Always (30 page)

Aric's gaze narrowed on her suspiciously. “What mean you by that?”

“Well…” She looked vaguely surprised. “It would seem to me that this makes it doubtful that I need watching. 'Tis you someone is after.”

“What?” This time he did manage to get a little volume behind his words, and Rosamunde winced slightly, then sighed.

“Aye. Well, we must think on this reasonably, my lord. The man in the bedchamber, for instance—”

“He was coming after you,” Aric interrupted. “You were the only one in the room.”

“Aye,” she agreed soothingly. “But 'twas
our
bedchamber, and mayhap he did not realize that you were not there.”

Aric blinked at those words, seeing that it was at least possible. But then he shook his head. “Nay. What about the incident with Bull?”

“Hmmm.” Grimacing slightly, she scratched the back of her head. “That is all still rather fuzzy in my head, my lord. I mean, I may have simply miscalculated and tumbled off the fence. I remember hearing a sound behind
me, but…” She shrugged. “I do not recall getting hit or pushed…. I may simply have fallen, and you all merely jumped to conclusions because of the previous incident.”

While his eyes widened incredulously at that possibility, Robert joined the conversation. “But what about the stables?”

Rosamunde turned a frown on the man. “How do you know about that?”

“Aric told me.”

“How much did he tell you?” Rosamunde asked with a scowl that did nothing to hide the flush flowering over her cheeks as she recalled that someone had most likely seen her and her husband at a most intimate moment. Several moments of intimacy, actually.

“He said someone had thrown a bale of hay out of the loft at you,” Robert murmured, his gaze moving curiously between the two of them.

“Oh…” Clearing her throat, Rosamunde tried to forget the rest of their time in the stables and brushed her hair self-consciously behind her ear. “I do not think it was thrown at me. I mean, what end would that achieve? It would have knocked me down, but really…” She rolled her eyes. “What would that have done except make me cry out and bring Smithy running? Whoever it was would have been discovered right away. Nay.” She shook her head. “I suspect someone had just chosen the loft as a nice, comfy place to shirk their chores, then accidentally knocked one of the bales over. They slipped from the loft while Aric and I were…umm…deep in discussion.”

“Discussion, eh?” Aric said, grinning at her obvious discomfort. “I had a discussion I wished to have with you when I woke up this morning, but as usual you had awakened early and sneaked off.” His grin dissipated, replaced by displeasure as he recalled the purpose behind his being at the river's edge in the first place.

He was about to begin reprimanding her when Shambley suddenly murmured, “She may be right.”

“Right?” Scowling, Aric turned to his friend. “Right about what?”

“Mayhap it
is
you who are in danger.”

“What?” Aric peered at him in disbelief.

“Well, that hayloft incident
could
have been an accident. The bale would hardly have killed her, or even done her much damage. All it would have done was draw Smithy into the stables. And if no one pushed her off that fence, throwing her in with Bull—”

“Who would not have hurt me anyway,” Rosamunde added. She refused to acknowledge that even she was not sure if, had she not had apples hidden in her pocket, he might have trampled her beneath his powerful hooves without a second thought.

“Aye. So that just leaves the incident in the bedchamber and this incident here as true attacks. And the former
is
where both of you sleep; the attacker
could
have thought you were in the room and really have been after you. But this morning's little incident…” He shook his head. “There is no way anyone could have mistaken you for Rosamunde. This was an out-and-out attack on you.”

They were all silent for a moment as his words sank in, then Rosamunde reached out to pat Aric's stunned cheek. “Never fear, husband. We shall keep you safe. We shall not leave you alone for a moment. You shall have a guard at all times.”

“Oh, this is stuff and nonsense,” Aric snapped, struggling to a sitting position. He managed to climb to his feet, where he swayed slightly. Reaching out for something to hold on to, he found only Rosamunde hitching herself beneath his arm to help keep him upright.

“Why do you not go back and tend the men?” she suggested now to Shambley. “Inform them that, in the future, my husband must not be left on his own. I shall help him bathe, then accompany him back to camp.”

“What about a guard?”

“Oh, I shall attend to that,” she assured Robert
breezily. “I have his sword if I need it, and will keep him safe.”

Too busy trying to keep his stomach's contents where they belonged, all Aric could do was roll his eyes. Shambley nodded and turned to leave.

“Mayhap you could bring some fresh clothes back when you have a moment, my lord?” Rosamunde called after him.

“For both of you,” Robert agreed just before disappearing into the woods.

“Well,” Rosamunde said cheerfully as soon as he was gone. “Shall we get you out of these clothes so you may bathe?”

“I do not wish to bathe,” Aric muttered grumpily as she turned him toward the water.

“Well, I fear there is not much choice in the matter, my lord,” she announced with a combination of forced cheer and determination. She propelled him forward. “You have spit up all over yourself.”

Glancing down at his chest to see that what she said was true, Aric grimaced, but kept any further protest to himself, allowing her to ease him onto a good-size boulder on the bank.

“Just think how nice it shall be to get rid of all that nasty old…” She wrinkled her nose in lieu of giving a name to the stuff presently dribbling from his chin, and bent to remove his sword belt. Unsheathing the weapon, she leaned it against the rock beside him, easily available should it be needed, then began to work on his tunic. “You shall feel much better once you are cleaned up.”

“You are speaking to me in the exact same tones—and using nearly the exact same words—as you did with that dog when you tried to convince him that a bath was for the best,” he pointed out irritably.

“Am I?” she asked distractedly as she lifted his tunic off over his head. “Well, I trust you shall not make as much fuss as
Summer
did when I gave
her
her bath.” She
stressed the dog's name and sex, since he seemed to have already forgotten her telling him both. Tossing the tunic on the ground, she then reached for his brais, but Aric caught her hands and held them with a sigh.

“I can do that myself, if you would just give me the room to stand.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Stepping back, she gave him the room he requested, holding her tongue and merely watching anxiously as he got to his feet. He swayed like a branch in a breeze as he began to push the brais down over his hips. He managed to get them a third of the way down, but when he had to bend over to push them further, he swayed dangerously and nearly toppled over.

Catching his shoulders, Rosamunde urged him back to a standing position, then knelt to remove the brais herself, doing her best to keep from peering at his manhood as she did. It was a difficult task, since it was right in her face, and even now growing in size. It seemed he had not been injured terribly after all, she decided with amusement. She helped him step out of the damp pants, then tossed them onto his tunic.

“There we are, then,” she said happily and, straightening, stepped to the side. “In you go. A nice soaking and you shall feel much better.”

“Do you have to be so damn cheerful?” he grumbled, taking a slow, careful step past her.

“Nay, my lord. But 'tis better than being so darned grumpy that someone would wish me dead,” she muttered.

His head swiveling, he glared at her furiously. “What did you say?”

“Me?” she asked innocently. “I believe I said that that bump you took must have given you a sore head.”

He glared at her suspiciously for a moment, then turned to continue making his way into the water, ignoring her until he was neck-deep. At that point he turned toward her, saying, “I—What the devil are you doing?”

Glancing up from the sword she had been inspecting—his sword—she raised her eyebrows slightly, but answered, “Guarding you, my lord.”

“Put that damn thing down before you cut yourself. I do not need guarding.”

“That bump on your head would seem to indicate differently, husband,” Rosamunde murmured, ignoring his order to set the sword aside.

“Which one? The one the unknown culprit gave me, or the dozen or so you and Shambley added while ‘rescuing' me?”

Rosamunde peered at him silently for a moment, then slowly began to nod her head.

“What are you thinking?” he asked suspiciously.

“Just that it is most definitely you that our enemy must be after.”

His gaze narrowed. “Why?”

“Well.” She shrugged simply. “I am nice and polite to all I meet.”

Aric blinked at that. “
What?
And I am not?”

Her expression spoke volumes, and Aric found himself somewhat hurt by her poor opinion of him. “I have a sore head,” he reminded her by way of excuse. She nodded solemnly.

“You must have one every morning, then.”

“Aye. Though not the same head,” Aric muttered, splashing irritably at the water surrounding him.

“What was that?” Rosamunde called from shore.

“Nothing,” he snapped, then sighed and concentrated on cleaning himself.

They were both silent for a while; then Rosamunde asked, “Do you suppose we shall come across your father on our way to London?”

“Nay,” Aric answered. His father had returned home to Burkhart the day after the messenger's arrival. He, too, was expected to be present for Richard's coronation, and had headed home to make the necessary preparations. He
also had to collect his eldest son and daughters for the journey.

“We shall meet up with them in London though, will we not?”

“No doubt.”

“What are your sisters like?”

Aric shrugged at the question. “They are sisters.”

Rosamunde smiled wryly at his answer, then announced, “If they are anything like your father, I will like them.”

“You like my father, do you?”

“Oh, aye, he reminds me of the abbess. She was very like him: soft-spoken and gentle, with a streak of craftiness about her, but, Lord, beware her temper. Does your father have a temper?”

“Aye,” he said, then peered at her a bit curiously. How had she picked up so much about his father during a visit when the two had hardly seemed to speak more than exchanging pleasantries? “So he reminds you of the abbess,” he murmured, thinking he could not wait to tell his father that. He suspected the man wouldn't take kindly to being compared to a woman, no matter her position. “Does Shambley remind you of anyone?”

“Aye.” She nodded slowly. “Sister Constance. She was one of the younger nuns, and she had the same sort of devilish sense of humor Lord Shambley does.”

“Sister Constance.” Aric grinned. “And what of the others?”

“The others, my lord?”

“Aye. Like Smithy, for instance.”

“Oh, well, Smithy is easy. He is very like Sister Eustice. Not as knowledgeable as her, perhaps, but he has the same gentleness and way with animals.”

“And what about me?” he asked, starting slowly toward shore.

Rosamunde blinked at him uncertainly. “You?”

“Aye. Do I remind you of one of the nuns from the abbey?”

“Oh, nay, my lord.”

“Nay?” His eyebrows rose slightly at the emphatic way she said it, and he paused in the water. “No one?”

Making a face, she shook her head. “Well, how could you? You are my husband.”

“So?”

“So you are a man.”

Aric gave a bewildered laugh at that. “So are my father and Smithy.”

“Oh, aye. Well, I suppose they are,” she said doubtfully as he started forward again. She rushed on. “But I do not think of them as such. I mean, I know that they
are
men, of course, but I do not really think of them as men. They are just…well…
people,
” she said helplessly.

Aric stared at her with sudden fascination, positive he needed to hear this. “You lump the abbess, my father, Smithy, Shambley, and the other men and women you know in one big category: people? Yet you think of me as a man,” he clarified slowly.

“Not just any man, but my husband.
The
man.”

“
The
man,” he echoed.

Flushing, she nodded.

“And what separates me from being one of the ‘people'?” he asked curiously. His eyebrows rose when her gaze dropped abruptly to what was revealed now that he stood only knee-deep in the water.

“Well, all men have that,” he snapped irritably.

Her nose immediately lifted in the air as she hopped off the boulder. “Not as far as I am concerned, my lord. For all I know, half the nuns in the abbey may have had one, but yours is the only one I am concerned with. Because it is mine.”

Aric gave a start at that. “Yours?”

“Well, of course it is,” she told him impatiently. “I
don't know why it should surprise you. You gave yourself to me in marriage and I to you. Everything of yours is mine and vice versa—and that includes
that.
And let me tell you, my lord,” she added with a hard look, her eyes narrowed. “I am not so naive that I have not heard of adultery. And while I am very forbearing in a lot of things, should I ever get wind that you are sharing my
‘that'
with anyone else, I shall surely cut it off and mount it on the mantel.”