Chapter Sixteen #2
Kress was in his mail and tunic, but without his helm or weapons. His blond beard and golden-blond hair looked glorious in the morning sunshine as he came over to Cadelyn and put his big hand on her forehead. He grunted.
“You are feverish, too,” he said, turning to Susanna. He frowned at her. “Are you ill, also?”
Susanna nodded reluctantly. “I fear that I am.”
Kress pursed his lips, irritably, and shook his head. “Then get out of here and go find a bed somewhere,” he said. “I will tell Sherry we cannot travel today. We can allow you both one day of rest. I think the escort would appreciate that, too, after the day we had yesterday.”
Cadelyn tossed back the covers which, so far, had been up to her neck. “Susanna can get into bed with me,” she said. “No need to put her elsewhere.”
But Kress tossed the coverlet back on her. “Pah,” he said. “You will never get well if Susanna stays with you. You shall keep giving each other the sickness. She will go recover elsewhere. Achilles, go find that woman a bed. Get her out of here.”
Susanna didn’t even protest when Achilles pulled her out of the chair and, subsequently, out of the chamber. When the door shut softly behind them, Cadelyn turned her gaze to Kress.
“She really could have stayed with me,” she said quietly. “It would have been less trouble to take care of us both in the same place.”
Kress shook his head. “If she is in here, I cannot speak with you alone,” he said flatly, removing his gloves and tossing them onto the table. “How do you feel, really?”
Cadelyn smiled as she lay down in the bed, pulling the covers up around her head. “Terrible,” she said. “But wonderful.”
“How’s that?”
“Wonderful because you are here.”
He eyed her before breaking into a weak grin. “There was a time I would tell you not to say such things to me.”
“Has that time passed?”
He lifted his eyebrows, going to sit in the chair that Susanna had occupied. “It should not have,” he said. “But after what happened between us last night…”
He trailed off and Cadelyn rolled onto her side, propping her head up with her hand. She studied him a moment. He seemed more relaxed around her but not particularly happy. There was a glimmer in his eye when he looked at her, but not a spark that told her he was wildly thrilled about all of this.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t know why.
“I think that you are a man with much on his mind,” she said. “Would it be better if we spoke on it?”
He shook his head. “Mayhap. But I am not sure there is anything you can say to me that will ease my dilemma.”
“I can tell you that I shall love you for the rest of your life. Would that help?”
Kress looked at her sharply, his eyes widening. He was out of the seat before he realized he’d moved, already at the door. He put his hand on the latch but didn’t lift it; he simply stood there with his eyes tightly closed.
“Bloody Christ, do not say that to me,” he hissed. “Why did you have to say that to me?”
“Because it is true.”
He opened his eyes, let go of the latch, and whirled to her. “It cannot be true,” he said angrily. “I did not come into this chamber to hear that. I do not want to hear it again.”
Cadelyn was surprisingly calm. “Why not?” she asked. “Could it be because you are feeling the same thing?”
He stared at her and his pallor turned an odd shade of pale. Then, he rushed the bed, sitting on it and grasping her hands tightly. His face was very close to hers, his blue eyes intense.
“It does not matter what I feel,” he said in a hushed tone that was wrought with emotion. “Cadie, I never should have done what I did last night. It cannot happen again.”
Cadelyn could see the torment in his eyes.
“I never meant to trick you into doing something you did not want to do,” she said.
“I will swear to that, Kress. All I wanted to do was kiss you. That was really all. But the way you clutched me when I did… that was of your own accord. That tells me that you are feeling for me what I feel for you.”
He shook his head, lowering his gaze. “I cannot…”
“Deny it. Look me in the eyes and deny it.”
He didn’t say anything. He kept his head down, looking at their hands, intertwined. After a moment, he spoke. “You know I cannot.”
“I know,” she murmured. “Do not fear, Kress. You shall not fail in your duty. You shall deliver me to Ellesmere as you have been ordered to do. I will not make it difficult for you.”
He lifted his head. But the moment he looked at her, his expression seemed to go slack with sorrow.
“But you do not understand,” he muttered. “I am not sure I can take you to Mountain Dark and just… leave.”
It was a surprising thing to say and her brow furrowed. “But that is your mission. You are obeying orders.”
He lowered his gaze again, his features twisting as if he were thinking very hard about everything. Lifting her hands, he kissed her fingers tenderly.
“I know,” he said. “But I am not sure I can leave you behind. I do not think I can leave you at all. I cannot simply walk away from you, Cadie. Not now.”
She pulled one of her hands free and put it on the top of his head. “What do you intend to do?” she asked. “Serve Ellesmere so you can be near me? Kress, you cannot do that and you know it.”
He kept his head down as she gently caressed his head.
“I am not a man familiar with emotion,” he said.
“I… I am not even sure how to speak of it. All I can tell you is that something has happened that I have no control over. I am not a man accustomed to fear but, at the moment, I have my share of it.”
Cadelyn had to only hear the tone of his voice to know how upset he was and it greatly concerned her. “Why?” she asked softly, urgently. “I am doing what you want me to do. I am letting you deliver me to Ellesmere so your mission will be successful.”
He shook his head. “It is not that,” he said. “Right now, I have come to the unalterable conclusion that I cannot turn you over to another man.”
Cadelyn understood. It was everything she’d wanted to hear since the beginning, but coming to know Kress, and know his sense of honor, and understand how every knight looked up to him with respect, she was coming to see that failure on his part would result in the loss of respect from his colleagues.
It would be the loss of everything he’d worked for, as he’d tried to tell her.
Now, she was coming to understand. And for the first time in her life, she was thinking of someone other than herself. Aye, she loved him.
But she couldn’t ruin him.
“Kress, listen to me,” she whispered. “I was not going to tell you this, but I will now. I feel as if I must. I am not going to marry Ellesmere.”
He looked at her, a hint of confusion on his face. “What do you mean?”
She put a hand to his rough cheek. “I told you before that I was going to refuse to marry him and then commit myself to the nearest nunnery,” she said.
“I meant it. But I will do it after you leave. If you leave me off at The Paladin and do not escort me to Mountain Dark, it will make this much easier. Once you take me into Wales, I fear my plans will be more difficult.”
He grunted at that plan making a resurgence.
Letting go of her hands, he stood up from the bed.
“It is not a simple thing in any case,” he said.
“Do you know what will happen when you refuse to marry Ellesmere? He will more than likely force you to do it. He has that right, you know. When The Marshal brokered the contract, it gave Ellesmere all rights over you. He can, and probably will, force you.”
“Even if I run away to the nearest church and demand sanctuary?”
“Over what? A betrothal? The church will tell you the same thing – that Ellesmere is, for all intents and purposes, your husband. They will enforce the contract.”
Cadelyn looked at him, struggling against the distress that was clawing at her. She had a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach that was only growing worse.
“I do not want to pull you into my refusal, Kress,” she said, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “I never wanted to marry Ellesmere; you know that. Even before… before what happened between us. My refusal started long before I met you.”
He closed his eyes and turned away, feeling despondency envelop him. “You have no choice,” he said. “But I… I cannot take you to him. I cannot do it.”
She looked at him, realizing the man was somehow giving up or giving in. The strongest knight she had ever seen was surrendering. She blinked away the tears that were threatening.
“What are you saying?” she whispered.
He ended up looking at the wall, the ceiling, because he couldn’t look at her.
“I am saying that I am too weak to do it,” he said hoarsely.
“I have never felt anything for a woman in my life, at least not like this, and it is the most helpless feeling in the world knowing I can never have you. I feel as if I have been gutted, as if everything in my body is splayed out over the ground and I am hollow. I am hollow because I will never be able to openly love you. Hollow because when you go, you take a piece of me with you. Hollow because I am too weak to hand you over to Ellesmere and watch him marry you, knowing he will be touching you the way only I should be touching you. When the escort leaves for The Paladin tomorrow, I will remain behind with the wounded. Bric will be your shadow, as I have been. He is a good man, Cadie. Please do not let your anger or hurt with me, and with the situation, reflect on him.”
Cadelyn’s tears were spilling over as she stood up from the bed, despondent. “Is there no other way?”
Kress shook his head, hearing in her voice that she was crying even though he couldn’t look at her. “Nay,” he said raggedly. “I assure you, if there was, I would take it.”
She sniffled, wiping at her eyes with her hands. “You will not be viewed poorly by The Marshal for not having personally delivered me to Ellesmere?”