by Jill Hughey
Her heart sank.
“Oh Magnus, how could you let Doeg come here again? I told you I do not like him.” The dog wagged and panted happily at her words. “Well, come on then.” She guided her horse to the courtyard where she met her least favorite person in the world. The extra horse he led looked remarkably like Woden, though only about three-quarters his size.
“Good day, Lady Rochelle. It has been too long.”
“Has it? I have been too busy to notice.”
“I can see. The fields are clean and every little house is cozy and tucked up for winter.”
“Are you just passing through?” Rochelle asked hopefully.
He looked confused. “Passing through to where, pray tell?”
She met his eyes in direct challenge. “I was under the impression you had developed some local friendships.”
A shadow passed through the clear blue depths. “You are struggling with some misinformation. I am here for you.”
Rochelle recoiled. What was the man capable of to keep her from marrying his brother? He’d already tried to have her kidnapped, she was sure of it, and she did not trust him to not have some other nefarious plan in place.
She took a calming breath she hoped sounded like a bored sigh. “I am afraid there is a list of men who think they are for me. Four to be precise. Perhaps you should have signed up for the tournament.” Just thinking of the tournament made her feel ill.
His laugh was not pleasant. “Again, you purposefully misconstrue my meaning. David sent me here to take you to the exact event of which you speak. It is only a week away, as you must know.”
Doeg droned on about crowds of people already in town waiting to see her fate decided for the emperor’s pleasure, but she could not concentrate on his words. Doeg intended to accompany her to Ribeauville! The thought of the opportunities for mischief he would have on the open road between Alda and there made her nerves jangle. Almost anything could happen when traveling. A journey with Doeg coupled with the looming prospect of the horrible tournament brought panic. She did not want to witness the thing, but she really did not want to be kidnapped and disappear forever while trying to get there.
Rochelle silently slipped off the farm nag, letting a waiting boy take the reins. She turned tired eyes up to Doeg as he finally stopped rattling on.
“I heard about your horse,” he sneered. He offered her the lead for the black gelding he’d brought. “David sent a new one for you.”
“He sent a horse? For me?” she said, warm pleasure cutting through guilt and exhaustion as she accepted the rope. The gelding had fine lines and was well muscled. He snuffled his fuzzy nose willingly against her palm. She could not repress a smile, even in Doeg’s presence.
“How did he have time to get him?”
“It is Woden’s half-brother,” he explained, only pleasing her more. “The dam’s owner lives near Ribeauville.”
“What is his name?”
“Name?” he asked with contempt, as if the question was ludicrous. “How should I know?” He slid off his own horse to untie his pack.
She reluctantly gave the stable boy the new horse’s lead. “Keep him in the barn and give him some hay and water.”
The boy nodded.
She walked to the house. Marian met them at the door. “Doeg has come to take us to Ribeauville for the tournament,” Rochelle told her. Doeg and Magnus followed on her heels into the house.
“Did David send him?” Marian asked.
“So he says,” Rochelle answered shortly.
“Have I ever given you reason to doubt my word?” he asked sharply.
“As a matter of fact you have,” Rochelle answered hotly. “The last time you showed up here unannounced your brother had no idea of your coming, despite your claim otherwise.”
She felt a certain satisfaction seeing a flush come to his cheeks beyond that of the cold air outside. It did not last long as a thin smile lifted just the corners of his lips. He changed his tactic.
“I would think the outcome of the tournament would be of great interest to you both. After all, the winner gets all of this,” he said, his hand sweeping around the room. “I am here to escort you into your future.”
Rochelle felt sick to her stomach. “This tournament is an abomination,” she said, her voice flat.
“Perhaps you should tell that to the emperor when you see him. I have heard that he may attend.” Doeg’s cold blue eyes glittered. “We leave tomorrow morning. Early. See that you are ready.” He marched into the men’s quarters.
“I do not trust him, Mother.”
“Nor do I. What do ye think he is planning?”
“I do not know. David did say he would send someone to bring us to Ribeauville. I never dreamed it would be his wretched brother.” Rochelle dared not tell her mother the depth of her suspicions about Doeg.
Marian sighed. “I ken yer worry. But he is right. We should see the tournament, even if it is irregular. If not illegal,” she added.
Rochelle steeled her resolve. “Rest well, then. And pack lightly. I plan to ride hard and fast. If Doeg has plans of his own, he will have to catch me to see them play out.”
She dawdled in the stable on her usual rounds that evening. David’s specter lingered here, as it did around every part of Alda he had visited with her, but was made stronger by the new gelding in Denes’s stall. She hadn’t thought it possible to feel David’s presence more powerfully than she had at times in the past week. On some evenings she had all but conjured him here. His voice, his understanding, his steadying presence and unsteadying caresses.
But now, with Woden’s half-brother eating bits of apple from her palm, if she turned she was sure she would see David leaning on the post where he had driven her to distraction and she had driven him to complete frustration. The night everything had begun to fall apart. The night she’d plotted her betrayal.
David had never plied her with gifts. He’d never brought her jewels or gold or even a flower. Yet here stood a fine nameless gelding, brother to David’s own stallion, replacement for her beloved Denes whom he’d compassionately killed and buried for her. He’d gifted her with an excellent horse to help her continue her work at Alda, a mount for a job many considered inappropriate for a woman.
She could not summon the emotions that had driven her to betray him. In their time apart, all her anger and distrust had slipped finally and inexorably away, leaving her with…what? Loneliness, guilt, a shell of herself she barely recognized just waiting to be filled.
Alda was no longer a source of pride. It was a place to hide her shame and while away the hours until David returned to her life.
If he returned.
And that would never do. She leaned her forehead against the gelding’s black neck. “Tomorrow we ride,” she whispered. “You and I can outrun Doeg. When we get to Ribeauville, I will try to fix this mess I have made.”
David and Theo were in deep discussion by the fire in the center of Theo’s hall. One of Theo’s best soldiers had discovered The Black’s training area. He’d been secretly watching for three days, giving them guidance on favorite moves David might expect or weaknesses to exploit.
Absorbed in the topic, they paid no heed to the other occupants, most of them young women not allowed to partake of the nighttime festivities in the town. Many honorable families had come to stay in Theo’s fine home and make a holiday out of the tournament. Unfortunately among them were a small group of marriageable girls who found David and Theo fascinating. They and their chaperones talked and giggled in high pitched tones that set David’s teeth on edge. He’d suggested more than once that he and Theo adjourn to the small office just off this room, which had a nice solid door they could closet themselves behind. Theo enjoyed a full hall, even if the occupants were silly women. He abused the ability to set them off in birdlike twitters just by looking at them.
David couldn’t help but compare every one of them to Rochelle. How ridiculous they were in contrast to her streng
th and self-assurance. He’d been confused when he left Alda. She’d refused to marry him. She’d barely acknowledged his declaration of love. Something had changed. Something that had her clinging to him yet driving him away. He couldn’t make sense of it and had stopped trying, sending his brother to fetch her instead. These girls were like children compared to Rochelle’s complexity. Had he really accused her of being coddled?
His anxiety to see her rose day by day since Doeg left. He wanted her near again, no matter how exasperating and perplexing she’d been. He didn’t expect her until tomorrow at the earliest, so he set his anticipation aside to concentrate on the business at hand.
As such, when the din dropped to dead silence and all the girls’ faces turned to the door, he paid it no heed. When one of them hissed, “I think that is her!” and another added “And her mother too!” David raised his head so fast he felt a pop in his neck.
There she was, the answer to his prayers, Marian barely visible over her shoulder.
Rochelle halted in the entry, looking slightly stunned, with a parcel in one hand and her tiny dagger in the other. Her riding clothes were spattered with mud, her nose and cheeks blazed red with cold, and her veil sat slightly askew, allowing a few tendrils of hair to hang down along her cheeks and around her neck.
She was, to his eyes, completely magnificent.
Her brilliant eyes quickly scanned the room and she undoubtedly heard the rising hiss of whispers from all the eligible girls who recognized the woman of current notoriety who had just arrived. David stood slowly. Her chin rose just a fraction as her gaze found him, and she gave no quarter. A moment of raw hunger and fierce recognition passed between them. He curled his toes in his boots to keep from pushing people and tables aside to get to her.
Magnus slipped in past her, bumping her slightly and breaking the spell of their stare. Shrieks filled the air when the girls – children! – saw the dog. Theo rose to shout a greeting as he worked his way to his new guests. “Come to the fire! You must be frozen coming in on a night such as this! Welcome! Welcome!”
Rochelle turned to put her arm around her mother, weaving her through the crowded room to the fire, feeling every pair of eyes follow her. David offered Marian his chair while Theo summoned a maid to bring hot stew.
Rochelle barely felt David peel her chilled fingers off the dagger. He set it aside with her bag of clothes and personal items.
“Where is Doeg?” he asked as he chafed her hands.
“Seeing that the horses are tended,” Rochelle answered, staring hungrily at his face.
“We pushed them hard,” Marian commented, letting out a soft groan as she straightened her legs to the fire.
Just as David and Rochelle each began to speak, Doeg crashed through the door, as road-worn as the women, or perhaps more so. All the girls perked up at the entrance of a promising man, but he paid no heed to them. He headed straight for his brother, shouting all the way. “This woman led me on a merry chase across half of Francia. We are lucky she did not kill the three of us and three good horses. Headstrong! Demented!” He tapped his forehead with a finger to punctuate his point, uncaring of the avid audience hanging on each accusatory word.
Rochelle waited until he stood within range of normal conversation to reply. “Did you expect my mother to sleep outside on a night like this?”
“Leave me out of it,” Marian croaked feebly.
Doeg was not finished. “I expect you to do what I say. I said we would leave in the morning which did not mean I wanted to be wakened from a sound sleep by your old skeleton of a servant and practically rolled out of a warm bed to chase you over the countryside. Two stops! We only took two stops the whole live-long day.”
Rochelle wanted to clap her hands to her ears as Doeg continued his diatribe. She’d barely slept a wink the night before between planning for another absence from Alda and worrying about a journey that might include any manner of attack or trickery.
Today had been exhausting. Her mother had been tired and miserable by noon, yet Rochelle kept pressing forward. Every shadow along the road looked like a strange man waiting to jump on them. Every rustle in the brush made her heart leap into her throat. She’d been ready to fight off kidnappers, henchmen and bandits, all while riding toward an event she dreaded and the man she’d betrayed.
She had borne it all, foolishly thinking her trial ended at Theophilus’s front door. She’d not expected to enter a hall full of perfectly groomed, staring girls at the moment she thought she could drop her guard. And she definitely could not shield herself from the magnetism generated by David’s gaze and physical presence, now right behind her. She could smell him, feel his heat. What would it be like to lean on him and let him be strong for her for a few minutes?
When his hands came down gently on her shoulders she startled, then sagged slightly. He applied enough pressure to turn her to him, placing his steadying grip on her upper arms. “Rochelle,” he said quietly.
“Did you send for me?” she whispered, concentrating on a particular fold in his deep brown tunic so that she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. If she looked at him again, she knew she’d either burst into tears or scream like a banshee.
“Of course I did.”
“Well I am here,” she said a bit louder, her voice shaking with anger and exhaustion. “You told me to come and I came and I do not see why I need to be further embarrassed in front a room of strangers because your brother does not like how quickly I made the trip.”
She hazarded a glance upward and watched David’s eyes slide to the left, widening slightly as he recognized the enraptured stare of every occupant of the room. Even Theo stood with a quizzical brow, and the scullery maid waited like a statue bearing two brass bowls of steaming stew.
“Indeed,” David replied softly, then he continued loudly enough for the entire room to hear, “Theo, do you not have a minstrel or storyteller to entertain these busybodies.” To a girl, their eyes widened and mouths formed ‘'O's before they hurriedly began talking amongst themselves again.
David settled Rochelle in a chair, impatiently motioning the maid forward with the food. He stood back to watch her pick at the stew. Though still beautiful to him, he could see her eyes were rimmed with dark circles and she’d lost some weight from her frame.
Dammit to hell. He had pictured a quiet reunion. They were to share a tender exchange in which she would ask about his head and he would ask about the goings-on at the estate. She would answer his need for something soft and caring in his life, and he would answer whatever need she let him answer.
But here they were, surrounded by nosy strangers when he wanted nothing but to cuddle her on his lap until she stopped shivering and fell into much-needed sleep.
Doeg had only aggravated the problem. He had no idea why Rochelle insisted on traveling so quickly, but it was poorly done of his brother to make such a public issue of it.
Worst of all, the disquiet he’d sensed in Rochelle at Alda had only escalated. In addition to being exhausted and thin, she seemed to be in the middle of some sort of mental struggle. After that first shared moment, she wouldn’t hold his gaze, choosing to stare miserably at her stew. He sighed, resisting the urge to drag her from the hall for a few quiet moments, a little time to recapture their special rapport. Leaving with her in such a way would only draw more attention to her.
For tonight he could only see her fed and warm and sent off to bed. Every chair in the hall being occupied, he sat on the floor next to her, ankles crossed and forearms resting across his raised knees. Magnus moved to lie at Rochelle’s feet, sighing as David scratched behind his ear. Theo told them the news about town: traveling musicians were here, some nobility of note, and many of the lesser local families. Even the emperor was coming. Rochelle rolled her eyes at her stew when she heard that Louis was on his way, but otherwise studiously moved her food about in the bowl.
When the maid returned to take it, Rochelle quietly asked where she and her mother could sleep. T
he food and fire had calmed her jangled nerves, leaving only the shadow of the tournament and David’s presence to keep her eyes from drifting closed. Her mother had already succumbed, snoring lightly. David pushed easily to his feet. She accepted both his hands to help her out of the chair, swallowing a moan of pain as overtaxed muscles rebelled. Marian actually groaned aloud, and Theo tut-tutted over her.
The four of them walked slowly toward the stairs. David stopped to collect Rochelle’s bag and dagger on the way. He studied the dagger for a moment. His brows drew together. “Did you really travel so hard because of the cold?” he asked her retreating form.
She turned to him. “I…we…I had to leave Gilbert home. I felt unsettled. Exposed.” Rochelle rubbed her gritty eyes. “That must sound silly to you.”
He placed his hand gently on her arm, his fingers igniting her skin even through four layers of cloth. “I usually trust my instincts in such cases, so I am glad you were cautious.” Rochelle felt her jaw drop just like one of the idiot girls watching them again. Had he just told her he agreed with her and not his brother?
“You were not alone, though,” he continued. “Doeg is fairly handy in a fight, and Magnus would die protecting you.”
“Magnus is a great comfort. And I think the gelding could outrun anything. The horse is magnificent. Thank you for him.”
He smiled. “I thought he would suit you.”
“He does. It was so generous of you to send him. Did you ever ask his name?”
“No, I did not think of it. I am certain he will enjoy your voice calling him whatever you choose.”
“I have a name already.” She gazed up at him suddenly, intently, wanting him to see how important this was to her. When his brow furrowed slightly, she continued. “I shall call him Regret.”
His expression changed from concern to bemusement. “A rather heavy name for an innocent animal, don’t you think?”
“His moniker is intended as punishment to his mistress, not to him.”
“Because of Denes? You must not continue to blame yourself for that.”
