Knight of Pleasure (38 page)

Isobel leaned forward. “Tell me what?”

“You know Stephen has been spying for the king?”

Spying? Stephen spied for the king?

“The king is exceedingly grateful for the service,” Catherine said. “He offered the Hume lands to Stephen—and he wanted Stephen
to take them.”

How naive she was! Hume Castle was a border castle; of course, the king would want a strong man to hold it.

“The king decided to throw you into the bargain, as men will do, when we told him Stephen wished to wed you.”

“The king chose Stephen for my husband?”

Catherine nodded. “But Stephen asked the king to free you from your promise and to give the Hume lands to you.”

“Why? Why would Stephen do this? He said he wants to marry me.”

“Because he wants your happiness more,” Catherine said, gripping Isobel’s arms. “Stephen wants you to choose him freely—or
not at all.”

Stephen sacrificed his own gain, his own happiness, so that she might have hers.

He had the heart of Galahad, strong and true. Time and again, he proved it. In his devotion to his family, his kindness toward
the twin orphans, his willingness to risk his life for those he loved… including her.

Honor would always mean more to him than position or power. His loyalty ran deep. It did not waver.

He would not fail her.

“How near dawn is it?” Alarm had Isobel leaping from the bed. With impatient hands, she jerked at her gown. Thank heaven she
had not bothered to take it off!

“I waited as long as I dared,” Catherine said as she knelt to help Isobel into her slippers. “ ’Tis yet an hour before dawn.
Robert is waiting downstairs to take you to the castle.”

“Robert is waiting?”

“Robert always had faith in you,” Catherine said. “Now give me your other foot so we can get you on your way.”

As Isobel raced down the stairs, she called back, “The angels should sing your praises, Lady Catherine!”

Robert caught her in his arms. “I knew you would choose happiness in the end, but did you have to take so long?”

Horses were saddled and ready outside the door. Robert flung her on one, and they rode hard through the empty streets. When
they reached the castle gates, the guards waved them through.

Isobel slid off her horse at the steps of the Old Palace.

“Stephen is in his old chamber,” Robert said, taking her hand as they ran down the corridor.

They skidded to a stop before Stephen’s door.

“Tell Stephen not to worry about the men,” Robert said, gasping for breath. “William is sending orders to put someone else
in command.”

After the headlong rush to get here, Isobel stood staring at the closed door. What would she say to Stephen? Would he still
want her after what she put him through? Could he forgive her?

“Don’t make the poor man wait any longer!” Robert opened the door and pushed her inside.

The door closed behind her with a loud thump.

Stephen sat at the small table beneath the arrow-slit window. From the state of his clothes, he had not been to bed. A single
candle glowed on the table, its holder resting in a pool of melted wax.

With a rush of regret, she realized it was an hours candle. Stephen must have used it to count the hours until his departure—and
the hours remaining for her to come to him. Only a stub remained.

He rose to his feet and put his hand on the back of the chair, as if to steady himself. Though he did not take his eyes from
her, neither did he come to her. His handsome face was etched with lines of tension and fatigue.

“Why are you here, Isobel?”

To think she might never have heard this voice she loved so well again. A sob caught in her throat when she attempted to speak.
Still, he waited.

She swallowed and tried again. “I’ve loved you for a long time, but I was afraid to trust your love for me. I feared you would
betray and abandon me.”

“I would never do that,” Stephen said. Still, he made no move toward her.

“I understand that now.”

“Isobel, tell me why you are here.”

She took a single step forward. “I come because I choose you, Stephen Carleton, to be my husband.” She took another step.
“I choose you because you brought joy and love back into my life, and I do not want to lose them again.”

With each step she took, her voice grew stronger.

“I want to sleep beside you each night and wake to see your face each morning. I want to meet your mother.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners.

“I want to know the nieces and nephews you speak of with such fondness. I want to go home with you to Northumberland. I want
us to raise our children there.”

She took the last step and stood before him. “I do not want to waste more time or spend another day apart.”

“I love my mother, but I think we should wed before you meet her,” Stephen said, his face lit by the smile she loved so well.
“I can’t risk having her scare you off.”

In the next instant, she was in his arms.

“I tried to keep my hope,” he said into her hair, holding her tightly. “But it was hard.”

He lifted her off her feet and twirled her in his arms. With his eyes warm on hers he said, “Every day of my life, I will
thank God you chose me.”

He kissed her then. A soft, warm kiss that made the world swirl around her. She pressed against him, glorying in the joy and
comfort of having his arms around her again.

Stephen was hers. Always and forever.

She leaned back and fiddled with the collar of his tunic. “ ’Tis hard to see why we should wait for the ceremony, since we’ve
already…” She let her voice trail off, having no doubt he understood what she was proposing.

“I’ll take no chances with you,” Stephen said, laughing. “We shall make our pledges before witnesses tomorrow, but I shall
hear your pledge to me now—
before
we do aught else.”

Stephen had attended numerous betrothals over the years, but he’d never paid the slightest attention. Still, he was fairly
certain all he had to get right was the essential promise to make it binding.

“Lady Isobel Hume, I pledge you my troth and take you as my wife.”

Isobel raised an eyebrow—in appreciation, he believed, of his admirable simplicity.

“Sir Stephen Carleton,” she said in turn, “I pledge you my troth and take you as my husband.”

“Now I have you!” With immense satisfaction, he pulled her into his arms.

He felt awash in his love for her. He smiled, thinking of hardheaded little girls with bouncy dark curls and serious green
eyes. And, God forbid, wooden swords in their pudgy little hands. Girls like that would need brothers to keep them out of
trouble.

Isobel pursed her lips and tapped her finger against her cheek. “Is there not something more we must do to make the promise
binding? Something that makes it… irrevocable?”

Irrevocable.

“I believe,” he said, his voice turning husky as he leaned down to touch his lips to hers, “ ’tis consummation after the promise
that does it.”

They kissed for a long, tender moment. When she opened her mouth to him and pressed against him, his desire grew into an urgent,
pulsing need. He lifted her in his arms to carry her to the bed.

“Come, wife, we are to bed.” He smiled—he’d waited a long time to say that.

He awoke hours later, suffused with contentment. Nothing and no one would ever take Isobel from him now. With her at his side,
he was ready to take his place in the world. He would claim his lands, serve his king, be a husband and father.

His life was full of golden promise.

Northumberland, England

1422

O
uch!” Isobel sucked on her finger and set her needlework aside.

He should be here by now, should he not? She paced up and down the empty hall, glancing toward the entrance at each turn.

Where was he?

Sunlight fell across her face as she passed one of the long windows, reminding her how much she loved this house. She and
Stephen built it on the Carleton lands. It held only good memories for her.

Only this last remnant of discontent from her old life remained. Both Stephen and Robert urged her to put it to rest.

When she turned again, he was standing at the entrance.

“Father!” Her heart constricted. When had he become an old man? She gestured toward the table set up near the hearth. “I have
sweet wine and cakes for you.”

“You remember my sweet tooth.” He pulled a handkerchief from inside his tunic and blew his nose.

After pouring him a cup of wine, she took a cake for herself from the platter between them. There were so many unspoken words
between them, she did not know where to start.

“I am grateful to your husband,” he said, “for bringing the children to visit me from time to time.”

Isobel’s cake caught in her throat.

“Sir Stephen is well respected on both sides of the border,” he said. “He seems an honorable man.”

The word “honorable” hung between them like an accusation.

“His eyes shine when he speaks of you,” her father said, his voice cracking. “I need to know you are happy, Issie. Tell me
you are.”

Her happiness mattered to him.
She nodded. When she could speak, she asked, “Why did you do it?”

Even after all this time, she wanted to know.

He ran his hands through his white hair. “We lost everything. Everything. I was responsible for the three of you. Geoffrey
was so young, and your mother… she was never strong like you. You were the only one who could restore the family. I could
think of no other way.”

He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I did not believe Hume would live through the winter.”

Isobel folded her hands on the table and fixed her gaze on them. “I know men marry off their daughters for such reasons all
the time,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “But you did not raise me like other girls. You made me believe I was special.”

“You were special from the day you were born,” he said, wrapping his big, warm hands over hers. “God knows I’ve made more
than my share of mistakes, but the one thing I did right was to claim you as my own.”

Isobel’s eyes flew to his face. Could he know the truth?

“Your mother gave birth six months after we were wed.” He gave Isobel a bittersweet smile and shrugged. “I can count as well
as the next man, but what was I to do? Send her away?”

He never considered it, Isobel was certain.

“She seemed happy enough in those first years,” he said. “But when our lands were taken, she saw it as God’s punishment for
her sins. I thought if I could get them back, she…” He sighed and shook his head over long-ago regrets.

“His name is Robert,” Isobel said in a quiet voice. “I met him in Normandy.”

His eyebrows shot up, but he knew whom she meant.

“He would not have made her happy, either,” she said.

After a quarter century of traveling and philandering, Robert finally settled down. Thank God he found Claudette.

“He is a good friend now. But when I was a child, he would not have been as good a father to me as you were.”

As soon as she said the words, she knew them to be true. For the first thirteen years of her life, he was the best possible
father she could have had.

He was looking at her with such hope, such love, she felt the bands of anger around her heart give way. She leaned down and
pressed a kiss against his rough knuckles. When she looked up, tears were running down the crevices of his weathered cheeks.

A squeal of laughter tore her attention from her father to the arched entrance of the hall.

“They escaped their nursemaid again,” Stephen called out as he came through the doorway carrying one child under his arm and
holding the other by the hand.

“I found the little one outside eating dirt,” he said, tilting his head toward the giggling boy under his arm. “His big sister
told him to do it.”

Their daughter, Kate, gave Stephen a mischievous grin so like Stephen’s that Isobel felt her heart swell. Lord help her, that
child was a trial to raise.

Stephen gave his father-in-law a cautious greeting. Kate, however, ran to her grandfather, blazing red hair flying out behind
her. In another moment, she was dragging him across the room, pointing at something out the window.

“You are back early, love,” Isobel said as Stephen settled down on the bench beside her.

“I was worried,” he said and kissed her cheek. “But I assume all went well, since I did not find your father with your blade
in his heart.”

She smiled at him. “Tell me about your day.”

Stephen rubbed his hand over his son’s head as he gave his report. “We’ve lost no more cattle to raiding, and the fields look
good after yesterday’s rain.”

“Who would have thought my wild young man would make a contented farmer?” She pinched the hard muscle at his side. “I expect
you’ll go to fat soon.”

He leaned close until she felt his warm breath in her ear. “We shall both be contented, once I have you alone.”

Isobel turned at the sound of Kate’s happy shrieks ringing through the hall. As she watched her father toss the giggling girl
into the air, the last of the resentment she held in her heart cracked and melted away.