Chapter 14 #2
Rafe caught the braid in one hand, looping the end around his palm once, twice. His eyes were still closed, but he was smiling. He brought his hand to his mouth and kissed the braid around his hand before letting it go. “Definitely a good way to be roused in the morning.”
“You’re still dreaming,” she retorted, straightening up again.
He chuckled, and sat up on his blanket. “A whole night alone with me, and you’re not even a bit ravished,” he said cheerfully. “Disappointed?”
A tiny part of her was, actually, but she just sniffed, pretending to be annoyed. “Certainly not!”
He wasn’t fooled, to judge by how he laughed at her tone.
“Well, I am,” Rafe said. Then his demeanor became serious. “We’d best get moving. Who knows if someone chose to keep pursuing you, but the further away we get from the path we were on, the better off you’ll be.”
“Would they assume we’d continue on to the abbey?”
“That’s the logical guess, based on what everyone has heard. Certainly, no one would expect us to be here. Chance brought us to this place.”
She nodded. “Then let’s move on. Let chance help us stay hidden, for now.”
They had so few supplies that packing up was easy. They made their way out of the room and toward the ground floor.
Just at the top of the stairs, the hem of her dress got caught under her shoe and she stumbled. She flung one arm out to the wall to get her balance, but that same moment, Rafe’s arm circled her waist and held her firmly on her feet.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes scanning her anxiously.
“Yes. I just tripped. My dress got snagged by something.”
They both looked down and there indeed were a few long threads of her gown, caught by a splinter in the floorboard. Rafe relaxed, loosening his hold a little.
“I worried you might be having another fit.”
She shook her head. “No. The symptoms of that are entirely different. You’ve seen them.”
“By the time I found you, you were already unconscious,” he pointed out. “So I don’t know how it looks when it begins.”
“Well, I’m not suffering from another fit,” she said, hoping to reassure him. “Just a rough floor.”
Angelet became conscious of just how close they were, and remembered the way he’d kissed her the evening they’d been out during the moonrise. Just how terrible a person would she be if she wanted a little more of that closeness? “Rafe…”
“Yes?” The way he was looking at her suggested he might be thinking along the same lines.
I accept your offer. Angelet took a breath. No, she couldn’t say that. “You can…you can let me go now.”
He released her. “You’ll tell me if you ever start feeling unwell.”
“Of course.”
Rafe stepped around her and offered his hand.
“I can walk down a flight of stairs myself,” she said. “I’ve done it for years.”
“I believe you.” Still he didn’t budge.
Finally Angelet put her hand in his. “If you insist.”
“I do insist, my lady.”
She allowed Rafe to escort her all the way from the second floor, rather enjoying the attention. She’d been so used to being ignored at Dryton, where she was expected to fend for herself.
The innkeeper’s wife gave them bread and cheese, and even some sausage. Angelet smiled when she smelled the loaf, still steaming from where it had been resting in a warming oven.
“We should eat now,” she told Rafe. “It’s a shame to let this get cold.”
He glanced at the door, obviously tense. “No more than a quarter hour,” he said. His nose twitched a little. Even he was susceptible to the aroma.
It took less than ten minutes to devour all they had in front of them. Rafe paid for another two loaves before they left. Angelet also saw him mutter a few words to the innkeeper’s wife as he offered her a coin. The woman nodded vehemently.
“What did you tell her?” Angelet asked, once they stepped outside.
“I suggested that she forget what we looked like, should anyone come asking.”
“Will that work? She’d probably make just as much profit again to remember.”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. Some people only need a little aid for their sympathy. Either way, I can afford it.”
“Can you? How much money have you got? We hardly got anything away from the cortège.”
“I always keep my money on me,” he said. “And I have some supplies in Philon’s saddlebags. A lesson learned long ago. And as for how much I’ve got, Lord Otto paid well to see you safely to your destination.”
“Speaking of which, what is our destination now? I don’t even know where we are!”
“Nor do I, exactly. Somewhere south of Glossopdale, evidently. But the innkeeper’s wife said we’re already on the best road in this part of the shire. I think we can follow it till we reach a town of decent size. Then we’ll decide.”
He helped her onto the white horse. Not for the first time, Angelet considered the puzzle of Rafe’s personality. He was such an odd combination, deferential yet arrogant. He claimed he was only out for himself, yet he noticed the instant she showed any sign of distress and was ready to help her.
They followed the road, which ran roughly southwest, though with many twists and turns due to the increasingly hilly landscape.
They rode in silence, each intent on their own thoughts.
For her part, Angelet couldn’t stop thinking of how someone had spirited away a lifetime’s worth of precious coin with no one the wiser.
“Here’s an idea,” Angelet said suddenly. “Someone drilled into the chest from the bottom, and got the gold out that way. You didn’t notice a hole in the chest because it all happened in the middle of a fight, but it’s possible.”
He shook his head. “Even if someone had the tools for that—an awl? A saw?—he would have made too much noise. One of us would have seen or heard something. There was a man to guard it at all hours.” From how quickly Rafe responded, she realized his mind had been on exactly the same subject.
“But what…” she started to say.
“What?”
“What if one of the other guards was an accomplice? Or was promised payment to keep his mouth shut?”
“If it was a guard,” he asked, “who? Who would you suspect?”
“Not Simon!” she said instantly. “Nor Laurence or Marcus.”
“So quick to absolve.”
“I just know you and your friends wouldn’t have done this.”
He smiled at her confidence. “Thank you. But that puts the blame on Otto’s very own men. Does that make sense?”
“Gold makes men strange,” Angelet said. “Still, I don’t know which of them might have been the culprit, or how they might have done it.”
“I was trying to remember all the shifts the men took. On the second night, Dobson and Tad also shared a watch. Perhaps they did steal it then, and hid the gold somewhere nearby.”
“But why keep traveling with us?”
“To allay suspicion, or to simply get further from the gold, so that no one else could chase after it. Perhaps they were wary of news getting back to Dryton too soon. I’m not sure.”
“If they did steal the gold on the second night, why try to kill me a few nights later?”
Rafe shook his head. “Again, I have no answers. Maybe Tad had enough stomach for theft but not for murder. So then Dobson tried to murder you on his own and when it went wrong, Tad lied about his involvement to save himself.”
“If Dobson had killed me without raising an alarm, then he and Tad might have taken the chest out of the inn, but then emptied it and abandoned it. Everyone would still think the gold was just stolen. But they would have been able to run away much faster—because they were actually unburdened. Then they’d go back to where they’d hidden the gold once the search for them died down. ”
“That’s plausible. But there’s no proof.”
“Does proof matter at this point?”
“I’d like to know the truth,” said Rafe, “or at least enough of it to explain my own innocence.”
She frowned. “Why should anyone blame you?”
“Why not? Otto will seek to blame someone once he gets word of the loss. And I rode away from the skirmish after the empty chest was discovered…taking along his daughter-in-law.”
“I see your point,” Angelet said, “but I am also your defense. I will explain that I kept the key the whole time, and that everything you did was to protect the chest, and me.”
Rafe gave her a skeptical look. “Women aren’t considered suitable witnesses in a court. Particularly not beautiful, rich, unmarried women who travel in the company of the accused man for days on end.”
“Oh.” He was right. “Then we’ll just have to ensure that doesn’t happen. We’ll both find somewhere safe.”
“And where in all England would that be, my lady?”
Angelet sighed. “I know not. But there must be a place, and we will find it.”