence of the marsh. I tried not to scream. I wanted him to think me dead and I wanted to die. Then he said they should seek out his brother for more sport than I had been.”
William tried to distract her from the horrifying truth that brother had killed brother. “How did you get out of the water?”
“I have no memory of that. I kept hearing someone call me, telling me to crawl, to keep moving. I followed that voice.”
He thought she was talking about him in the first days after she’d been found, but he was wrong.
“I think I heard my sister calling to me. Through the darkness and the fear, I heard her voice speaking.”
“Your sister?”
“Did I tell you she is my twin?”
He held her away and looked at her. “Your twin? You did not tell me this. When did you remember her?”
She shook her head. “I do not remember her except as a child, when we ran on that beach. But there is another memory of us holding hands and making a pledge. And I just know we shared the same birth.”
A twin sister. Did she know more?
“Do you remember her name? Do you remember calling out to her—on the beach or after this attack?”
“Nay, Royce. I do not.”
He asked her no more, for he could feel her exhaustion. It had grown dark inside the cottage now. Only bolts of lightning lit up the interior as they flashed outside. The wind battered against the walls and he was glad they had this refuge for the night. Or for however long the storm needed to release its fury.
The silence was companionable for a while, then he felt her begin to shake again. No, not shake. Cry. Her tears were warm where they touched his skin inside the blankets. He turned onto his back and drew her under his arm and next to him. Her cheek rested on his chest now and it was even worse. The sobs grew stronger and her grief deeper as she cried out in reaction to all the memories she now knew.
“He hated me, Royce. I could see it in his eyes,” she said. “Even as he was bleeding to death, he hated me for my failure.”
He said nothing. He was at a loss now, not on the solid ground of reason and strategy. She needed emotions and the support he did not think he could give. William held her and let her cry—’twas the only thing left to him.
“What could I have done that was so grievous that I deserved to die? What failure on my part caused a hatred so deep that he would kill me over it? Why…?” Her words drifted off into sobs again.
“Isabel, do not lash yourself over the words of a killer.”
“Not just his words, Royce. Look at the elaborate planning that was needed to rid me from his life. Mayhap I should have died that night?”
“Never say that again, Isabel,” he said, probably a bit harsher than he needed to, but it pained him to have her take the blame for this. “They did this deed. Let them take the blame for it.”
“I should have died that night,” she repeated, her voice forlorn and hopeless. “Why did you have to save me?”
Her anguish tore at his very soul. These bastards had destroyed not only her life but her being. How many times had he done that? Destroyed innocent lives in pursuing his own goals? Too many. And their faces flashed before his eyes in a reminder that she could have been talking about him in his previous life.
But he knew that she was an innocent and that she did not deserve this. What could he say to make her see that? What words would soothe her and let her know that she did matter? What could he say?
The truth.
The one he tried to ignore even though Lady Margaret had hinted at it. The one he feared and wanted the most. The obvious reason she had not died that night or since.
“I saved you, Isabel, because you were sent to save me.”
Chapter Sixteen
He waited for lightning to strike him. It did flash but safely stayed outside in the storm. William saw the disbelief in her eyes at his admission. He could hardly believe he’d said the words to her, but ’twas as if the weight of the world had been lifted from him. Was it true?
“How can you say that? You did not need to be saved.”
Could he tell her the truth of his life? In spite of his love for her, he knew he could not. Not yet. But he could explain some of it.
“Isabel, I shut myself off from living when I came here three years ago. I know you suspected as much. I shut off my feelings, my wants, my plans, even my thoughts of having a future. I simply wanted to exist. Then you came and interfered with my well-thought plan.”
He could not see her face during his admission and wondered what she must think. Unused to the risk, he stumbled a bit on his words as he spoke. If she rejected him now, he doubted he would ever have the courage to offer again. William turned onto his side.
“I interfered?” she asked in a whisper.
“Oh, aye, you interfered.” He smiled, though she could not see it. “You showed a spirit and determination to live that impressed me. With nothing to go on, you have carved out a life here, gaining support from one and all with your kind ways.”
She laughed softly. “I do not believe I was always kind to you. I disturbed you.”
“You disturbed the darkness within me. You unearthed feelings I thought long dead—ones of honor and trust and even love.” He reached up and stroked her cheek, wanting to repeat the kiss they’d shared in the chapel. But he did not dare loosen the last vestiges of control he still held.
Startled when she mimicked his touches with her hand on his cheek, he stayed still and endured it, for he feared ’twould end soon.
“And you do not believe you deserve honor or trust or even love, do you, Royce?”
“It is not a question of believing it or not, Isabel. It is just that I do not deserve or expect them now.”
He swore that she snorted at that. How could he make her understand without going into his sordid past? He had lived like an animal, seeking its own gratification and not caring who paid for it. He did not deserve to have a life and dreams when he’d stolen those from too many to count.
“You take in a complete stranger and save her life. You guard the lady of the keep’s secrets and protect her honor against any who would defame or embarrass her. You make a small boy far from home feel important and needed.”
“How do you know these things?” He had spoken to no one about Margaret’s history or Cadby’s duties.
“I may not know who I am, but I can see who you are. I watched you in your work and in your dealings with the people who live here. Deep inside you lives an honorable man who you fight to keep hidden there.”
“I am not an honorable man, Isabel. Think it not of me, for an honorable man would never be speaking of love to you when there can be nothing between us. An honorable man would have taken you back to the keep to protect your virtue from his basest desires.” Anger and those desires swelled up inside him and he needed her to stop him. “An honorable man would never do this.”
He took her mouth in a possessive kiss that told her everything about what he wanted from her. Even without specifi
c memories, she knew as a woman about this kind of passion. The heat and power of it threatened to overwhelm her as he leaned over her and gathered her close. Like coiled springs within her, spirals of pleasure moved through her as he took and took and took of her mouth. She felt him harden against her hip and her body readied in response. Her breasts swelled and the core of her body tightened.
Isabel reached up, untangling her hands from the covers and pulled the layer of blankets from between them. He hissed as their skin touched from chest to hips to thighs. She wrapped her hands in his hair and kept his mouth on hers, letting him plunge his tongue inside it and taste hers.
She could taste and feel his need for her and it refreshed her spirit. In her other life, she was unneeded, unwanted, a burden. But here, Royce needed her and wanted her…and loved her. After a kiss that left them both gasping, he tried to move away.
“I cannot offer you more than this, Isabel. There is no future for us, in spite of your soft words and in spite of my deepest desires. Please, let me go while I can still stop this.”
The pain and fear in his voice and in his soul screamed out to her. What could he have done that was so heinous that he did not deserve to live as others did? Had three years of deprivation and solitary existence not been penance enough for his sins?
“A dishonorable man would lie with pretty words to have what I am offering to you, Royce. I fear what is coming and I know that neither of us can offer more than this night.” He had not moved away but did not come closer either. “Please. Give me tonight so I can face what I must in the coming days.”
She lifted her head up until their lips met, but she did not kiss him. If he loved her, he would know that she needed this now. She needed to feel valued as a woman. She needed…him. He spoke against her mouth.
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