By Possession (28 page)

Stuffing a few washed garments into the basket along with a salve to ward off corruption in cuts, she hustled to the courtyard. Wounded. How badly? Not too badly if he was giving orders. She knew that wasn't true, that a man could suffer mortal wounds and still be conscious, but she clung to the piece of illogical comfort just the same. Not that it helped much. By the time she found Richard at the pier she had become a mess of agitated excitement.

She jumped off the boat even before it had been securely moored at the Southwark docks. Richard escorted her past the small houses of the stews in which prostitutes conducted their trade. Marcus lounged outside one near the end and stepped aside so they could enter.

“Small John and Marcus knew of this place,” Richard explained. “It is a ways from the town, and easier to defend.”

“He is in danger then?”

“We do not know yet.”

The house was crowded with knights and squires and two women, all relaxing with drink and gaming. Passionate sounds came from behind a curtained corner. Richard flushed and glanced an apology and gestured her to a door leading to a back chamber.

Addis reclined on a bed and a skinny blond woman of middle years sat beside him, feeding him soup. His arm was bandaged and his left leg rose bent under the sheet.

The woman placed the bowl aside, rose to test some water warming by the low hearth, and then returned to continue the meal. She leaned closely and whispered something to Addis that provoked a stiff smile. Some soup dripped from the spoon onto his naked chest and she bent down with a sly smile and licked it off.

Moira instantly felt ridiculous for those nights of worry.

Richard cleared his throat loudly.

Addis looked over and muttered something to the woman. The whore raked Moira with her eyes and rose. When she and Richard had left, Moira walked over to the bed.

“You look comfortable enough, my lord. Very comfortable, in fact. I feared that you might not be receiving proper care but I can see that I fretted for naught.” She crossed her arms over her chest and paced around him, nodding with approval. “Aye. Well fed, well bathed, and well rested.”

He grinned. “Well enough.”

“Indeed, these ladies seem to have you very well in hand. Completely so. Is there some reason then why you called for me?”

“Not to bathe and feed me.”

“Clearly not.” She faced him with hands on hips. “If I learn that you have been lying in this pleasure house for days while I worried across the river, that arm will not be all that needs healing.”

With a laugh he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to sit on the bed beside him. “I only arrived this morning, and I called for you because these women are so soft-spoken and gentle and obliging that I feared they might be angels. Your sharp tongue reassures me that I am still on earth among the living.”

“No doubt such a place is a knight's idea of heaven.”

He gave her the warmest smile she had ever seen. “Not mine.”

That flustered her so much that she lost hold of her annoyance. Relief and joy flooded to take its place and she felt embarrassed at having greeted him so poorly.

“I am heartened to see you alive and whole.”

“Not entirely whole.”

“You said a week, and when you did not return …”

“The wound slowed us.”

She gently touched the bandaged upper left arm. It had been bound with strips of cloth to the side of his torso. “What happened?”

“An arrow. Some men were waiting as we returned.”

“Then it is known why you went? If so, even this house will not be safe. Perhaps you should go back to Darwendon.”

“We will learn soon enough what was known. No one in London has been taken, which is odd. It is possible that Edward plans some elaborate trap, but maybe some other game is being played. I will stay here a day or so and then return to the city if nothing develops. Whoever is behind this received word I had not died, several days before Richard and I got back. Time enough to send guards to arrest me on the road.”

“You are not making much sense.”

“The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. The men who attacked intended to kill me. Edward should want me alive, to learn what I had been told about the queen's invasion. So perhaps it had nothing to do with the king at all.”

“Simon?”

“Or someone else.”

“How many were there?”

“Five that I saw. But I sensed a sixth one hiding in the trees.”

“You are wounded but Richard is not.” The implications of that sunk in. Richard would fight to the death to spare his lord one scratch. She narrowed her eyes on him. “You met them alone, didn't you?”

“Do not scold, Moira. I had no choice. I sent Richard away. One of us had to try and get back with the message, and to warn Thomas Wake and the others that they might have been betrayed.”

“It is a miracle that you are alive, isn't it? You walked into a trap not knowing what would be faced. Noble and stupid and brave. You promised me.…”

“It was not like that. Not like Barrowburgh,” he said softly, touching her cheek. “It was not.”

The full impact of the danger that he risked in this scheme hit her. Five against one. It truly was a miracle that he was alive.

The warmth of his hand touched more than her skin, adding an anguish to her relief with its tangible reminder of what had almost been lost. She had grieved for him once. She had almost had to grieve for him again. She might yet grieve in the days ahead. Her eyes began to blur. She hid her reaction in an examination of his arm. “Has it been cleaned and sewn?”

“A physician tended it. It had become so useless that I thought the bone had been hit, but he said it had not. He bound me because he did not trust me to keep it still.”

“He must be a good physician if he knows a knight's mind so well.” She turned to the bent knee. “Another arrow?”

“Nay. Just a blow like on the road from Darwendon, but worse. My insides have knotted. It has happened before. I can not straighten it, and it will be thus for a few days. Warmth helps.”

“Then we will give it warmth.” She fetched the heated water and some cloths and moved a stool beside the left
side of the bed, glad to find some way to help him that would also busy the hands that wanted only to touch him and revel in the reality of his safety.

She pushed the sheet up the side of his hip. For the first time she saw the remnant of the wound that she had tended at its worst. Like the scar on his face, it might have shocked her if she had not seen its raw, corrupted birth. Now the long jagged welt of damaged flesh did not dismay her, but the large discolored bruise surrounding it did. She gently caressed the damage with her fingertips.

The hand of his bound arm grasped her wrist, stopping her. She flushed and reached down to dip a compress into the hot water. “I am not surprised you cannot walk.”

“It is not the bruise but the muscle underneath.”

She laid a towel alongside his hip, then pressed the warmth to his skin. “The blow could have broken the bone, just as the arrow might have shattered your arm. For all of your scars, Addis, you have been lucky in your wounds.”

“That is true, Moira. I have been lucky.”

She dipped the compress again to renew its warmth. He watched her with a serious expression. She smiled, just enjoying the quiet pleasure of being with him again.

“Has he had you yet?”

The question stunned her. It took a moment to remind herself of their current time and place. “You have no right—”

“Has he?”

“You lie here in a bawd house being licked by a whore and you question my virtue? You have a lot of—”

He grabbed her wrist again.
“Has he?”

“Nay.”

He released her. “Not for the lack of wanting you though. Did he take full advantage of my absence?”

His insistence exasperated her. “He only visited a few times. Once the day you left and then recently. Since I was sure you were dead I found the distraction welcome.”

He missed her sarcasm. He cocked his head with a curious frown. “How many days passed without your seeing him?”

“Five … six …” She suddenly saw the meaning of his question. “You cannot think … Nay, Addis, surely not.”

“He knew when I left and where I went. He knew it all. The men who attacked me were hired swords and not very skilled. The man who sent them did not fight himself. Hugh Despenser could afford better and know where to find them.”

If I should live and he dies, it will make this easier
. “You are wrong. He is a good man, and would not betray the plans being laid over this.”

“Even good men will dare much to clear a path to their goals.”

I will find a way to make this marriage happen.
“You do not understand. It is not like that. There is not such between us that would make him kill. The goal is not that important to him.”

“We will know soon enough.”

“I will not have you harm him because of me.”

“If he paid those men to interfere with my return, whatever his motives, I will be the least of his danger. I will not accuse him, but Wake will learn soon enough if he left the city.”

“He has been here? Thomas Wake?”

Suddenly he looked ill at ease. He glanced away too deliberately. “He came to learn the message I brought back.”

The oddest emptiness trickled through her, like a brief
echo of what she had felt when Brian departed. “Only for that?”

He looked down, lips slightly parted, and remained silent so long that she thought he would not reply. The sensation trickled again and again, like rivulets of loss wanting to form a hollow sea. Finally he raised his eyes to hers.

“He also came in friendship, and with an offer of help.”

The emptiness engulfed her, filling her whole chest, choking out her breath. “With the bond sealed in the usual way? With a marriage?”

“Moira …”

“It is a wonderful thing, my lord. Such a man and fam-ily…I said some way would be found, did I not? Thomas Wake is married into Lancaster's family, isn't he? If this plan succeeds they will be as powerful as before. I am relieved to know you will have the alliance needed to regain Barrowburgh.”

She prepared the compress again even though the water had cooled. Her methodical actions masked the unexpected devastation ripping her apart.

This was the last time she would help him. She would serve him at the house, but that was not the same. When he left London she would beg him to let her stay, and even turn to Rhys if she must, but he was not so cruel as to expect her to serve him in his marriage. In a matter of weeks he would be dead for her again, and this time she would not even have Brian to care for in his memory.

Her eyes stung and she stared at her hands holding the cloth to his flesh, grinding her teeth and willing composure. Perhaps if she were not so raw from worry she would not react so strongly. She had known this must happen eventually. She had been the one to remind them both of it. But eventually was later and this was
now.

His hand closed over hers. “Enough now. It is feeling
much better, but whether from the warmth of the water or the comfort of your friendship, I do not know.”

And she was the one who had denied them both the full comfort that friendship could have brought. It had been a sound decision, as this news clearly proved. She let the cloth drop into the bucket and sat miserably on her stool, gazing blindly at her lap, wondering if she hadn't been far too sensible. But how much harder to hear these words if she had acted differently? Then again, maybe not harder at all. She had never guessed that the pain of this inevitable reality would slice her into pieces like this.

“Come and sit beside me, Moira. Over here on my good side. I would rejoice in being alive with you for a while.”

She looked up to find him smiling. She really thought she would weep then. Forcing a smile of her own she circled the bed and settled beside him.

It seemed the most natural thing to ease down under the arm that circled her shoulders, and lie alongside him in the still afternoon. They lay in the sweet connection she had not known since the night before London, and its poignancy both eased and deepened the pain.

“I think that I envy your mason,” he said.

“Sometimes you speak nonsense.”

“His simpler life has a kind of freedom. No ghosts of ancestors whisper in his ear. His choices are for now, not the past and not the future. But it is not just that. I envy him because he is whole.”

“You make too much of a few scars.”

“I am not speaking of scars or wounds. I think I was bitter about them once, at the beginning, but that was long ago. Nay, he is whole in other ways. Complete in himself. It is that I envy.”

She turned on her side so she could see his face. It also brought her closer to his body and pressed the skin of his
shoulder against that of her cheek, which felt very nice. “You are complete.”

“Nay. I feel as though there are two half men inside me, two worlds and two souls. I am only whole sometimes, like now. There is no peace without that completeness.”

She only partly understood him, but she sensed the peace of which he spoke. They lay together with a quiet contentment that produced a type of bliss. Even the anticipation of loss that shadowed her heart possessed a certain beauty. He had said that he wanted to rejoice in being alive with her and she felt very alive and unnaturally alert to each specific precious moment.

She turned her head and pressed her lips against his skin, wanting to taste his tangible reality. She laid her hand on his chest, touching his heartbeat. She inhaled deeply, memorizing his scent.
Probably never again.
She snuggled closer, savoring his physical closeness. Aye, she rejoiced even while she cried.

Her hand edged along the bindings tying his arm to his body. Her searching caress traced the hard muscles of shoulders and chest and abdomen, branding the details in her senses. She rose, absorbed in the nowness of him, no past or future whispering in her ear, free in her choice to know him as completely as possible before losing him again.

“Moira …”