Her Lord and Protector (formerly titled On Silent Wings) (24 page)

But this was
silly. He was a big man, he carried a sword, and he certainly knew more about
London than she gave him credit for.

But by the
heavens, where was he?

Finally, the
moon high and the hour late, she fell upon her bed in exhaustion.

Dawn’s pink
light colored the window when Millie woke her. “Somethin’s wrong!” she
whispered. “Lord Drayton just came back. He wants us to leave now. Without
him
.”

Blinking herself
awake, Katherine slid from the bed in confusion. Millie moved aside, and
Katherine saw Alex slouched in the doorway, watching her with haunted eyes—as
if she were a complete stranger.

Alarm twisted in
Katherine’s belly as she ran to him. The hand he shot up may as well have been
a sword, for it stopped her cold.

“Go home,” he
said in a voice so emotionless it could have come from a dead man.

She reached for
him, but he stepped back.

“No. Please. I
just...need some time.”

He turned from
the door and left her standing there.

****

Alex warned his
footmen to guard Katherine with their lives or they would answer to his blade.

He remained at
the inn for a week, loath to go home and discuss this with her. He had to
think. To grapple with the truth.

Finally, he
chartered a horse and left London. Katherine was his wife. He owed her the
knowledge of their tied past.

The mount, used
to walking short distances along London’s streets, had not Neos’ spirit nor
stamina and tired easily. Alex was forced to halt many times during the day. At
night, he lay wrapped in his cloak in a field or the woods. He stared blankly
at the sky or listened to the soft rustle of leaves on the trees, and tried to
sort out what he had to do.

****

Fifteen days,
and Alex still hadn’t come home.

Sam had
dispatched servants to look for him along the roads—and, because of rumors that
the highwayman still lurked in the woods, had notified the sheriff that he was
missing.

Was he still alive?
Was he broken alongside the road, bleeding, dying, too weak to call for help
while travelers passed by him unawares?

Worried to
distraction, Katherine tried to work on her embroidery, giving up when the
needle only pricked her trembling fingers. She drank the vile-tasting
concoctions for her throat, and wandered the dim corridors. She sat in Alex’s
big chair in his study and found comfort there, closing her eyes and breathing
deeply of his scent.

After a few days
she consulted with Elizabeth, made a list of things in the castle that needed
improvement, and set to work. The boxwood maze was trimmed and cleaned up under
her supervision, as was the pretty knot garden. Outside the kitchen, she
oversaw the planting of the herbs she needed for the healing of her throat.

She directed
needed improvements to all the rooms of the castle. Upon discovering undesirable
conditions in the kitchen, she promptly fired the head cook and hired a more
efficient one through Elizabeth.

Only Alex’s
bedchamber did she leave alone.

Her things were
still in her old chamber at the front of the house. She wouldn’t move into her
husband’s chamber. Not until he came home to willingly share his bed with her.

Unable to sleep
at night, she trod wearily through the halls. Many times, Elizabeth limped
along beside her.

“He’ll come
home,” Elizabeth soothed. But she could give no reason for his absence.

And, although
living in the constant dimness was oppressing, Katherine did not order all the
drapes opened. Alex could do so when he was ready to look at a window in his
house again without thinking of Mary.

During the
second week of his absence, as Katherine stood in a dilapidated flower garden
directing the gardener with points and gestures, the Cookes’ carriage rolled up
the drive. Katherine expected Edward, as he must have heard of the unexpected
letter Elizabeth had received from Lord Wiltshire stating his desire to see
her.

But it was Agnes
who stepped from the carriage. Katherine sighed and then shaped her lips into a
wan smile.

“Well. Hello,
Lady...Drayton,” Agnes said as if the words got caught on her tongue. “I wish
to visit with Elizabeth.”

Katherine shook
her head and pointed down the road, gripping her smile, wanting the woman to
leave.

“Ah. Elizabeth
is in town. Well, I will be returning home, then.” She began to turn toward her
carriage but then stopped, tapping her lips with one gloved finger. “Father
says that Lord Drayton has not returned from London.”

So she knew.
Katherine shrugged and nodded, hoping Agnes wouldn’t see the tightening of her
shoulders. It wasn’t necessary to let Agnes know how much she worried.

“Perhaps he
regrets his decision to marry you.” Agnes’ red painted mouth turned up in an impudent
smile.

As soon as the
carriage had disappeared around the bend in the drive, Katherine ran into the
house, willing her tears to hold back until she could get to her bedchamber and
fling herself onto the bed. Tears wetted her pillow as hopelessness and despair
washed through her.

Perhaps Agnes
was right. Alex was disappointed in her as a wife. He didn’t want to come home.

Two days later,
Alex crashed open his heavy front door. “Wine! And bloody quick!”

He stomped into
the parlor with head down and shoulders slumped under his scuffed brown cloak.
This he flung to the floor while he headed toward a chair and dropped into it.
With a long sigh, he closed his eyes and lay back his head.

A sound near the
bookcase made him open his eyes a moment later to see Edward sidling toward the
parlor door. “What do you want?”

Edward stopped
and faced him. “I, uh, I am waiting for Elizabeth. I didn’t wish to disturb
you, so I was just leaving the room. You look—well, quite worn out.” Edward
sounded as if rocks filled his throat. “A servant went to see if she—.”

“Enough,” Alex
said. He scraped a hand through his windswept hair. “My head is pounding. Where
is the blasted sack?”

Sam entered then
with a tray holding the wine. He glanced at Edward and gave a slight bow.
“Mister Cooke, Lady Elizabeth is on her way down.”

“Yes, thank
you,” Edward said. “Well, I will just wait for her at the stairs.” He slipped
out.

“Set it there,”
Alex said.

“Lady Drayton
returned two weeks ago,” Sam said as he poured sack to the brim of a sizeable
cup. “We’ve been worried for your safety. What happened?”

“I have
something to tell you.” Alex tipped back the cup and gulped the wine. The pungent
liquid warmed his stomach, but didn’t ease his heartbreak.

There was a
smile in Sam’s voice. “Yes. How fortunate that she may speak again!”

“I learned something
else about her father. I want to find out what she knows.”

“I thought she
knew nothing about her father.”

“God help her,
Sam.”

“Alex? What is
it?” Sam’s voice held a worried edge.

“Leave me now. I
want to be alone.”

He heard the
door close, and in the quiet of the parlor the king’s words resounded like axes
in his head. Alex knew he would get no peace until he confronted his wife.

His wife. He’d
married her, spilled his life’s seed into her, explored every secret of her
sweet body. Loved her.

If she had known
all this time of her father’s acts and not admitted it to him—ah, the knowledge
was a blade ripping out his heart.

He would
confront her. But first, he needed sleep. He got to his feet, and with heavy
footsteps left the parlor. On a bench in the Hall sat Edward, and he was
kissing Elizabeth on her mouth.

Astonishment
slapped Alex to a halt. “About bloody time,” he growled.

Elizabeth jerked
away from Edward and gazed with startled eyes at Alex.

Hunched and
brooding, Alex raised a dismissive hand as he continued past. “Carry on,
Edward. Glad to see you are a man after all.”

“Alex!” The word
was almost a breath, yet Elizabeth’s disapproval was clear.

Alex stopped.
“What?”

“That—that was
quite rude!”

Edward stared at
Elizabeth in surprise.

Alex sighed and
rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “I apologize. ’Tis good to see
your spirit, Bethie. I have missed that part of you.” Then, his voice broke. “I
will need your courage when I speak with you later.”

Elizabeth began
to stand, and Edward jumped up to help her. “What troubles you?” she asked.
“And why are you just now returning from London? Katherine has been frantic
with worry.”

Alex shook his
head. “Not now. I am going to lie down for awhile. The devil’s splitting open
my head.”

“Has something
happened? Were you robbed?” Edward asked.

Alex snorted.
“Robbed? Yes. You could say that.” He turned toward the stairs. “Tell a servant
to bring the sack to my bedchamber.”

Elizabeth
hobbled after him. “What of Katherine? Do you not wish to see her?”

Alex hesitated,
then moved on. “Not yet.”

****

He’d come home.
Home!

Heart drumming
with anger, excitement, and concern, Katherine rushed from her drab bedchamber
past Elizabeth and down the corridor toward Alex’s chambers.

“Katherine,
wait,” Elizabeth called to her. “You must not go to him yet.”

Katherine halted
and wheeled back toward Elizabeth. Still unable to voice her hurt thoughts, she
stamped her foot on the floor.

Elizabeth stood
twisting her hands, her gray eyes wide and worried. “He said he does not wish
to see you.”

He didn’t wish
to see her? After sending her home alone and then staying away for a fortnight?
Her
husband, the man who should have swept her into his arms, formally introduced
her to his household as Lady Drayton, and made love to her in his bed, didn’t
want to see her?

Oh, he was going
to see her whether he liked it or not. And the man had some explaining to do.

Lowering her
head in fury, Katherine balled up her fists and stalked toward his room.

What bothered
her more than anything, what made her throat ache and caused her to cough again
after more than two weeks of healing, was that her husband didn’t want her,
didn’t care enough about her to seek her presence when he returned. Agnes’
words of his regret in marrying her took on fresh importance.

Anguish filled
Katherine as she grasped the latch and pushed open his door.

“Leave me,” Alex
growled behind closed lids when he heard the creak of his door. “I do not want
to be bothered.”

Seconds later,
something smashed the wall above his head and rained wet, shattered pieces onto
his face. With a roar, Alex leaped from his bed.

There his
beautiful wife stood in the door, hands on hips, eyes blazing. Her chest and
face were flushed pink with fury, and Alex willed his feet to be nailed to the
floorboards to resist running to her, holding her close, kissing her.

He would have,
had he not touched his forehead and pulled away fingers wet with blood. “Is
this how you would greet me,
wife
? By cutting me?”

Katherine
narrowed her eyes and kicked the door closed with her heel.

Ah, but she was
ready for a fight. And so was he, headache and all.

“I trusted you,”
he said savagely, intent and anger and need to be near her propelling him
across the room. He grasped her arms and smelled the heady lavender fragrance
of her hair. “I thought you knew nothing. Why didn’t you tell me, Katherine?
You owed me the truth.”

She blinked up
at him in confusion, and he had a moment of doubt as he searched her eyes. Did
she truly not know? His hands relaxed on her arms.

She backed away
then and looked around his bedchamber.

“Yes, I will get
you paper so you can write your lies,” he said, hating himself for not trusting
her. Unwilling to face his doubt, he walked to his writing table and pulled
paper, pen and ink from the drawer and slammed them onto the table. “Better
start explaining.”

Katherine
remained where she was, no longer furious but thoroughly bewildered, trying to
fathom what was happening. She had expected him to apologize, to explain that
he was feeling poorly, had gone falconing with friends, had unexpected business
in London. Something. But not this anger, this pain and sorrow that filled his
eyes. What was she supposed to have told him?

“Well?” he asked
as he jerked a finger toward the writing table. “What say you?”

Shaking her head
in puzzlement, Katherine walked toward him, sat and picked up the quill. He
stood at her left shoulder as she dipped the pen, and she could feel the heat
from his thighs.