She wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to hold on to the warmth as long as she could. She sighed shakily, trying to draw some consolation from the fact that what she hadn’t been able to see with her memories, she had known with the touch of her hands and lips. Even at this distance, those memories were able to light in her a desire that accelerated the beating of her heart. She caught cold rushing water in her cupped hand and splashed her face, hoping to clear her head, wanting to freeze the lingering desire that could have no conclusion.
She crawled carefully back from the edge of the stream before standing slowly and drying herself on the corner of her cloak. She had already called to Matthew that she was finished when the babe suddenly started to move. She stood absolutely still, caught by the wonder of the strange, new feeling of another life moving inside her.
That wonder must have manifested itself on her face, because Matthew’s voice was threaded with concern when he reached her side.
“Imogen, what the hell is it?”
The words to explain the sensation escaped her, so instead she grabbed his hand and placed its gnarled strength over the fluttering movement.
For a moment his brow crumpled in confusion at the strange action, but that confusion quickly cleared when he realized what he could feel.
“My God,” he whispered in awe and moved his other hand to the center of her back, holding her body still, but he was still barely able to feel that small, miraculous movement. Suddenly he lifted his hand away as if burnt. “Damn,” he whispered angrily. “Damn, blast, Holy Mother of Christ and shit.”
It was only then that Imogen realized that she had inadvertently told Matthew her secret. She winced as he continued to swear with increasing creativity, but she couldn’t help the relief that flooded her. It was good to finally share the joy with the man who’d come to mean so much.
“How long have you known?” Matthew asked flatly, the anger gone from his voice as his mind quickly started to search out the practical way out of this suddenly increasingly difficult situation.
“A month or more.”
Matthew growled with exasperation. “And just how far along do you reckon yourself to be?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she admitted with a small shrug of her shoulders. “Mary guessed that I was four, maybe five months.”
“Damn.” Matthew ran an agitated hand through his thin hair.
“I believe you are starting to repeat yourself at last,” Imogen said dryly, then added cajolingly, “it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Doesn’t matter, she asks!” Matthew exploded. “Doesn’t really matter? Of course it bloody well matters. What kind of idiot do you take us for? Do you really think we would have dragged a pregnant woman halfway across this godforsaken country if we had known? Imogen, why didn’t you tell us about your condition when we were planning this ill-conceived mission?”
Imogen felt herself flush. “Would telling you have really made any difference?” she asked quietly.
“Of course it would have made a difference. You wouldn’t be here arguing with me, for one thing. Instead you would be safe on a boat destined for warmer climes.”
“What I meant was, would it have made any difference to Robert’s situation if I had told you about this? You need me to save him. The king has to listen to a woman of noble birth, no matter how much he might dislike it.” She smiled coldly as she pulled herself up straight. “As much as he might like to, I can’t be ignored. You and Gareth, on the other hand, well, you can all too easily be dismissed as mercenaries prepared to lie and connive to save your leader.” She drew a shuddering breath. “I didn’t think it ultimately mattered, because whether I’m pregnant or not won’t save Robert, but me seeing the king might.”
“Have you considered in all your scheming that Robert might be long past saving?” He watched Imogen blanch at that possible truth but continued ruthlessly, “What if Robert is already dead and all your noble sacrifice actually achieves is to put you and your baby in danger? Did you think of that before you started on your foolish quest?”
“Of course I thought about it,” she said softly, her hand moving instinctively to cover her womb. “But I have also thought about my child growing up without a father. I think of me, living the rest of my life without the man I love. I think about how he must be suffering now, and I think about how I am the cause of that suffering. You think I don’t know that if it weren’t for me, Robert would have been safe? Strangely, I find I can think of little else.”
Her face tightened with determination. “But I do not think about being too late to save him. I will not think of it. Robert lives and he waits for our rescue. If I thought anything else, I just might run mad.”
Matthew stared at her in silence, admiration warring with fears across his weathered face.
“I didn’t mean it,” he muttered finally. “I don’t believe Robert is, well…”
“Good, because it isn’t true. I’d know if he was no longer with us.” She grabbed his hand and placed it on the slight curve of her stomach once more. “We’d know.”
Matthew might have forgiven her, but no matter how hard Imogen tried to convince him otherwise, he felt he had to tell Gareth about the baby. And the other man’s reaction turned out to be everything Imogen feared it would be.
After his initial stunned amazement, Gareth’s anger had known no bounds. He had stormed over to her and yelled at her about the stupidity of her actions. She kept her peace, waiting hopefully for his anger to blow itself out. It didn’t do so for some time, but when the first wave of his fury was spent he stormed off into the night, saying that he needed time to think. The supper that night was such a silent, strained affair that Imogen was actually relieved to retire to her furs.
It was midnight before Gareth returned to the camp.
He was no longer roaring like a wounded lion, but as Imogen lay by the fire listening to him moving about the camp, she could still feel his anger simmering below the surface. After a while he sat down with some cold supper on a plate and began eating it halfheartedly.
“Do you feel better now?” Imogen asked quietly.
Gareth paused a moment to swallow before answering. “You should be asleep,” he said quietly.
She pulled herself up onto her elbow, not noticing that the blankets had slipped down a little. Gareth did, and his hand clenched painfully around his trencher.
“I tried, but I just couldn’t when I was worried about you.”
“I thought pregnant women slept all the time.”
“Some do, I’m sure, but not me. Not right at the moment. Sometimes I think I will never sleep properly again.”
Gareth was quiet for a moment, then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he ground out, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Imogen could hear the hurt from her betrayal in his voice and she searched desperately for something to say that wouldn’t upset him further and would make him feel better.
“It wasn’t like that, Gareth, I didn’t tell anyone, until Matthew. Mary guessed. I didn’t want to know about it myself. It…the baby disgusted me somehow.” She sighed. “It’s so hard to explain.”
“Try,” Gareth said with stony determination, and Imogen realized that there was going to be no easy escape for her.
She drew a shaky breath.
“I thought Robert had betrayed me. It seemed to me that my body had joined that betrayal by harboring his seed. Then, when I realized Robert was innocent, when I learned that loving him and bearing his child wasn’t an act of betrayal, everything was chaos. I needed to do this so badly…” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I knew you would try to stop me if you found out about the child.”
“Try? Hell no, I wouldn’t have tried. I would have bloody well succeeded, even if that meant I had to tie you bodily to the bed.”
“And he has to ask me why I didn’t tell him?” she murmured with a shaky laugh and Gareth frowned, not wanting to understand.
“Perhaps you may have a point,” he said grudgingly at last. “I see that, but I hope you can also see my point.” He stared at his trencher, not seeing his congealed meal. “You shouldn’t be doing this. I thought it was a frighteningly dangerous folly even before I knew about the baby. But now, my God! You are not just putting yourself in jeopardy but also your child, and I’m responsible.”
“But if I don’t put me and my child in jeopardy, I will lose Robert and that’s something I am unwilling to contemplate.” She pulled the blanket more securely around her shoulders to ward off the chill. “That makes it all my responsibility, my choice, not yours.”
“My God, you can be unbelievably stubborn.”
“Thank you.”
He laughed despite himself. “I didn’t mean that as a compliment, trust me.”
“I know, but fortunately for you, I’m quite prepared to take it as one.”
With that, an uneasy truce grew between them.
Imogen tried to put up with his excessive fussing with as much grace as possible, and in return Gareth tried to keep his worried disapproval to himself. Neither was entirely successful.
But they tried.
“When will we get to the fortress?” Imogen asked tightly, not able to bear the silence a moment longer. She held on to the cup Matthew had given her but her throat was too tight to even try to swallow the contents.
“If we break camp at dawn, we should reach the fortress around midday,” Gareth said neutrally.
“So close,” she murmured.
“So close that I can almost hear Robert complaining about how long it has taken me to get out of there and back again,” Matthew said bracingly as he moved to stoke the fire. He caught Gareth’s gaze and raised a meaningful brow in Imogen’s direction.
Gareth followed the look, then lowered his eyes to stare into the fire for a second.
“I hope they have him chained up well,” he said musingly.
Imogen moved her head in his direction sharply. “Why?”
“Because it should slow him down a bit. Once they unchain him, he’s going to kill me. And that is before he finds out that not only have I put his wife through this ordeal, but she is also pregnant. Yes, I think I would definitely like some iron holding him in place when I tell him that.”
Imogen chuckled but once she settled into her furs for the night, all her worries and fears returned to her in a rush. She was haunted by what ifs.
What if Roger had already won? What if…
No, it couldn’t be so. She wouldn’t even try to imagine her world without him. She tried to block all such dark thoughts by conjuring up memories of Robert, of loving him, of laughing with him, of being held by him.
Just before dawn she found herself desperately praying for just one chance to put everything right.
They were all so caught up in their own thoughts, no one noticed as Mildryd slowly stole from the camp and disappeared into the night.
Ian paced up and down in front of the well-lit altar, his impatience to have it all done with reaching screaming point. Roger was already an hour late and there was every chance it would be several more hours before he bothered to arrive. That was how the game was played and Ian had no choice but to keep waiting if he wanted to have even the slightest chance of finally being free of it all at last. A life entirely free of Roger and his dark webs of intrigue? It was almost impossible for him to imagine, he realized with a disgusted snort. In his experience, the webs that Roger spun were endless. No one ever escaped them, and struggle against them seemed only to entangle the victim further.
Ian had found that out so long ago, he could hardly remember a time when he wasn’t bound to Roger.
There were distant memories of having a normal life, but they were so hazy and remote that they no longer meant anything. He could remember the first time he ever met Roger, however, with a vivid intensity.
He had been so young, so full of pride and purpose. He had waited so long to begin his knight training that he could scarcely believe that the day had arrived at last. It was that enthusiasm that had made him such pathetically easy pickings for Roger. Even back then Roger had been able to mesmerize and charm when and whomever he wanted.
He had always enjoyed collecting souls.
Ian had all too quickly and easily fallen under the spell of the older boy. It was infuriating now to remember that he had actually been flattered when Roger had included him in his exclusive circle of friends. It had taken him too long to realize that the Roger he had admired was just an illusion, something conjured to fool the world.
And when he did realize, it was too late. When things started to go so terribly wrong there had been absolutely nothing he could do to stop them, but he had been so frightened by it all that he had actually abandoned his dreams of becoming a knight. He had turned to the church instead and in the monastery he actually found some peace. It had protected him from Roger’s dark schemes and offered him some forgiveness. He mightn’t have been a very good priest, but being one was good for him.
But in the end even the great and powerful church hadn’t been able to protect him from Roger, Ian thought with a bitter smile.
Roger had found him and, smiling charmingly, had threatened him with that unique blend of truth and lies that would see him destroyed unless he became Roger’s spy in Imogen’s household. There had been no choice. He gave up his newfound peace and once more lost himself in being Roger’s man.
Ian slumped onto one of the cold, hard benches and buried his head in his hands.
His soul was Roger’s, and he couldn’t help but hate himself for that.
“I hope I haven’t left you waiting too long.”
Ian’s head shot up and he quickly found his feet. Roger ambled into the light of the candles, the gold thread on his doublet twinkling gaudily. He looked around at the newly completed chapel and shuddered slightly. “I can’t say I am that enamored with your choice of meeting place”—he smiled at Ian knowingly—“but I suppose that there is no better place than a church to meet one’s priest.”
“You told me to tell you if I heard anything else about the Lady Imogen,” Ian said abruptly, anxious to get this final betrayal over.