Chapter Twenty-Six #3
Nicola, puzzled, opened her mouth to stop her son but Kenton put a hand on her shoulder, quieting her when she turned to look at him quizzically.
Together, they watched Tab as the boy walked slowly and carefully towards the mad, old woman.
He continued through the doorway and into the darkened entry, and when the woman saw him, she came to an abrupt halt and hissed at him.
Tab jumped but he didn’t walk away. He simply extended the bread to her.
The old woman stopped her hissing, looking at the bread very curiously.
Since she ate only what she could steal, scraps from the dogs or rubbish to be burned, the concept of fresh bread was foreign to her.
She sniffed the air in the direction of the bread and, realizing it was quite appetizing, timidly reached for it.
Tab held it out, steadily, until she finally snatched it and ran off, disappearing back into her closet and slamming the door.
Tab went up to the closed door and tried to listen, to hear what was going on inside.
All he could hear was rustling and grunting.
“I shall bring you more bread tomorrow, Grandmother,” he said loudly. “My… my name is Tab. I will bring you more food tomorrow.”
With that, he turned around and headed back into the hall, where Nicola was quickly wiping tears away at the compassionate gesture from her young son.
She knew, without a doubt, that Kenton was to thank for it.
Through his compassion and honor, her boys were learning the same.
They were learning traits they would have never learned from their own father and it was yet one more thing to thank Kenton for.
“That was very kind of you, Tab,” she said as her son resumed his seat next to Kenton. “I am sure she appreciates your gesture.”
Tab shrugged, picking at his cinnamon apples. “I will bring her more tomorrow.”
Nicola smiled. “I am sure she will appreciate that.”
Kenton interjected. “That was a very gracious thing to do, Tab,” he said. “I am proud to have witnessed it.”
Tab looked up at Kenton. “Will you help me?” he asked. “What I mean to say is that she may like more food, too. Will you help me carry it to her?”
Nicola answered before Kenton could. “Kenton has many duties to attend to, Tab,” she said. “He will be quite busy tomorrow, I am sure. He has only just returned to Babylon, after all. I will help you carry the food if you wish.”
He will be quite busy tomorrow. Kenton heard the words, thinking that now might be the best time to mention that his plans for the morrow were set.
As much as he wanted to put it off, he knew that he could not.
Nicola needed to know and the longer he waited, the worse it would be.
He might end up not telling her at all and not leaving Babylon, and that would not be good for any of them.
Sooner or later, Warwick would come after him and he didn’t want that.
He had an obligation to the man that he had promised to fulfill.
“You have brought up a very good point, love,” he turned to Nicola, gazing into her lovely eyes. “In fact, I will be quite busy tomorrow. I have duties to fulfill that will take me from Babylon, so at dawn tomorrow, I will be leaving.”
The warm expression vanished from Nicola’s face. “Leaving?” she repeated, her brow furrowed. “Where are you going?”
He reached out and put a big arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him.
He simply wanted to feel her against his flesh, memories to keep him sane for the days and weeks ahead.
For a moment, he simply looked at her, thinking of what to say.
He ended up kissing her cheek to soften the blow for what was to come.
“Warwick still has need of me,” he said quietly.
“I was almost prevented from coming back to Babylon because of it. It would seem that Edward is gathering a force and moving south towards London. Warwick must prevent him from getting into the city and he requires my sword. I could not deny him, you understand. The man had just freed me from Edward’s clutches and to refuse would have been to appear ungrateful and insubordinate.
I have no choice. He has already taken de Russe, Wellesbourne, and le Mon with him.
Conor and I will be departing Babylon tomorrow to join them. ”
Nicola’s expression changed during that speech; at first she was concerned, then resistant, then even angry, to finally saddened.
Kenton watched all of those things roll across her features, an inkling of what she was feeling as he explained his immediate future.
When she finally spoke, there was resignation in her tone. She was trying very hard to be brave.
“Where are you going?” she asked softly.
He shook his head. “I do not know yet,” he said. “All I do know is that I will go to Warwick Castle first but after that, I do not know. It will depend on Edward.”
“How long will you be gone?”
Again, he shook his head. “I have no way of knowing, love,” he said.
“It could be one month or six. That being the case, I hope you will understand when I say that I do not wish to wait to marry you. I will marry you tonight so that when I depart tomorrow morning, I will be bidding farewell to my wife and not simply the woman I love. You are, and always will be, everything to me. As my wife, you will become more than that. You will become all of me.”
Nicola was struggling not to weep. To have him back at Babylon, so briefly, and then cruelly taken away again was almost more than she could bear.
She lifted a hand to his cheek, a tender and comforting gesture, and Kenton kissed the palm of her hand, waiting for great arguments to come forth.
He knew she did not want him to leave; he could see it written all over her face.
But to her credit, she was not making a spectacle of herself by begging him to remain for she knew it would do no good.
Kenton was a warrior; Warwick’s warrior, his attack dog, and someone Warwick have also risked much to save from Edward.
He owed the man.
“But you will come back, won’t you?” Nicola finally murmured, tears filling her eyes. “You will not forget about us?”
He pulled her close, kissing her, hearing her soft sniffles in his ear.
The twins were crawling all across the table, chasing one another now, but neither Nicola nor Kenton seemed to notice.
They were completely focused on one another and on the painful poignancy of the moment.
Another separation was coming and there wasn’t anything either one of them could do about it.
The finality of it was in the air, heavy, like a weight bearing down on them both.
Nicola finally buried her face in his chest if only to feel him, and smell him, something she would cherish always.
“I will come back,” Kenton whispered against the top of her head. “There is nothing on this earth save death that will prevent me from returning to you. Do you believe me?”
Face still in his chest, she nodded. “Aye.”
“Swear it?”
“Aye.”
He put his hands on her cheeks, pulling her away from his torso.
Head cupped in his big hands, he gazed into her eyes intensely, as if this one powerful look was enough to seal his promise to return more than words ever could.
He wanted her to understand that he meant what he said and that he would not fail her.
“I cannot tell you how much I love you more than I already have,” he said huskily. “You already know that you are the very air I breathe. You belong to me and after this night, we will be a part of one another more than any two people have ever been.”
She nodded as if she agreed with him, accepted him, but then suddenly she threw her arms around his neck, so forcefully that she hit him in the Adam’s apple. As he coughed, the boys, seeing their mother throwing herself on Kenton, thought it was a game and threw themselves on him as well.
Suddenly, Kenton was being piled upon by three little boys.
Tab had him around the neck from behind, Teague had an arm, and Tiernan had climbed onto the table and now tried to drape himself over the man’s head.
All the while, Kenton was trying to stay focused on Nicola but he simply couldn’t do that any longer when Tiernan ended up falling over his face.
He started to laugh and Nicola laughed right along with him.
“I will have to become accustomed to this, I suppose,” he said as he lifted Tiernan off of his neck and set the boy on his feet. “Either that, or we will have to train them not to interrupt us when we are speaking.”
Nicola was gently pushing Teague off of Kenton then pulling Tab’s hands from around the man’s neck. “Tab, please take your brothers up to your chamber,” she said. “Do this now. I will be up shortly.”
Tab obediently climbed off the seat and took Teague by his tunic sleeve, pulling him along until he came to Tiernan, whom he also grabbed. As he pulled the whining twins from the hall, Kenton called out to him.
“Tab,” he said, watching the boy come to a halt and face him. “I have something I would like to say to you and your brothers. Come back here.”
Dutifully, Tab went to Kenton, still holding on to Tiernan and Teague, who were starting to struggle with their older brother. Kenton put out a hand to still the tussle, forcing the three boys to look at him.
“I have something very important for you three to do,” he said seriously. “You will listen to me now. I am leaving in the morning and I am trusting the three of you to watch over your mother while I am away. Will you do this?”
The three of them nodded solemnly. They had heard parts of the conversation between Kenton and their mother but they were still a bit too young to understand what was happening; at least, the younger boys were. Tab was coming to comprehend more than his brothers were.
“Where are you going?” he asked.