The Longing (34 page)

“Susanna?”

She floundered for her place in the conversation. “Then your mother has agreed that I may come to Stern?”

“Aye, I received her reply several days past and would have told you sooner had you accepted one of my invitations to again join Abel and me at meal.”

Having determined it best to remain as distant as possible so that her ties to him might be more easily undone when they parted ways, thrice she had declined.

“God willing, I will not have to impose upon her,” she said, “but I am grateful.”

He nodded and lowered his gaze over her. “You look well.”

And felt well, her stomach having mostly made its peace with her, such that she had begun to drink only half of the draught before her meals. “As do you,” she said—lamely, she realized when he raised his eyebrows and peered down his front.

In that moment, Susanna’s eyes strayed as she had told them they could not and settled upon his blond hair. The sun had lightened it as expected. Doubtless, given the chance to lengthen further, one day it would once more tempt a woman’s hands to thread fingers through its golden strands.

“’Twas unseemly to come to you like this.” he said. “I apologize, but I did not think the tidings should wait, and I must return—”

His sudden silence jolted her, and she realized her gaze remained fixed upon his hair. Feeling herself warm, she lowered her eyes to the solemn depths of his own. Did he know her thoughts?

At the least, he knew the direction they had traveled. Thus, it seemed no further damage could be done by asking, “Will you not shave?”

“I will not.”

“Why?”
That
she should not have asked, but just as her eyes had not consulted her, neither had her tongue.

“Eleven years is a long time,” he said as if that were explanation enough, then he stepped near, laid a calloused hand on either side of her face, and tilted her head up to meet the descent of his own. “I have missed you,” he said, the warm breath upon which he spoke all that separated their lips.

And how I have missed you. How heavy I feel at the sight of you coming and going so far below my window, ever looking ahead, never looking up.

This time he did not seek permission to kiss her. As his mouth covered hers, she mentally closed herself in with him to keep out the dissenter that warned she should not do this.

Taking in the salty male scent of him, an odor that should have offended but did not, she started to lower her lids—then sprang them wide. With Everard, she did not need to close her eyes, did not wish to blunt the memory of him as she had aspired to do with those who had come before him.

At least, not now. Later, when this can never be, you will wish you had.

As he coaxed her lips to part, she determinedly studied his face, for her lids were so long in the habit of covering her eyes that they kept trying to descend. His skin was tanned, somewhat weathered as was expected of one who spent his days out of doors, his jaw firm and bristled with hair darker than that atop his head, his cheekbones broad and defined, and the grey-green color of his eyes…

Unseen, for he had lowered his lids, unlike—

The memory twisted its way up out of her oily depths, and she saw again the man-at-arms who had first known her mouth. Horrified at the true cost of being let back inside the walls, she had stared wide-eyed at him as he pressed her hard against the gate, bruised her mouth and cut the insides of her lips against her teeth, made her bile rise and, throughout, stared back at her out of eyes better suited to a hideous, hungry thing than a human. For that reason—that vile memory that would not be pushed down deeper—she had learned to keep her eyes closed.

“Susanna?”

She caught her breath, which was more easily done now that Everard’s mouth was no longer upon hers.

“You watch me,” he said.

And you do not watch me. Do not see me.

Humiliated at having provided more evidence of how deeply she felt for one who could never feel the same for her, she took a step back. Only when he lowered his arms to his sides did she realize that, other than his hands upon her face and lips upon hers, his body had not touched hers. He had held himself apart.

So that he might not further offend her senses? To combat temptation?

Does it matter?

Too weary to worry if her question would sound like a lie, she said, “Was I watching you?”

His lids narrowed. “Mm.”

She shrugged, turned and crossed to the window, and settled her arms on the sill to peer out at the farthermost reaches of the training field beyond the walls.

Finally, she heard Everard’s boots crush the rushes underfoot, but before he departed, he asked, “Will you again decline supper in the solar?”

She looked over her shoulder. “I thank you, Lord Wufrith, but I am content to take my meals here.”

He inclined his head and turned away. When she could no longer hear the sound of his boots, she lifted a hand to her mouth and slid her fingertips over the places he had been. Memory enough…

“I should have closed my eyes,” she whispered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

On the morrow they departed, but this day was the same as the other six days of the week when pages, squires, and those who trained them commenced the day with a run through the wood.

Every morning since being given the front-facing tower room, Susanna had risen before dawn to watch from her window as they poured out of the donjon into the torchlit baileys and gathered outside the walls where Sir Rowan said they donned weighted belts before setting off. This morning, however, she watched from between the battlements, leaning into the embrasure as she tried to locate Judas among the many. She found him moments before he surged forward beneath the inner gate’s raised portcullis.

Though it was impossible to know with certainty which of the young men was her nephew once they reached the outer bailey, she continued to watch and then to pray for him and the others—that their ventures into the dark over rough terrain and alongside the waterfall would be without mishap.

“Amen,” she said and opened her eyes to set them upon the outer training field from which Judas and the others would shortly depart. Instead, a voice averted her attention, and she looked down upon the unmistakable height and breadth of Everard and his short blond hair of which torchlight seemed particularly fond. It was Sir Elias with whom he conversed on the lower steps of the donjon, but though the bailey was now empty save for the two of them, they spoke too low for her to catch their words. Then Sir Elias curtly nodded and strode toward the outer bailey.

Susanna watched Everard as he stared after the other man until he went from sight. When he turned and looked up, she nearly pulled back but stopped herself with the reminder that he could not see her in the shadows between the battlements. Still, she did not think it imagined that she felt his gaze—was certain he knew exactly where she stood.

As his torchlit eyes held her unseen ones, she felt the ache in her chest bloom. “I love you,” she said softly, knowing it was the only time she might be able to speak the words to him, wishing he could hear them but glad he could not.

A smile curved his mouth, then he descended the steps and followed after Sir Elias.

Though Susanna meant to return to her chamber, she was drawn across the roof to those other battlements against which Everard and she had sat on the night she had told all and he had pulled her onto his lap and kissed her.

As she neared the door in the roof through which they had come, she felt a pang and, to her surprise, realized she missed the tower room below. It was silly, for she had felt more like a prisoner there and yet…

It was where she had become acquainted with Everard Wulfrith who had grown out of the young man with whom she had been besotted and into one worthy of far more than infatuation. It was where she had fallen in love.

She halted alongside the door, considered the wall against which she had sat with him, then turned aside. As she did so, she caught a glimmer at the base of the battlements.

Careful to keep it in sight, she crossed the roof. The moment she pinched it between thumb and forefinger, she knew what it was, for it was eleven years familiar to her. She held up the ruby, and moonlight passed through its crimson facets.

Everard must have dropped it when he had embraced her, just as she had lost hold of her necklace. But why had he not retrieved it? Even if impossible to find in the night, surely he could have found it in the day. Or perhaps not.

Determining she would once more return it to him so it could be restored to his dagger, she retraced her steps to the front of the donjon.

Shortly, she bid Sir Rowan a good morn where he had appeared outside her chamber.

He showed no surprise that she had been on the roof, for things were much changed since she had moved to her new chamber—so much that when he left his post to attend to personal needs, no one was set outside her door to relieve him.

He smiled at her now and said that her morning meal had been delivered to her chamber. She thanked him, hesitated, then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.

He stiffened. “Lass? What is it?”

She lifted her head. “You have shown me such kindness that I am saddened to know I shall see you no more after the morrow.”

She felt his muscles ease. “It has been my privilege to serve you, my lady, though I would not be surprised if we meet again.”

She nodded. If her fate was to become a companion to Everard’s mother, it was a possibility. Lowering her arms, she took a step back.

“May I ask a favor of you?” he said.

“Anything.”

“When you meet Lady Annyn at Stern Castle, would you tell her she is ever in my thoughts and prayers?”

Remembering his tale of the young woman who had been like a daughter to him—who had stolen into Wulfen Castle to kill a Wulfrith, only to steal his heart and have hers stolen in return—she said, “Most assuredly, Sir Knight.”

He caught up her hand and pressed a kiss to the backs of her fingers. “You would make him a good wife, Lady Susanna.”

She caught her breath, coughed to clear the saliva that sought her lungs. “Sir Rowan?”

He released her hand. “Now it remains to be seen if his wits are as sharp as his brother’s.”

She did not know how to respond to that, did not know if she was expected to. Thus, she forced a smile and slipped into her chamber.

“He means well,” she whispered and set her thoughts elsewhere.

He could never get near enough. But this morn…

Morris looked up. This morn had enough unclouded moon that he was certain he would be able to pick Judas de Balliol from among the young men who ran the wood. Now all he had to do was wait.

Convulsively, he gripped the handle of the dagger that had last cut the throat of the plump hare he had eaten raw lest a fire drew the notice of Wulfen’s patrol.

Disgustingly sure of themselves, the young men held to no discernible pattern that would have allowed him to relax his guard. He would have liked to think it a result of negligence, but he knew the reputation of Wulfen and was certain the patrols ran exactly as planned—never giving any of ill intent a moment’s peace. Thus, he was exhausted and impatient, two states that would serve him poorly if he was not cautious.

“Come Judas, the betrayer,” he muttered where he leaned against a tree just down from where the young men would cross the waterfall’s upper pool. “Come and let us see you returned to the arms of your harlot mother that I might have my reward.” The harlot Susanna de Balliol.

He chuckled. It was redundant to name either of them a harlot, for all women were of that bent, were they not? Certainly in his experience—

He stilled his hand upon the dagger and snapped his chin to the left whence came the sound of dozens of feet that would become dozens more before the one he sought came within reach.

With a satisfied sigh, he slipped to the backside of the tree so moonlight would not reveal him. And when the first of the squires who always outpaced the pages came into view, he looked beyond the tight group who vied to remain out front and muttered, “Be of good cheer, Judas, your wait is near over. As is mine.”

The sound of feet, labored breathing, grunts and occasional shouts rising above the water’s fall as the young men pounded past, he relaxed his shoulder into the tree’s bark, knowing it would be some minutes before he could put his dagger to good use. One thrust would do it, more if any others got in his way.

As expected, moonlight revealed the boy. As not expected, the weakling whom Morris had caused to lose his breath nearly long enough to slip through death’s door, was far from bringing up the rear which would have seen him seized and gutted. In fact, Judas de Balliol was so near the front of the pack that not only was he untouchable due to a lack of preparation, but it would have been impossible to separate him from the others without having Wulfen-trained young men turn on him. And he was not one for dying foolishly.

Muttering curses, he slammed his back against the tree and glared heavenward. “This time You did not do well, did You, Lord?”

Minutes later, when his prey and the other whelps were beyond his reach, he thrust off the tree and started back across the wood to where he would await his next opportunity. Or make it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“There is your prey,” Everard said low. “Bring it to ground.”

Judas looked over his shoulder at him. Squinting against the early afternoon sunlight that shone through the leaves, he nodded, then turned to the one at his side. “I am ready.”

“Let us go,” Squire Charles said.

The two moved cover to cover, bows at their sides, arrows nocked the sooner to fly once the grazing deer was within range.

When they gained more distance, Everard would follow, keeping them in sight so that, regardless of the outcome, he could assess their strengths and weaknesses to aid in bettering their skills.