Imogen felt herself flush. “Would telling you have really made any difference?” she asked quietly.
“Of course it would have made a difference. You wouldn’t be here arguing with me, for one thing. Instead you would be safe on a boat destined for warmer climes.”
“What I meant was, would it have made any difference to Robert’s situation if I had told you about this? You need me to save him. The king has to listen to a woman of noble birth, no matter how much he might dislike it.” She smiled coldly as she pulled herself up straight. “As much as he might like to, I can’t be ignored. You and Gareth, on the other hand, well, you can all too easily be dismissed as mercenaries prepared to lie and connive to save your leader.” She drew a shuddering breath. “I didn’t think it ultimately mattered, because whether I’m pregnant or not won’t save Robert, but me seeing the king might.”
“Have you considered in all your scheming that Robert might be long past saving?” He watched Imogen blanch at that possible truth but continued ruthlessly, “What if Robert is already dead and all your noble sacrifice actually achieves is to put you and your baby in danger? Did you think of that before you started on your foolish quest?”
“Of course I thought about it,” she said softly, her hand moving instinctively to cover her womb. “But I have also thought about my child growing up without a father. I think of me, living the rest of my life without the man I love. I think about how he must be suffering now, and I think about how I am the cause of that suffering. You think I don’t know that if it weren’t for me, Robert would have been safe? Strangely, I find I can think of little else.”
Her face tightened with determination. “But I do not think about being too late to save him. I will not think of it. Robert lives and he waits for our rescue. If I thought anything else, I just might run mad.”
Matthew stared at her in silence, admiration warring with fears across his weathered face.
“I didn’t mean it,” he muttered finally. “I don’t believe Robert is, well…”
“Good, because it isn’t true. I’d know if he was no longer with us.” She grabbed his hand and placed it on the slight curve of her stomach once more. “We’d know.”
Matthew might have forgiven her, but no matter how hard Imogen tried to convince him otherwise, he felt he had to tell Gareth about the baby. And the other man’s reaction turned out to be everything Imogen feared it would be.
After his initial stunned amazement, Gareth’s anger had known no bounds. He had stormed over to her and yelled at her about the stupidity of her actions. She kept her peace, waiting hopefully for his anger to blow itself out. It didn’t do so for some time, but when the first wave of his fury was spent he stormed off into the night, saying that he needed time to think. The supper that night was such a silent, strained affair that Imogen was actually relieved to retire to her furs.
It was midnight before Gareth returned to the camp.
He was no longer roaring like a wounded lion, but as Imogen lay by the fire listening to him moving about the camp, she could still feel his anger simmering below the surface. After a while he sat down with some cold supper on a plate and began eating it halfheartedly.
“Do you feel better now?” Imogen asked quietly.
Gareth paused a moment to swallow before answering. “You should be asleep,” he said quietly.
She pulled herself up onto her elbow, not noticing that the blankets had slipped down a little. Gareth did, and his hand clenched painfully around his trencher.
“I tried, but I just couldn’t when I was worried about you.”
“I thought pregnant women slept all the time.”
“Some do, I’m sure, but not me. Not right at the moment. Sometimes I think I will never sleep properly again.”
Gareth was quiet for a moment, then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he ground out, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Imogen could hear the hurt from her betrayal in his voice and she searched desperately for something to say that wouldn’t upset him further and would make him feel better.
“It wasn’t like that, Gareth, I didn’t tell anyone, until Matthew. Mary guessed. I didn’t want to know about it myself. It…the baby disgusted me somehow.” She sighed. “It’s so hard to explain.”
“Try,” Gareth said with stony determination, and Imogen realized that there was going to be no easy escape for her.
She drew a shaky breath.
“I thought Robert had betrayed me. It seemed to me that my body had joined that betrayal by harboring his seed. Then, when I realized Robert was innocent, when I learned that loving him and bearing his child wasn’t an act of betrayal, everything was chaos. I needed to do this so badly…” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I knew you would try to stop me if you found out about the child.”
“Try? Hell no, I wouldn’t have tried. I would have bloody well succeeded, even if that meant I had to tie you bodily to the bed.”
“And he has to ask me why I didn’t tell him?” she murmured with a shaky laugh and Gareth frowned, not wanting to understand.
“Perhaps you may have a point,” he said grudgingly at last. “I see that, but I hope you can also see my point.” He stared at his trencher, not seeing his congealed meal. “You shouldn’t be doing this. I thought it was a frighteningly dangerous folly even before I knew about the baby. But now, my God! You are not just putting yourself in jeopardy but also your child, and I’m responsible.”
“But if I don’t put me and my child in jeopardy, I will lose Robert and that’s something I am unwilling to contemplate.” She pulled the blanket more securely around her shoulders to ward off the chill. “That makes it all my responsibility, my choice, not yours.”
“My God, you can be unbelievably stubborn.”
“Thank you.”
He laughed despite himself. “I didn’t mean that as a compliment, trust me.”
“I know, but fortunately for you, I’m quite prepared to take it as one.”
With that, an uneasy truce grew between them.
Imogen tried to put up with his excessive fussing with as much grace as possible, and in return Gareth tried to keep his worried disapproval to himself. Neither was entirely successful.
But they tried.
“When will we get to the fortress?” Imogen asked tightly, not able to bear the silence a moment longer. She held on to the cup Matthew had given her but her throat was too tight to even try to swallow the contents.
“If we break camp at dawn, we should reach the fortress around midday,” Gareth said neutrally.
“So close,” she murmured.
“So close that I can almost hear Robert complaining about how long it has taken me to get out of there and back again,” Matthew said bracingly as he moved to stoke the fire. He caught Gareth’s gaze and raised a meaningful brow in Imogen’s direction.
Gareth followed the look, then lowered his eyes to stare into the fire for a second.
“I hope they have him chained up well,” he said musingly.
Imogen moved her head in his direction sharply. “Why?”
“Because it should slow him down a bit. Once they unchain him, he’s going to kill me. And that is before he finds out that not only have I put his wife through this ordeal, but she is also pregnant. Yes, I think I would definitely like some iron holding him in place when I tell him that.”
Imogen chuckled but once she settled into her furs for the night, all her worries and fears returned to her in a rush. She was haunted by what ifs.
What if Roger had already won? What if…
No, it couldn’t be so. She wouldn’t even try to imagine her world without him. She tried to block all such dark thoughts by conjuring up memories of Robert, of loving him, of laughing with him, of being held by him.
Just before dawn she found herself desperately praying for just one chance to put everything right.
They were all so caught up in their own thoughts, no one noticed as Mildryd slowly
stole from the camp and disappeared into the night.
Ian paced up and down in front of the well-lit altar, his impatience to have it all done with reaching screaming point. Roger was already an hour late and there was every chance it would be several more hours before he bothered to arrive. That was how the game was played and Ian had no choice but to keep waiting if he wanted to have even the slightest chance of finally being free of it all at last. A life entirely free of Roger and his dark webs of intrigue? It was almost impossible for him to imagine, he realized with a disgusted snort. In his experience, the webs that Roger spun were endless. No one ever escaped them, and struggle against them seemed only to entangle the victim further.
Ian had found that out so long ago, he could hardly remember a time when he wasn’t bound to Roger.
There were distant memories of having a normal life, but they were so hazy and remote that they no longer meant anything. He could remember the first time he ever met Roger, however, with a vivid intensity.
He had been so young, so full of pride and purpose. He had waited so long to begin his knight training that he could scarcely believe that the day had arrived at last. It was that enthusiasm that had made him such pathetically easy pickings for Roger. Even back then Roger had been able to mesmerize and charm when and whomever he wanted.
He had always enjoyed collecting souls.
Ian had all too quickly and easily fallen under the spell of the older boy. It was infuriating now to remember that he had actually been flattered when Roger had included him in his exclusive circle of friends. It had taken him too long to realize that the Roger he had admired was just an illusion, something conjured to fool the world.
And when he did realize, it was too late. When things started to go so terribly wrong there had been absolutely nothing he could do to stop them, but he had been so frightened by it all that he had actually abandoned his dreams of becoming a knight. He had turned to the church instead and in the monastery he actually found some peace. It had protected him from Roger’s dark schemes and offered him some forgiveness. He mightn’t have been a very good priest, but being one was good for him.
But in the end even the great and powerful church hadn’t been able to protect him from Roger, Ian thought with a bitter smile.
Roger had found him and, smiling charmingly, had threatened him with that unique blend of truth and lies that would see him destroyed unless he became Roger’s spy in Imogen’s household. There had been no choice. He gave up his newfound peace and once more lost himself in being Roger’s man.
Ian slumped onto one of the cold, hard benches and buried his head in his hands.
His soul was Roger’s, and he couldn’t help but hate himself for that.
“I hope I haven’t left you waiting too long.”
Ian’s head shot up and he quickly found his feet. Roger ambled into the light of the candles, the gold thread on his doublet twinkling gaudily. He looked around at the newly completed chapel and shuddered slightly. “I can’t say I am that enamored with your choice of meeting place”—he smiled at Ian knowingly—“but I suppose that there is no better place than a church to meet one’s priest.”
“You told me to tell you if I heard anything else about the Lady Imogen,” Ian said abruptly, anxious to get this final betrayal over.
Roger seemed to be in no such hurry. He wandered up to the altar and idly picked up one of several candlesticks and began to consider it carefully as he spoke dispassionately. “My dear Ian, if I had my way, you would still be in Shadowsend. I’m still not entirely sure why you are here at all.”
Ian crossed his arms over his chest, trying to resist the urge to snatch the candlestick from his hands. “I could not stay there, abusing people’s innocence and trust by pretending to be their honest priest. With Lady Imogen gone the whole purpose of the deception was lost.”
“But, Ian, you are a sanctified priest.”
“That couldn’t save me from you, could it?” he spat out bitterly. But when he saw Roger’s smile harden he drew a deep, steadying breath. “Tonight I have heard from the woman I had traveling with the Lady Imogen. She has told me that the party is camped only hours away.”
“So close,” Roger said softly as he carefully returned the candlestick to its position. “I never realized that my little sister could be so resourceful.”
He stood for a second, staring at the cloth covering the altar, then turned quickly as if to leave. Ian stepped in front of him, his face taut with outrage.
“Is that all, then? Is that all you have to say?” Ian searched the serenely beautiful face in front of him for a moment, then quickly looked away before he could begin to actually believe in it. He shook his head in disbelief. “Because of you, I have just thrown away my last piece of self-respect and here you are treating it as if it all means nothing to you, as if this is just a tidbit of gossip I have collected merely to entertain you. If you don’t care, why have you made me act a Judas all these years?”
Roger raised a brow questioningly. “My dear Ian, calm yourself. Priests don’t have any need for self-respect. That is what their God is for, after all.” He smiled brightly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “And don’t forget that you also have me and my eternal patronage.”
“I’d be better off with the patronage of the Devil himself.” Ian turned from Roger then, no longer able to abide being so near him and for once not caring if the other man saw his contempt.
“Careful, or I might just remove that patronage.” Roger’s cold eyes raked over Ian. “Till now, I have been very generous and let me assure you, you will miss my generosity if I decide to withdraw it.”
Ian’s hands clenched impotently at his sides. He knew that there was nothing he could do and his silence was an admission of his own weakness.
Roger smiled approvingly. “Good. I’m glad that you have managed to see sense. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a very important appointment with the king. Thank you for the information, but I would prefer in future if you confined our contact to messengers.”
Ian watched him stride confidently from the chapel and had to resist the urge to cross himself. The deed was done and there was nothing he could do to undo it.
He turned and walked slowly toward the altar, staring at the glowing crucifixion. Suddenly he sunk to his knees, impervious to the cold that radiated from the stones and, for the first time in months, found inside of himself enough of the priest he had once been to be able to form the words of a simple prayer.
But he didn’t waste this small miracle on his own tattered soul.
No, he prayed for the young woman whom he had been systematically betraying for years, and who was even now throwing herself into the very mouth of Hell itself. It was a last desperate act, and he knew with a sinking certainty that it would be futile, just as everything had been since the long-ago day he had meet Roger Colebrook.
He knew Imogen well. He had watched her from a distance, had watched her grow and blossom over the months of her marriage and had even been a little proud when she had found within herself the courage to confront Roger, a courage he himself lacked.
Admiration, however, couldn’t blind him to the facts. The chances were she wouldn’t survive the game Roger was playing with her, few did. But still Ian prayed.
He prayed for a miracle.
Chapter Fifteen
A shiver ran down Imogen’s spine as the high walls of William’s fortress cast them into the shadows. She hunched her shoulders, trying to steel herself against the darkness of this desolate place. It seemed impossible to comprehend that somewhere within this stone menace was the man who had brought a little sunlight back into her life.
It was all so alien to her, yet if her life had been all it should have been, she would have belonged to this cold darkness, it would have been so much a part of her that she would have long since stopped seeing the suspicion and hate that had built those thick stone walls. She would have seen nothing wrong in destroying an innocent man to s
atisfy another’s dark desires. With eyes that saw, she would have been blind to the gentleness and love that lurked under Robert’s armor.
And that would have been a tragedy indeed.
Imogen’s hands tightened compulsively as she heard the horses’ hooves strike the fortress’ stones. Suddenly, there was no room to retreat. She was now committed to do all that needed to be done. She stiffened her spine, and felt her chin rise aristocratically. It was as if generations of breeding were suddenly manifesting themselves inside her after years of absence.
That breeding was the only chance she had. It might not give her an ability to beg, but it would hopefully give her the confidence she needed to make demands of a king.
They halted, and Imogen’s horse pranced several times before being subdued by Gareth’s firm hand on the leading rein.
“Halt. Who seeks admittance to King William’s fortress?”
Gareth sat stiffly in his saddle and for a second allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy of turning tail and getting Imogen the hell out of here. Only the certain knowledge that she would never forgive him if he did so stopped him from making realities of fantasies.
Grudgingly he called out, “It is Lady Imogen of Shadowsend and her retainers who seek admittance into the king’s presence.”
His voice sounded calm enough, but he also made sure that it was injected with just the right amount of confusion, as if he was asking how anyone could question Imogen’s right to approach the king’s gates.
Imogen smiled tightly at Gareth’s display of arrogant confidence. It was a side of the laughing man she had never noticed before, but to judge from the stunned silence that descended, it was very effective, for all its infrequent use.
She silently wished he would share a little of that arrogance with her. She was painfully aware that every eye in the castle’s outer bailey must now be trained on her. She knew she would be the center of their rapt attention, but she couldn’t let herself be cowered by it. Instead she sat serenely as if it all meant nothing, but that only served to titillate their audience further. The sound of many voices murmuring scandal started low and spread like wildfire. Imogen felt her face flush as the words Lady Deformed reached her ears.
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