Chapter Eight #2
Sheridan picked that moment to awaken. Much to everyone’s surprise, she suddenly raised an arm and slapped Guy across the face.
Startled, he lost his grip and she almost tumbled to the floor.
Only his quick reflexes prevented her head from striking the stone.
Sean, as fast and agile as a cat, was on his knees beside her just as another hand came up.
He grabbed it before it could strike Guy again.
“Bastards,” she was half-awake, spouting obscenities. “I’ll kill you both. Let me go. Let me go, I say!”
Sean knew her mind was not clear. Before he could speak, Alys leaned over her.
“Dani,” she said softly. “’Tis all right. I am here.”
Sheridan’s luminous blue eyes lolled open. They kept rolling back into her head. “Alys?” she whispered. She blinked several times. “Where am I? What is happening?”
“We must leave the Tower,” Alys told her. “Sir Guy… well, he is helping us….”
Sheridan was dreadfully groggy. She looked at Guy, then turned to Sean. Her eyes widened. “Sean,” she whispered. “You are here, too?”
“I am here.”
Guy could see in that moment, by the expression upon her face, that the feelings Sean de Lara had expressed for Sheridan were very mutual.
It was a disheartening awareness. But Guy wasn’t accustomed to surrender; it did not come easily to him.
His father had taught him that. He knew that he would not relinquish Sheridan without a fight.
Sean still held her hand. Before Guy could stop him, he tugged gently on her arm and pulled her right up into his cradling grasp. They were smiling at each other, very glad to see one another. Guy’s momentary surprise turned to resentment.
“No, de Lara,” he said firmly. “She must go with me. I must remove her from the Tower at once.”
Sean tore his gaze away from Sheridan long enough to cast de Braose a malignant glare. Strangely enough, he did not speak the multitude of threats that were on his mind. He saw no need now that Sheridan was in his arms.
“She will be removed,” he said quietly. “But it will be under my protection.”
Guy was normally a very calm man. What he did in the next moment was uncharacteristic.
He unsheathed his weapon, a blade used in many battles by his forefathers, and leveled it at Sean.
He ceased to become the calm, pleasant man he had established a reputation as.
He became what his family had built their foundation on – a warring, confrontational de Braose.
“She is not yours, not by rights or by law,” he said, as sternly as his mild-manner would allow. “Release her to me and I will forgive everything. Refuse and I shall be forced to defend what is rightfully mine.”
The smell of battle was in the air. Sean had inhaled the heady scent too many times not to know it, not to feel it. He carefully put Sheridan down, holding her steady as she wobbled on weak legs.
“Go with Alys,” he told her. “Alys, take your sister away from here. Go back to your apartment until I come for you.”
“Nay,” Sheridan shook her head, unsteadying herself to the point of nearly falling. “I’ll not leave you. What is happening here?”
As Sean thought of a simple explanation for the events of the past few moments, Guy spoke.
“Jocelin has offered a betrothal between you and I,” he said. “I have accepted.”
Sheridan wasn’t overly stunned. Her father had been trying to marry her off since she had been fourteen years of age.
Five years later, Jocelin had taken the mantle of matchmaker.
She knew her worth as an heiress, and Guy seemed like a kind young man.
Certainly he was well connected and an alliance between St. James and de Braose would be a smart one.
But the fact remained that she did not want to marry him.
“Sir Sean and I have an understanding of betrothal,” she said as considerately as she could. “Jocelin was not aware of this when he spoke to you. He did not speak with my permission.”
“But he spoke on behalf of your father, who has asked this of him,” Guy said. “My lady, I mean no disrespect, but surely you are aware of Sir Sean’s… loyalties.”
“I am.”
“And yet you would still marry him?”
“I would marry the man, not his politics.”
“But they are one in the same. You are heiress to the House of St. James, one of the king’s strongest opponents. To marry the king’s personal protector would be to forever ostracize your family from her allies. You would be alone, ruined. It would be political suicide.”
She knew that. Seeds of doubt began to take root.
Perhaps she was being too selfish in only thinking of herself.
But looking at Sean, the way the man made her feel, she could not imagine living without him for the rest of her life.
Still, she could not shake the feeling that all of this might only be a passing infatuation.
She’d only known Sean a matter of days and already she was willing to risk her family’s future because of her own selfish wants.
Confusion and distress, coupled by the residual effects of the drugs that Gilby had given her, weakened her normally strong resolve.
Sheridan took a few steps back, grasping Sean gently by the arm.
She pulled him back, almost to the door, so that they could speak privately.
Her lovely face turned to him, the light from the fading moon casting shadows on her features.
From her expression, it was obvious that there was much on her mind.
“When I look at you,” she murmured, “all I see is what I want, not necessarily what is right.”
He understood what she meant. He had been wrestling with the same thing for days. “And when I look at you, I am willing to forget everything I have worked for, everything that I am, just for the chance to spend the rest of my life with you.”
She smiled ironically. “What a pair we make.”
“Indeed.”
“But is it right? I mean, is what we desire the right thing to do? We both risk so very much.”
“I would risk my life for a chance to be with you, however small.”
She put her hand to his cheek and he clapped a massive hand over hers, holding her warm flesh against his. There was tremendous sense of longing in that sweet, brief touch.
“As sudden and irrational as it seems, I would as well,” she murmured. “But I have so much more to consider than just myself. There’s Alys. There are my family’s holdings. When you demanded marriage of me, I…”
“Demand? Did you say demand?”
“Aye, demand,” she lifted an insistent eyebrow at him. He grinned, and so did she. “I did not think of anything other than myself. Now I am forced to think of everything other than myself.”
“Are you saying that you would rather marry de Braose?”
“Nay,” she shook her head. “I would rather marry you. But I am not sure if it is the right thing to do.”
He sighed, his gaze moving across the doorway, out into the yard, back into the corridor, finally falling on Guy and Alys. After a moment, he refocused on Sheridan.
“I have only known you days,” he said quietly. “But in order to answer your question, I must trust you. Trust is not easily given, not in my profession. What I tell you must never leave your lips. If it does, I will die. Is this understood?”
He was serious. She nodded her head. “Aye.”
He took a deep breath. It was difficult for him. “I am not what you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Allied to the king, part and parcel to his madness. My position with him is well calculated.”
She still didn’t understand. “I am not sure….”
“I am a spy, Sheridan.”
It took a moment for the implication to sink in. Her eyes widened. “You… you spy for…?”
“For William Marshall. I have for almost thirteen years.”
Her hand flew to her mouth, covering the big “O” that had formed. “Sean,” the hand came down so she could speak. “What are you telling me?”
He grabbed her by both arms, his grip firm and warm and powerful.
“I am telling you that my true title is Viscount Trestylan. I have lands and holdings in the Welsh Marches that my family has held before the Norman conquest. But my devotion to my country is so great that I would risk everything to help the resistance against the tyrannical king, as my father did before me. I chose to become a hated man because it is better to be at the right hand of the Devil than in his path. Most of the information you and your allies have been fed has come directly from me. I know all, see all. But in order to maintain the illusion, I have been forced into some unsavory choices and actions. I am, therefore, very much an ally to the House of St. James. When you marry me, you will indeed marry a collaborator. Only no one can know about my true loyalties until John is unseated and we have a new king upon the throne.”
Her mouth was back to forming the astonished “O”. The expression on her face was something he would remember for the rest of his life.
“My God,” she breathed. “Is it true?”
“I swear upon my honor.”
“That explains why you lied to the king about the assembly of nobles you saw in my apartment that night. And it also explains why you saved Alys from his lust.”
“I saved Alys from him because I did not want you to be hurt. Had Alys been any one of the hundreds of other women passing through the king’s bed, I would have let him have his way with her. I would not have risked myself.”
Her hands threaded themselves around his fingers, tightening. “It… it is so difficult to believe all of this.”
“As it should be. I have worked hard to establish my reputation.”
“Who else knows of your true loyalties?”
“A select few, no more than I can count on one hand.”
Several feet away, Guy shifted, noise from his armor echoing against the walls.
It reminded them that they were not alone and that time was very short.
As much as Sheridan wanted to linger on Sean’s revelations, she knew their time together was quickly coming to an end. She began to feel a sense of panic.
“What do we do now?” she asked. “I do not want to marry Guy.”