Midnight Eyes (30 page)

If he was lucky, all the time in the world.

“Do you know where we are?” Roger asked as he drew the horse to a halt.

Imogen could barely hold up her head. She had been slipping in and out of consciousness for days, but Roger’s voice always seemed to effortlessly penetrate the fog that surrounded her and bring her ruthlessly back to his world.

“The tower,” she managed to get out around the swollen pain in her throat. It was still unbearably bruised from were Roger had throttled her the night before. Or perhaps it had been the night before that. Time had blurred and now shifted fluidly around her.

“Very good,” he murmured approvingly, effortlessly swinging off his horse. Once on the ground he crossed his arms over his chest and waited. This was a new ritual. He didn’t assist her, gaining a perverse pleasure from watching her helplessness.

Imogen half-climbed, half-fell off the horse, holding tightly on to the pommel till she was certain she wouldn’t fall over. She stood unflinching as Roger slipped the rope back round her waist, tying it firmly in place. He gave the lead a sharp tug, and Imogen stumbled forward.

Roger didn’t slow his pace as he went down the steps that led to the tower. Imogen barely managed to stay upright as Roger navigated the cool underground passageway and into the ground room of the tower.

“There seems to be some things missing, Little Sister. What have you been up to?” he asked politely as he tugged her along after him.

“Robert…” she managed to say before Roger pulled her up to his side and closed his hand around her throat, his fingers covering the bruises neatly as he began to casually squeeze the air out of her.

“Of course, the late, unlamented Beaumont.” He shook his head as he said smoothly, “The man was a fool.”

He dragged her up the stairs, his hand held tightly around her throat, intent now only on ending the game and destroying the last of his uncertainty as to its outcome.

It seemed to Imogen that in no time Roger was opening the door to the topmost room.

“Damn,” he muttered, “something’s blocking the window.” He dropped his hand from her throat, but still held on to the rope as he carefully walked into the room, feeling for a lamp and flint. Finding them on a small table in the center of the room Roger quickly lit the lamp.

The light revealed a large, menacing figure standing with lethal casualness by the blanket-covered window.

In the candlelight, Robert’s face looked like an avenging angel and he smiled evilly at Roger as he reached for his sword.

“Good God,” Roger gasped in shock.

“No, Colebrook. Not God, but justice,” Robert said, his smile broadening as he struck out with the flat of his sword, sending the other man reeling.

The blow jolted Roger out of his shock and he tried instinctively to back out of the room, but he ran into Imogen, who was standing behind him. He impatiently shoved her out of his way, smiling slightly as she stumbled backward.

She barely had time to comprehend the unbelievable fact that Robert was here. Her feet caught in her skirts as she lurched from the tower room and slammed into a cold stone wall. Confused, she pushed herself off the wall, and her heart stopped when suddenly all she felt under her left foot was air. She had stumbled to the top of the stairs, and suddenly her mind flashed back to the other tower in Cornwall, to those other stairs that had claimed her sight. The tower Roger had replicated at Shadowsend to torment her. She panicked and tried desperately to find her balance in the swirling darkness that surrounded her.

She flailed out her hand, but couldn’t find anything to grab hold of. She tried to step away from the sickeningly long fall she knew was in front of her, but Roger’s reversing body blocked any retreat. As she stumbled she realized with a sinking certainty that the only thing between her and an endless fall to the bottom of the stairs was the rope that dug painfully into her waist.

A rope that was in Roger’s hands.

She was unable to stifle the scream that tore through her throat as she felt Roger jerk the rope sharply, deliberately keeping her off balance.

Roger held on to the wall of the passageway for support, his head still ringing from the stunning blow. Robert stood in front of the lamp, his body casting Roger into shadow. Roger pulled the rope tightly and Imogen stumbled again with a terrified squeak. “I had hoped you would be dead by now, bastard. I can’t help but find it inconvenient that you aren’t,” Roger said through clenched teeth, wiping the blood from his lip with his sleeve.

Robert pointed his sword at Roger’s throat, smiling broadly as it nicked the skin. “You’re not that lucky, Colebrook, and I’m not that easy to kill. Not when William has turned against you.” Robert smiled. “He has even given me permission to kill you.”

Roger pulled suggestively on the rope, enjoying Imogen’s moan of fear as she stumbled blindly down a step. Robert narrowed his eyes angrily but kept his attention focused on Roger.

“Kill me, Beaumont,” Roger said with relish. “And I’ll take your whore to Hell with me.”

“You dare threaten her?” Robert asked incredulously. “When I hold a sword at your throat?”

“Oh, I dare anything, Beaumont. That’s why I always win.”

Robert was so fast that Roger didn’t even see the thrust that pushed the sword deeply into his belly, not stopping till the blade cut through to the other side.

Roger looked down in amazement at the hilt that protruded from him, his hand reaching instinctively to pull it out even as he knew it was too late. He looked up at Robert and smiled. “But I still win bas—” He was cut off by the gurgle of blood that trickled from his lips. He let go of the rope and, with his last burst of strength, gave Imogen a surprisingly powerful push before slumping to the floor, dead.

Imogen’s scream was piercing as she felt herself start to fall. It was so sickeningly familiar that her body was already anticipating the pain of flesh hitting unforgiving stone.

“No!” Robert roared and he sprang over Roger’s body to try and catch her. He saw her falling as if in slow motion and flinched when he heard her fragile body make its first contact, feeling it as if it was his own pain. He leaped down the steps, trying to get to her, but her fall was broken only when she stopped with a sickening thud on the first landing.

She lay eerily still when Robert reached her and fell to his knees beside her. He lifted a shaky hand and gently swept her hair from her face, gritting his teeth helplessly as he looked into her pale face.

“Imogen, oh, God, Imogen,” Robert pleaded brokenly, not even noticing the tears that fell unchecked down his cheeks. He hauled her battered body against his chest and began rocking as he pleaded with her to wake up, pleaded with her to live because he loved her more than life itself.

Her silence was like a dagger in his heart.

He looked into her bruised and bloodied face, flinching inside at the deathly paleness of her translucent skin; its stillness taunting him.

“Please, Imogen,” he whispered huskily. “Please stay with me.”

Her silence echoed in his heart like a death knell.

“For God’s sake, man, sit down. Your pacing is giving me a headache,” Matthew said gruffly, but wasn’t surprised when Robert ignored him, keeping up his fevered walking from one side of the room to the other.

“Two days!” Robert burst out in disgust. “For two days she has been laying there like death and all that fool healer you got can say is that we have to give her time.”

“And the woman is right,” Gareth said reasonably and returned Robert’s glare with a sad, understanding smile.

Robert let out an angry curse and returned to his pacing, his raging thoughts whirling around his head. It seemed an eternity to Robert since he had arrived back at the Keep in the middle of the night with a broken Imogen in his arms, not caring for a moment that his anguish was clear for all to see.

He had been like a madman after he laid Imogen onto her bed—stalking around the room and roaring at anyone who dared to suggest that he should leave the local healer to do her job. In the end, after he yelled at the woman that he would kill her if anything happened to Imogen, he had been forcibly banished from the room. It had taken three of his men to drag him away from Imogen, and the healer had bolted the door to prevent his return, only Mary being allowed in and out of the sickroom.

They managed to drag him no farther than the end of the passageway before he struggled free and roared at them all to leave him alone.

And there he had remained, not leaving for anything, refusing to eat or sleep. Instead he incessantly paced or sat with his head in his hands as despair consumed him. Gareth and Matthew silently passed the vigil with Robert but were unable to comfort their friend. Neither man said that all would be well, preferring silence to lies.

For two days the Keep held its breath and waited—while Robert paced, Matthew cleaned armor and Gareth sat throwing dice.

Those were the longest days any of them had ever passed, but Robert almost wished them back when the weary healer finally stepped out of Imogen’s room just as the sun was setting on the second day. He stared at her blankly for a moment, then walked reluctantly up to her, his heart in his throat.

The harried woman barely had time to get out that Lady Imogen had just awoken before she was being shoved aside.

Robert strode into the room but stopped short when he saw Imogen lying small and still, engulfed in furs. He swallowed the lump in his throat and let his eyes devour her for a moment. Her eyes opened slowly and turned to meet his with an unerring accuracy. She smiled and the beauty of it looked out of place on her pale, bruised face.

“The healer said that you were awake,” Robert growled awkwardly, then flushed at the foolishness of the statement.

Her smile grew larger. “Aye, more awake than I have been in my life,” she whispered.

Robert’s brow furrowed. “So you are all right?”

“Better than best.” She lifted her hand slowly and covered her stomach, a satisfied smile curving her lips. “It is amazing, but our little one’s heart is still beating. It didn’t seem to mind being thrown around too much.”

Robert didn’t realize that he had moved forward until he dropped to his knees beside the bed. He lifted a trembling hand to cover hers, his eyes wide with astonishment as he felt the firm, round mound for the first time. “When Gareth told me, it didn’t seem real.” His hand caressed her gently, wonder dawning on his face. “We are going to have a baby,” he murmured in awe, hardly believing that moments ago he had been afraid that he had lost her and now here he was holding his hand atop the life they had created.

She pouted. “I should slap Gareth. I wanted to be the one to tell you.” Then her face cleared quickly and the radiance returned. “But I still have one secret that Gareth can’t spoil. I didn’t even tell the healer.”

Robert dragged his eyes away from where his large hand covered hers and looked at her questioningly.

She bit her bottom lip, unsure of what to say. She reached out her other hand slowly and ran it through his hair. “I had wondered what color your hair was after you left, but I had never asked, so I couldn’t imagine,” she smiled shakily, “but I should have known that your beautiful, brooding face could only be surrounded by midnight hair.” She turned her head to the side carefully regarding the face she was seeing for the first time, although she knew it as intimately as she knew her own, her finger moving along his cheekbone. “And midnight eyes.”

It took a second for him to understand. Stunned, he raised his hand to cover her eyes wonderingly, feeling her lashes against his palm as she blinked.

“You can see?” He scarcely recognized that unsteady voice as his own as he removed his hand and saw the truth radiating from the liquid depths of her brown eyes.

“Yes.” She pulled his palm to her lips. “I really did find justice in that tower, just like you said. Roger gave me back what he had taken from me all those years ago. I will now be able to see for myself if our baby has your eyes or mine.”

Robert felt a tear fall on the back of his hand and didn’t know if it was his or hers. They stared at each other in wonder and then slowly moved into each other’s arms. Robert buried his head in her breasts as his shoulders heaved with tears of joy and relief. Imogen just wrapped her arms more tightly around him and held him close as her own tears fell.

Now was the time for tears both happy and sad, and neither tried to stop them.

Their tears healed them, made them whole.

Made them one.

Robert swung easily down off Dagger’s back and handed the reins to the waiting groom. He looked around the bustling courtyard and smiled with satisfied pride. His improvements had come along nicely while he had been away and there was no reason why they shouldn’t be finished within the year if all went well.

The speed could at least in part be attributed to the fact that they hadn’t had to quarry stone straightaway. Robert had derived great satisfaction in pulling the tower apart block by block and, because of that ready supply of good stone, his home would be as well defended as any of the king’s castles.

Not that stone fortifications had been enough to save William, Robert thought with a slight frown. A man couldn’t live behind fortifications forever, it would seem, and away from their strength even a king was vulnerable. William had found that out while hunting in New Forest on a hot August day when a stray arrow had ended his troubled reign.

News of the king’s death had spread like wildfire, and Robert had heard many different stories. Some said Walter Tirel had shot at a stag, aimed poorly and hit William instead. Some said that Henry, William’s younger brother and part of the hunting party, had paid Tirel to shoot William deliberately. The church said that God had reached down a hand and redirected the arrow with careful precision to hit the king’s black heart.

Whether it had been a hunting accident, an assassination or the final judgment of an angry God, publicly, at least, most accepted the official view that it was simply an unfortunate accident with a fortunate outcome. Robert wasn’t so sure.

Henry was something of an unknown quantity, and Robert was wary but had cautiously joined the new king’s many supporters at the recent coronation.

In fact, that was the one definite thing he had against the man. Because of the coronation he’d had to travel to Westminster to pledge his allegiance to the new reign. He would much rather have stayed at home with Imogen and their little baby, Kathryn, than spend a month in the murky confines of the court.

He inhaled the sweet air of home and let it sooth his tired soul. Now all he needed was to hold his wife close and he would feel human again. He cast a searching glance around the courtyard but didn’t find Imogen running to meet him.

The groom grinned at Robert. “We weren’t expecting you for a couple of days yet, Sir Robert, and I believe Lady Imogen said this morning that if she had to wait forever for her errant husband she would at least do it in the tranquility of the rose garden.”

Robert nodded and strode over to the walled garden, only just resisting the urge to break into a run.

He quietly walked through the arch and hung back in the shadows, content for the moment just to watch as Imogen moved amongst the brightly colored flowers. She stopped to pick one of the blooms and lifted it to her face, closing her eyes to bathe herself in the scent for a moment, then opened them again to absorb the lushness of the color of the rose.

She gently placed it in the basket that hung on the crook of her arm, its edges already hidden with the riot of color from the varied array of flowers she had already collected. Robert crossed his arms over his chest and smiled with contentment.

Color. It was his wife’s newfound addiction and consequently his life had become filled with it.

Imogen seemed determined to make up for all those years of darkness by filling every corner of her life with the brilliance of color. Sometimes the results were a little startling, it had to be admitted, but Robert didn’t mind. To him it was simply a sign of health and happiness, and looking at her moving gracefully amongst her gardens he could feel both radiating from her.

The sudden sound of a sleepy gurgle drew Robert’s attention from the beauty of his wife. Imogen had brought Kathryn out with her, he realized with a smile. Her little basket nestled in the shade of the rosebushes and she yawned as he watched, sticking her fist in her mouth before finally giving in to sleep, obviously impervious to the nearly fully grown sheep that contentedly ate grass nearby.

Robert’s face softened as he looked at the tiny human. It still seemed amazing to him that he had a daughter, that his love had produced another life. And it was all a gift from the woman who loved him. He didn’t know how he was ever going to repay her.

Somehow, Imogen had managed to give him everything he had never dared ask for.

His heart swelled to bursting as his eyes found Imogen again and lovingly followed the contours of her slender body. He couldn’t help but admire the way she now moved with both grace and confidence, though sometimes that very confidence terrified him.

She seemed to have no understanding that there may be limits to her new strength and refused to let him lock her away so that he could keep her safe. Not that he hadn’t tried.

After she had regained consciousness, he had been prepared to tie her to the bed if that was what it took to keep her unharmed; but, of course, eventually Imogen had balked at the idea. Even when he had, rather graciously he felt, conceded that he might let her sit in a chair for an hour each day after the baby was born. She had only smiled at him very sweetly, told him that he was a dear man and that she loved him, but he was insane if he thought she was going to play an invalid all her life just to stop him from worrying.

It seemed to Robert that in no time she was out of her bed and throwing herself into life with a will. There had been no stopping her. All he had been able to do was to follow helplessly in her wake, trying to protect her from anything that might cause her harm. He had resigned himself to the fact that the only way to keep her safe was to be with her constantly—and that hadn’t been without its consolations, he remembered with a grin—but she had tolerated it only for a little while.

She had turned on him one evening and told him in no uncertain terms that it was time for him to go about his own business so that she could get on with hers. She had insisted she could no longer abide him as an overbearing nursemaid.

He had tried to tell her, calmly, that he was only being sensible, that while she seemed to be healthy, she shouldn’t forget that it wasn’t so long ago she had had a near-fatal fall and that she was pregnant. She needed to be looked after and he wanted to do it.

She had laughed, waved aside his concern, tweaked his nose and gone on her merry way, leaving him no choice but to do likewise.

Despite her condition and his fears, she had set a relentless pace, much to Robert’s horror. It was a sign of just how bad things had become that he had actually been relieved when he was called in from the fields with the news that Imogen had gone into labor. His frazzled mind had foolishly thought that at least it would slow her down a bit and give him some peace from his near-permanent state of worry.

That relief had quickly evaporated as a night and another day passed with Imogen struggling to bring their child into the world. It had been as bad as waiting for her to awake from her ordeal at Roger’s hands and, to make it worse, he had once more been banished from her side while she fought for her life, the healer already very wary of him after their previous encounter.

As time had ticked by without end, he had suffered all the shades of fear and guilt it was possible to suffer. Every time her screams reached him, he had listened with the grim knowledge that she suffered only because he had followed his animal lust and got her pregnant.

When the sound of a baby’s lusty cry broke into an unnatural silence, Robert hadn’t felt any ease in his dark guilt. It had almost brought him to his knees. The healer was wiping her bloody hands on her dress when she came and told him that all was well. He had run from the room before she had finished speaking, only reassured that Imogen was safe when he was able to brush her sweat-soaked hair from her forehead with a shaky hand and rain kisses over her exhausted but jubilant face.

“I’ll never touch you again,” he had vowed fervently between kisses. “I will live like a monk before I ever put you in jeopardy again. I promise.”

She had smiled serenely and raised a hand to his cheek. “And here was me already trying to decide what we could call Kathryn’s brother or sister.” She had let out a tired, husky laugh at the horrified look on his face.

“Not just yet, perhaps,” she murmured soothingly. “Not till I have a little rest at least.”

“Not ever!” he had roared at her, and considered that the end of the matter, contenting himself with watching over her and Kathryn through the long nights.

The days that followed had been hell for Robert as he watched Imogen struggle to do everything at once. Although she denied it, the birth had drained her already stretched resources, but she still refused a wet nurse and ignored the nursery maid he had appointed, stubbornly determined to look after Kathryn herself. Robert had been bewildered as to what he should do. He couldn’t just stand by and watch helplessly as Imogen struggled to balance the child’s needs with her own body’s need to rest and heal, and had soon found himself having to try and deal with Kathryn as he was the only one Imogen would let care for her baby.

He would have done anything if it meant Imogen could get the rest she so clearly needed, but he was a most reluctant nursery maid. The tiny, helpless scrap of humanity terrified him. He had never been around babies before, and scarcely knew where to start with his own. His hands seemed too large and clumsy to deal with such tiny limbs, but he had set his jaw and learned the mysteries of child soothing and napkin changing. In the process he found himself falling totally under Kathryn’s innocent spell.

He seemed to drown in those wide, innocent eyes that were so much like his, and was totally captivated by the smile that reminded him so much of the woman he loved. Kathryn every gurgle of pleasure became for him a prize of infinite worth, her every tear an enemy to be fought off with a will.

The newly discovered joys of fatherhood had almost been enough to make up for the self-imposed chastity. In that month before Henry’s summons he had found something approaching contentment, but that hadn’t stopped him from burning to be with Imogen.

Kathryn was now two months old, and things certainly hadn’t become any easier for him. Even now as he watched Imogen, he found himself gritting his teeth as his blood pooled in his groin. He had been able to deal with his lust before because Imogen had needed to heal, but now that she was radiating health and well-being he didn’t know how he was going to survive.

“Are you going to spend the whole day skulking?” Imogen asked calmly, without looking up. Her ability to do that always made him smile.

“I think I might skulk for a bit. After a month away, I find I’m enjoying the view.”

Imogen let out a less-than-elegant snort. “He abandons us for what feels like forever, Kathryn, and then all he wants to do when he finally finds his way back, is to look.” She shook her head sadly. “I hate to say it, but I think your father is a madman.”

She let out a delighted squeal as Robert lunged and swept her up into his arms.

“Now, don’t you go bad-mouthing me to Kathryn,” he said with mock ferocity. “How will she ever grow up respecting her father if her mother casually casts doubt on his sanity?”

Imogen smiled and wound her arms around his neck. “My girl will grow up to be a clever woman and she will make up her own mind as to the state of her father’s questionable sanity.”

Her laughter was cut short by his lips descending to cover hers. He inhaled her laughter, feeling like a starving man let into a feast. Time stopped entirely when Imogen knowingly parted her lips, and invited his questing tongue to explore the familiar territory once more. Robert didn’t have the willpower to stop, and found himself drinking deeply the taste of Imogen’s passion.

The small, catlike mew of pleasure that escaped Imogen drew him back to sanity and he groaned as he tore his mouth free. “I promised I wouldn’t do this,” he said raggedly.

“Making all the decisions again?” she asked with a husky chuckle. Deprived of the heat of his lips on hers Imogen ran intoxicated kisses down his neck to satisfy her own need for him. “Not to do this—now that would be insane.”

She lifted her gently amused eyes up to meet his. “I won’t let you put me in a dark box for my own protection, Robert. I’ve tried that, and I can’t say that I much cared for it. I’m much stronger than you seem to think.” She smiled mistily and ran a finger over his full bottom lip, sending a shiver of passion through his body. “With you in my heart, mind and soul, there is nothing I can’t do. Nothing we can’t do together.”

He kissed the tip of her finger, then moved it aside to capture her lips once more, but this time the kiss was as much about love as it was about lust. “This is still madness. We’re in the rose garden, for God’s sake. Anyone might see us.”

“Then let’s be mad together.”

And they were, surrounded by light and color, with their baby sleeping peacefully nearby, undisturbed by her parents’ love.

It truly was madness, but, oh, what a divine madness!