Chapter Sixteen #3
“He survived, Sheridan,” he said gently.
“Sean was in London with Gilby. He thought you would be at Abergavenny with me, which is why Gilby sent the missive there. The missive asked for me to bring you to London, yet I knew that I could not. Not with the baby. So I went to retrieve Sean to bring him back to you.”
By this time, Sean was nearly upon them.
Sheridan hardly heard any of Guy’s words; she was focused on her husband’s smiling face.
Guy backed away as Sean knelt timidly beside his wife, his expression one of utter tenderness as he beheld her face for the first time in ages.
For a small eternity, they simply stared at each other.
Sheridan remained frozen until Sean finally spoke to Guy.
“You were supposed to prepare her, de Braose,” he said. “I see that you did not do an adequate job. She thinks I am a ghost.”
The sound of his voice was all Sheridan needed to snap her out of her trance; she suddenly threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him so hard that she threatened to strangle him.
Sean laughed softly and enveloped her in his massive arms, feeling her life and softness.
It was better than he had remembered; words could not adequately describe the elation of the moment.
It was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered, his hands in her hair. “Are you all right, sweetling? Say something.”
Sheridan was literally speechless. She refused to let go even when he tried to pull her away from him so he could get a good look at her.
“Nay,” she gasped. “I shall not let go. If I do, I will wake up and this all will have been a dream. Let me dream a little longer.”
Sean gave in to her request and held her tightly.
For the first time in his life, he turned himself over completely to the weakness of emotion, closing his eyes and feeling the tears course down his cheeks.
He’d never truly allowed himself such a lack of control.
It was the most magnificent moment of his life.
“It is no dream, sweetling,” he murmured into her hair. “I told you I would come for you no matter what. I am sorry it has taken me so long to live up to my promise.”
Sheridan had a death grip on him. “You survived.”
“I survived.”
“I do not believe it.”
He laughed softly. “Believe it. It is the truth.”
She suddenly pulled her face from the crook of his neck, her luminous blue eyes glistening with tears of joy.
She was weeping again, but this time from disbelief and jubilation.
She ran her fingers across his wet cheeks, then his lips, and he kissed them tenderly.
But it wasn’t enough; he pushed past her fingers and latched on to her mouth.
He kissed her with something more powerful than joy or passion; it was love in its purest form.
“My God,” Sheridan breathed as his mouth left her lips and moved over her face. “Father Simon told me not to give up hope.”
Sean inhaled her scent deeply; there were times when he never thought he would smell it again. Tears were still in his eyes as he kissed her neck, her cheek.
“I am so sorry to have caused you such torment,” he murmured. “To ask for forgiveness seems wholly insufficient.”
She shook her head, touching his face as if still convincing herself that he was real.
“There is nothing to forgive,” she insisted softly. “I told everyone that I would not believe you had died unless they provided me with proof. Until I had your dead body within my grasp, there was still hope. I never let it die.”
He smiled faintly, kissing her again just because he could. “I never let it die, either.”
As she gazed back at him, her expression suddenly turned wistful. “Tell me what happened after I left you. Why did you not send me word before now?”
He sighed, shifting so that she was more comfortable. But it only managed to bump her belly against him and he looked down at her swollen midsection, putting his hand reverently against her stomach. He seemed to lose his composure again as the tears welled once more.
“A baby,” he said, caressing her rounded belly. “Guy told me. I could not have imagined such a blessing. ’Tis a miracle.”
She smiled weakly, watching his awe-struck expression. “The physic says that he believes it to be twins.”
Sean’s eyebrows flew up. “Twins?” he repeated, awed. “Sweet Jesus, is he sure?”
“He seems to be.”
“Do you feel all right?”
She laughed joyously. “Now that you are in my arms, I feel wonderful,” she sobered. “Please tell me what happened after we parted at the Tower.”
He continued to rub her belly, distracted by the surprise of her pregnancy and struggling to focus on her question.
“The Marshall took me from the Tower to a manor he owns in north London,” he replied softly, looking up from her belly and focusing on her face.
“I lost consciousness at some point very soon after you fled with Guy and Father Simon. I do not remember anything until waking up almost a week later. For a very long time, I lingered near death. Gilby thought I was dead many times over but somehow I always managed to prove him wrong. When I had been infirm for about a month, a nasty infection set in and I was incapacitated for almost two months. Gilby never left my side, doing everything he could to be rid of the infection. But my body was so weak by that point that he could not rid me of it entirely. It kept coming back.”
Sheridan listened with tremendous sympathy, kissing his hand, his cheek, as he spoke. “My poor Sean,” she murmured. “But I am so thankful that you did indeed survive.”
He wriggled his eyebrows wearily. “It was a long road, believe me.”
“But why did Gilby not send word to me? I would have come to be with you during your illness.”
He looked at her sheepishly; now came the meat of his confession.
“I would not let him,” he told her. “I was convinced that I was going to die and I did not want him to notify you that I had survived my initial injury only to receive word that some random poison had just as quickly claimed my life. It was selfish of me, I know, but I did not want to put you through that hell. Better that you believed I died on that fateful night than suffer emotional highs and lows of health issues that seemingly had no end.”
She sighed faintly, understanding his reasons but distressed by them nonetheless. “I love you, Sean,” she insisted softly. “I was my right to know.”
“I realize that. But I suppose in my own mind I was trying to protect you.”
“So you would permit me to believe you were dead so I could marry Guy and get on with my life?”
“Something like that,” he murmured, feeling stupid even as he said it. “But the months passed and I slowly grew stronger. And along with my health, my resistance against the king returned.”
She looked at him, shaking her head after a moment. “Always the king,” she murmured. “You were on your death bed yet still you thought of the rebellion.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You must remember that the last nine years of my life have been dedicated to the opposition against the king. I did not want to waste my hard work. I did not want the Shadow Lord’s reputation to be in vain.”
She understood somewhat. “So what did you do?”
He sighed, pulling her on to his lap so he could feel her belly against him. His chin rested on her shoulder as he spoke.
“I joined the barons in Runnymede last month for the signing of what they are calling the Magna Carta,” he told her. “It is a document that is meant to give rights and fairness to all. It is meant to end tyranny.”
Her eyes widened. “I was supposed to be at that meeting but could not travel because of the baby. Do you mean to tell me that you were there?”
“I was.”
“Jocelin was there in my stead. Did you not see him?”
He shook his head, thinking on the document he had helped author yet would never receive credit for. He wasn’t even sure he would ever tell Sheridan. Perhaps some things were better left unsaid.
“I knew he was there but I did not want to reveal myself,” he replied. “I did not want him to be the one to tell you that he saw me there, alive, when I had not yet contacted you.”
Sheridan’s thoughts turned from the great Magna Carta signing, something which the entire country was now aware of, to the fact that Sean had been well enough to travel to the signing. But still, he did not contact her and his behavior was puzzling. More than that, it was hurtful.
“I fail to understand why you did not send word to me when you were well enough to move about,” she said honestly. “You should have.”
He kissed the shoulder that his chin was resting on.
“I did send word as soon as I was strong enough to do so,” he murmured.
“Assuming you were with Guy, I had Gilby send word to Abergavenny in late May. It took time for the missive to reach the Marches, but Guy was not there. His father sent word to him at Lansdown, prompting Guy to meet me in London. I told him to bring you but he did not. He explained why. So I accompanied him back to Lansdown.”
It was a complicated series of events that took time to execute but the explanation made sense.
She understood everything perfectly and suddenly, the delays and illnesses didn’t seem to matter any longer.
He was here and he was real and such happiness as she had never known swept her.
She put her hands on his face, focusing on his clear blue eyes.
“And so you are here,” she said softly. “Now what do you intend to do?”
He smiled, his eyes glimmering. “I intend to claim my wife and wait for the birth of my sons.”
“And after that? What about your commitment to William Marshall and the resistance against the king?”
He shook his head. “With the signing of the Magna Carta, I am finished,” he told her. “I have given enough to king and country. From now on, my devotion is to my wife and family. The Marshall has had enough of my time. The rest of it is yours.”
Tears filled her eyes again. “Swear it.”
He kissed her gently. “I swear on my oath as a knight that my devotion is to you and no other. I will never leave you again.”
She threw her arms around his neck again and held him tightly. Sean swallowed her up in his big arms, silently thanking God that he had been given another chance at life with Sheridan. He would not take it for granted.
When Father Simon, Alys, Gilby, Neely and Guy finally joined them at the lake a nominal amount of time later, there was joy in the reunion.
Even Sheridan’s mother embraced him like a long-lost son.
The very cause that had drawn them all together had indelibly linked them for life and a tremendous bond had been forged, never to be broken.
For nine years, Sean had been hated and feared.
But now, he felt nothing but love and companionship.
Even from Guy, who had become more of a friend than a rival.
On the trip from London to Lansdown, they had made their peace and Guy eventually became Sean’s brother-in-law.
It made the nine years as the king’s shadow a horror of the past, like a faded memory. It simply didn’t matter anymore.
The Shadow Lord died on that cold January night; Sean de Lara, however, did not.
He lived through the Magna Carta and the cause that he had fought so hard to ensure.
He lived through Lansdown and Trelystan and the other holdings he had procured.
He lived through the Chronicles that his wife had kept for safekeeping and in the love he had for her.
Most of all, he lived through the nine children that he and Sheridan eventually had.
The beautiful twin girls born in October of that year were only the beginning.
The de Lara legacy lived on.
* THE END *