by Tamara Leigh
“Wondering. . .” He shook his head. “You know I didn’t want the divorce.”
She knew. But it wasn’t what he wanted that mattered. It was all about what his mother wanted. “You’re a bit young to be a widower, Graham.” The moment her bitterness was voiced, she regretted it.
He stared at her with such sorrow it made her want to cry. “How did it come to this, Kennedy?”
“Graham. . .” She drew a deep breath. “If you have to ask, it’s all the more reason we never should have married.”
“I love you.”
Though they were words she had once thrived on, they had long ago lost their depth. “The divorce was for the best. It’s what I needed, what you needed, and certainly what your mother needed.”
“Forget about my mother. I don’t care—”
“Yes, you do. Too much.”
He looked away. “I’m all she has. I know she didn’t treat you well, but what matters is us.”
“There is no ‘us.’ She made certain of that.” No need to go into specifics. He knew them, just refused to accept the truth. Of course, there were things Kennedy had kept from him, such as his mother’s investigation of her when she and Graham began dating, then on their wedding day the woman had tried to bribe her to keep her from marrying her son.
“Maybe in time she’ll—” Graham began.
“Time?” The word shot off Kennedy’s tongue. “Do I look like I have time to waste on a relationship with a woman who would rather die than accept my backwoods blood?”
Graham momentarily closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just. . .” He looked back at her, then slid an arm around her and gently drew her onto his lap.
Though she knew she should scramble away, the arms he wrapped around her were comforting. More, she was worn too thin to waste energy. With a sigh, she laid her head on his shoulder.
“We should have had a child,” he murmured. “It would have been a little girl, I think, with dark hair, green eyes, and her mother’s smile.”
Kennedy clenched her hands. She had wanted children, but there had never been time—after her bachelor’s degree, they had agreed, then her master’s degree, then her doctorate. All at the urging of a woman who hadn’t wanted grandchildren mothered by a “hick.” Celia Huntworth always got her way.
Kennedy squashed her anger. It was in the past. Now if only she could be there as well. Mac had it right. Far better a dream than this.
Graham lifted her chin and pressed his mouth to hers. His seeking was sweet, but there was no passion, no heat, no rasp of beard across her skin. She’d had better in her dreams.
She slipped off his lap. “You should go. I need my rest.”
Hurt reflected on his face. “I thought we could have lunch together.”
“Maybe another time. I’m really tired.”
He sank back into the sofa, stared at her as if to impress her on his memory, then stood and strode toward the door.
Kennedy ached for him, and would have called him back if not that she knew this was for the best.
At the door, he looked over his shoulder. “Goodbye, Kennedy.”
It truly was goodbye. “Goodbye, Graham.”
He lowered his gaze, nodded as if to himself, and walked out.
Kennedy put a hand over her eyes. She hurt for him, for his pain, his loss, his realization come too late that there was more to life than speaking to his mother’s every whim. Hopefully, one day he would break free of the woman and rediscover in someone else what he and Kennedy had shared for so brief a time. As for herself, she had her dreams for however long her heart beat. Providing she could, she would return to them, which meant another round of sleep deprivation.
She squared her heavy shoulders and wondered how to while away the hours. The answering machine with its blinking light caught her eye. Doubtless, her mother was awaiting a half dozen returned phone calls.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Where are they?”
In the flickering light of wall torches, Baron Howarth smiled pridefully. “Come, Lord Wynland, I will deliver you to the miscreant myself.” He turned his horse onto the drawbridge.
Though the embers of Fulke’s anger toward Sir Arthur aspired to fire, it was John and Harold he wished to see. “First, my nephews.”
“As you wish.” The baron spurred his horse forward.
Fulke left his men in the bailey and ascended the steps to the great hall.
“Margaret!” the baron called. “Bring forth Lord Wynland’s nephews.”
An elderly woman creaked her bones up from before the hearth and urged the children at her feet to rise. “Come, sweetings, your uncle has arrived. Greet him as is proper.”
Amid snuffling and a hiccupping sob that reminded Fulke of the distance between him and his nephews, the boys gained their feet.
“Hush now.” The old woman turned them toward Fulke.
But it was not John and Harold whose tearful faces halted him. He stared at the boys who no more resembled his nephews than water resembled oil. “What is this?”
Baron Howarth drew up short just past Fulke. “What speak you, my lord? Here are your nephews safe and—”
“They are not my nephews!”
The baron’s lids fluttered. “Surely ‘tis them. They but require a bath and—”
“Fool! You think I do not know my own nephews even beneath so much filth?”
“Pardon, my lord. I was given to believe these were the boys you sought.”
Though Fulke longed to put his hands around the man’s neck, he suffered his sword hilt instead. “Who gave you to believe that?”
“Crosley, my lord. He—”
“Crosley? Or another impostor?”
“I. . .know not.”
“Take me to him.”
Glenmar’s dungeon was dank and foul. There was the smell of urine, feces, rot and mold, the scratching and screeching of rats, the moan and groan of beings that might or might not be human.
At the end of the twisting corridor, the jailer halted and scrambled for the key.
Fulke seethed as he waited alongside Baron Howarth, a man who seemed a good foot shorter than when they had entered the hall.
The key rasped in the lock. “Come forth!” the jailer called, pushing the door inward.
Though Fulke doubted that the man inside was Crosley, still he hoped. That hope died as the prisoner stumbled from the cell. The man’s hair and beard were red, and the embroidered and studded tunic belonged to Crosley, but that was all.
He seized the impostor’s arm. “Who are you?”
The man peered through twin blackened eyes above a blood-crusted nose and cracked and swollen lips.
Hurting but whole, Baron Howarth’s knight had said of his lord’s capture of Crosley. That the man was, but his pain would be nothing compared to what awaited him if he refused Fulke the answers he sought.
“Who be ye?” the impostor growled.
“Fulke Wynland.”
The man’s head drooped. “Then me task is done.”
“What task is that?”
“The game is over.”
It seemed Fulke had moved his playing pieces exactly as Crosley intended. “It is far from over. Tell me your name!”
“I be Tolken and me boys are Edgar and Warren. Ye’ve done ‘em no harm, have ye?”
Baron Howarth lunged forward and stuck his enraged face near the impostor’s. “Not yet, we haven’t.”
Tolken swept pleading eyes to Fulke. “Slay me if ye must, but do me boys no harm. The lads but did what their father asked of them.”
In spite of his anger, Fulke would not allow harm to befall them. “Stand down, Baron Howarth.”
With a grunt, the man complied.
“Sir Arthur Crosley paid you?” Fulke asked.
“Aye, enough to keep me and me boys in food through winter. I vow I would not have agreed did we not need the coin, me lord.”
“What, exactly, did he ask of you?”
�
��He gave me his horse and—”
“His horse?”
Tolken wiped his sopping brow on his forearm. “A fine destrier, me lord.”
Crosley had spared nothing to lead his pursuer astray.
Tolken sought Fulke’s gaze. “The horse will fetch a good price—enough to buy a home for me boys.”
“Coin and destrier that you wander Sinwell in his name and those of the children he had with him.” Anger trembled through Fulke. “Were my nephews well?”
“The older boy seemed so. The younger had a cough somethin’ terrible.”
What ill had befallen Harold? Struggling to contain his emotions, Fulke asked, “When did you last see Crosley?”
Tolken counted off his fingers. “Five days gone, me lord.”
“His destination?”
“I know not, though he turned south.”
Did the man lie? Likely not, for Crosley could have no reason to reveal more than the man needed to know.
Heaven’s wrath! How much time was lost in this vain chase? More, how much had Crosley gained? Fulke pivoted. South. . .to London? Mayhap, but what of Harold? If he was ill, Crosley’s progress would be hindered.
“Back in there with you!” Howarth shouted.
“Me lord,” Tolken called. “Pray, spare me boys.”
Fulke halted. As Howarth would surely extract his humiliation from Tolken’s flesh, what would become of the man’s sons? Might Howarth also work vengeance on them? He shouldn’t care, especially as it would take precious time he could ill afford, but he could not leave the children.
“Bring Tolken!” He resumed his stride.
“His flesh is my due!” Howarth sputtered.
Fulke traversed the corridor and mounted the steps. Once more before the sniveling boys, he grudgingly admitted he had done what was best. It was a flaw for which he ought to be whipped.
When Tolken stumbled into the hall, he was met by his sons’ joyful cries.
Baron Howarth appeared at Fulke’s side. “What is this, Wynland?”
“I am Lord Wynland,” Fulke reminded him. “Tolken and his sons will accompany me when I depart Glenmar.”
“But ‘twas I who was first betrayed, I who ought to avenge myself on the knave.”
Fulke held the man’s stare. “Think well on your words ere you speak another to me, for they shall determine whether you remain keeper of Glenmar.”
The man’s gaze wavered.
“Food and drink for my men, then we ride.” Fulke left the man to his seething and stepped out into the dark of fallen night. Why had he allowed Tolken and the man’s sons to come between him and his end? It was not as if the man did not deserve punishment. But there were children to consider, two little boys who needed their father just as John and Harold—
Fulke closed his eyes. Had he not discouraged their attempts to draw near, they might not have given themselves so wholly to Crosley. No doubt, nary a word of opposition had either boy spoken when taken from Brynwood. As much as Fulke hated to admit it, Crosley was as a father to them.
He shoved a hand through his hair. As for Tolken and his sons, once they were a safe distance from Glenmar, he would release them.
He conjured an image of Lark and thought how strange it was it should sting knowing he would not be soon in coming to her as he had thought. But she was safe at Farfallow. That was all that mattered.
September 17th, 3:00 p.m.: Awakened by pounding on the door (Graham) at approximately 1:00 p.m. EEG tracing indicates 20 hours of continuous sleep intersected by only six REMS (alarm didn’t work). As with Mac’s EEGs, the REM periods are significantly longer than normal (see tracing #917). Recall only the dream from which I was awakened—Fulke Wynland again. As before, it was detailed, lucid, and so real I recall it in its entirety. Is the tumor responsible? Sleep deprivation? Whatever the answer, I want badly to return to the dream, to Sinwell, to Fulke.
Cheek pressed to the desktop, Kennedy lifted her pen and stared at the name of a man her spent mind had made real. She didn’t need to close her eyes to summon his face, to draw his scent to her, to feel his mouth on hers. Although it seemed too much effort to work her facial muscles, she smiled in remembrance. If only. . .
Laughter parted her lips. Yes, if only, but she could dream, couldn’t she? Sleep descending, she reminded herself of the need to maintain a sleep deficit. It was no use.
He had told himself it could get no worse, but the appearance of Sir Daniel and the accompanying knights dispelled all hope. She was gone, just as she had warned. This time forever?
A thundering inside him, Fulke turned from the villagers who had greeted him a half hour earlier and who professed to know nothing of Crosley and his nephews.
Sir Daniel reined in before Fulke and dismounted. “My lord, I fear I bring you—”
“I know! Tell me how!”
The knight exchanged glances with another of the knights who had accompanied him. “She disappeared, my lord, as if by magic.”
Fulke’s disquiet deepened. That was not a word to be spoken without thought of consequences. Death was too quick to follow. “You were to keep her ever in your sight, Sir Daniel. Did you slack your duty?”
“I kept her in my sight, my lord, but when she became ill on the ride to Farfallow, it was necessary to stop. She begged a moment of privacy to relieve herself. I stayed near, but turned my back to her as one does a lady. When I looked around, she was gone.”
A murmur rose from Fulke’s men where they had gathered behind.
“None saw her flee?”
The other knights shook their heads. Only then did Fulke give his regard to the fifth man among Lark’s escort—Sir Donald, the knight he had sent to Brynwood Spire to retrieve his brother’s message. The missive he drew from his tunic could wait.
Sir Daniel took a step forward. “Methinks she is a witch, my lord, for in her escape she made no sound—no breaking of branches underfoot, no crackle of leaves.”
Despite his lowered voice, his words were not lost on the others, as evidenced by their murmurings of “witch,” “sorceress,” “unholy.” Just cause for a burning if ever there was one, and it filled Fulke with fear. However, he quieted it with the reminder that these men were his now that the truth of the earl’s death was known.
Sir Daniel shook his head. “’Twas as if the lady had never been.”
But she had been. Fulke had the memory of her to attest to it. “You searched for her?”
“For a whole day ere riding to Glenmar where the baron told us of Crosley’s trickery. Over the past two days, we have ridden hard to bring you news, ever passing where already you had passed.”
Fulke felt as if the world had fallen out from under him, as if his fate were already written.
“Yesterday we met up with Sir Donald. He carries you tidings, my lord.”
The knight strode forward and passed the missive to Fulke. “Your brother has entrusted me to deliver his message—written, as well as spoken.”
Richard was taking no chances this time. “Then speak.”
“He says that, on the month past, Sir Arthur was seen in conversation with the monk who passed the night at Brynwood. As the monk was from the monastery of Farfallow, your brother suggests you stop there.”
Remembering Lark’s agitation when he had called for his men to ride to the monastery, Fulke almost laughed at the irony of his choice of safekeeping for her. “Sir Daniel, during your search for Lady Lark, did you pause at Farfallow?” Likely not Lark’s destination, but perhaps Crosley’s.
“Aye, my lord, but the good monks told us they had seen nary of Lady Lark, nor Sir Crosley.”
Then not Farfallow. Lark’s fear had been for nothing—unless it was, indeed, Crosley’s destination and he had yet to reach it.
“There is more, my lord,” Sir Donald said. “Your brother bids me to tell you that Lady Lark’s maid has been found.”
Fulke frowned. Lark had said she did not have a maid traveling with her. A lie? Or was the
woman who claimed to be her maid lying? “She is well?”
“Aye, my lord. Your brother questioned her, but I fear there was naught to be learned of the attack. She is most. . .hysterical.”
“Thank you, Sir Donald.” Fulke looked again to Sir Daniel, a man in sore need of redemption. “You and the others will return to Farfallow and set up camp outside its walls. If Crosley or Lady Lark comes unto them, you will send word.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Fulke strode to his destrier. He halted alongside the horse, looked up, and traced the wisps of clouds that floated the sky. Lark was gone. But was she a witch? To accept it would mean believing in something he never had, but what other explanation was there for her ability to appear and disappear? If this was only a dream as she claimed, why did he continue on when she was gone from it?
“Lark,” he breathed. Though he knew it would be best if this was the end of her, for if she returned she would likely face fire, it drove a pike through him that he might not hold her again. It was a hard thing to admit, especially considering her deception, but in their short time together he had come to feel something for her.
Love? Though he had never been touched by the elusive emotion, in the deepest place inside him he believed in its existence, which was why he had been relieved when he returned to England and found Jaspar wed to another. He had suffered no sting to his pride, for it had suited him to escape marriage to one for whom he felt little. He wanted to feel more for the woman with whom he would make children, loathed the thought of a marriage such as that which had bound his mother and father. They had never loved, had barely tolerated one another. It was lust for Aveline’s youth and beauty that made Fulke’s father set aside his first wife to take another. As for Aveline, the marriage her parents forced on her had broken the heart she had given to another. To the earl’s dying day, she had bemoaned the loss of her love, uncaring what pain it caused her husband and children.
Fulke met his destrier’s steely stare. If he died a childless old man alone in bed, he would choose solitude over wedding one for whom he was unmoved.
But Lark moved him, she who seemed of another world, who spoke of dreams as if nothing in his world were real, who did not trust him. God be with him, like a downy-faced youth he had opened himself to her. Witch or not, he was under her spell. A dreamspell.
