In Honor Bound (32 page)

The fire had died out hours ago, and he began to make another, working as quietly as he could. He managed to complete the task without making a sound until, seeking to push two struggling embers together, he dropped the poker and it clattered to the floor. She awoke with a start and, seeing him there still, looked questioningly at him, as if she were unsure what his mood would be after so surprising an evening.

"Good morning, my lady," he said, a less-than-kingly shyness in his tone. "I am sorry to have wakened you."

A touch of relief in her sleepy smile, she huddled under his cloak. "It is very cold."

"It snowed again. My meadow will be beautiful today." He hesitated. "Will you come ride with me? I promise I'll not let you fall into the stream this time."

There was still that little remembrance between them, one that was all innocence and no pain. Her mouth turned up just a touch at the corners in answer to his.

"Show me all the places you love, so I may love them, too."

He nodded a little self-consciously. "I will go ready the horses. Wrap you up well, then come down to the stables. Hurry."

"I will."

***

Soon they were riding through the forest, the horses fetlock-deep in snow. The air was cold, but the sky was as blue as May and the sun was shining its winter best, reflecting warmth off the dazzling whiteness on the ground.

"This is my meadow," he told her, stopping at the crest of a low rise.

The meadow was wide and deep with snow, untouched as yet by man or beast. Only the faint tracks of birds embroidered the flawless surface. She thought she would never tire of looking at the frosted beauty of it.

"Oh, my lord, it is glorious!"

His eyes shone with eager love for the place. "Come, let's go down."

He dismounted and wrapped his reins and hers around a sturdy branch, then he caught her carefully around the middle and set her on her feet.

"Come," he beckoned, plunging into the deep whiteness first to his ankles, then to his knees. She followed after him, finding it hard to keep up in her heavy skirts and with the unaccustomed bulk of her growing belly.

It startled her at first to see him so abandoned to joy, to see him roll in the snow like an unruly colt until, head to foot, he was white with it. He looked at her as if he had surprised himself, then he grinned as if he did not care and plunged back into the drifts. His breath rose in wisps over his head as he drank down the air's icy freshness like the rarest of wines.

"Come," he beckoned again when she fell a little behind, then he loped back to her and took her by the hand. "Come."

They spent a long joyous while playing in the snow, making pictures in the smooth drifts, pelting each other with snowballs. To Rosalynde it seemed that the years had fallen away and he was again the boy she had lost her heart to in Westered. Of course, she had never dared to be so unconstrained with him then, and Westered had never seen such snow, but he seemed unchanged. There was a delighted boyishness in him just now that warmed her heart and made her forget her frozen feet.

When the shadows began to lengthen towards the east, he spread his cloak out over a sunny spot and invited her to sit by him, to again admire the beauty of his meadow. She began to feel the cold once she was still and, noticing her shiver, he put his arm around her.

"I love this place," she said and he squeezed her closer.

"I had forgotten just how much I love it myself." He took a deep, contented breath and watched it curl upwards when he slowly released it, then he closed his eyes. "I could die here and ask nothing more."

He did not open his eyes when she touched her lips to his cheek, but he slid his hand from her shoulder to the back of her neck and lowered his face to hers. He kissed her lightly at first, then with more intensity until she was clinging to him, returning his kiss as passionately as he gave it. She felt his hand in her hair, tugging it loose from the clasps, and she pressed closer, losing herself in the kiss. Without warning, he struggled away from her, scrambling to his knees.

"No. Not out here."

She sat up, reaching for him, but he drew back.

"We are alone, my lord. No one sees."

"Not out here," he repeated. "Merciful God, out in the woods like some cheap–"

He stopped and looked at her sitting there with her hair tumbling around her shoulders, her skin rosy with the wind's kisses and his own, her eyes round with innocent bewilderment. Still breathing hard, he stood up and looked away from her, out over the meadow, over the snow that was scarred and soiled now with their tracks. He clenched his teeth to steady himself.

"We ought to go in now," he said. "The wind is picking up and you must have your rest."

Suddenly cold, she drew her cloak more closely around herself and stood up. "I did not want you to be angry, my lord," she said tentatively. "I only–"

He turned to her and took her arm brusquely, his expression stiff and sickened. She wondered what memory, what deep hurt had come back to him here in this place he so dearly loved, but she knew he would never say.

He led her back to the horses and, when he started to lift her to her saddle, she dared to drop a little kiss on his cheek. A shiver of pain ran through him and she felt his hands tighten around her waist. He took a moment to steady himself once again, then, without a word, he set her on her horse and led her away.

All that evening he took refuge in silence. Memories had yet again taken him unawares, the sharp edges cutting through the wadding he had packed around his heart, making him bleed inside, and Rosalynde did not know how to reach him in his self-made prison. She wanted to weep in her helplessness, but instead, when he bid her a curt good night, she followed him into his chamber.

"Let me alone tonight." He wrapped himself in his arms and sagged against the casement, looking out into the blue-black night. "Do not think of me anymore at all. I cannot be what you want."

"But we've been happy–"

"I was a fool to think it might be different here. There is no place in this world that's not fouled already." He glanced back at her, deep condemnation in his eyes. "Let me alone tonight."

"I only wish to comfort whatever has grieved you, my lord."

"Comfort? A woman's comfort? I'd sooner have the comfort of adders, fanged. Their poison works quicker."

"Please, my lord."

She touched his shoulder and he turned and seized her wrist.

"I know you fair-faced devils, tempting and deceiving and killing us by inches. My mother was one such. She betrayed my father with his seneschal, then passed off the child of their adultery as a royal prince. And John was left to pay for their sin."

"Your brother John? He was not– He was–"

"A bastard! Say it! He died for that word, for a woman's fault."

"Adultery is not the sin of a woman alone, my lord."

His fingers tightened on her wrist, then he released it.

"I grant you. Let us speak, then, of your own dear sister, Margaret. How many died to feed her ambition? She did not pause to take the life of her own child."

"Oh, no, my lord," Rosalynde cried. "She was wicked to betray your father as she did, but she could never have–"

"Do not be such a fool. Do you think Stephen would have taken her still carrying my brother's child? True heir to the crown? She had a taste yet to be queen and if the child stood in her way, well, that was easily remedied. She was a brave woman, though, taking on so fierce an adversary as a child unborn."

His sarcasm stabbed through her. "I am sorry for it, my lord, but her wrongs do not prove all women false."

"No? Name me one you think was not and I will prove to you she was."

"What of Katherine?"

She had never dared speak that name to him before and it struck him like a blow, then his eyes grew colder, cynical.

"You mean my harlot?"

"You were married. Dunois said–"

"Yes, we were married! Do you think I would cheapen the woman I love by making a harlot of her?"

"Can you prove her false, my lord?" Rosalynde asked.

He turned to the window and did not answer.

"If I could make it right, my lord–"

"No one can make it right," he said emptily, "and no one can take her place."

She put her arms around his waist, pressed her cheek and then her lips to his back.

"You needn't carry this alone, my lord," she said, and he took her by the wrists and put her away from him.

"And do not think you can tease me again into satisfying your lust," he said, his tone brutally cold. "You are with child. My duty asks no more."

"I beg your pardon, my lord.”

Fighting tears, head held high, she turned and walked to the door. Then for a moment she paused, hoping, praying he would call her back. He was silent.

She pulled open the door and stepped into the corridor. Still there was silence, silence she did not break when she shut the door behind her.

***

His breath shuddered out of him.

"How is it you do not hate me?" he murmured. If only she would strike back at him, rail and accuse and spit, then he could feel justified at his harshness instead of feeling as if he had just used his lash on a kitten. "I deserve that you should hate me. I could bear it better than all this patience."

He began to pace, then he remembered his father's guilty pacing and stopped abruptly. Driven, he went into the chapel, hoping to find some peace, some absolution, glad to find it dark and empty.

He thought back on the fervent prayers he had prayed here so long ago. No, he realized, only four years. Only four years and he hardly remembered anymore how to pray, how to reach heaven with his heart. He knew that if the man he was now stood beside the boy he was then there would be little more than a vague physical resemblance between them.

What have I become?

Lifting his head, he caught sight of his moonlit reflection in the thick silver candlestick at the side of the altar.

"Father."

The word leapt to his tongue before he could check it, and the truth of it sent a shudder of revulsion through him. There was the same cold determination, the same haughty pride, the same cruel stubbornness. He had become what he had sworn never to be. He had given up himself, his heart, his emotions, his God, for his self-righteousness, for his perfect honor, for his hate, just as surely as his father had given up himself for the crown.

"All either of us bought for our pains was remorse." He looked again into the polished silver and turned his head, the better to see his scarred cheek. "And hurt those we should have best loved in doing it."

Rosalynde. Why could he not let himself love her? She was not to blame for those things that had hurt him, she had never done him wrong, yet she had borne his reproach meekly, as only the innocent could do. He told himself he owed Kate his love and it would be wrong to betray his pledge to her, but that argument was wearing thin. Kate was dead and could not feel his love anymore or give him hers.

Now and forever, I swear it.

"Oh, forgive me, Kate," he murmured as guiltily as a man tempted from the true faith into idolatry. "I love you and you alone. I will keep my vow."