Chapter 11
Horland would have liked nothing better than to stay there with Briana resting against him.
He had only known her for a short time, but when he saw the wolf about to attack her, his chest exploded in pain at the thought of losing her and he nearly ran the wolf through with his sword.
He hadn’t thought about it before then, but he was enjoying her company and was somehow glad she’d decided to stay with him.
As he stood between the canine and the beautiful but strange woman, he noted the animal had been suckling cubs.
That was when he threw his sword away. He knew what it was like to be an orphan and he couldn’t kill the cub’s mother.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew Briana would think highly of him for that decision.
And he was right—the way she looked at him when he told her about the cubs said she admired him at that moment.
And that made him feel like a giant among even the tallest of trees.
He gazed at her sleeping face and shook his head. There was something about her that drew him in. He fought it at first but now, he decided he wanted to get to know her better, find out if there was a mutual attraction.
He sighed and nudged her awake. “It’s time to go.”
She lifted her head and sat back. “Thanks for being my pillow.”
He smiled at her rubbing her eyes. “My pleasure.”
She covered her mouth and yawned. “Do you think Garlain has his wife with him?”
“I do.”
“But what is that to you? He’s her husband and if she wants to spend some alone time with him, she can.”
Horland looked off over the clearing, not seeing anything.
“You think he’s done something to her.”
It wasn’t a question, and Horland had no answer.
Nothing about the situation made sense to him.
Garlain, Patricia, King Pradwick, Princess Leeta, all were keeping something from him.
He regarded Briana. She fingered the hem of her cloak in a nervous fashion.
He hoped she wouldn’t become frightened by what they found at the end of their journey, but he wanted to talk to her, to tell her his concerns.
She was so open and perhaps she would have some insight that he could not attain.
He gave a small shake of his head. “I don’t want to believe it.
Before I left to tour of the kingdom, they were happy and so in love, it was hard to be near them for any length of time.
I was not a party to their feelings; in fact, I could bear watching them no longer, so I volunteered to tour the kingdom and report how it fares to the king. ”
He looked ahead without focusing. “But when I returned two years later, I learned that Garlain and Patricia had a baby girl and while that should have been a cause for happiness, there was a sadness soaking the walls of the castle as I walked the corridors. The king and his daughters would not confide in me except to say Sir Garlain had left and they did not know when he was to return.”
He regarded Bree with a sigh. “You are new to the kingdom, so you don’t know the king as I do.
He and Princess Leeta were keeping something important from me, I am sure of it.
I never had the fortune to speak to Morla, one of the other princesses, but his youngest daughter knew little.
However, she did come to her own conclusions. So too did Garlain’s sister.”
Her eyes widened and she gasped. She had read her mother’s diary and while all the royals and some knights had been mentioned, Garlain having a sister was not. “He has a sister?”
“Yes, but why does that surprise you? Many knights have sisters or brothers or both.”
“I don’t know, I guess because you never mentioned her before.”
Horland studied her face. She appeared thoughtful. He was thankful she listened so intently to his story.
“Simone, Garlain’s sister, was grieving the loss of her brother and asked me to find him.”
He picked up a small stone and threw it onto the cold fire.
“She was the only one who told me Garlain and Patricia had a girl child. Simone was overjoyed but soon became disappointed that she never got to meet her niece because Patricia and her baby never returned to Pradwick. However, when Garlain returned, he did so without his wife and child.”
Horland paused. None of what Simone told him made sense.
“Go on,” Briana said, smiling encouragement.
Horland shook his head. “Simone said Garlain was at first so angry, a maid told her he rampaged about his room, breaking everything in his reach. Later he became morose and stayed within his rooms, allowing no one in. Simone feared he had lost his mind and gone mad. Reflecting on what I knew, I could only surmise something terrible happened to Patricia.”
“I don’t think Garlain did anything to her.”
“How would you know? You do not know Garlain, you do not know Patricia, you do not know anything.”
“Fine then, tell me about Patricia.”
He wasn’t in any hurry to continue to the ruins; he was content to stay and converse with the strange woman from a strange land. Since his return, he had felt so alone in his quest to find what happened to his friends, and with her open and encouraging visage urging him to speak, he did.
“I met her at the king’s ball the night before the tournament. Mark and Dianne, close friends of the king, arrived with her in their company. She was Dianne’s twin sister, and all the knights were smitten by her beauty. She was the most beautiful woman there, even more beautiful than her sister.”
“Yeah, you already said that.”
He smiled. Was that envy he heard in her tone? Mayhap any woman would prefer not to be reminded there were other beautiful women in the world.
“Not only that, but she is also a capable woman and, like you, not afraid to speak her mind. She is brave and feisty. Before she came to Pradwick, she had not ridden a horse, and she confessed her fear of their size, but she did not flinch when Garlain lifted her into the saddle and once he explained how to use the reins and her body to guide the horse where she wanted it to go, she practiced every day at dawn until she could race Garlain and me and win.”
Briana’s eyes widened. “Where were your parents? They shouldn’t have let you race adults.”
Horland drew his brows together and glared at Briana. “What? Do I appear so young to you? I am thirty-three summers and if I’m not mistaken much older than you are.”
“A few years, yeah, but you would have been a child when Garlain and Patricia met, and you shouldn’t have been racing horses. You could have been killed.”
“Mayhap I have confused you with all my talk. I know not how you could think that I was a child then because I am but a few years younger than Garlain.”
“Hang on. When did Garlain and Patricia meet? When was the tournament?”
“Three years ago.”
“Three years?”
The woman looked like she was about to cry. “Why would that trouble you so?”
She bent her head and pushed her fingers into her forehead as if trying to diminish a headache.
She gazed up at him and breathed in and out deeply. “My head hurts a little but really, it’s okay. Please go on.”
Horland regarded her. Was she telling the truth? She did look as though she was in pain; mayhap her headache caused her to become confused.
“Garlain’s and Patricia’s story really started at the tournament.
She was already a fine archer and Mark told me she had won many a tournament in their land.
In fact, that was where she and Garlain first met.
She, dressed as a young man, bettered him in the archery tournament where he hoped to win the prize. ”
“What prize?”
“Princess Leeta’s hand in marriage.”
Briana’s eyes widened again. Horland knew he told a good story, but he wouldn’t have thought anything about it was so surprising. However, Briana seemed surprised ofttimes throughout the telling.
“Garlain wanted to marry the princess?” Briana asked.
Horland chuckled. “He thought he did, but when he unmasked Patricia, and even though he tried to make the king see she couldn’t compete in a royal tournament because she was a woman, he was smitten from the first look.
Princess Leeta was happy a woman had won the tournament and she insisted all tournaments should include any woman who thought she had the skills to compete, and the king agreed.
Garlain acted wronged and angry over the decree, but I knew he was secretly thankful not to have to marry the princess. ”
“How do you know? He might have been in love with the princess.”
“I know when a man looks at a woman, like he looked at Patricia, he is lost for all time.”
“So Garlain loved Patricia. Did you too?”
“I liked her very much, very much indeed, but love? No.” He smiled at his memories of the other strange woman from a strange land. “However, I believed that he did when I left.”
“But not now?”
“I don’t know. From all that I heard from his sister, he was a changed man when he returned without his wife and child.”
“Maybe she left him? Maybe she found someone else?”
“I have also debated that in my mind, but it could not be so. Patricia worshipped Garlain, so much so, she even let him win the next tournament.”
Briana laughed. “Did he know?”
“Yes, but he didn’t tell her he knew. That is how in love they were—they would have done anything for one another.
” He shrugged. “Perhaps they confided in one another in a time I wasn’t privy to.
However, none of it makes sense and for Garlain to leave Pradwick castle is completely against his nature.
His loyalty to the king and his sense of duty would not let him leave his position as the head of the king’s guard. ”
Briana placed her hand on Horland’s forearm.
Just like earlier, his heart jolted, and tingles shot up his arm.
He gazed at her long fingers and noted her short nails.
She was not a pampered woman—she worked with her hands.
He kept still in case she took her hand away.
“Maybe something happened to Patricia while they were away, maybe something terrible, not something he did, but something he couldn’t stop. ”
Horland set his jaw. Could that be true?
An accident, perhaps? A sickness? But what of the child?
Wouldn’t Garlain have returned with her?
It didn’t make sense to Horland why Garlain would leave the castle, leave his friends and family, leave his duties.
He was not the man to do so before he met Patricia.
Had he changed so much in such a short time?
Horland pulled his legs under him, ready to stand up. “It is time to go.”
Briana stretched, her eyes squeezed shut and her arms high in the air. Horland couldn’t help but stare at her lengthened frame. The darkness of her emerald-green dress accentuated her red hair, and that in turn highlighted her creamy neck.
She opened her eyes and their gazes met. A pink blush filled her cheeks and his heart lurched at her beauty. The fact that she blushed told him she had seen him eyeing her like a drunken knight fresh from the latest battle.
Something about her look drew him in like an ant to sugar.
But he couldn’t take his eyes off her, he couldn’t turn away, and he didn’t want to.
The amber flecks in her eyes darkened as her gaze flicked to his mouth.
She sucked her bottom lip, and he could stand it no longer.
He leaned forward and caught her lips into his.
They were as sweet as they appeared. He placed his hands gently on her shoulders and pressed his mouth harder against hers.
She made a small noise deep in her throat at his move and then pulled away immediately.
She jumped up. “You’re right, it’s time to go, I’ll wake the girl.”
Horland sat there, unable to move. What had just happened? How could he have lost control? He’d dishonored his knight’s title. He studied her jittery movements. Had he scared her?
He’d thought earlier how glad he was that she accompanied him, but now that he was seeing her as the wondrous woman she was, he worried about becoming too close to her. He also worried his confused brain might put them all in danger.
He swallowed. He had to keep his distance from her, he had to focus on his objective, and that was to find Garlain, Patricia, and their baby.
Briana woke the child and helped her put on her cloak.
Horland squatted to let the child climb on his back and walked in silence to his destination. They weren’t far from the ruins, and if Princess Morla was there, she was another person he wanted answers from.
He quickened his pace—they only had just over an hour’s light left in the day, and he wanted to make as much progress as he could within that time.
Briana matched his steps and asked questions about the environment as she was wont to do. He liked her curiosity but decided to ignore her. He had to keep his wits about him; he had to know what happened to his friends.
Whether in his heart or mind, he didn’t know, but a feeling, a notion had filled his being that Patricia was indeed not safe, that something dreadful had happened to her.
He mashed his lips together in a tight line.
He didn’t want to think it, but the thought that Garlain had done something to her wouldn’t leave his mind.
Garlain had a temper, a fire that matched his flaming red hair.
If he saw anyone hurting someone, he would be the first knight to rush in and make the offender rethink their actions.
Horland gave his head a shake. His heart said Garlain would never hurt a woman, but his head argued that Horland didn’t know what a man might do when confronted with something that could make them go insane.
He glanced at Briana and shook his head. The right woman could indeed send a man mad.