SOME NEW THOUGHTS
The light shone through the window onto her eyelids. Rubina woke. She felt a soft, delicious coolness under her body. She stretched down to her toes and remembered that she was in the bed in the main bedroom. She rolled over, letting a little sigh escape her.
Memory came back, piecemeal. Him. Our embrace. That kiss...
She looked. The gray dawn light lined his profile in white hazed light. He was on his side, his eyes closed. She stared at him. With no animation to his face – no hurt, no pain, only stillness – it was possible to feel affection and warmth for him. Possible, even, to feel desire. However, he hadn't wanted her. Hadn't touched her. He really did think she was soiled goods. The pain made her throat tighten with pain and hurt.
His eyelids fluttered. The lashes rested on his cheeks and his breath sighed through full, well-made lips. He was, she thought with a strange tingling sensation, a handsome man. Handsome, well-formed and desirable.
He rolled over and blinked. Rubina froze. She sat up slowly, trying not to move the coverlet, to disturb him.
I will sneak away while he sleeps.
That would address the difficulties of what to say to him. She didn't want to talk to him. Hoped that she would never have to talk to him about...about any of that. He would never, ever understand.
And he will never see me differently now. Not without that cool diffidence. That distaste.
She wanted to spit. She had faced fear there in the forest. It was not fear that kept her away from him, if that was what he thought. It was anger. It was pride. Defiance.
“He married me for expedience.”
She whispered it to herself, slipping out of bed and standing before the mirror. In the long night-dress with her red hair loose and burnished around her, she had to admit she looked good. Tired, but good.
He didn't ever want me, though! He did what he had to do out of compassion. To help me out of a difficult situation.
She didn't want to think that. Yet it seemed that it was easy for him to resist her. After all, there he lay, fast asleep.
She looked down at him and wished, suddenly and bizarrely, that she could reach out and stroke that soft hair. It was a physical compulsion and she had to hold her hand back. She would not wake him.
She looked about the room. Someone had thoughtfully laid out a blue velvet robe for her to wear. She lifted it, and her under-shift – a fresh one – from the top of the clothes chest in the corner. Then, wrapping her night dress round her, she tiptoed out of the room into the hallway.
The place was empty, the hallway white with the pale morning. She tiptoed silently down the hallway and to her bedchamber.
“Greere?”
She closed the door behind her and called her maid again.
“Greere?”
“Oh! Milady!” She must have been sleeping, for Greere suddenly vaulted to waking from where she lay on the chair by the screen. “Oh!”
“Greere?” Rubina said quickly. “Will you help me dress?”
“Oh?” The woman frowned but one look at Rubina's face must have told her it was best not to pry. She nodded. “Oh, of course, milady. Here. Let me...”
Rubina set her teeth, clamping them in her lip, as she let Greere undress her and then dress her quickly and easily in the blue gown. She hurried down to the solar to breakfast.
“Hello?”
The solar, thankfully, was empty. Rubina tiptoed in and sat down. It was already all set out for breakfast, with oats porridge in a vast ceramic pot on the center of the table, pitchers of milk and a tray of butter set nearby. Oat bannocks were piled on a salver and another held slices of cheese.
Rubina selected a bannock and some cheese and tiptoed out of the room. She took it to the colonnade to eat. The last thing she wanted at this moment was company. Prying eyes and inquiring questions. No.
She leaned on the railing and looked out over the distant view of forests, stretching ever onward to the not-quite-evident coast.
Will this war come to us?
She sighed. The scent of oats, warm and delicious, filtered up to her as she leaned on the railing. She ate, feeling her stomach growl in some enthusiasm as she did so. She had eaten very little at the dinner the previous day.
War, with England. She shuddered. She had seen a fore-runner of it. Those hard-eyed, cruel men that she would not think about and yet who would not stop haunting her. She knew what was coming if war came. Knew its face.
She shivered. There was no reasoning with men like that. Killing was what they knew now, all they did. They had learned on the killing fields of Wales, a war whose brutality was whispered of even as far away as Edinburgh. Now they were coming here. She shuddered.
I wish we could all just leave this place.
Her thoughts turned to her own situation. The castle, the present. She looked down into the courtyard. A servant led a fine white palfrey to the stables, the horse fighting him, wanting to run. She smiled, knowing the feeling.
I feel trapped here. Mayhap at least the war would change that.
If there was a war, she thought reasonably, then Camden would be taken away. She closed her eyes, imagining that. Without him here in the castle, her life would be back to normal.
Strangely, that did not make her feel happy. She bit her lip. A thousand memories of tenderness spiraled through her. Camden, rescuing her in the forest all that time ago. In the infirmary, holding hands. Camden, kissing her. The ball together. In the sick room when she first returned here. In the inn. Kissing her.
I don't know how I feel about him. I wish I did know.
She let out a long explosive sigh. Scraped a red curl away from her forehead.
“Hello?”
She whipped round to find a servant standing behind her.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Beg pardon, milady,” she said. “But Lord Camden, he...he was calling after you.”
“Tell him I'm out,” she said briskly. Then she turned and walked hastily down the hallway.
In the hallway she headed downstairs toward the stables. She walked stiff-backed and angrily.
How dare you summon me? Like I'm a dog, to do your bidding. Like I am your servant! She wanted to shout it at him.
“How dare he?” she muttered under her breath as she went. Some small part of her wanted him to appear and try to stop her rush to the grounds outside.
She was heading briskly down the courtyard, heading to the stables, when something caught her eye.
Up on the turret, a single figure was standing. She could see the color of the hair, the set of his back. His tense, watchful pose. He was just too far away for her to see the detail of his face. Nonetheless, it was clear who he was.
“Camden,” she whispered.
He was a pale pillar against the gray morning light. She felt her heart twist. A part of her wanted to march to the stables. To walk away from him – right away – and never come back. Another part of her wanted to run up to the turret and throw her arms around him, holding him close.
She turned away, blinking back tears.
At the stables, she walked into Fergus, the groom.
“Milady!” he jumped back. He bowed low. “My congratulations,” he added.
She stared at him. “Thank you, Fergus,” she said coldly. “Saddle Merryweather for me, please?”
He nodded. “Yes, milady.”
Glad that she had brought her own horse from Lochlann, she let the groom lead her out to the mounting post in the courtyard, stepped up and headed out into the field. Round the back of the castle, the field was surrounded by a wall. She was safe here.
“Let's go,” she whispered to her horse.
They streamed out across the field. It was good to feel the wind whipping her hair back from her face. She let her horse have her head and they went at a gallop.
“Yah! Yah!” She was yelling, leaning forward, holding the reins but barely needing them.
The horse streamed forward and it was only after they had slowed to a canter that Rubina realized the chill and wetness on her cheeks was from tears.
She sniffed and cuffed them away. Why was she crying?
“I don't know,” she murmured aloud. “I don't know.”
It was the frustration, she thought, sadly. The feeling that, no matter what she did, Camden would be aloof to her. Why didn't he love her? Why didn't he want her anymore?
“Am I so horrible?” she whispered. “So tainted?” He seemed to resist the idea of even touching her, even approaching her too closely. It hurt, cutting into her heart and wounding her. She sniffed, eyes filling with slow, blinding tears.
In the stable yard, she walked into Marguerite.
“Rubina!” her friend smiled. “Congratulations! Come inside. I've wanted to talk for ages!”
Rubina nodded. “Yes.”
She let her friend take her hand and lead her into the castle. Upstairs, they went to the turret room where, until recently, they met to sew and talk. Though it was only a little blustery out, a fire crackled in the grate. The room was darkly lit and cozy. Rubina leaned back on the padded cushion on the settle and regarded Marguerite. Her long, slender face was worried.
“My dear friend,” Rubina said levelly. “What is it that ails you?”
Marguerite bit her lip. “It's terrible, Rubina. It...They’re leaving.”
Rubina raised a brow. She was holding her sewing on her knee, ready to continue work. She couldn't ignore the anguished look. “What's happening?”
Marguerite started to cry. “They're...going. Sean and...and your own Camden. They're going to war.”
Rubina stared at her. She set the embroidery aside. Slowly and deliberately, she leaned forward. Looked into her friend's pale eyes.
“They are? What...where?”
Suddenly the world was dark before her. She blinked and tried to focus. Tried to stand. She felt faint.
“How do you know that?” she asked. She felt her hands clutching each other, twisting together. Her vision was clouded.
“Because...well, because he told me.”
“Who told you?”
“Sean.”
“Oh.”
Rubina heard her own voice as if it came from a long way away, beyond her somewhere. The room whirled and she sat down again heavily.
“Let me get someone to help you,” Marguerite whispered.
“No, I'm well,” Rubina said. She wanted to cry. Now, in the instant that she was about to lose him, she realized how very much he meant to her. She couldn't face his loss. The memories of that morning all returned to her in sharp and sudden clarity. The ice. The ball. His smile in the darkness.
“Let me find the physician,” Marguerite said. “Or at least Lady Amabel...”
“I'm fine,” Rubina whispered. “Just...tell Camden, if you see him, that I love him.”
Then her world went dark.