The Wishing Well (Legends of Love Book 1)

by Avril Borthiry

  “Today, aye.”

  “Today?” Her throat tightened. “But I… where am I going? And for how—?”

  “Just do as I say.” He turned on his heel and strode to the door. “I’ll return shortly. Be ready.”

  Fear fluttered in Lora’s belly as she approached the bed. She traced her fingers across the outline of the items within the bag, trying to make sense of her father’s odd instructions. A Bible. Prayer beads. No adornments. Nothing of personal significance. What does it—?

  A shadow of disbelief crossed her mind. With a gasp of panic, she shook out the contents of the bag and stared at the pile of drab clothing. “Oh, no,” she whispered, stepping back. “Not that. I refuse to live like that.” Desperate, she looked toward the window, visualizing the drop. God forgive me, I’d rather be dead than—

  Tears sprang to her eyes at the selfish thought. She had no right, in truth, to choose death over life. After all, if she hadn’t pursued Gareth, none of this would have happened. The blame for his sad fate lay at her feet. Maybe she should look upon a pious existence as an atonement rather than a punishment.

  Yet, even as she discarded her fine brocade robe and donned the simple tunic, her reasoning wavered. The years ahead, once full of mystery and excitement, now seemed empty and deserted. Or was this all part of a bigger plan, yet to be revealed? For the hundredth time, she pondered the voice she’d heard.

  You’re not supposed to be here.

  “Is this what you meant?” Lora asked, fastening the rope belt about her waist. “That I’m supposed to be in a convent instead? To what end? Will you tell me that?”

  There was no response, nor did she truly expect one. She’d all but given up on the voice, which had been silent since that fateful night. Even her dreams, it seemed, had forsaken her. If Gareth came to her in sleep, she never recalled his visits.

  “Or maybe my entire life is a dream,” she muttered, gathering her comb, Bible, and prayer beads from her table. “Maybe I’ll wake up one morning and find…and find…” She stifled a sob and shook her head.

  And find you alive and well, my sweet love, bathed in golden sunlight, chipping away at your blocks of stone. Only this time I shall not approach, nor seek to hear the music in your voice. I shall merely watch from afar and imagine how it might feel to be close to you, to lie in your arms and listen to your stories, to kiss you. Oh, Gareth, what have I done? I’m so sorry.

  “Are you ready?”

  Lora jumped at the sound of the earl’s voice. She hadn’t even heard the door open.

  She met his gaze, lifting her chin as she did so, and gave a single nod. A brief flash of surprise crossed his face. No doubt he’d expected resistance, but Lora knew it would serve no purpose to fight him or to plead for leniency. Nothing in his demeanor suggested his aversion to her had changed.

  “May I at least know my intended destination?” she asked, picking up her bag.

  “A priory in Lincolnshire,” the earl replied, after a moment. “A journey of several days.”

  Lora nodded again, her voice hesitant as she asked another question. “And how…how long must I stay there?”

  Her heart faltered when the answer came, at first, by way of silence. Fists clenching, the earl looked away for an instant. Then one hand sought out the hilt of his sword, akin to a crippled man seeking the support of a crutch.

  “For the rest of your days,” he said at last, meeting her gaze again. “However long that may be.”

  “Dear God,” she murmured. “Can you not find it in your heart to forg—?”

  Struck by a sudden thought, she stopped. Be careful what you wish for, Gareth had said. And what had she wished for that first time when, without serious consideration, she had cast her little piece of gold into the well? Freedom. Freedom from the confines of Rothwyn, from the restrictive trappings of nobility. My wish has been granted, then. Except I’m merely replacing one cage for another.

  And with that realization came the echo of Master William’s warning.

  Life outside that cage can be very harsh, my lady. I suggest you abandon any ideas of escape.

  Too late, Master William, too late.

  “To forgive?” the earl replied, finishing her question for her. He heaved a sigh. “Forgiveness will not change the consequences of your actions. You’ve no idea of the harm you’ve caused. Come, now. And no arguments.”

  Lora followed him through Rothwyn’s hallways, wondering at the castle’s odd desolation. Where was everyone? At the main door, she paused. The knights she had seen from her window now sat astride their horses in obvious readiness for a journey. My escort, no doubt. Her probable transport, a horse-drawn wagon, sat nearby, the driver already in place. The earl’s dappled stallion, with a young squire at its head, nickered at the sight of its master. Otherwise, the bailey, normally buzzing with activity, was as quiet as the castle.

  Such was her shame, she supposed, in her father’s eyes at least, that he’d ordered all and sundry to keep out of sight until she left.

  Apparently sensing her hesitation, the earl turned to look at her, a brow raised in obvious question.

  “Am I considered that far fallen,” Lora asked, clutching her bag to her chest, “that no one may even look upon me?”

  “A concession on my part for which you should thank me,” he replied, in a toneless voice. “Or perhaps you’d have preferred to be ogled and spat upon. Get in the wagon.”

  Lora shook her head. “No.”

  The earl heaved a sigh. “Don’t fight me, Lora. I will not be—”

  “Let me at least see my mother before I leave. Let me say goodbye.” She swallowed against an ever-tightening noose of emotion. “Please. If nothing else, at least grant me this.”

  The earl’s eyes narrowed as they flicked toward the far corner of Rothwyn’s keep. It was an obvious and deliberate gesture that redirected Lora’s gaze. There, in the morning shadows, a cloaked figure stood watching them.

  “Mama,” Lora whispered, dropping her bag and starting down the steps.

  The earl grabbed her arm. “You may have a moment with her. That is all.”

  Lora pulled herself free, hoisted her skirts, and ran. As she drew near, however, she slowed her step, finally halting several strides from where her mother stood. There had been no reaction from the woman who’d given her life, no eager step forward, no extended hand. Lady Elizabeth stood as if pinned to the earth, her face, so pale and gaunt, showing little sign of emotion. Yet, despite the stoic facade, sadness emanated from her like stale perfume. She looked thinner. Older. Weary.

  Guilt weighed down on Lora, all but pushing her to her knees.

  “Oh, Mama, forgive me. I never meant—”

  “Was he worth it?”

  The question tore into Lora’s gut like a ragged blade. She drew a breath and held it, searching for an answer.

  “I loved him,” she replied, moments later. “I still love him. I deeply regret all the heartache, but I will never regret what we shared or the time…” She paused, her eyes drawn to the well, to Gareth’s unfinished wall, and the heavy wooden boards that now straddled it. She voiced the question that crossed her mind. “Why is the well covered?”

  Lady Elizabeth’s fingers sought out the jeweled cross that lay against her breast. “I was told one…one of the castle goats clambered up on the wall and fell in,” she said. “They fear the water might be contaminated, so, for now, we dare not use it. ’Tis lucky we have the river nearby.”

  “A goat?”

  “That’s what I was told, yes.”

  Lora frowned and then voiced another unbidden question, refusing to consider what vile thought had prompted it. “What happened to Gareth? Do you know?”

  The answer came without hesitation. “No, child, I do not. The earl refuses to speak of it, and I suggest you do not pursue it. Listen, you had best go. He’s waiting, and I can tell even from here that his impatience is growing. ’Twould not be wise to anger him further.”

 
Lora dragged her gaze from the well, still unable to acknowledge the terrible suspicion that crawled through her mind. “Will I ever see you again, Mama?”

  Lady Elizabeth gave a strangled sob. “I don’t know,” she whispered, stretching out her arms at last. “I pray that you will.”

  “Oh, Mama!” Lora ran into her mother’s embrace, finding instant comfort in the woman’s beautiful, familiar scent. “Please find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  She pressed a kiss to Lora’s hair. “I have already done so.”

  “Then I am blessed. And please give Master William a message. Tell him that I’m—” Sensing the sudden tension in her mother’s body, Lora pulled back to look at her. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to Master William?”

  “William is no longer at Rothwyn.”

  Bile burned at the back of Lora’s throat. “Why?”

  “Because…” Lady Elizabeth bit her lip and looked skyward for a moment, as if offering up a silent prayer. “Because when questioned, he admitted that he knew about you and your…your Welshman, yet did little or nothing to stop it. Your father accused him of betrayal and cast him out. No one has seen him since.”

  Chapter 12

  Accompanied by its knightly escort, the wagon stumbled along the rutted road away from Rothwyn. The unyielding wooden wheels made every pit feel like a chasm, every pebble a boulder. Jostled mercilessly, Lora gripped the side boards and watched the great walls of her home shrink into the distance. In her mind, she saw a ghost of herself, standing at her window, bidding a silent farewell to the naive girl she had been. Her young heart now bore ruinous scars, most still raw and one newly carved.

  Master William.

  “Curse your honor,” she murmured. “Why did you not lie to my father? It served no purpose to speak the truth, protected no one. My destiny was already assured, and Gareth…”

  She paused, remembering Edward’s sinister smile the day he had left, and the message it plainly conveyed. A prickle ran across her scalp as the image of the covered well slid into her brain. The thought that Gareth had died such a cruel and painful death at Edward’s hands threatened to shatter her fragile emotions. Seeking comfort, she grasped at denial.

  Maybe the tale Mama told me is true. Maybe a goat somehow managed to fall…

  Doubt stalled her thoughts. After all, was the goat not one of God’s most sure-footed creatures? Perhaps I should ask Papa what happened to Gareth. What Edward did to him.

  Lora’s grip on the side boards tightened. No, she would not ask. To face such a truth, in all its bloody nakedness, would be intolerable. For now, denial was easier. Her grief, while agonizing, was not as torturous as the shadow of guilt that darkened her soul.

  At that moment, Rothwyn disappeared from sight as the wagon lurched onto the forest road. Lora’s throat tightened, but she raised her chin and faced forward, blinking away tears. Her gaze drifted past the driver, a hefty, bearded fellow whose stale odor tainted the air around him, and came to rest on the stiff arch of her father’s back. Flanked by two of his men, the earl rode in silence at the head of the escort. She wondered what thoughts occupied his mind.

  He had shown neither sympathy nor compassion as she had clambered into the wagon. Then again, she reflected, he’d never expressed real love or affection for her. Until recently, he’d never treated her unkindly either, yet his manner had always been one of mild detachment. The expressions of love in her life had come from her mother, a mother she adored, whose haunted expression that morning spoke of a broken heart. And, God forgive me, I am to blame.

  Behind the self-recrimination, an intuitive thought scurried through Lora’s mind like a beetle, only to disappear. It seemed important somehow. Frowning, she dropped her gaze, plagued by an odd feeling that she’d missed recognizing a truth. Something of significance. But what?

  As she continued to ponder, a pebble fell at her feet. Her focus elsewhere, she paid it little heed. Then another pebble fell, this one bouncing off her lap.

  “What in God’s name…?” For a moment, she stared at the two little stones resting at her feet. Then she heard the earl’s voice.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Lora lifted her head to see him twisting in the saddle, watching her. Obviously, he’d heard her exclamation.

  Yes, Papa. Everything is wrong.

  “No, Papa,” she replied, an instinctive voice urging her to say nothing about the pebbles. “I was just…um, thinking out loud.”

  He grunted and turned his back to her once more.

  Feigning casual interest to cover her scrutiny, Lora’s gaze searched the trees on either side of the road. Her instinctual voice persisted and she trusted it. She knew, without a doubt, that someone lingered in the shadows of the forest. Someone who knew her, who meant her no harm. You’re not alone, the pebbles said.

  Gareth? Her stomach clenched and she bit down on a whimper. No, curse my foolish hope. It can’t be him. Impossible.

  Then her eyes caught movement slightly behind and off to the side of the escort. A cloaked figure stepped from behind a tree and looked at her before disappearing once again. As he did so, a twig snapped, and one of the knights turned to peer in the direction of the sound. Lora held her breath and cast a silent plea to her watcher, a man she recognized immediately. Don’t move. Stay hidden. Please. By all things holy, she should have known. After all, he had been there all her life, teaching, guiding. Protecting.

  Tears warmed her eyes. It seemed he was still in her life and, damn his tenacity, risking his own to let her know. The knight, apparently satisfied that no threat existed, settled back into his saddle. Lora released her breath and picked up the little pebbles, folding them into her palm. For the first time in many weeks, an aura of comfort settled around her, like the soothing warmth of a reassuring hug.

  God bless you, Master William. Stay safe.

  *

  That night, ensconced in the humble bedchamber of a roadside inn, Lora’s intuitive thought returned. Previously, it had been a vague understanding that slipped from her memory. Now, the truth roused her from sleep with the subtlety of a thunderclap. She blinked into total darkness, her heart racing as the pieces of a startling revelation fused together like a mosaic. The picture they formed drew a gasp from her.

  Dear God. Could it be true? Surely not. And yet…

  Lora groped under her pillow for the two little pebbles, kept to remind her that someone cared, that someone understood her grief and heartache. Indeed, why wouldn’t he? It had been the night of Edward’s welcome banquet. William, his usual stoic shield weakened by overindulgence, had confessed some of what lay in his heart, told her things he later claimed to regret. His words, spoken not so long ago, played out in her head.

  I know all too well what it is to love in vain. My soul has been starved for years but refuses to die. Why? Because the woman I love still lives. She can never be mine, yet her mere presence on this earth is enough to sustain me. That, and a quiet conversation with God once in a while.

  “Who is she?” Lora had asked him, never receiving an answer.

  She had the answer now. The look in her mother’s eyes, the pain in her voice—it had not all been for the loss of a daughter. William is no longer at Rothwyn.

  William. Her mother’s voice, the way she’d spoken his name, had carried an undertone of anguish that Lora recognized… Because it mirrors my own.

  “Oh, Mama,” she murmured, closing her eyes against a wave of empathy. “I’m so terribly sorry.”

  Odd, she thought, that history had more or less repeated itself within Rothwyn’s walls. Except for one thing, of course. William, thank God, still lives, whereas Gareth…

  Grief returned in force and wrapped Lora in its cold embrace. Burdened by yet more misery, she clutched at the little pebbles, buried her face in the pillow, and wept.

  Chapter 13

  “I still can’t believe you hurled rocks at an armed escort.” Iorwerth chuckled and held his hands out to the
flames. “If you’d hit one of those knights—”

  “But I didn’t.” William flinched as a log spat out a shower of golden sparks that leapt and vanished into the darkness. “I needed to let her know she wasn’t alone.”

  “You’ve taken a lot of risks lately, my friend.”

  William scoffed. “What do I have to lose?”

  “Your life?”

  “Which has not exactly been—”

  “Don’t you dare belittle your mortal existence to me, Will. ’Tis not as if you’ve squandered your time on this earth.”

  William lay back on his blanket and folded his hands behind his head, thrusting away a familiar twinge of regret. “Aye, well, a friend once told me to wait, so I have waited,” he said, “but little good has it done me.”

  Above him, the thinning forest canopy trembled at the touch of a night breeze. Stars littered a moonless sky and peeked through gaps in the branches. For a moment, William allowed his weary mind to embrace the sheer vastness of the heavens and wonder at the mystery of it. His heart quickened.

  “She needs to know the truth,” said Iorwerth, breaking the spell. “She has a right to know what happened. Who you really are.”

  “And so she shall, although it’s not something I look forward to sharing. The poor lass has enough to deal with.” Despondency, in its familiar form, danced on the edge of William’s mind. He released a sigh. “Usually, my foolish attempt to change my destiny–Lora’s destiny—seems so long ago. Tonight, for some reason, it feels like only yesterday.”

  “Not foolish,” Iorwerth muttered. “Mistimed, perhaps.”

  William squinted over at his friend, who sat frowning into the flames.

  “Does the witch still live?” he asked, unsure of why such a question had leapt unbidden from his tongue.

  Iorwerth gave a half smile. “Aye, she does.”

  “In the same place? The house in the forest?”

  “When it suits her.”

  “And do you still stand between her and those who would do her harm?”