Chapter Ten
Cortez awoke to movement in his bed.
It was dark in the room and he could feel something up against his belly, something warm and soft. He could also hear a whispering voice, too. Without moving his head, he opened his eyes to little slits and looked down at the midsection of his bed, just in time to see Sophie standing there.
She had something in her hands and as he struggled to focus in the darkness, he could see two kittens and a baby rabbit up against his torso.
Sophie had the fox kit in her hands, telling it that it would be safe now as she put it next to the others.
Then, she took hold of Cortez’s blanket and covered him back up with the baby animals nestled against his belly.
Like any good mother, she was tucking them all in.
“Sophie?” Cortez whispered. “What are you doing?”
Sophie turned to Cortez and, seeing that he was awake, went over to stand next to his head. “I am putting them to bed with you,” she told him.
“Why?”
“Because they were afraid.”
“I see,” he replied, looking at her sleepy little face. “How do you know they are afraid?”
She turned and pointed to the cage, now open, nestled next to the nearly dark hearth. There was hardly any fire at all. “They were shivering,” she said. “They were afraid.”
It was very cold in the room with the fire out and he suspected the animals weren’t afraid as much as they were simply cold.
He thought he should get up and stoke the fire but didn’t want to move too much with four small animals tucked against his torso.
He opened his mouth to say something but the stabs of tiny claws as the kittens happily kneaded the skin of his belly had him wincing.
Cortez’s deep, dark secret was that he was ticklish as hell, and the baby claws were about to send him into fits.
“Ugh,” he grunted as tiny stabs poked at him. He tossed the covers back and went straight for the scratching kittens, picking up the entire menagerie in one big hand. “Sophie, sweet, can you please bring the cage over here? We should put them back so I may rise.”
Sophie obediently padded over to the cage on the floor and picked it up, bringing it over to him. Cortez took the cage, gently putting the animals back inside. Then he closed the door, sitting up on the bed. Both he and Sophie hovered over the cage, inspecting the little animals.
“I will find them clean straw before we leave,” Cortez told her, looking at her little blond head. “Have you fed them yet this morning?”
Sophie shook her head and Cortez patted her on the top of her soft hair, rising from the bed.
His bare feet met with a very cold floor and he headed over to the fireplace to stir the embers a bit.
As he moved, he happened to glance at the other bed only to realize that it was empty.
Diamantha was missing. Fear gripped him.
“Sophie,” he tried not to sound panicked. “Where is your mother?”
Sophie shrugged. She was more interested in the animals. “She left.”
Cortez was already yanking on his boots. “Where did she go?” he asked, fear in his tone. “Did she say where she was going, sweet?”
Sophie shook her head again, her hands in the cage as she petted her kittens. Cortez didn’t linger. He secured his last boot and bolted to the door. He paused, however briefly, before exiting as he looked pointedly at Sophie.
“You will say here,” he told the little girl. “Do you understand me? Stay in this room and do not leave.”
Sophie nodded again and even looked at him, her big eyes staring straight at Cortez.
He could only pray she understood what he was telling her, so he rushed out of the room and shut the door.
As he seemed to recall, the child had a habit of slipping away.
He didn’t want to have to turn the town upside-down looking for an errant little girl.
There were soldiers in the small corridor and he headed straight for them. “Where did Lady de Bretagne go?” he demanded.
The soldiers, three of them, pointed towards the stairs. “She went that way, my lord,” one of them said.
Cortez was already moving to the rickety old stairs. “The little girl is still in the chamber,” he told them. “Make sure she stays there. In fact, one of you go into the room and sit with her. Keep her in your sight and keep her safe at all costs.”
The soldiers nodded but Cortez didn’t stick around to confirm the understanding of his orders.
He was already flying down the steps, his gaze searching out every corner of the common room looking for Diamantha.
It was full of people sleeping on the floors, on the tables, but no sign of his wife.
His wife. It still seemed odd to think that way.
He had a wife again and it was the best feeling in the world.
It was also the most vulnerable. He would have been devastated if something happened to her before he got the chance to truly know her.
When she was out of his sight, he felt frantic.
Vulnerable. As he charged towards the entry, he heard hissing behind him.
Whirling around, he saw Diamantha coming in through the rear entrance to the tavern.
She was gesturing at him, trying to get his attention.
Relief such as he had never before experienced washed over him, rendering him weak.
After a deep breath and a hard swallow to regain his composure, he went to her.
“Where did you go?” he asked, trying not to sound demanding or accusing. “I woke up and you were gone.”
Diamantha was back in her traveling clothes, the heavy dark blue woolen dress and cloak. In fact, she appeared refreshed and lovely in this early hour. She pointed to the door she had just come through.
“The privy is outside,” she said softly. “Why? Where did you think I went?”
He should have assumed it was something so simple. He knew she would never have run away, leaving her daughter behind, and felt rather foolish that he had reacted so. He put a hand on her elbow to escort her back to their chamber.
“I thought a gang of savages had abducted you,” he said, trying to cover for his lack of faith. “I was coming to save you.”
She smiled at him, an astonishingly beautiful gesture in the weak light of dawn. “Like you did last night?”
He returned her smile. “For you, my lady, I would do that and more.”
Her smile broadened at his rather gallant reply. “I did not thank you for your chivalry,” she said. Then, her smile faded. “I was a bit upset, I suppose. I have never had anything like that happen before.”
His smile faded as well as he lifted his eyebrows, perhaps in resignation of a world full of dangers.
“Hopefully you never will again,” he said as the reached the steps leading to the upper floor.
“Which brings me to my next point, for your own safety, you should never go anywhere unescorted, even if it is to only find the privy.”
She paused on the steps and looked at him. “Oh,” she said thoughtfully. “You are correct, I suppose. I did not think of it that way.”
He nodded as he urged her up the stairs. “You said yourself that you’d not been out of Corfe much,” he said. “Traveling as we are, the road is wrought with dangers. You must trust that I know best in these things.”
They reached the top of the stairs and she glanced at him. “After last night, I would say that you know a great deal more than I do about the world in general.”
“It can be an unpredictable place.”
“That is putting it mildly,” she agreed. “But I seem to be traveling with my own guardian angel and for that, I am truly grateful. You are a sight to behold in times of need.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. It was a sweet compliment and one that made him nearly bashful…
him, bashful? He didn’t think it was in his arrogant nature to be bashful, but evidently it was.
Lady de Bretagne had brought that out in him with her gentle accolade.
Therefore, for lack of a better reaction, he merely smiled at her as he took her back to the room where her daughter had let the animals out of their cage and they were now running wild in the room.
As Diamantha dressed Sophie for the day, Cortez found himself wrangling baby animals and putting them back in their cage.
But he didn’t really mind. Seeing Sophie’s happy smile when all of her animals were safe and sound somehow made it all worthwhile.
In fact, waking up to her sweet little face had been one of the best things he’d ever done.
He knew he could get used to it; he could grow to depend on it.
That, and waking up to Diamantha every morning.
There was something about that thought that seemed to make his entire life complete.
As the sun began to break the eastern horizon to reveal a rather clear and bright day following an evening of a massive storm, Cortez and his party were on the road again, heading to points north.
*
After the wild rains from the previous day, the brilliant blue day of travel seemed rather surreal.
Everything was crisp and green, and more than once they saw fallow deer grazing in the meadows.
The road, however, was rutted and still very muddy, making it difficult for the wagons to pass.
Cortez’s soldiers had to keep breaking rank to get in behind the wagon carrying Sophie to push it out of a hole.
Eventually, Sophie wanted to ride General, who had been growing very fat and lazy being led around and constantly fed by the soldier in charge of the horse provisions.
About three hours since their departure from Shaftesbury, Cortez put Sophie on General and strapped her onto her little saddle.
But Sophie wanted to ride with her cage of baby animals and Diamantha had to convince her daughter that it was best to let them remain in the wagon.
Sophie wasn’t happy about it but she did as her mother instructed.
After that, Diamantha took General’s reins and led the pony next to her.