Constantine

by Heather Grothaus

  “No,” Constantine said levelly. “That’s not what I meant. That’s what you think.”

  She gasped. “What?”

  Constantine rose from his stool with a hitch as he pulled his leg beneath him and then walked toward Dori with a slight limp. She held her ground, her wounds so raw and painful that they were easily covered by anger. She would not shrink from him.

  He stopped before her and bent down, picking up her cloak and shaking it out. He swirled it behind her and then looked down his nose while he worked the closure at her collarbone.

  “That’s what you think,” he clarified. “I meant that Henry isn’t likely to release my estate back to me at your word when it’s your son who will inherit both Benningsgate and Thurston Hold after his father is dead. It would be in the king’s best interest to retain a modicum of control over both houses, which he will be able to do upon realizing that you have been resurrected as a widow.”

  His hands fell away from her throat and his gaze met hers. “If Henry were going to do justice for me, he already has received letters testifying to my innocence and to Felsteppe’s treachery. He stands to benefit from Felsteppe’s purchase of Benningsgate, and once I see that one dead, it will again fall to his guardianship. He shall profit twice.”

  “But you’ve been gone for years,” Dori argued quietly, not certain which emotion was the right one to feel out of the tangle of them that mired her thoughts. “Perhaps it is only your presence he needs to attest to your fidelity.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “Perhaps. But even if that were so, I have lost everything. Henry will know soon enough that I’ve nothing with which to rebuild this place,” he ended on a whisper. “Not even the will.”

  “Then why did you agree to help me?” she insisted. “If I am so worthless to you, why not just chase down Felsteppe now that you are so close to him and do that which your vengeance demands?”

  He pressed his lips together, and Dori’s eyes lingered on his upper lip, where the sensuous curvature she’d noticed only moments before was nowhere to be seen.

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice low, and now, as his eyes looked into hers, Dori didn’t know if it was regret she saw there or only a reflection of her own fears. “Perhaps it’s because if I had a chance to save my own son I would. If I had a chance to see that he was cared for and”—he paused here and swallowed, and the obvious pain of it caused Dori to wince—“safe, I would wish him in the hands of one who could protect him. Even if those hands weren’t my own.”

  Dori felt her eyes welling with tears. “I’m sorry, Constantine,” she said. “I wish I could have been that person for you. For Christian.”

  He raised his hand and smoothed back a lock of her hair behind her ear, which had been bent against her cheek while she’d slept. How stupid of her to have cut it. She had been impetuous even so near death. What must he think of her appearance, this general, this earl, who had been married to one of the greatest beauties in all the land, who had surely seen the most enchanting and exotic of women in his many travels?

  And yet here he was before her now, still staring down into her eyes, and Dori could not look away from him. Even if he thought her ridiculous in her appearance, a foolish child, she didn’t care. The strength and depth of his gaze was more potent than any food, any warming potion she could consume, and it rendered her unable to move at all.

  “I believe you,” he whispered, his thumb grazing the underside of her jaw as he withdrew his hand.

  The phrase was like some magical incantation, for when she blinked, he was no longer simply Lord Gerard, Earl of Chase, the brusque, handsome general who had come back to avenge his family. No, it was as if his words had kindled a fire behind his eyes, a glow within him that Dori was suddenly drawn to like a dumb, helpless moth; as if he was a portrait of manhood exquisitely rendered but then gasped to life and crawled out of the still frame to stand before her so close, breathing the same air that she did.

  He was a man who owed her nothing, had no reason to placate her. She was entirely without influence in any area of her life, at the mercy of God and fate and—truly—of Constantine Gerard himself. And he’d said he believed her.

  This is when he shall kiss me, she marveled to herself, and even felt her lips part in anticipation. What a strange turn of events.

  Constantine’s gaze went to her mouth and then she saw his own lips quirk, a rueful smile coming over his face. He reached up suddenly and raised the hood of her cloak over her head.

  “It’s raining again,” he said and then stepped away from her to limp back to the stool, where he sat with a weary sigh.

  Dori stood in the center of the floor for a moment, as if she’d just been dropped through the ceiling. He hadn’t kissed her after all, and she wasn’t quite sure what had just passed between them, but she was certain the air in the oratory was somehow different—that their lives were now different because of each other, and that perhaps their futures would be, too.

  Different because he believed her.

  It was too much for her to ponder in his presence, so she turned to the door, opened it, and was gone into the black, stinking corridor.

  * * *

  Constantine dropped his forehead into his palm after Theodora had closed the oratory door and then smoothed his hand over his head with a sigh, looking up into the flames before him.

  She’d expected him to kiss her. And hadn’t he thought about it? This fairylike woman-child with her pixie’s hair and elfin face, her wide mouth that should have been sensuous but was made innocent by its honest expression of expectation. How could she have had such stars in her big eyes when they were in a cell below the ground?

  Theodora’s beloved father had deserted her with his mind long before his body had died, and now that Constantine was here, perhaps she thought to cling to him in Lord Rosemont’s stead. She was little more than a girl who’d been made vulnerable by her circumstances.

  And yet she was the girl who had married Glayer Felsteppe. By her own admission, she had run to the Holy Land after him once her father was dead. Why? Because, as now, she had no one else to look after her? Was she so unsure that she needed someone, anyone—even Glayer Felsteppe—to claim her rather than be left to her own devices?

  But she’d come to Benningsgate alone. She’d stayed here when it probably should have meant her death rather than seek help and risk any chance of her ever going after her son without Felsteppe knowing she was coming. That didn’t seem like the actions of an insecure girl but rather the gamble of a determined woman, willing to wager her own life against Glayer Felsteppe winning the prize of her child.

  It didn’t matter. She had still married the fiend and nothing could ever erase that fact. Even after Felsteppe was dead and Constantine had his revenge, Theodora Rosemont would still be Glayer Felsteppe’s widow. Her boy would forever be Felsteppe’s son. Each time Constantine looked at his red hair, he would think of the blond little boy who should have his place.

  The thought caused a wave of nausea to rise up against his sternum. How could he have entertained the thought of kissing Dori when his wife and son lay dead and buried under the rubble of their ruined home only hundreds of feet away?

  Constantine decided he was only sad and lonely, touched by the obligation of love he would perform in the ruined keep, as well as the absence of his friends, so far away. They might not forgive him for his desertion, if he was so fortunate as to ever see any of them again. He didn’t blame them.

  The oratory door burst open and Dori rushed back inside, closing the door quickly but quietly, reaching down for her ridiculous stake and then shoving it into the groove in the floor. She rose up at once and pressed her back to the door, her wide eyes staring at him in horror.

  “What?” he said, gaining his feet. “What is it?”

  Her mouth came open, as if she would answer, but no sound issued forth. She pushed away from the door and began gesturing sharply with her hands, as if gesticulating a co
nversation she was incapable of having.

  “I was . . . there is . . .” She took a deep, gasping breath and swept her hands toward the door, then back toward Constantine. “In.” She closed her eyes for a moment and took another deep breath while making tight fists of her hands. She at last looked at him once more and loosened both forefingers from her fists. “The ward.”

  He winced at her. “What?”

  An escalating, humming noise came from her throat, clearly a sound of distress, but Constantine could not decipher the cause for Dori’s panic. She clasped her hands together, lacing her fingers as if she would fall before the commandeered altar and pray the jumble of words that sounded as though they were trapped behind her teeth.

  Constantine thought perhaps seeking divine intervention wasn’t a terrible idea, the way she was behaving.

  “Do you need to sit down?” he asked.

  “N-n-no!” The word finally forced its way between her lips in the same moment her hands forced themselves apart. She rushed to him and grasped his tunic, and he found himself catching her with his hands on her waist. “Constantine, there are . . . people! In . . . the ward!”

  “People?” he repeated while looking down into her face.

  She nodded tightly, her eyes wide with fright, and then emphasized on a whisper, “In the ward!”

  “What sort of people?”

  “What sort of—?” She broke off and winced at him. “The sort with arms and legs. What do you mean, what sort of people?”

  He gave her a frown. “Are they men, women, soldiers?”

  “I don’t know,” she insisted and jerked on his tunic. “I didn’t think it wise to put forth an inquiry.”

  He saw her point. “How many?”

  “Ten? A score? Does it matter?” she said. “There are supposed to be none!”

  “Did they see you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Constantine took Dori by the arms and backed her to the bench and into a seated position so that if she was going to faint he wouldn’t have to tend catching her while he took a moment to think.

  People in the ward. Could be anyone—envoys of the king, of Glayer Felsteppe. There could only be two groups of individuals with any reason whatsoever to congregate in the deserted ward within the broken walls: they had won Benningsgate or they were hunting Constantine.

  He reached down automatically to feel for the hilt of his sword. Theodora had said ten or perhaps twenty people; Constantine could never hope to prevail against so many if they were indeed here to take him.

  If they were here to claim Benningsgate, did Constantine care if he survived or not?

  And what if Glayer Felsteppe was in the group?

  He turned his head to look at Dori, still seated on the bench as Constantine had left her, but her eyes had followed him as he paced the oratory.

  He stopped before her. “I’m going up.”

  “What? Are you mad? They’ll see you!”

  “There’s no helping it. They’ve either come to claim the estate, in which case we’ll be discovered eventually, or they’ve come seeking me. I’ll not be cut down in this oratory with my back to a wall, unable to escape.”

  “What about me?”

  “You may stay here if you wish,” he said, tightening his belt and removing his cloak—it would only hamper his movements. “I won’t divulge your presence.”

  “Oh, so I can be cut down with my back to a wall when I’m discovered?”

  Constantine stopped to look at her. “I must face this. Its’s my duty.”

  She stood, swirling her own cloak from her shoulders. “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “You don’t even have a weapon,” he argued.

  “And whose fault is that?” she snapped with her hands on her hips, all of her earlier panic seeming to have vanished. “I looked over the ward yesterday and it was lost to the weeds, where you threw it. Have you any idea how difficult that was to fashion?”

  “Well, I couldn’t allow you to keep it after you nearly spilled my guts with it, could I?”

  “I should think it would come in rather handy now,” she said with a lift of her nose as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I suppose you’ll have to give me one of your knives.”

  “You’re sincere in this, aren’t you?”

  She only looked at him, her mouth set.

  Constantine sighed and then limped to his satchel, in a corner by the stool. He bent at the waist to retrieve it and then held it by one hand as he reached inside and sorted carefully through the contents. He located the one he sought at last, the blade long, parchment thin, and tapered, meant for taking meat from bones, and Constantine thought the woman could do a lethal amount of damage with it before she was stopped, thinking once more of their first meeting in the ward with her handcrafted defense.

  He dropped the satchel back to the floor and looked at her. “Stay behind me, out of sight in the corridor. Should I be overpowered, you might yet have an opportunity to escape.”

  Her only answer was to hold out her hand, and Constantine placed the handle of the long, deadly-looking weapon there.

  “Thank you,” she said in a haughty voice, dropping her arm to her side and concealing the blade within the folds of the voluminous apron. She looked back up at him. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  He gave her a nod and walked to the door, bending to remove the stake from the floor.

  “Constantine?” Her voice was just behind him.

  He turned and looked down at her and she rose up on her toes suddenly, grasping his chin with the hand not holding his knife and pressed her mouth tightly to his. Her breath whistled in her nostrils as she leaned up and into him, and then she withdrew with the sort of breath one takes when coming out of water.

  Dori cleared her throat delicately. “In case one or both of us are killed.” Then she reached past him for the door. She pulled it open, but it hit his boot, where he had failed to move.

  He felt an odd heat on his ears. “That was inappropriate, Theodora,” he said gruffly.

  She smiled up at him. “Have you any idea the number of times I’ve heard that exact phrase issued at me?”

  Constantine turned and took hold of the edge of the door and opened it, leaving her to follow him from the oratory and into whatever battle awaited him in the ward.

  Chapter 16

  Dori followed Constantine as he made his stealthy way up through the collapsed maze of the corridor beyond the oratory. He behaved as though she wasn’t behind him, but she’d expected that. He’d already warned her that he could not be responsible for protecting her if she insisted on following in his wake.

  She pulled herself over the rubble as quickly as she could, hurrying over the wreckage just in time to see his black outline pause against the grayness of the doorway. He seemed to listen for a moment, and then he drew his sword without a sound, ducked through the doorway, and was gone.

  Dori took his place in the doorway, her ears straining, her fingers rotating the handle of the knife against her palm nervously. If he was overtaken, she could not consider going to his aid. Absolutely not. Doing so might mean her death or, at the very least, her discovery.

  Dori closed her eyes at the memory of his touch on her face.

  I believe you . . .

  A roar sounded suddenly from the ward beyond the corridor, and her eyes flashed open as she jumped. It sounded like the battle cry of scores of soldiers, and Dori immediately thought of Constantine’s green eyes gazing down into hers, the warm, smooth feel of his lips when she’d kissed him.

  No matter who they had been before, the lives and family and status they had enjoyed, they only had each other now.

  She slipped around the door frame and darted to the fall of stone, scrambling up it in a crouch before withdrawing her blade and standing fully upright, ready to fly down upon whatever fiend had Constantine subdued.

  She saw below her not an army of men intent on destroying the earl of Chase but a mot
ley group of folk with bowed heads, dropped to one knee before the man who stood before them.

  Peasants. Villagers.

  They rose as one and then seemed to mob Constantine, although their intention was obviously benign as the lord returned his sword to his sheath and clasped hands with several men and was embraced by one large woman. The rotund Jeremy hung to the rear of the advancing group, his expression anxious as he neared Constantine.

  “Forgive me, milord,” the man was saying, his stringed hood twisted in his hands, revealing the mass of curly brown hair atop his head. “It was Nell who dragged it out of me—sorceress of a woman, she is! She must have used some foul charm, milord.” He dropped his head before Constantine.

  “Foul charm,” the large woman sniffed as she drew away from the lord and turned to look at Jeremy with her hands on her wide hips. “You were thick enough to come traipsing through the village at midday with Harmon’s ladder, looking as though you’d just discovered St. George’s lance.”

  Jeremy sent the woman a sideways glare. “You said you wouldn’t tell,” he hissed.

  “You stole my best”—the woman stuttered to silence as she caught sight of Dori standing atop the pile of stone, Constantine’s blade still gripped in her hand—“apron.”

  All eyes shifted up to her and Constantine turned.

  Dori felt a lump of ice forming in her chest as the Benningsgate villagers stared at her, their eyes wide and wary, their distrust of her obvious as they took in the ill-fitting article of clothing wrapped several times around Dori’s middle. The apron seemed to suddenly weigh a hundred pounds.

  “Milady,” Nell said stiffly and followed the greeting with an equally rigid bob.

  Constantine looked to Jeremy with one tawny eyebrow elevated. “I assume they know about Lady Theodora as well.”

  “A sorceress, milord,” Jeremy insisted in a desperate whisper.

  Constantine only shook his head and then looked back to Dori. “Benningsgate folk, the lady Theodora Rosemont of Thurston Hold.”

  No one made a sound, although they continued to stare at her openly. Dori couldn’t help but see hostility in their gaping, and she wondered how the rumors had been twisted by the time they had made their way around to Benningsgate.