“We will be able to take only the bare essentials. Anything that can’t be carried on a horse can’t come.” A small smile filtered across Gareth’s face. “I know it will be hard, Mary, but you have to remember that we are fleeing, not going on a pleasure jaunt, and pack accordingly.”
“Well, as I’m too old to go to some damn foreign country, Sir Knight, I don’t think I will be either fleeing or jaunting anywhere. There is a convent a day’s ride from here that will take me in.” Mary’s brow furrowed. “But what about the rest of the household? What do you expect them to do?”
Gareth thought for a moment, his fingers running restlessly through his hair. “Some of the men will take you to your convent, and as for the rest of the household”—he shrugged his shoulders—“they will have plenty of time to pick over the corpse of what is left behind before the king confiscates it. Then they can disappear into the landscape.”
Matthew grinned. “After they have finished with their job, the king probably won’t be able to find enough evidence left to prove that anyone at all had ever lived here.”
“We will have to get started now, if we are to get to the coast before the king starts closing down the ports on us,” Gareth said thoughtfully.
“Which port do you have in mind?”
“One far enough away from London for safety’s sake that will also get us to Italy by the most direct route. I’ve got a map somewhere…”
“I’m not going to Italy,” Imogen said suddenly, cutting ruthlessly across the babble of conversation, taking a grim satisfaction in the dumb silence that immediately followed her declaration before pandemonium broke out.
“What are you talking about? Of course you’re going.” Mary said, aghast. “As the wife of an executed traitor and sister to an all-too-powerful madman, fleeing is the only thing for you to do.”
“Well, I’m not going to do it.” Imogen’s voice was filled with calm certainty.
“If you intend to remain here, then I don’t doubt for a second that you have separated yourself entirely from all sanity,” Matthew said testily, then added in a slightly calmer voice, “and may we be so bold as to enquire what it is you
do
intend doing if not to flee sensibly?”
“I intend to do what any other loyal wife would do. I intend to prove my husband’s innocence.”
Another gratifyingly dumb silence filled the room.
“How?” Gareth growled in confusion. “We have no proof of his innocence!”
“Not that they have a hell of a lot of proof about his guilt,” Matthew said darkly.
“Oh, don’t you worry, I have proof.” Imogen said with grim satisfaction. “The proof has been steadily streaming north for months.”
Gareth narrowed his eyes. “I love Robert like a brother, but I won’t have you put in any form of jeopardy even for his sake. I promised Robert that I would keep you safe and that is just what I intend to do.”
“This isn’t your decision to make. It is mine, and my mind is already made up.”
He looked as if he would like to protest, but instead he nodded his head in reluctant agreement. “Fine. We will travel to the king instead, but I’d like to have a boat held in reserve, just in case you can’t save the world as completely as you seem to think you can.”
Imogen bit her bottom lip nervously. “Then you will come with me, even though I’m not doing what you want me to do?”
Gareth’s face gentled for a second. “Lady Imogen, I’d follow you into the mouth of Hell and tweak the tail of the Devil if you asked me to.”
“There is a certain similarity between the two follies,” Matthew said with evident disgust.
But Imogen ignored him as she groped for the chair and sank into its depths gratefully. Everything inside her was confusion.
Robert truly was innocent of wishing her any harm.
He really was the man who took time to teach his wife chess, the man who took in a lamb on his wife’s whim, the man who had patiently returned to her pieces of her past even when she was afraid to receive such gifts. He too had felt the passion that had burned so brightly and shared in the tenderness that had grown between them as he held her close after passion had spent itself. He had loved her when he had whispered those words to her when he thought she slept. They had actually come from his heart, not Roger’s twisted mind.
He had given her his love and all she had managed to give him in return were the twisted fears Roger had created in her. She could no longer hide behind her numbness. Emotions clamored to the surface and they were almost painful in their intensity. The guilt and fear for his life burned so brightly that they made her want to cry.
But there was also something else.
A something that she didn’t quite dare name.
He had said he loved her. Love. It had been so long since she had been free-hearted enough to either give or receive it. She had lived with Roger’s dark games so long that she had thought all the love had been frozen out of her, yet suddenly she knew that it hadn’t. Deep under the shell of her cold fears she could feel it sluggishly coming back to life.
She loved him in return.
Inside of her a dam released and tears welled in her eyes. She wanted to cry for all the lost time, for the miracle of Robert’s love and hers for him, but most of all she wanted to cry because she could lose it all even as she found it.
She didn’t cry. Instead she lifted her chin defiantly and made an instant decision. She would be damned before she let Roger take from this world the only thing that meant anything to her. For Robert, she would fight, for the first time in her life.
She drew a deep, steadying breath.
“We can’t stand around here all night,” she said shakily, “there is much we must do.”
Gareth looked into her face and smothered the small thrill of sadness that filled him as he saw life in her face once more. It was like she had finally woken up after weeks of sleep, but that life wasn’t for him. Not that he’d ever expected it to be any other way, not really. But to judge from the pain he now felt, some part of him had been fool enough to love her a little and ached to know that she didn’t love him in return.
He straightened his shoulders and prepared to fight for the lady who would never be his.
“Well, Lady Imogen, where shall we begin?”
And to think the journey had sounded so simple from the comfort of the Keep, Imogen thought ruefully. She tried to stretch the nagging pain out of her spine, but nothing she did would shift it, not when the relentless plodding of the horse’s gait undid all her good works. Really she shouldn’t have expected anything else. It would seem that she was finally, truly comprehending that nothing in this world was easy. Imogen snorted quietly at the understatement. Easy, hell, this was almost impossible.
It seemed so silly to think about it now, but “getting to Robert” had sounded like the easy part of the plan back at the Keep. All it really seemed to require was for her to throw her leg over a horse’s back and make a quick dash down south where the real work would begin.
This going south was neither quick, nor a dash. It was tortuously backbreaking and it was taking so long that Imogen was becoming increasingly afraid it was to be a never-ending journey.
She was starting to forget she had ever lived a life that didn’t involve some horse’s all-too-uncomfortable back. The rough hide of the beast had become her whole world, and what a tediously slow world it was! Her humor wasn’t improved any by the knowledge that their lack of speed could be laid squarely at her feet. Her blindness now served to slow them all down. If she couldn’t see, then she couldn’t really ride. Because of that she had to have her horse led by either Matthew or Gareth, like a child on a pony.
She tried to find some consolation in the fact that as slow as their progress was now, at least they were going faster than they would have been if Gareth had got his way. He had thought that the only safe way for Imogen to travel was in a litter. He had been so pigheadedly determined on that point and she had only got her own way by declaring, with great sincerity, that she would rather walk all the way to London on her knees rather than suffer the indignity of traveling thus. She had won herself the right to ride a horse, but she wasn’t so sure now whether that was a real victory or not.
To make matters worse, each night, when she was finally released from her equine prison, she had to face the night terrors that awaited her.
She hated it, hated the fear that filled her every time Gareth called halt for the night. She tried to hide it, not wanting to show such feebleness of spirit, but that denial didn’t stop the panic from stealing her breath away each night when she was finally curled up in her blankets. Each and every evening she was held captive by morbid fears that were brought to life by the sounds of the endless night. She lay trapped in her terrifying imaginings till she could stand it no longer and had to cover her ears or risk losing her sanity.
But blind silence held its own terrors. With her ears stopped, she knew she had not even the slightest chance of saving herself, and that knowledge was more frightening than any night monster her mind could conjure.
And when she finally found sleep in exhaustion, she then had to face the waking. She couldn’t see her strange new environment, and in that moment of waking she felt a terror that was almost beyond her ability to endure.
But endure she did. Each morning, she waited in terror for it to ease. Managing to live through those endless moments of pure fear revealed depths in herself that she had never dared believe existed.
It surprised her. She was finding a discipline she hadn’t even known she possessed. She didn’t scream or cry. Not once, no matter how much she wanted to.
It was primitive, but it was survival and she found a grim pride in it, and she would keep doing it. For Robert.
For him alone she kept putting one foot after the other. She couldn’t let herself forget that the evidence she carried in her saddlebags was the only thing that might save him. She had to be strong at least till her task was done. Only then, when he held her in his arms again, could she indulge herself and fall apart.
And he would hold her again. It had to happen that way. She couldn’t dare think anything else.
She took a deep breath, and whispered, “He is safe. He is waiting for me. All will be well.”
She had to believe it, had to be brave. Unconsciously, her hands moved to cover her slightly curving stomach, drawing confidence and quiet from the still incomprehensible knowledge that even now Robert’s baby rested safely under her heart, then she quickly dropped her hands and took hold of the pommel to stop them from giving her secret away.
She wished Mary was with them. At least she would have had someone to share her excitement with. The girl who had come along as lady’s maid just wasn’t designed for confidences. Imogen smiled a little at the absurdity of even contemplating talking about anything important with the grumpy woman.
If Imogen had had her way, they wouldn’t have been burdened with their reluctant maid. When it had become clear that Mary was too old to even contemplate such a journey, Imogen had assumed that only Gareth and Matthew would travel with her.
Gareth, however, had other ideas.
He had insisted that they take one of the Keep’s younger maids. “For appearances’ sake,” he had said with evident embarrassment, clearly hoping not to be drawn on the finer details of chaperonage. Mildryd had volunteered for the duty and Imogen had to admit that she was proving interesting, if nothing else. Why she had wanted to come along when she so clearly hated traveling, disliked horses and detested work of any kind, however, defeated Imogen.
Although, there was an entertainment to be found in the way Matthew exploded every time he had to deal with the disinterested servant.
“It’s good to see you smiling again, Imogen,” Gareth said warmly as he drew his horse beside hers, startling her out of her thoughts.
Her smile dimpled a little deeper. “I was just trying to recall some of the new words that Matthew—uh, taught me last night when he was trying to get Mildryd to cook dinner. I think they were ever so impressive, don’t you?”
“They were.” Gareth grinned. “Some even I hadn’t heard before, though I think it might be better if you tried to forget them.”
“Better, but nowhere near as much fun. Besides, I have to remember them if I’m going to ask Robert what they all actually mean.”
Gareth let out a soft chuckle. “And I would just love to hear how he manages to explain them to you.” He grimaced a little. “In fact I imagine he will yell more than a few of them at me when he realizes just how much we have managed to broaden your…er, horizons, while he’s been gone.”
Imogen laughed as she tried to imagine the sophisticated Gareth trying to explain away her suddenly advanced education in curse words.
Gareth watched the joy on her face, transfixed as always by the radiance of her laugh. A companionable silence grew between them as their horses walked on slowly, Gareth holding the leading rein tightly. It was pleasant, but it couldn’t entirely distract Imogen from the seriousness of their journey. “How much longer till we are there, do you think?” she asked softly.
Gareth squinted at the sun for a moment, his mind swiftly making calculations. “I’d say that we have another good five days of travel ahead before we reach the fortress, presuming then that the king is still in residence there. If not…”
Imogen sighed in frustration. “That long!” She shook her head. “It’s my fault. You two would be traveling a lot faster if you weren’t being slowed down by a blind woman.” Her hands clenched so tightly onto the saddle pommel her knuckles whitened.
Gareth shrugged his shoulders philosophically, reaching out a reassuring hand to cover hers. “If it wasn’t for the determination of our blind woman, we wouldn’t be traveling with any hope of saving Robert. Instead, we would be fleeing to the nearest port. Without the evidence you carry, I wouldn’t give much hope for Robert’s chance of surviving.” His voice stopped suddenly and he quickly looked away.
Gareth didn’t say aloud that he feared they might be traveling only to retrieve Robert’s body parts from the king’s castle walls. He didn’t have to. Imogen heard it all the same.
The silence that now descended was heavy with their grim thoughts. After a reassuring squeeze, Gareth lifted his hands from hers and pulled out in front once more, and Imogen purposely loosened her grip on the pommel, trying to think of nothing.
She refused to let herself dwell on the possibility that Roger had already won, but no matter how hard she tried, fear and worry stalked her.
That evening Gareth set up camp in a clearing off the road near a small stream. Imogen gratefully slid off her horse, having been more than a little afraid she finally might have melded permanently with the beast.
She wanted to groan as she ran her tired hands over the nagging pain in her back, trying to shift all the kinks out of her tired muscles. She turned her head as she heard Matthew walking toward her, grumbling hotly under his breath.
“Have you been arguing with Mildryd again?” she asked sweetly, smiling up at the irritable old man.
Matthew let out a long snort of disgust. “One doesn’t argue with a cow, one yells at it in the vain hope that something of sense will penetrate its thick skull.”
“And did it?”
“What do you think, my lady? I’ve been trying to get through to her since we started this ill-fated journey but nothing gets in. All I am doing is wasting perfectly good air and I still end up being your nursemaid.”
“Well, I think you make an entirely wonderful nursemaid. You seem to anticipate my needs even before I realize what they are. Why, I bet that even now you’re making plans to walk me over to that stream I can hear bubbling so brightly, so that I can freshen up.” She dimpled up at him and lifted out her hand, which he threaded through his arm with a shake of his head.
“You see far too much sometimes,” he said with a rueful laugh, which broke off suddenly. He cleared his throat in discomfort. “Well, you know what I mean,” he said gruffly.
“Of course I do. You are accusing me of being too clever for you,” she said serenely, “and I have absolutely no objection to being thought of as such.
In fact I think it is very insightful of you to have realized it at last.”
He was laughing once more as he slowly walked her over to the stream. He helped her kneel down on the grassy bank and carefully placed one of her hands in the cold rushing water.
“Now, I’ll just be right over here. I’ll give you as much privacy as I can but…” he finished lamely and stood stiffly.
She nodded her head understandingly. “But not enough of it to get me killed, right?”
“Right.”
She listened to his departing footsteps to make sure he had left the immediate area before quickly and efficiently setting about washing her face, neck and hands. The stream was freezing; its banks swollen with the first of the snow melt. The intensity of the cold caused Imogen to catch her breath and she couldn’t help shivering as she splashed the icy droplets over her skin. She had got very good at this sort of thing, she realized, with some satisfaction. She didn’t need as much help as she had at the start, much to Matthew’s relief, no doubt, she thought with a grin.
As the day’s travel started to disappear from her skin she let out a long sigh of satisfaction.
It felt so good to be somewhat clean again, but she couldn’t stop a wicked part of her mind longing for a proper bath. As she lifted her heavy hair off the back of her grimy neck she indulged herself in the tantalizing fantasy.
She inhaled deeply and could almost believe that she smelled the scent of warm roses. She heard the ghost of a large crackling fire in the babbling of the stream and it seemed to warm the skin of her shoulders and face. So real was the fantasy that she was sure that she could feel the hot water all round her, moving over her naked body in lazy, sensuous waves.
The image was so seductive, she found herself doing something that she hadn’t done in some time. She tried to draw on her dwindling store of visual memories to create a proper vision to go with the imaginings of her other senses.
Those memories were now graying and faded, but it was so much like being able to see that it hurt eyes accustomed to the dark. She closed them instinctively, going from black to black.
It was nonsensical, but it seemed to work. Suddenly her mind glowed with pictures of an intensity that would never have existed in the real world.
The fire was vibrant with all of the shades of red and orange she had ever seen. It illuminated the room of her memory with the penetration of sunlight. It was a strange room, a mixture of childhood memories and fantasies of her bedchamber at Shadowsend.
She saw herself in the bath, and was surprised that in her mind’s eye she was no longer the girl she had last seen. No, she was seeing herself as the woman she might have become.
If in her mind she was a woman, then it was only right that in the shadows of her memory there stood a man. Even though, frustratingly, he stayed just out of reach from the fire’s glow, Imogen knew it could only be Robert. The light of the fire played oddly over his naked body, darkening his pale skin till it blazed like polished bronze. Her brow furrowed as she struggled to create a body she had never seen, but she couldn’t seem to bring him into focus. She might know him as she knew no other soul, but her mind lacked the memories to draw him for her. He belonged to her darkness.
Everything she knew about him had nothing to do with how he looked.
She knew the smell of him, the taste of him on her tongue, knew the sound of his laugh, knew the feel of his body as it moved over hers, knew the feel of his skin under her palm, knew the shape of his face under her fingertips. She knew all of that and more but couldn’t begin to imagine what his face looked like. She just didn’t have the memories to imagine what she had felt so often with her hands.
A feeling of exasperation filled her as she realized that she didn’t even know the color of his hair, didn’t know if the soft waves on his head matched the springy mat that covered his chest or whether it was a slight shade darker, like her father’s had been. She didn’t know if the love of her life had laughing blue eyes or forest green ones.
She let out a small groan of frustration as the vision began to break up under the weight of her ignorance. She had to grit her teeth against the foolish urge to call back the Robert of her visions. She wanted to demand that he step into the light so that she could at last see the face of the man she loved, but it was too late. He was gone and once more the shadowed fog filled her.