“His horse?”
“Hephaestus,” she replied, anxious now to tell Tamsin what had happened that first early morning. “He spoke so gently to it, and he made a little joke about not looking like a beggar. As he went to leave, though, he paused a moment and I could see him changing, as if he was putting on a costume. He became the cold, stern man most people believe him to be. But he wasn’t like that in the stable, Tamsin, not at all, and when he asked for my hand, I saw that other gentle man again. That was why I agreed to the betrothal, because of that soft voice in the stable and that look in his eyes in the solar. It sounds silly, I suppose, but that was the way I felt. And at first, on our wedding night, he was that gentle man. Then afterward, he was cold again and I feared I’d been mistaken after all. But then he would be so passionate, I was sure...” She flushed, but continued. “Yet at other times, he would be grim and silent. Still, as time went on, I thought he would be the husband I’d hoped for, that I could care for, until we reached Dunborough. Again he seemed loving and kind, except when it came to dealing with his brother. Then he paid no heed to me, and was even...harsh.”
“Have you told him that you love him?”
Mavis shook her head. “How could I, when I wasn’t sure myself? Yet surely he must know I care for him. I’ve tried to be a good chatelaine and wife. I’ve gone to his bed willingly. More than willingly—eagerly.”
Tamsin regarded her with grave sympathy. “It’s difficult to know the heart of a quiet man, especially one who has never had anyone to confide in. It could be that his changes of mood have nothing to do with you, but with his own private battles. And as you don’t know his heart, he may be just as ignorant of yours. He isn’t a seer, Mavis. You should tell him how you feel.”
Mavis couldn’t meet her cousin’s steadfast gaze. “And if he doesn’t love me? If he married me only for gain? Or to make his brother jealous?”
“If what you say is true, that he’s been kind and gentle and loving toward you,” Tamsin gently replied, “I think he probably cares for you a great deal. A man like that, though...such words won’t come easily to him. And we can’t really fault him for being loyal to his brother. Perhaps he pities Gerrard, too.”
Mavis had never really considered that pity could play a role in Roland’s feelings for his brother.
“Mavis!” a man shouted, followed swiftly by the sound of booted feet pounding up the steps. “Mavis!”
She knew that voice!
“It’s Roland!” Mavis cried. “Quick, help me into my gown!”
Tamsin had barely gotten the gown laced before the door crashed open.
But it wasn’t Roland standing on the threshold.
“Where’s Roland?” Gerrard demanded.
Mavis stared at him in stunned surprise. “What do you mean? He’s not here!”
“I see that. Where in the castle?”
“He’s not here at all!” Mavis exclaimed. “Gerrard, what’s happened? What are you doing here?”
Rheged charged into the chamber. “Why are there fifty men from Dunborough in the yard?”
“We came here seeking Roland.”
“This is Gerrard,” Mavis quickly explained. “What has happened?” she repeated, her fear and panic growing.
“Roland left Dunborough to come here three days ago,” Gerrard said. “Yesterday we found Hephaestus four miles from here, alone, and still wearing Roland’s saddle.”
Suddenly light-headed, Mavis put her hand to her head. Tamsin hurried to her side and helped her to the stool to sit.
“He must have fallen. He must be hurt!” Mavis cried, looking from Gerrard to Rheged. She started to stand. “We must find him!”
Gerrard ran his hand through his hair, the gesture exactly like Roland’s, his features just as grim and stern. “We have been looking, and not just for Roland. The same day Roland left Dunborough, Audrey D’Orleau was found dead in her house.”
“Who the devil is Audrey D’Orleau?” Rheged asked.
Tamsin drew him aside. “A wealthy woman in Dunborough,” she whispered.
“She’d been...” Gerrard began, then hesitated. “Murdered. Duncan was seen riding hell-bent away from Dunborough along the southern road just before Audrey’s maidservant found her.”
“Who’s Duncan?” Rheged asked.
“He was Audrey’s bodyguard,” Gerrard said.
“Was?” Mavis gasped.
“We found him dead in the river. He’d been wounded before he went into the water, though. Either he was drowned after he’d been wounded or—”
Mavis leaped to her feet. “He attacked Roland! I’m sure of it! He hated Roland. I saw it in his face. And he took the southern road, you said.”
“If Duncan attacked Roland, we’d have found Roland on the road, or near Duncan.”
If Roland was dead, they would have found his body, but they had not, and Mavis took heart from that. “Roland might be wounded somewhere, too weak to ride, and we must keep searching.”
“I’ve been looking for him all the way from Dunborough,” Gerrard said, showing his frustration, “and we’ve found no sign—”
“So we search again! I have men here to help, and Rheged—”
“I’ll summon men from Cwm Bron,” the Welshman immediately offered. “We’ll find him, Mavis. A man like that doesn’t go easily to his death. However badly he’s wounded, he’ll not give up without a fight. There might be some byre or outbuilding, or even a cave, where he may have taken shelter.”
“Good God!” Tamsin cried, her eyes shining with hopeful excitement. “The coal-burner’s hut! It’s a ruined cottage not far from here, in the woods. Roland may have found it and taken shelter, especially if he was hurt. Remember how it rained?”
Mavis’s hopes soared. “Gerrard, you and your men rest here while I summon mine to make a search party.”
“My men can rest, but I’ll lead your party, my lady, if you’ll tell me—”
“You lead the way, Rheged,” Mavis commanded. “And I’ll ride with you.”
Tamsin moved to take her hand. “Do you think that’s wise, Mavis, in your condition?”
“I’m a good rider,” she resolutely replied. “I cannot sit and wait at home, not when Roland is lost.” She sidestepped her cousin and grabbed her cloak. “Now I must summon my men,” she said, hurrying to the door with Rheged right behind her.
“Mavis!” Tamsin protested, starting to follow them.
Gerrard held Tamsin back. “It’s no use asking her to stay behind, my lady,” he said with a wry smile, the hint of the merry gadabout in his exhausted eyes. “Your cousin is a very determined woman, or she would be no fit match for my brother, and I begin to see that they are, indeed, made and meant for each other.”
* * *
It was a day Mavis never forgot, of dread and dismay and hope, too, as she rode beside Gerrard. Rheged led the search party composed of men of DeLac, including Arnhelm and Verdan, and several from Dunborough who refused to stay behind.
Rheged pulled his horse to a halt on the road in a wooded area a few miles from DeLac. “Here’s the path to the hut.”
Dismounting, he took hold of his horse’s bridle, looped it around a tree branch and entered the woods near some thick underbrush. Gerrard also dismounted and helped Mavis down from Sweetling. The soldiers behind got off their horses and began to follow Rheged along a barely discernible path heading away from the road.
Please, God, let Roland be there! Mavis silently prayed. Let us find him! Let him be alive!
Surveying the surrounding brush and bare trees, Rheged halted and held up his hand. A few evergreens stood out, green against the barren browns and grays.
“What is it?” Mavis asked anxiously.
“I see it!” Rheged cried, starting forward again with long, confi
dent strides.
Gathering up her skirts, Mavis ran after him, nearly stumbling over a root. Gerrard caught her arm to steady her, then held her hand as they hurried toward what looked more like a pile of downed limbs than a building.
“Roland!” she shouted. “Roland!”
Rheged reached the ruined building first and disappeared around the side, only to reappear just as quickly.
“He’s not here,” he said dully, despair in his eyes, his voice, the slump of his broad shoulders.
Gerrard muttered an oath and Mavis fought back tears for a moment before she said, “It was worth the effort. We must keep looking. He might have noticed the path and thought it led to shelter, but didn’t reach it.”
She would not think, let alone say, what might have prevented him from doing so.
“My brother has the eyes of a hawk,” Gerrard said with renewed confidence. “He might very well have seen the path, dismounted and started along it. It’s possible something startled his horse and they got separated, so Hephaestus headed for home. We’ll search from here to the road, and all the way to DeLac, then back to Dunborough if need be.”
“As far and as long as it takes,” Rheged agreed.
With Gerrard’s help, Rheged detailed the men who would search in the woods, and those who would start back to DeLac, while Mavis looked around the hut, seeking any sign of Roland.
She found none.
“Are you sure you won’t rest a bit?” Gerrard asked when she joined the search party that would stay in the immediate vicinity.
“Not until we find my husband.”
“But if you’re with child, you should be thinking of—”
“I am thinking of my child, who will need a father. A fine father, like Roland.”
Gerrard nodded and took her hand in his strong one. “And he will be. He was more of a father to me than my own. I’ve been an ungrateful lout to treat him as I have. Mavis, I was wrong to say he married you to make me jealous. That was just my own vanity. I’m sure I’m very far from his thoughts when he’s with you.”
Even in her dismay, she realized how different Gerrard sounded, how remorseful and sincere. Too overwhelmed with emotion to speak, she could only squeeze his hand before they began to peruse the ground around them, moving slowly forward, searching for any sign of Roland.
Mavis spotted the broken limb of the birch a few feet from the path, the flesh of the wood looking ghostly, telling her the break was recent. Hurrying forward, she checked the ground and underbrush, until she found another recently broken branch. And then a boot.
Roland’s boot—and he was wearing it, lying facedown among the bushes and fallen leaves.
“Roland!” she gasped, kneeling beside him. She saw his back rise and fall, and shouted with urgent joy, “Come quick! It’s Roland and he’s alive!”
* * *
“Gilbert’s a very good physician,” Tamsin assured Mavis as she paced outside her chamber in Castle DeLac. Nearby, Rheged leaned against the wall, while Gerrard sat on the floor of the corridor, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head bowed.
“Aye, he is,” Rheged agreed. “I’ve seen men recover from worse. I’ve had worse myself and here I am.”
“But his wound was so deep!” Mavis murmured, her hands clasped as if in prayer. “And he’s been lying out in the rain, cold and without food or drink.”
A loud groan came from inside the bedchamber and Mavis turned even more pale. Tamsin hurried to put her arm around her cousin.
Gerrard didn’t move.
“That’ll be the cauterizing,” Rheged said matter-of-factly.
Tamsin shot him a chastising look. “Come away, Mavis, to the hall. There’s nothing you can do here.”
“Aye, go and have something to eat,” Rheged agreed. “It won’t be long now.”
“I’m not leaving here until I see Roland,” she replied.
At last Gerrard raised his head. “I should have found him sooner. If I had—”
The chamber door opened and the middle-aged physician appeared, wiping his hands on a piece of linen. Mavis could only stare at him, unable to breathe or think.
He smiled, and she lived again. “The worst is over, my lady. The wound is clean and bound, and your husband is sleeping. I’ll come twice every day to change the dressing and see that it isn’t infected. Otherwise, he needs to rest. I’ve given him a sleeping draught, and I’ll leave more for you to give him if he’s in pain.”
“Oh, thank you, Gilbert, thank you!” she cried, starting past him.
He put up a forbidding hand. “He needs rest, my lady, and so do you.”
“I’ll rest after I’ve seen him,” she replied. “I give you my word.”
“Very well,” Gilbert relented. “Only for a moment.”
Gerrard rose. “I want to see him, too.”
“I don’t think—”
“Come,” Mavis said, holding out her hand to Gerrard, unable to deny the pleading look in her brother-in-law’s eyes.
Nevertheless, Gilbert appeared about to protest, until he saw Tamsin shake her head. “Very well, but remember what I said.”
“I will,” Gerrard replied before he followed Mavis into the chamber, which smelled of ointment and burnt flesh.
None of that mattered to Mavis as she hurried to the bed, where Roland lay, pale and still. “Oh, my love!” she whispered as she knelt down beside him and laid her head against his chest.
Gerrard said nothing. He stood looking at his brother, then turned to go.
“Stay a moment,” Mavis said, lifting her head and asking the question that had been haunting her since they’d returned to the castle. “Why you? Why did you lead the search party for Roland?”
She thought, but did not say, that if Roland had died before he’d been found, Gerrard would have been the undisputed lord of Dunborough.
“He’s my brother,” he replied, “and we’ve made peace between us. And,” he went on with one of his roguish grins, albeit a weak one, “I’ve realized I’ve been an ungrateful ass.”
He became serious again. “I also discovered Dalfrid’s been stealing from us for years, blaming me and others for losses when he’s been taking the money. I found him in York and brought him back for justice. More than that, my lady, you’ve made me see myself as others do, and I didn’t like what I saw. I owe Roland more than insolence. I want to prove to him that I can be a better man, and worthy to have an estate, however large or small.”
“Then Roland has offered a portion of Dunborough to you?”
“Yes,” came the answer, but not from Gerrard.
“Roland!”
His eyes were barely open, but his lips jerked up in a little smile before his eyelids closed again.
Mavis and Gerrard smiled at each other.
“Will you accept?” Mavis asked, now hoping that he would.
“I haven’t yet decided,” Gerrard replied. “With gifts come obligations, and I’m not sure I’m either ready for that, or deserving of such generosity.”
“Your recent actions tell me that you are.”
“Perhaps.” He made one of his grand, sweeping bows. “Now I leave you with your husband, my lady, and look to see you in the hall for the evening meal.”
Mavis smiled and nodded, although—and regardless of any admonitions of a physician—she had no intention of leaving this chamber until Roland was well enough to go with her.
* * *
Roland turned and groaned as pain snaked up his leg. Opening his eyes, he discovered he was in a chamber. It was large, like the bed, and there was light coming from candles or an oil lamp somewhere close by. How long had he been here?
He turned his head—and there was Mavis, loving, lovely Mavis, smiling down at him like the very angel of delive
rance.
“Roland, my love!” she whispered as she bent down to kiss him.
“Mavis,” he croaked, his throat as dry as a stone baked by the summer’s sun.
She raised him up and put a metal cup to his lips. It was only water, but it was more than welcome. Beyond her, the room was in shadows, so it must be night.
“You’ve suffered a serious loss of blood,” she explained, “but you should recover, thanks to Gilbert, the physician who tended to you, and especially Gerrard, who came searching for you. Another day and it might have been too late.”
“Gerrard...came here? I thought...dreaming.”
“He’s still here,” Mavis replied, gesturing at a corner of the room shrouded by shadow.
His brother stepped out of the darkness. He looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept in days.
Roland struggled to sit up more, but found that made the pain in his leg worse.
“None of that!” Mavis firmly chided. “Please lie back down. You need to rest and regain your strength.”
“Don’t be an arrogant fool,” Gerrard warned, grinning, although his eyes were grave. “One fool in the family is enough. And now that I’m sure you’re going to recover, I’ll go back to Dunborough to oversee it until you can return.”
Mavis reached out to grasp her brother-in-law’s hand. “I’m so glad things are better between you.”
Roland could see that she was sincerely pleased, but he also knew her well enough to realize that something still troubled her. “What’s...wrong?”
Mavis and Gerrard exchanged glances, then Mavis said, “You were wounded in a fight. Do you remember who it was with?”
The memories rushed back, like a wave crashing against the rocky shore. “Duncan. He attacked me.” He frowned, remembering the gleam in the man’s eyes, the hostility, the pain. “Audrey?” His gaze flew from one grim face to the other. “Is she...?”
Gerrard nodded. “Dead. We think Duncan killed her.”
Roland closed his eyes and said a prayer for poor, beautiful, ambitious Audrey.
“Duncan’s body was found not far from here, in the river,” Gerrard continued. “We were searching for him, too. He was seen riding fast along the southern road shortly before Audrey’s body was found. You met him on the road?”
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