Chapter 10
Over the next few days, they continued along the road, the whole cortège inching northward to Angelet’s inevitable fate. So far, they’d been fortunate to reach an inn, or in one case the home of a local lord, before dark. The weather had been dry and mild, too, which meant that travel was safer, faster, and much less muddy than it might be.
She ought to be praying for thanks, thinking holy, sanctified thoughts, or pleading with the saints to intercede for her when it came to keeping her from sin.
Instead, she felt more and more drawn to earthly distractions. From the safety of her carriage, she often tracked Rafe’s movements, noting how perfect his body was, how well formed from years of fighting and training. What that body would look like stripped bare…
Angelet quickly looked down at the ground. Lord, what was wrong with her? She could hardly glance at Rafe without thinking distinctly carnal thoughts. It didn’t help at all that the man was gorgeous. Those blue eyes were so deceptively soulful, so sad and sweet. Then he’d smile and she knew there wasn’t anything sweet about him. Sir Rafe lived for the moment, and he sought only pleasure. Such a man could not be trusted.
However, though Rafe was still attentive to Angelet, he hadn’t crossed any line since the night she kissed him. Indeed, his flirtatious behavior vanished almost completely. He didn’t seem like the man she’d kissed that first evening. Had she dreamed the whole thing? Was it some devilish departure from her usual visions, where instead of heavenly sights, she experienced a powerful illusion of a more worldly nature?
One bright morning while the men-at-arms were loading all the supplies and readying the animals, Rafe helped her into her carriage. All he did was offer a hand to steady her as she climbed in, but that contact was enough to make her think of the kiss once again. In fact, every time she looked at Rafe, she thought of the kiss.
But his expression was neutral. “If you don’t mind my saying, Lady Angelet, you look a little drawn. How did you sleep?”
The truth was that Bethany tended to snore, and Angelet had a lot on her mind. But neither of those facts was appropriate for casual conversation. “No need to be concerned, Sir Rafe.”
“I am concerned. You’re my responsibility while we’re traveling.”
“I will tell you if something serious happens,” she said. “But truly, I slept well enough.”
“You’d sleep better with me,” he said, his voice low and close to her ear.
Her heart hammered and she was having trouble breathing. And why did she like how he smelled? She shouldn’t—it was a smell of the road, and oil and leather and iron, and something else. Yet, she wanted to lean right into him and breathe deep.
But then Rafe said, “Lord. Forget I said that. I meant to apologize for what I said that first night. The…offer. It was inappropriate.” He looked truly taken aback.
“I thought the inappropriateness of it was the charm,” she said, not quite hiding her disappointment.
His eyes flicked over her face. She realized that he hadn’t lost interest in her since his offer—she guessed he’d just been worried he offended her.
“I can’t read you, my lady,” he said, still watching her closely.
“I’m not a book. How do you read a woman?”
“Accept my offer and I’ll show you.”
She took a breath. “So the offer is back on the table? Didn’t you just rescind it?”
“Oh, it’s back. On the table or wherever else you’d like.” Then he was gone, off about his tasks as if he hadn’t just tried to scandalize her in broad daylight.
Oddly, she didn’t feel nearly as scandalized as she ought to. She actually felt better, since Rafe shared her memory of the kiss and his subsequent offer. And he still wanted her.
Warmth spread through her limbs. Being wanted by a man like Rafe was novel for her. It made her feel excited rather than scared, eager rather than wary. Foolishness, she told herself. The man was dangerous, and he didn’t even pretend his intentions toward her were honorable. Not once had he breathed the word marriage, yet even that worked in his favor. At least he didn’t think her stupid enough to fall for an empty promise. She’d spent the last several years with people who considered her either mad or vacant or a holy idiot. Now she’d finally met someone who treated her as a grown woman. Unfortunately, she met him a fortnight before she had to foreswear contact with virtually all men.
Angelet often wondered if Satan meddled in people’s happiness directly, or if he sent subordinates to carry out the work. Why else would Angelet be tempted into sin at exactly this moment, after so many years of dull, unchallenged widowhood?
“My lady, are you going to have a fit?”
Bethany peered at her from the other seat in the carriage. The cortège was rolling along the track by now, and the maid had taken her place in the carriage without Angelet even noticing.
“What?” she asked. “No. No, I’m quite well. Why?”
“You were staring at the sky with a look like you were seeing an angel,” Bethany explained. “I half think you’ll collapse in a minute…though in your fits, you never speak.”
“I’m not about to have a fit,” Angelet said, more crossly. “Anyway, I suffered one less than a week ago.”
“So?” Bethany retorted. “Good thing that abbot is willing to take you.”
“The abbot might know of a cure,” Angelet said.
Bethany’s expression was not one of great confidence for any mortal to cure Angelet, but she just sighed meaningfully and went to work at mending something. There was always mending to be done. This item looked like a shirt from one of the men-at-arms. Angelet took out her own needle and thread from the bag she packed. It would be a long, long day.
That night, the group once again reached an inn. This one was more run down, and the sleeping rooms were little more than partitioned spaces, with thin walls and doors that closed only most of the way. Angelet and Bethany got the one at the end, with a little window for light. As usual, the chained and locked chest was carried to Angelet’s room, this time by Rafe and Dobson. They placed it near her bed.
“I’ll take first watch at the door tonight,” Dobson told Rafe. “I’m not sleepy. Tad can take first watch as well.”
Rafe nodded. “That will do. Wake Laurence and Simon when it’s time.”
“Aye, sir.”
The whole party ate the evening meal in the tavern room below. The food was better than the accommodations, and Angelet was soon yawning. She rose to her feet and gestured to Bethany. The maid dutifully followed her, after draining her glass of ale.
There were no bed frames, just narrow straw mattresses. Luckily, Angelet was so tired she doubted even a pokey straw mattress or Bethany’s snores would keep her awake tonight.
Indeed, she dropped right into sleep, though it was a dream-filled sleep in which a tiny part of her remained alert, listening to the sounds of the inn and the outdoors, weaving every noise into fractured, fantastic dreams. Angelet heard the stomping of footsteps on the stairs, and dreamed she was in a high tower like those of her visions. She heard an owl cry, and saw a gigantic, dusky owl alight on the foot of her bed. Bethany’s snores became the heavy breath of a sleeping dragon, which the owl would hoot at impatiently.
Lost in her dream, Angelet was certain that the owl knew something of vital importance regarding her family, and she kept asking it over and over to give her news of her parents, or her brother, or her son. But the owl merely asked, “Who?” and the cycle began anew.
Then Angelet woke up. There had been a sound—a real one.
“Who’s there?” she asked as she sat up. “Bethany?”
But Bethany was still sleeping on her pallet. A different, larger shape loomed near her bed.
“Who—” was all Angelet managed to get out before a massive hand clamped down on her mouth. She gasped for breath. Whoever was trying to silence her was doing too well. She couldn’t get any air.
Panic blossomed, and she jerked away from the figure, desperate to free herself. She bit at the hand.
“Bitch!” Her assailant pulled his hand back.
Angelet dragged in a huge breath and screamed.
Another scream echoed hers and she heard the stomp of footsteps.
But then the hand was back, pushing her head down against the pillow. Angelet struggled, this time with no success. She bit again, and nothing happened. She tried to breathe, and couldn’t. Sparks and flashes of light began to pop at the edges of her vision. Air. She needed air.
Just as she began to black out, the pressure vanished. The man attacking her wheeled backwards. She could just see another man grab him from behind.
At that point, light flared. Bethany stood in the doorway with a lit candle.
Gasping for air, Angelet sat up and slipped off the pallet to get away from the two men locked in a savage fight in the middle of the room. One was fully dressed and armed with a long dagger.
“Dobson?” Angelet gasped out loud. He’d been guarding her room, and he was one of the Dryton men-at-arms who’d served Otto for years. Angelet never would have suspected he’d go against his lord like this. Trying to kill her, and then to kill…
“No!” she choked out when she saw him raise his arm to stab his opponent, who was none other than Rafe.
Rafe must have run in immediately after hearing her scream, for he was only partially dressed, and unarmed. Dobson was going to kill him.
But just as Dobson’s arm began to arc down, the blade flashing silver, Rafe moved with stunning speed. He somehow stepped to the side, ducked out of the weapon’s path, and then struck Dobson with a sharp blow.
The guard grunted, but didn’t lose his grip on the dagger.
Rafe didn’t look as if he was worried in the slightest about Dobson’s bigger size and heft. “Drop it,” he advised. “I don’t want to kill you. I’ve got questions.”
“You? Kill me?” Dobson growled. Then he attacked, wielding the dagger like a madman.
Angelet was sure Dobson would soon win the fight. But Rafe was trained to a degree Dobson was not, and nearly every blow Rafe struck landed, while Dobson’s often went wide, as Rafe’s superior reflexes allowed him to dance out of the way.
The two continued to struggle, until Rafe knocked the dagger out of Dobson’s grasp. It seemed like time had stopped, though less than a minute had passed.
Dobson gave a roar and lunged for the dagger. Rafe got there first. At the last second, Rafe snatched up the dagger and plunged it directly into Dobson’s chest.
Dobson’s eyes widened, but he made no sound. Rafe’s aim had been true, and the dagger blade pierced the heart. The off-white fabric of the man’s shirt turned into a vivid red, and a second later, Dobson’s body sank to the floor, his now sightless eyes staring upward.
Angelet had seen death in her life, but never this violently, or this close. And yet, her first feeling was relief. It’s over, she thought.
Rafe swiped the blood from the dagger with the edge of Dobson’s shirt. Then he stood up and glanced at the various shocked people in the room.
“Tad was on watch with Dobson,” he said, very calmly. “Someone find him and get him in here. Now.”
Laurence hurried out. Rafe turned to Angelet. Bethany had reached her and flung a blanket around Angelet’s shaking shoulders. It wasn’t just for warmth, but for modesty as well, since Angelet wore only her thin shift.
“Should someone fetch your shirt, sir?” the maid asked as she shot a look directly at Rafe’s bare upper body.
Angelet looked too. She couldn’t have avoided it, not when he was right there in front of her, still breathing fast from the short but vicious fight. Angelet knew she shouldn’t be staring at his perfectly conditioned torso, or his arms, or shoulders…every muscle starkly contoured by the light of the few candles in the room.
“Bethany,” she whispered. “Please do that. Fetch his clothes. Immediately.”
The maid left and returned with Rafe’s shirt, which he pulled on. Not that it mattered now. The image of him was seared into Angelet’s mind.
“What happened?” Rafe scarcely raised his voice, as if this was an ordinary conversation and there wasn’t a dead body at his feet. “Angelet? I need to know.”
“I…I’m not sure. I wasn’t sleeping well, and I heard a noise, and I woke up to find someone here in the room. I asked who was there, and he rushed toward me. I didn’t even see who it was, but he capped his hand over my mouth. To keep me quiet, I thought. But his hand was over my nose, too, and I could barely breathe.”
“Then what?”
“I bit the hand. Then I screamed. That woke Bethany. She screamed and ran from the room.”
“To get help,” Bethany added. “I pounded on the door next to ours.”
“That’s true,” Simon confirmed. “The screams woke us, but the pounding on the door got us all up. But by the time we reached this room, you had already got here, sir.”
Rafe nodded, then turned back to Angelet.
“So, from when Bethany left to get help, what happened?”
She shuddered, thinking of it. “Dobson had his hand on my mouth again, and I knew it wasn’t to keep me quiet. He meant to suffocate me. I just kept trying to get free of him, and trying to breathe. Then you were there, and you pulled him away. You know the rest.”
Rafe looked down at the body in disdain. At a word, Simon and Marcus hauled the body out of the room. Immediately after that Laurence came back with a rather disheveled-looking Tad at his heels.
“Found him sleeping, Sir Rafe,” Laurence reported. “Seems even the commotion didn’t wake him.”
“Sleeping. When you were supposed to be on watch.” Rafe’s gaze was cold. “Tad, explain what the hell happened. Where were you?”
Tad shuffled his feet and said, “I had rather more ale than usual, Sir Rafe. About an hour into the watch, Dobson told me I was nodding off…he said I should just go early to bed, and he’d rouse the second watch himself.”
“Leaving him alone and unobserved to sneak into the room and try to steal the gold from the chest. God damn.”
“I swear I didn’t know what he was up to! I’d never have gone along with it!” Tad looked utterly ashamed, and every time his gaze fell on Angelet, he dropped his eyes to the floor. “What’s to be done with me, Sir Rafe?”
Rafe glared at him. “I’ll think on it. Meanwhile, get back to bed and stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, sir!” Tad was out of the room faster than Angelet had ever seen him move.
Rafe pointed toward the empty basin. “Bethany, please go draw some fresh water from outside. Now.”
The maid hurried out of the room once more. Rafe ordered the men still there to take the body out, then turned to Angelet. His expression was far more concerned than before. “Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice. “Truly?”
“Yes. He didn’t manage to harm me.”
“What about your condition? Did what just happened…will it trigger anything?”
“I don’t think so. But it’s possible. I’ll tell Bethany to watch me carefully.”
Rafe sighed. “Jesu. You seem to be in danger both from within and without.”
“The seizures are rare.”
“But could happen anytime,” he said. “And even if you do not suffer from that, we cannot forget that one person has tried to kill you to get at the gold. There could be another.”
She shivered. “You’re probably correct.”
“I need to think of some way to lessen the risk.”
“How?”
“I’ve no idea,” he admitted. “Give me the night, and with luck some saint will slip the answer in my brain by morning.”
“I’ll pray for your success.”
He gave her a tiny smile. “However you wish to use your lips on my behalf, I won’t complain.”
“Rafe!” she scolded. The blood still surging through her veins after the terror she’d been through now heated up at his innuendo. Terror and excitement felt very, very similar, she realized.
His eyes widened in mock innocence. “What? Did you think I meant something besides prayer?”
Her cheeks burned. “I know what you meant. You’re—”
“Incorrigible. Yes, I know. It’s part of my charm.”
“How can you joke after…”
“Killing a man?” Rafe shrugged. “He was a killer himself. Should I weep over him?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Rafe’s expression cooled. “It was his life or mine. The whole point of being my own master is that I decide my fate.”
She tried to reach out, to tell him she didn’t blame him for what happened. “I didn’t mean—”
But he shook her hand off his arm. “Get some rest, my lady. We still have a long way to travel.” Then he left.
* * * *
Angelet didn’t think she’d sleep again after what happened. Even Bethany, in a hushed voice, asked to shove her pallet next to Angelet’s so the women might sleep next to each other. Angelet agreed instantly, feeling there was some sort of safety in that. She woke in the morning to find that she had slept after all, and this time, blessedly, she remembered no dreams.
In the tavern room below, the mood among the men-at-arms was grim. From the fragments of conversations Angelet overheard, everyone was perturbed by Dobson’s attack on her life. Even the few who muttered that a man might break his oath and steal so much gold were still aghast that one man went beyond theft to attempted murder.
“But not Dobson,” one of the men muttered to his companion. “He served Otto since they were boys!”
Rafe finished his breakfast quickly and stood up. He gestured to Simon and Angelet. “Come along, please,” he said.
Curious, Angelet followed as Rafe walked to her personal carriage, where the chest had just been loaded. Laurence was there, guarding it.
“Simon,” Rafe said curtly. “We’re going to move the chest from Lady Angelet’s carriage to the supply wagon. Laurence, keep an eye on the inn. I don’t want everyone to see what we’re doing. My lady, keep an eye on us the whole time to reassure yourself we’re not tampering with anything.”
She nodded, relieved that the chest would be further away from her on the journey.
It didn’t take long for the two men to wrestle the chest out of her carriage and onto the ground. They grunted as they hefted it up and walked it back to the supply wagon. Angelet went ahead to clear a space for it.
“Move the hay aside,” Rafe grunted.
She clambered up and pushed at the loose hay meant for emergency animal feed. The men lifted the heavy chest up and slid it over, nearly pinning Angelet to the wall of the wagon in the process. She yelped in surprise when the corner of the chest hit her right ankle. “Ouch!”
“Apologies, my lady!” Simon said.
“No matter.” Without being told, Angelet started to replace the hay over the chest, helping to conceal it from casual view. When she was done, she was on her knees, with straw all over her skirts, but she felt much better.
“Well done, my lady,” Rafe said, from behind her. “Come, I’ll help you out of there.”
She edged backwards and then felt his hands on her waist as he helped lift her out and set her on the ground. She sensed the strength in his arms, and momentarily forgot what she was going to say when her gaze caught his eyes.
He looked her over from top to toe, then said, “You’re missing a shoe, my lady.”
“What?” That wasn’t what she expected to hear. She looked down. Her right slipper was gone. “Oh. I must have lost it when the chest hit my foot.”
“Do you want me to retrieve it for you?” he asked.
It was probably buried under hay. “No, thank you. I have another pair that will serve.”
“Very well. Then let me walk you back to your carriage. You can set it to rights before the others get called from inside.”
He helped her into her carriage, once again distracting her with his nearness and the simple touch of his hand in hers. She didn’t ever remember being so aware of a man, and definitely never in a way that created such a buzzing in her body.
She worked to restore the carriage to its proper order, covering the place where the chest had been with a few more boxes and cushions. “There. No one should see any change. Except Bethany. She’ll notice soon enough, since she’s traveling with me.”
Rafe said, his expression intent, “Shall I tell her she’s to go elsewhere?”
“That negates her purpose,” Angelet replied.
“No one will be able to threaten your honor while the carriage is in motion, guarded by soldiers,” Rafe pointed out. “I’ll instruct the girl to find a spot elsewhere while we are actually traveling. Then you can enjoy some solitude.”
He returned to the inn, presumably to do exactly that.
When Bethany came out a moment later she frowned, looking Angelet over with a critical eye. Angelet was painfully aware that her gown was scattered with bits of straw snared in the wool, and she was still missing a shoe. She looked very much as if she’d been, well, rolling in the hay.
“Sir Rafe informed me that you would not need companionship today.”
Angelet felt embarrassment and rage flare up inside, but she kept her face blank. “Correct.”
“You can’t just tell me where I’m to sit or walk!”
Suddenly Rafe stood near them. He said, “Lady Angelet made her wishes clear. Now, Bethany, you may walk, or ride on the back of one of the carts, or ride if there’s a spare beast for it. Don’t bother the lady until she calls for your service.”
Bethany gaped at Sir Rafe, who towered over her, his expression cool. His hand rested lightly on the pommel of his sword.
It dawned on her that there was no hope for negotiation with the black-clad knight, and she had no standing to argue. She whirled around and stalked off.
Rafe gave Angelet a little wink. “Satisfactory?”
“Quite. Thank you.”
“Just following orders, my lady. I’ll do anything you ask of me.” His tone was light and teasing, but heat shot through Angelet.
There was no way he’d chosen those words by chance. He was reminding her of his scandalous offer. If only the idea of him following her every order didn’t sound so interesting.
Rafe still stood there, apparently waiting for something. Oh, yes. He’d asked a question while she was daydreaming.
“Repeat that?” she asked.
“Did you need anything else before we depart? We’ll ride until dark, or until we find a suitable place to stay the night.”
“Oh. No, thank you. I don’t want…anything…” she trailed off. She wanted so many things, and she’d get none of them. “Wait! There is one thing.”
“Yes?”
“I forgot to tell you last night.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You remembered something?”
“No. I just meant I should have told you…thank you. For saving my life.”
He looked surprised for a moment, then gave her a half-smile. “Live to serve.”
She retreated into the carriage, sinking into the cushioned seat. She reached out only to pull the curtains closed. She needed to be alone and unobserved for a little while, so she could recover her normal calm demeanor.
Lord, someone tried to kill her last night, and here she was dreaming of Rafe as though nothing had changed. Yet, despite everything she knew about his personality, Rafe was the one person she felt she could trust.