Chapter 28
Edward took Windfar and left the castle bounds. The horse took off, running with the wind. Together they streaked black and silver across the good green fields of England.
He needed space. And he needed it now!
Lily had lied to him. How could she?
His fury would not abate. He needed distance between himself and his conniving, deceitful wife! He desired this as a man needs air. As a flame requires fuel.
Was this lie another way of her withholding herself from him? Could she? Was it possible that he might never make her his own?
“I will never give you my heart, never,” she had warned him right from the start. It infuriated him.
No matter which way he viewed it, it added up to the same thing. He might not win her love, not ever. Reason seemed to flee. The harmony they’d enjoyed since coming to Ravensworth had come to an abrupt end. He could hear Fate’s spite hammering at him from all sides.
Edward knew himself. He must seek out the dark corners of his heart where dwelt things he’d locked away.
Windfar gave him sanity. He was the spirit of freedom made manifest. Who could ride such a creature and not feel the potency of his stride, the soaring of the blood in the wake of his speed?
Way out beyond the curve of the teardrop lake, horse and rider finally halted. Edward dismounted, setting Windfar loose with a word of praise. He sat in the grassy field, gazing ahead but seeing nothing. He chewed upon a long blade of grass and tried to set his feelings in order.
He remembered persistent grievances and hauled them out to nurse them once again. The latest one rankled the most.
Obviously, it was her fault! All of it. His discontent. His anger. Was this going to be his lot? This… this taunt of hers that he could not shake from his mind? “You cannot have my heart, never!” she had told him. “I will guard it from you.”
In the beginning, it had meant nothing to him, merely another of her girlish objections to his suit. But that was then.
Why had she neglected to tell him she was with child? Why? She would hold back her secret self from him, hide from him so he could not take her heart? Could not take that part of her? The question had taken on the odor of poison.
As for the babe—everyone would know at some point. Many would know way before she showed.
Hellfire, he knew already. One look at that delectable body and a blind-faced rat could have told her that.
Surely, her maid knew. Her aunt had returned to her home a few days ago; otherwise, she could have been approached, perhaps?
Bad enough, but then what might have been ignorance or negligence had turned into treachery!
She’d lied to him. Deliberately lied, with sweet, honey-dripping words. She pretended… telling him she needed some time because of her monthly flux.
She’d even had the audacity to blush.
And as if to irritate him further, there was the simpering, giggling play between her and his besotted squire. Under the guise, if you please, of making poetry. It was not to be borne.
For nearly a month now, he had kept his ire suppressed. His every word and gesture in her presence, he’d laced with courtly charm. It had almost killed him, but he’d wanted to give her time to confess of her own volition.
Nothing. Not a word. At least not an honest one, but instead, bashful cheeks and lies.
And what could he do about it without seeming tyrannical, as she liked to accuse him? It irked him to reopen that dialogue.
Her fault!
Frustration pricked him. The sun beat mercilessly on the back of his head. He squinted up at the sky. Hot and blue it sat like a pudding bowl high and far away.
He should swim in the lake, as he and his brother had done as boys. He hadn’t for some time, and he enjoyed it even if it was considered odd. But then lords did what they liked and none there were to gainsay them.
Thomas had been the better swimmer of the two, the only thing his elder brother ever did better than he. In all other things, Edward had bested him.
He had always been ambitious, and Thomas…he had always been his closest friend in every possible way. From a young age, they’d been devoted in loyalty each to the other, forming an impervious bastion against the merciless monstrosity that was their father.
All that Edward had done, all he had trained for and accomplished, had been to secure Thomas’s earldom.
That alone had enraged his sire. Roger Ravensworth believed his sons thought themselves better than he, and in this, he was not entirely wrong.
Even so, there’d been nothing he could do, for both boys had been the king’s men and high in royal favor.
Prideful and dark, Roger had found a way to torment them through their little sister. At age twelve, he had given her in marriage to an elderly reprobate who, within a year, ensured her death in childbed.
It was, Edward knew, a story too common to be remarked upon. Little Katherine had soon faded from the memory of many, and only Edward was now left to remember her, for within a month Thomas had been taken, too, lost to the ravages of fever from some paltry wound.
He mourned both his siblings a decade on. It made him go dark still that Thomas had been carried away by disease. Ironically, Thomas’s death coincided with Edward earning his spurs and finally standing ready to be his bodyguard. To protect him in all things.
He’d not been responsible for protecting his young sister from death, but he had been charged by the king with protecting Thomas.
He had not succeeded.
Edward had always believed that his abject failure had moved the Almighty to give him a chance to redeem himself. It allowed him to offer his protection to Prince Henry on Shrewsbury’s field of honor, and not incidentally, secured for himself the lasting friendship of a prince.
He wondered vaguely what Thomas would have made of Lily.
He must ride to France soon alongside Henry. Would that he could use her love as a shield against fate, should it turn against him. Did he leave a son mayhap? Why had she withheld the truth?
“Could you tell me, brother, what I should do?” he asked, but no reply came to him. The dead did not speak to the living; he knew only too well.
He wanted to confront her. He wanted her to give her confession to him freely. He wanted the moon, the inconstant moon as Lily called it.
A glance about told him he was alone. In the distance, he could see the tiny figures of the guards as they patrolled the outer wards. Should something untoward occur, he knew a trumpeter would sound the alarm.
With a last look about, he stripped off his clothing and his riding boots. With care, he laid aside his sword and the hunting knife he kept in his boot.
The water felt good. He stroked out and felt his taut muscles unknot, eased by the movement and the cool, clear water. He dunked his head below the surface and came up sputtering, and as he did, his eyes kindled. There on the bank before him grew a single pale lily flower. A sign?
He would take it as such. He plucked it with eager fingers. Golden pollen fell in drifts upon his hand, and its scent rose up to greet him.
For just a minute, Edward closed his eyes. He levered himself out of the water and stood looking up at Ravensworth gleaming in the distance, proud and high, and he knew.
He knew with certainty what he must do. Lily must confess all. He wanted her to tell him about the babe she carried. And he wanted her heart. The two were linked. There would be no hiding places for her. He would take matters in hand, and that was an end of it.
* * *
Lily lifted the vellum square to get a perspective of the composition.
Yes, she thought, dabbing her thin paintbrush into the tiny mound of crimson paint, red and rich it sat on her color slab.
Just the perfect color for the raiment. She’d decided to paint a likeness of each of Edward’s personal guards as gifts.
But this one was for him. So far, it pleased her, and she thought she had captured His Arrogance well.
Speaking of which… the din coming from the passage outside left her in no doubt that her husband had returned at last. He’d been gone most of the day. No one had seemed to know where he’d vanished to or why, but—
The door burst open. There he stood glowering at her, clutching either side of the frame. His head sat low on his shoulders, thrust belligerently forward.
“So, there you are,” he growled.
Lily looked about the chamber, bewildered. “Where else should I be?”
“Don’t you give me all innocence, Lily. I won’t have it.”
“Are you drunk, my lord?”
“I don’t get drunk. I get—”
She laughed. “What you get is arrogant? Yes, you do. It’s your natural state.”
“You dare laugh at me?” he hissed.
“My lord, you confuse amusement with scorn, and I assure you, I have something other than scorn for you,” she said with a small smile.
That smile seemed to dance a bit around the edifice of Edward’s scowl.
His bellicose voice softened just a bit. His argument lost some of its heft. “That is yet to be seen.”
He had come here for a confession, and that is what he was going to get. His black brows gathered more thunder as he wavered between their bargain and his righteous anger. He had promised to give her space to speak. And, he had—a whole month he had given, and for it he had received nothing.
“Fine,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “go ahead. Tell me what you have to say. I will have no missish obfuscation, I warn you.”
That outburst earned him a bewildered shrug. “Just who is it you battle here? Why so angry? Can you not simply discuss things with me instead of threatening the end of the world?”
He closed his eyes as if trawling the space between them for patience. He failed.
In three strides, he had her in his arms, his powerful body dominating her.
If he hoped for intimidation, he got the opposite.
She did not struggle but sank softly into his chest, her breasts plush against him so that even through the layers of his tunic, he could feel the exquisite lure of their roundness.
“Lily,” he said finally in a dark voice. “Do not insult me by pretending you don’t know what has angered me.”
“I do know,” she told him. “I just did not want to speak of it. I still do not,” she said and slid her arms around his neck, her fingers curling through the raven black silk of his hair.
He hesitated then, his anger flowing away in confusion. “Why?”
“Because once you know, you will send me from your bed. You are very protective, Edward, I know. And you would not wish to harm our child, but the thought of being sent away distresses me.”
Lily did not see the impact of her words, but she felt his response. His hand came up to cradle her head, holding her against his heart. She felt him plant small kisses across her brow, a sort of benediction and proof that he saw her dilemma.
“And you did not wish to go?”
She shook her head.
“I am more than pleased to hear it, for you need not concern yourself on that score, my lily flower. You will not be banished from bed or my life. And I do not know where you got such a notion from, but it is nonsense; the babe cannot be harmed. I know. I made certain.”
“How?”
Edward chuckled. “Henry’s physician, Thomas Morstede, assured me.”
It was only later that night, as he cradled his beautiful wife against his sated body, that he realized he had solved one problem, but the other, the more important one…that had not been resolved. And that one involved Lily’s heart. He had not the means to control it.
It was perhaps the most insurmountable obstacle he had ever faced.
Only she could give it. He could not force it or take it from her.
In his life, he had withstood sieges, bombardments, repelled the onslaught of enemies, stormed breaches, but never had he faced an impenetrable bastion such as Lily’s heart.
For the first time in his life, Edward had not the slightest idea how to go about winning this last and most vital contest.