It had been easy to deny that she was sworn to the earl when he was merely a name flitting about in her head, a guilty feeling of obligation that she had allowed her heart to push aside. But now that he was here, flesh and blood, a man whose only trespass was to be chosen by the king to be her husband, Isabel knew a terrible sense of shame. He had given her no cause to fear him and yet she shook with bone-deep dread as his spurs ticked on the stone floor with his approach.
“P-please,” she stammered, unable to stop herself from taking an unsteady step backward. Her heel caught in the train of her skirts, nearly tripping her, but the handsome, dark-haired earl had already closed the space between them, reaching out as if to catch her before she could fall. Isabel flinched away from the firm grip that held her elbow, staring into her affianced’s slightly confused, but noncondemning eyes.
There could be no denying him now, no denying what was happening.
She would have to leave the monastery. After all that had occurred, after all that she had been through, now she would have to leave Griffin. Just like that, the small happiness she had known was ended.
“I can’t—” she gasped, struggling to speak for the way the ground seemed to be opening up beneath her, the air seeming to close in tight around her. “Oh, God, I … I can’t … can’t breathe—”
She backed away, first one step, then another, shaking her head, her voice all but robbed. The earl reached out to her, though not with force, nor did he try to curb her flight. Closing his hand around the empty air where she had been standing, he watched, his dark brows drawn together in a slight scowl as she retreated another pace, then turned on her heel and bolted.
She didn’t care if he followed or stayed; she ran along the corridor tunnel without direction now, nearly sobbing, arms crossed over the ache swelling in the pit of her stomach. At the end of the cavernous hallway, she rounded a sharp bend, and crashed into one of the monks, scarcely pausing to acknowledge the startled young brother, her head spinning, heart roiling. Light beckoned from the other side of a door up ahead of her, clear white sunrays outlining the dark shape of the old oak panel. She lunged for it, bracing her palms against the rough wood and pushing it open, staggering into the warm daylight of the garden.
Outside, still running, still sucking in choking gasps of air, Isabel navigated the maze of flower beds and shrubbery, the branches of an alder bush snagging at her skirts and long flowing sleeves as she stumbled past, blind with panic. She came around the alcove where she and Griffin had spent last afternoon, their private corner of the garden.
And, by Mary’s sweet mercy, there he was.
“Oh, Griffin!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms as he rose from the turf bench he had been sitting on and turned to face her. She gulped in a fortifying breath and pushed the awful words out in a rush. “It’s him … Sebastian of Montborne! Oh, God, Griffin—he’s here. I don’t know how he found us, but he’s here. He’s come for me and I don’t know what to do!”
She felt his arms drop down around her, lightly, as if he was reluctant to embrace her now. Her heart was still racing as she clung to him, her breath still rapid and harsh in her ears, but not so drowning that she did not hear the heavy sigh leak out of Griffin. She sensed his queer stillness, his vague withdrawal.
Sensed his total lack of surprise at this terrible, unexpected news.
“You knew he was coming,” she whispered, drawing away from him. Heaven help her, but the truth was there in his eyes. She could hardly find her voice to speak. “Did you … my God, did you send for him?”
That he would not reply was answer enough. She pulled out of his weak embrace, stunned, feeling as if she had been physically struck. His face gave her no comfort either; he looked down at her in expressionless silence, the skin seeming tight across his cheeks, his jaw held firm. But he would not deny his betrayal. Isabel was miserable with the idea, hurting someplace deep inside.
“When?” she asked, her voice choked and raw.
It took him a moment to answer. “The day I brought you here. I had one of the brothers scribe a message to Montborne and see that it was delivered. You were so sick … I didn’t know what else to do.” He shook his head and let out a soft curse. “I thought your betrothed had a right to know where you were.”
“And what about me?” she scoffed brokenly. “You should have told me you had sent for him. I had a right to know—”
“Yes, you did,” he admitted. “In truth, I didn’t think it would matter; I hadn’t planned to stay. I thought I would leave once I saw that you were better, but then …”
“But then I threw myself at your feet and you thought differently,” she supplied, a bitter edge to her tone.
“It was nothing like that, Isabel.”
“No?” she scoffed. “Well, then, mayhap you stayed to make sure you were able to claim your reward for my return.”
He exhaled sharply. “It’s not about some damned reward. I don’t want anything from Sebastian of Montborne.”
“What about me, Griffin? Do you want nothing from me, either?”
“I want you to be happy.”
“Liar,” she shot back. “You say that while you’re standing here breaking my heart.”
“We knew this day was coming, didn’t we?” he asked matter-of-factly. “We knew the day would come when you would go to Montborne and I would go my own way. All we were doing was delaying the inevitable.” He reached out to touch her face, but she turned away from his caress. “I thought it would be easier this way,” he said. “For both of us.”
She felt a tear slide down her cheek. “I must mean nothing to you at all if you found it so easy to simply turn your back and let me go.”
“God, no. You couldn’t have it more wrong, my lady.” His voice gentled, nearly to the point of a whisper. “Isabel … I love you.”
It killed her to hear those precious words when her betrothed was but a few hundred yards away in the monastery, preparing to take her with him at any moment. “How dare you say it,” she charged bitterly. “How dare you tell me you love me—now, when it’s too late for us to do anything about it. When you knew all along that he was coming for me!”
Griffin moved closer. “I love you.”
“No,” she said, needing to deny it, for it hurt so badly to think he might mean it after all.
“I love you, Isabel, and I always will.”
She brought her hand up to slap the words from his lips, but he caught her by the wrist and held her steady, his grip unyielding, his gaze intense with emotion. “Unhand me!” she cried, fisting her free hand and beating his shoulder in a fit of helpless, heartbroken rage. “I hate you! Let me go!”
“The lady said let go, sirrah. I suggest you release her at once.”
The growled demand made both of them still, then Griffin slowly freed his hold on her arm. Together, they turned toward the source of the interruption, Isabel’s face streaming with tears, Griffin’s hard with frustration and something deeper that she could not read. The Earl of Montborne stood before them like an impassive wall of muscle and tight-reined determination, but he was no longer alone as he had been in the corridor with Isabel a few moments ago. Four knights flanked him, two on each side, the lot of them poised to strike and awaiting his command.
“You are Griffin of Droghallow?”
Isabel saw Griffin’s vague nod of acknowledgment in the corner of her eye, then glanced up to find the earl’s hard gaze fixed on her, his gray-green eyes narrowed in an unwavering stare: cool, assessing … knowing. A muscle jerked in his dark-bearded jaw, his nostrils flaring as if he could scent her betrayal. Isabel’s ears burned with the depth of her shame, but she struggled to keep her chin high, forced herself to hold his gaze. Sebastian seemed to consider her for a moment in stony silence, then his focus leveled on Griffin.
“Arrest him,” he ordered his guards. “We’ll take him with us to Montborne to stand trial for his crimes.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
As they left the monastery, Sebastian had given Griffin over to two mounted Montborne soldiers; one held the bay’s reins, the other held the rope that had been fastened around Griffin’s wrists. He was being treated with a modicum of care, but as a criminal nonetheless.
For her part, Isabel, too, felt somewhat the criminal. In her guilt, she could hardly bear to look at her betrothed, and so she stared at the road ahead, unable to offer him more than the weakest of replies when he tried to engage her in polite conversation to pass the time, and eating beside him in awkward, prolonged silence when they stopped to rest and refresh the horses during the trek north.
And all the while, she could feel Griffin’s eyes on her.
He had been seated with the company of guards some dozen yards away from Sebastian and her, his tether slackened to afford him space to eat and drink, the opposite end tied around the base of a sturdy ash to ensure he stayed put. Isabel could not tell what he was thinking; his emotionless gaze told her nothing. Did he hate her? He had intended to leave her with Sebastian and set off on his own, but now, because of her, he was arrested and soon to stand trial for his role in her kidnapping. What punishment would he see at Montborne? She was too terrified to so much as think on the prospect.
“Does it pain you terribly, my lady?”
Sebastian’s low voice next to her startled Isabel out of her grim musings. She forced her gaze away from Griffin and back to her betrothed, trying to make sense of what he was asking.
“Your arm,” he said. “It troubles me to think you are suffering. If the injury pains you overmuch, we could slow our progress so you can rest more frequently. I don’t want to tax you any more than you have been already.”
Isabel managed a small smile. “Thank you for your concern, my lord.”
He poured her a cup of wine from a hard leather decanter and handed it to her. When Isabel tried to take it, his grip resisted slightly, prompting her to look up at him. His gray-green gaze was piercing, unsettling. “We are to be wed soon,” he reminded her. “You may call me Sebastian if it pleases you … Isabel.”
It seemed so odd to hear her name roll off another man’s tongue. Odder still to think that what the earl said was true: they were to be wed soon. She looked into the face of her affianced, a noble, handsome face that would make any maiden swoon. Against her will, she found herself comparing him to Griffin, contrasting the two men who were likely the same in age, yet as different in appearance and demeanor as night and day.
Where Griffin was golden and smolderingly intense, Sebastian of Montborne was dark and dynamic, a man whose very presence commanded respect and not a little fear. The earl seemed to crackle with vitality, his keen gaze not quite able to hide its roguish gleam, the wry twist of his mouth hinting at a reckless nature that probably took a great effort to curb. From what Isabel knew of him before and what she had now seen of him these past couple of days, Sebastian of Montborne seemed a good man. Kind yet firm, gentle yet strong. He would make any woman a fine husband …
Any woman but her.
She took a sip of her wine, then brought the cup down and stared into the bloodred claret, feeling the weight of a thousand stones settle onto her chest. “My lord,” she began hesitantly, “I … I think we should talk about our … about this marriage arrangement.”
She glanced up, half hoping she had not said the words aloud—half hoping she was not sitting there with Sebastian of Montborne, about to tell him that she could not marry him. But she had said the words, and he was there beside her, looking at her with an expectant, almost sympathetic gaze. “I would be lying if I told you I didn’t have a few reservations about this marriage myself, my lady. Though I mean no disrespect to you, if I had my choice I would be with my king preparing to join the fight in the Holy Land, not preparing to take a bride. But neither one of us has the luxury of choosing in this matter. Our king wishes to join our lands through marriage, Isabel, and as his subjects we must oblige.”
His admission surprised Isabel. She supposed she had been so wrapped up in her own misery that she had not paused to consider Sebastian. That he wanted for other things as well did not make the weight of her regrets lessen, but it did make her feel a certain shared sadness with the youthful earl. He deserved better than she could ever hope to give him as his wife. “I’m sorry, Sebastian,” she whispered. “I’m sorry about all of this. I wish it could be different … for both of us.”
He gave her a gentle nod of acknowledgment. “I am not going to ask what transpired between you and him,” he said, his voice lowering to a very private timbre. “Perhaps in time you will decide to tell me on your own. Perhaps in time it will no longer matter. I can’t demand your love as my wife, Isabel, but I can demand your fidelity. You should know, here and now, that I will demand that much of you.”
When she could only stare at him, fully understanding how right he was to expect her agreement yet somehow unable to voice her pledge, Sebastian set down his cup of wine and rose from his place beside her. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts, my lady. Providing you’ve no objections, I’ll tell the men to mount up within the hour. I would prefer to make Montborne before sundown.”
Griffin had never seen Montborne, but he had heard of its splendor on occasion through Dom, who had always described it in jealous, spiteful terms, as if in telling Griffin of its majesty Dom was somehow delivering personal insult to him as well. Now, as he rode under the barbican gates and into the large courtyard that lay at the foot of the enormous castle, Griff could understand his foster brother’s envy.
Montborne was magnificent.
Easily three times the size of Droghallow’s square stone keep, this polygonal tower rose several stories into the evening sky, its parapets and battlements blocking out the slim color of the fading sun and casting long shadows over the bailey. Soldiers and castle folk paused in their activities to look with affection upon their returning lord and his new bride—and stare in scorn at the brigand responsible for her damage and delayed arrival.
Griffin could only watch as Isabel was assisted from her palfrey and shown inside the castle by a clutch of chattering maids. She glanced back at him as they led her up the keep’s outer stairs, but her regard was brief and filled with the same sadness and regret he had seen in her eyes during the whole of their journey to Montborne. And there was something else in her eyes in that moment, too, Griff realized.
Resignation.
She was going to marry Sebastian of Montborne. The reality of it—the crushing finality of it—hit him like a lance thrust through his heart. He tried to tell himself it was the plan all along, that he had always known this day was coming. That it was for the best where both of them were concerned. But now he knew the truth: he had been hoping—madly, futilely hoping—that somehow they would have found a way to be together.
It wasn’t going to happen.
He had pushed her into Sebastian’s arms that awful morning at the monastery, and now it appeared she had decided to stay there. He wanted to scream his anguish over losing her, but he schooled his face to one of cool composure as the earl jumped off his horse and strode over to face him.
“I would have a word with you in private before I send for the sheriff, sir.” A look from the dark-haired nobleman sent one of his guards over
to help Griff down from his mount. His hands were untied, a gesture of confidence from the earl that Griff had to respect. He acknowledged his appreciation with a slight nod. “We can talk in my solar,” Sebastian told him, then turned to lead the way across the bailey and into the keep.
The earl brought Griffin to his private chamber off the great hall and closed the door. He left Griff in the center of the rush-covered floor and walked to the room’s large window, standing before the pane of costly glass and staring out at the fiery approach of sunset. “It seems we have some trouble between us, sir knight. You have committed an act of treason in stealing my bride, an act that demands recompense, yet if I do what is right by my king and myself, I shall lose any hope of alliance with the woman I am pledged to marry. It seems to me that whether you live or die, I am doomed to abide your ghost dwelling in my home.”
“You have to do what you must,” Griff answered from behind him, sounding much more casual than he felt. “As for Isabel—your betrothed—” he corrected hastily “—I’m certain the lady will bear you no ill will for your decision.”
The earl of Montborne exhaled a wry chuckle. “You underestimate, sir. She loves you.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Griff replied tersely. “After all I have put her through these past couple of weeks, she despises me. I’m certain of it.”
“So. You love her as well,” the earl remarked. “Is that why you sent the message from the Derbyshire monastery?”
Griffin shook his head. “She was wounded and very ill. I only wanted to see her safely delivered to where she belonged.”
“An odd statement for her abductor to make, don’t you think? Would it surprise you to know that your overlord took it upon himself to inform me of my bride’s capture some days ago, advising me that you had acted alone in this kidnapping plot?” Sebastian pivoted to regard him over his shoulder. “No, I can see that it doesn’t. It didn’t surprise me either, frankly. Dominic of Droghallow has never allied himself with Montborne, so I didn’t see why he would feel the need to do so now, particularly when half the realm is aware of his recent involvement with Prince John.”
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