The Earl: Order of the Broken Blade: Book 4

by Mecca, Cecelia

  Sabine leaned so close a faint scent of roses drifted toward her.

  “I know more than you realize. I’ve wintered here, you see. I have grown quite close to Conrad.”

  Sitting up, Sabine lifted her wooden spoon and began to eat. As if she’d not just given Cait a clue to the puzzle that was the earl.

  She waited for the mercenary’s wife to say more, but she did not seem inclined to do so. Instead, Cait ate in silence as Sabine spoke animatedly to her husband. He teased her mercilessly, and Sabine teased back. Neither stopped smiling for the duration of the meal, and it was only as dessert was served that Cait remembered the odd comment from earlier.

  “Two of four?” she asked as Sabine licked a bit of tart from her lip. “What does that mean?”

  “’Tis just us remaining. We still need to convince them,” Roysa answered beside her.

  Cait had not realized she’d spoken loudly enough to be overhead.

  “Convince whom? Of what?”

  Suddenly looking quite guilty, Roysa glanced at Terric, who was looking at something near the hall’s entrance, then leaned toward her.

  “That we will not be staying at Licheford when they leave.”

  Terric leaned forward, touching Roysa’s arm. In an admirable effort to distract him, Roysa lifted her goblet for a toast.

  Cait could not be more confused.

  We will not be staying at Licheford. ’Tis just us remaining.

  She thought back to their earlier conversation, working out the details. So the women did not wish to remain here as their husbands left for the south. Sabine and Idalia had convinced their husbands already, which left just Roysa and . . .

  Her eyes flew to Sabine’s.

  The men were not traveling together. She knew that much from Roysa. Each had a mission, all ending outside the gates of London, where they would meet in a final bid to force the king’s hand.

  In preparation to possibly take over the greatest city in England.

  And the ladies were joining them. All but Roysa and . . . “Surely she does not mean . . . ?”

  But Sabine was already nodding her head. Apparently Guy and Conrad were the only two remaining who still needed to be convinced to take a companion to London.

  “I cannot. He does not want me,” she stopped. Sabine’s smile wasn’t meant to pacify—it was a knowing smile. As if she did, indeed, know something about Conrad and Cait. As if she expected him to take her to London, which was a ridiculous notion given the state of their relationship. Not to mention the fact that Terric would never, ever allow it.

  “Nay.” Cait reached for her wine and took a sip. “Nay, I will not . . . he will not . . .”

  “Trust me,” Sabine said, but her gaze fixed on something, or rather someone, in the hall, and her smile suddenly faltered. Roysa followed her gaze to a woman watching them closely. The woman was sitting, but it did nothing to hide her voluptuous figure in her deep green velvet gown. Long blonde hair streamed behind her, a simple headdress hiding nothing. She was so very different from Cait, in all ways but one way.

  The way she looked at Conrad . . .

  Before she could stop herself, Cait confirmed her suspicion by looking at Sabine . . . and then Conrad. He wasn’t looking at the woman now, but Cait could be patient. Surely he would eventually notice her staring at him with unbridled desire.

  “Cait,” Sabine said, interrupting her musings. “She means nothing to him.”

  Cait continued her vigil. Finally, he noticed. But she did not know Conrad well enough to discern the look he gave the blonde woman.

  You know him better than most.

  That may have been true once, but no longer.

  “Who is she?”

  Sabine sighed.

  “Who is she?” she repeated, unable to look away.

  “Lady Threston,” Sabine finally answered. Though really it was no answer at all.

  “Please, Sabine. Who is she?”

  Still, Sabine did not answer. She nodded instead, confirming her suspicions.

  Conrad’s paramour. Unless . . .

  Heart in her throat, she asked, “Are they betrothed?”

  She’d forgotten to whisper. Guy leaned forward, hearing her.

  “Nay, my lady, they are not.”

  He and Sabine exchanged a look that told Cait she, and perhaps Lady Threston, had been a topic of discussion between them.

  Her only consolation? Both of them seemed to be on her side. But that hardly mattered. There was only one side that did, and it was the man who finally seemed to realize what they were all talking about.

  Conrad looked from his lady back to her, but again she could not read anything into his expression. Cait pretended it was nothing. She picked up the last tart in front of her and took a bite, forcing it down her throat. It stuck in her chest, heavy and unwanted, but she forced another, chiding herself for thinking Conrad would be alone. A man such as he? A handsome earl?

  Of course there would be other women.

  Sabine had it wrong.

  She was a fool and should never have come.

  Chapter 10

  “She refuses to listen,” Sabine said to Roysa, ignoring Cait altogether, a tricky business given she was sitting right beside her. In Cait’s bedchamber, no less.

  A full day had passed since she had learned of Lady Threston. Since the others had begun their campaign to persuade Cait to appeal to Conrad. And while the thought of accompanying him on the dangerous journey south, with men equally as dangerous, excited her as much as it did the others, she simply would not do it. Not after the buttery. Not after realizing there was a woman in Conrad’s life.

  “You are married. All of you,” she said to the women gathered in her bedchamber. By rights all four of them should be sleeping. Instead, they prepared to ride out on the morrow.

  All except for her.

  “I am nothing to Conrad.”

  Sabine threw up her hands. “As I’ve said since yesterday, that is simply not true.”

  “Listen to her,” Idalia cut in. By far the quietest of the four, she had a determined manner that made people listen when she talked. “Sabine and Conrad have become close.”

  “When I first came to Licheford”—Sabine leaned forward on the padded bench that she and Cait shared—“and Conrad and I learned we had both lost our parents suddenly, his to illness and mine . . .”

  Sabine shook her head as if ridding herself of a wretched memory.

  “His mother made many of the tapestries in the hall.”

  “I know,” Cait whispered. According to Conrad, it had been her greatest joy—she’d loved weaving bright colors into stories for all to enjoy.

  “My mother, though not by trade, was a master girdler.”

  Cait was happy they’d been able to comfort each other. She too knew the pain of losing a parent and could not imagine if her mother had been taken from them too.

  “I am so very sorry,” she said, though Sabine hardly seemed to hear her.

  “When he looks at you—” Sabine waited until all eyes were on her to continue. “When he looks at you, I’ve no doubt there is more than any of us understands about your connection.”

  That, at least, was true.

  Because he had saved her? Because he bore the scar to prove it? Or had that come later, after their years of exchanged letters?

  She wanted to ask the questions aloud. Instead, Cait closed her eyes and bent her head down. “If he felt something once, I’ve ruined it.”

  “Nay,” Sabine said gently. “Damaged, not ruined.”

  She kept her eyes closed. It was easier for her to speak this way, to face their silent judgement.

  “After the tournament, we wrote to each other.” That part was easy enough. “I thanked him. I never told Terric, but it continued for many years. Until . . .”

  Opening her eyes, she held back the tears that had gathered there, traitors to the story she told herself over and over and over again—that she had no place in this En
glish earl’s life. That he was a better man for not being reminded of the scar he bore.

  “Until I stopped.”

  There. She had said it. And waited for the inevitable.

  “Why?”

  It was Idalia who’d asked. And as usual, Cait had no answer. They all were trying so hard to help her. Would they stop if they knew everything?

  “He’d become more persistent. Asking for me to return to England, with Terric.”

  Cait shook her head.

  Say it. Tell them. Just say it.

  “Why did you not return?”

  The gentleness and concern in Roysa’s voice was the catalyst that finally sent the tears tumbling down her cheeks. The others didn’t hesitate—Sabine put her arm around her, Roysa knelt at her feet, Idalia huddled next to her.

  She was surrounded by sympathy. Actually surrounded, and Cait had no choice. Her tears came quicker, sobs shaking her shoulders as a handkerchief was shoved into her hands. She covered her face with it, remembering.

  Oh God, I am so very sorry, Conrad. Terric. Guy. Lance.

  What they’d been forced to do.

  For her.

  “It was my fault.” Was that even her voice?

  “Terric,” she managed. “And Rory. They were always around. Always so protective.”

  Cait had caught the eye of the handsome earl’s son, and in a wild moment of thoughtlessness, she’d asked for Conrad to meet her, alone.

  “I told him to meet me by the river. Behind the tents.”

  She could see his face, less hardened than it was now but every bit as strong. “He refused, said it was not safe.”

  What a silly girl she had been, thinking she was actually a woman. Her very first time away from Bradon Moor. What had she known?

  Nothing.

  “I pleaded, like a silly girl.” She opened her eyes. “Just one brief moment alone.” She made a sound. “I’d dreamt of a kiss, and got much more in the bargain.”

  “No,” Roysa said, her voice firm. “This was not your fault, Cait. No.”

  She ignored the words. “He said, ‘’Tis too dangerous,’ but I went anyway. By the time he realized it . . .”

  When had her tears stopped?

  “I wanted to tell the others. To tell my brother. So many times, I tried. Started to say the words, to apologize.”

  “Listen to us.” Roysa grabbed her hand, sitting next to her. “You’ve naught to apologize for. What young woman would not want to steal a kiss from a man such as Conrad? Silly girl? Nay, you were all of us. Do not think that way any longer.”

  The others nodded in agreement, and Cait was surprised to find herself smiling. A small smile but a genuine one.

  “I stole a kiss from Lance well before it was proper. Each of us”—Idalia nodded to the others—“has a similar tale. Fortunately, none of us were accosted by a despicable man too drunk on his own self-importance and power to respect a young woman. ’Twas his fault, and he paid dearly for it. As befitted him.”

  “I never told Terric,” she repeated.

  “A fact that does not matter,” Roysa said. “It does not matter why you were out there that day. What happened brought them together.”

  “They killed a man because of me.”

  “A man,” Sabine said, squeezing her shoulders, “who tried to rape a young girl. Who attempted to kill four boys audacious enough to prevent him from committing the worst sort of injustice.”

  Cait tried again. “But don’t you see? I never told him.” She turned to Roysa. “Terric. He does not know. I . . . I couldn’t . . .”

  “He will not learn of it from me.” She raised her chin. “The men made a pact that day, and we will make her own.”

  A chill ran through Cait, though not an entirely unpleasant one.

  “All four of us will go to London. We will persevere against a corrupt king and return here, to Licheford, for a wedding.”

  “All four? Roysa, you are mistaken.” The wedding was so outrageous a notion, she didn’t even feel the need to address it.

  “You will go with Conrad,” Sabine agreed as if the matter were settled.

  “He will not take me.”

  Roysa frowned, standing. “Did Rory ‘take’ you?”

  She blinked, finally understanding.

  “He will send me back,” she argued. But it seemed none of the women were listening to her. “He hates me for abandoning him,” she insisted.

  Sabine pulled her to her feet, the others looking at her as if they were in on a secret she had yet to learn.

  “He does not hate you, Cait. He loves you. And once he realizes you only stopped writing him because you thought to punish yourself for something that was never your fault . . . he will understand. You will make him understand.”

  You thought to punish yourself for something that was never your fault.

  “But it is, was, my . . .”

  She stopped when all three women glared at her, looking at her with fire in their eyes, with a determination that Cait neither understood nor felt. But the idea of denying them was even more terrifying than following Conrad to London.

  More terrifying than what he would do when he realized she’d defied him.

  More terrifying than confessing that she’d not stopped thinking of him, not for one day, since that tournament.

  Chapter 11

  “Refuses to come out?”

  He tried to do what Sabine had suggested, but deep breathing did not help. Not this time. He could feel the familiar creeping of heat up his neck.

  He’d wondered why she hadn’t answered in response to his knocking this morning, but he hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t thought she’d simply ignore him. That she’d refuse to say goodbye. Now he stood in the great hall, pacing. His pulse like a rabbit’s. He’d thought he would at least see her one more time . . .

  “Conrad,” Guy said, using a tone no one else would dare take with him. “Your men are waiting.”

  He looked from the mercenary to his wife. They were ready, all of them, to leave Licheford and begin the next part of this dangerous adventure. He and Terric would leave this morn, since their voyages would take longer, and Guy and Lance would depart on the morrow. They’d meet outside of London around the same time.

  The plan was set. The courtyard was filled with men and supplies. All was at the ready, except . . . he could not leave. Not like this.

  Not without saying goodbye.

  “I am sorry,” Sabine said, just as she had the evening before when Cait had not come down to the evening meal. Despite promising himself he would not do so, Conrad had gone to her, only to find an empty chamber. The condition of the bed covers and the way the chairs were turned about made it look as if the other ladies had gathered there earlier.

  While he should have been thinking of their plans, ensuring all was ready, Conrad had lain awake wondering why Cait had come all this way if simply to avoid him. The same question assailed him now.

  Well, it would have to remain another mystery. There was much to be done, and he could no longer concern himself with the whims of a woman who clearly did not want to be found. It seemed to be Cait’s specialty.

  Guy and Sabine sat to break their fast, but Conrad kept up his pacing, nearly running into Terric. He immediately asked him the very question he’d promised himself he would not ask.

  “Have you spoken to your sister?”

  His friend gave him a look that made him immediately regret having spoken.

  “You’re angry,” he said, not for the first time since the group had arrived in Licheford.

  Terric shot a glance at the table, where Lance and Idalia had joined Guy and Sabine, then ushered Conrad to the side of the hall.

  “Understandably so,” Conrad continued. “But we leave today to force the hand of a king.”

  Terric crossed his arms, unimpressed with the seriousness of their circumstances. “You corresponded with my sister. For years. And never thought to make mention of it?”

&
nbsp; Conrad clenched his jaw—he knew he deserved that, and in truth, he had no real response. Of course he had thought to make mention of it. Many, many times. But Cait had begged him not to do so. A fact he would let her share with her brother, if she had not done so already.

  It was not his place to say anything.

  “You should speak to Cait about that.”

  Terric threw up his hands. “If she’d not bolted herself inside her bedchamber, I’d have done so. She tells me little, yet she risked her life to be here. Why, Conrad? Why now? I know you spoke with her, at least once.”

  Conrad caught his marshal’s eye from across the hall. The man made a gesture indicating it was time. Nodding, he turned his attention back to Terric.

  “The men are ready.”

  Terric didn’t move.

  He sighed. “I spoke to her, but we resolved nothing.”

  “Do you love her?”

  It was the one question he hadn’t expected. How much had Cait told him? He decided he would be as honest as possible without betraying her confidence.

  “I did, once.”

  “But no longer?”

  Roysa walked up to them then, cloaked. He still could not believe all three women were traveling south. Actually, Sabine’s participation made sense. She bore the mark of the order, the fleur-de-lis on her back similar to their own marks. Her parents had taken a stand against King John long before Conrad and the others had formed the order. She deserved to see their mission through, despite the danger.

  But Idalia and Roysa . . . this would be dangerous for them. Although he didn’t doubt Terric’s and Lance’s ability to keep them safe, he wouldn’t want his own wife anywhere near London. Of course, he had no wife. Nor was it his decision.

  “She still will not come?” Conrad asked, Roysa’s presence allowing him to avoid his friend’s question.

  Why did Roysa avoid her husband’s gaze? And his own?

  “Nay. Perhaps we should leave. The courtyard is filled with men . . .”

  He watched her carefully. When Terric leaned down to place a kiss on his wife’s cheek, a flush crept up her cheeks. She seemed almost . . . guilty. Something was amiss, but Conrad had no notion of what it could be, and Terric didn’t seem to notice.