Chapter Eighteen #3
“We will have the rest of our lives to know one another,” he said. “Think of the days of discovery ahead.”
“What if we discover that we cannot tolerate one another?”
He shook his head. “Doubtful,” he said. “All I know is that I have never felt this way about anyone, no matter if I’ve known you for three days or three years. Nothing will ever change that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I trust my instincts.”
“What do they say?”
“That you are worth walking through fire for.”
Before she could reply, there was a pounding at the door. Cleodora yelped in shock, perhaps a little fear, as Aidric tossed back the covers and leapt out of bed, going for his broadsword on the nearest table. Before he could respond, there was more pounding and a voice.
“Aidric?” It was Gerard. “Are you in there?”
Aidric hissed. “Christ,” he muttered. “Gerard, what in the hell are you doing here?”
“Is the lady with you?”
Aidric looked at Cleodora, who had the coverlet pulled up to her chin, covering her naked body. “She is,” he said. “Why?”
“Will you please let us in?”
He grunted, perhaps unhappily, that so lovely a moment had been interrupted. “Aye,” he said. “Give me a moment.”
With that, he went on the hunt for his breeches while encouraging Cleodora to get dressed.
She jumped from the bed and grabbed her shift, yanking it over her head as he picked his breeches off the floor and put them on.
By that time, she was struggling with the white woolen dress so he went to help her, fastening the dress for her and making sure she was properly dressed before he opened the door.
There was a lot of silent communication going on between them as he steered her toward the table, motioning for her to sit down and smooth her hair.
She did both, quickly, trying not to look as if she’d just spent precious hours romping in bed with a man she hardly knew.
But she happened to notice the bed, seeing that it was badly mussed, and she quickly jumped up again to smooth it down.
Aidric helped her, straightening the coverlet but rolling his eyes when he realized it was a stupid gesture.
The men at the door already knew what they’d been doing and here they were, trying to cover up the evidence like fools.
He waved at her to sit again, and Cleodora planted herself in the chair once more as Aidric finally opened the door.
A group of men were standing there.
“Come,” Aidric said, motioning them to enter and realizing the entire Guard of Six had come. “Is everyone here?”
“Aye,” Britt said. He’d come in right after Gerard and his gaze fell on the lady only briefly before he returned his attention to Aidric. “We’ve just had another report from Perrin.”
Aidric eyed him grimly. “What now?”
Britt glanced at Cleodora again before speaking. “Do you wish for me to say this in front of the lady?” he said. “I realize you came here to speak with her and—”
Aidric cut him off. “She knows, Britt,” he said quietly. “She has agreed to act on our behalf against Cambridge. She has agreed to be the vessel we use to eliminate him.”
Everyone heard him, which seemed to bring some relief to the group. But they were all thinking that Aidric had had to bed the woman to get her compliance, given that was obviously what had happened in the room. Not that it mattered. All they’d wanted was her compliance.
But there was more to it.
“That is excellent news,” Britt said. “But Perrin came bearing additional information.”
“What did he say?”
In reply, Britt turned to Cleodora, sitting prim and proper in the small chair. “My lady,” he said. “My name is Britt de Garr. I serve with Aidric as one of the original Guard of Six.”
Cleodora dipped her head politely. “My lord,” she said. “It is an honor to know you.”
“Thank you,” Britt said. “May I ask you when you had the last communication with Cambridge regarding Edward and what he wanted you to do?”
She paused for thought. “Right before the feast,” she said.
“The conversation had several subjects, but one of them was Edward’s wanting to kill Cambridge now that Edward had returned to England.
Cambridge asked me to get close to the king and poison him.
He said he would provide me with the means to do it.
He said he had to kill Edward before Edward killed him. ”
It was a succinct explanation and Britt looked at Aidric. “I thought so,” he said. “She does not know there has been a change in plans.”
Aidric’s brow furrowed. “What change?”
Britt looked at Gerard and waggled his eyebrows, so Gerard spoke up.
“According to Perrin, the archbishop now plans to gift the lady to Edward,” he said.
“He does not trust that she can do as she has been asked, which was to seduce you to get to the king, so he is going straight to the king himself. He is planning on giving the lady as a gift—and once she is in Edward’s possession, she can follow through with Cambridge’s plans of assassination. ”
Aidric looked at Cleodora, who was trying not to be afraid of the change in scheme but couldn’t quite manage it. Aidric attempted to downplay the change as much as possible.
“Then if she is to act against Cambridge, she needs to remain in his custody,” he said. “Cambridge will never suspect she has turned against him, so it is imperative that she remain in Cambridge’s custody as long as possible.”
Gerard nodded. “I would agree with that.”
“Did Perrin say when he intended to give her to Edward?”
Gerard shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “But I would imagine soon.”
Attention returned to Cleodora. The light from the window was illuminating her, making her appear even more angelic than usual.
This kind woman, pure of heart, who only wanted to live a normal life as she saw it, was charged with tasks better suited to killers, assassins.
It was a complicated, dirty world they lived in to have one so innocent be responsible for such a thing.
Cleodora could see that she had their attention.
She could see pity in their eyes, mostly.
There were seven of them, all big men, some taller, some shorter, but she couldn’t read anything but duty and good character in their faces.
She didn’t know how she could see that, but she could.
Perhaps it was because they all served with Aidric and she thought he was the most heroic, noble man she’d ever met.
When she finally looked at his face, she could see a hint of reluctance.
Reluctance at what she had to do and how much he desperately wanted to protect her.
I tend to get attached, he’d said.
The truth was, she was already attached.
So Cambridge’s plans had changed. That wasn’t surprising to her considering he was the ficklest creature and even decisions he deemed solid never were.
She’d never known anyone who was able to change his mind so frequently.
Like grass blowing in the wind, he tended to sway to one side and then to the other until he finally made a decision that he followed through on.
Therefore, there was no guarantee that this latest decision he’d made would actually happen—that she would be a gift to the king.
Then again, there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen.
So much had occurred that afternoon that it was difficult for her to comprehend all of it.
She’d ended up in bed with a man she was attracted to more than she could control.
He had worried that he’d taken advantage of her, when the truth was probably the opposite.
Perhaps when he kissed her, he’d meant to just kiss her, but she had let it become far more than just a kiss until he had all of her and she had all of him.
The same man she’d asked to marry her.
Now, they were facing an unimaginably dangerous situation and she was in the middle of it.
Cambridge had wanted her to kill the king, which she had been reluctant to do and he knew it.
In the discussion with her father earlier, she’d seen that Cambridge had impressed the seriousness of the situation on Everald, and he had impressed it on his daughter in kind.
The problem with that conversation was that there had been no compassion and no concern on the part of her father as he told her that she had to kill the king because it was what Cambridge wanted.
He hadn’t even seemed worried for her, worried that she was putting herself in mortal danger to do it.
He didn’t seem to care about her at all.
But someone who did care about her was Aidric.
She could read it all over his face as he looked at her, undoubtedly contemplating what she was going to be facing.
At some point, she had to return to Thornhill.
At some point, she would be facing Cambridge.
At some point, she would probably be facing her father as well.
She wondered if her father knew of the plan to gift her to the king.
Since he had been in conversation with Cambridge earlier that day, perhaps he did.
More than that, he might have even suggested it.
As she’d told Aidrick, it was a pity that they both had parents who only viewed them as a means by which to further their own ambitions.
She didn’t know if her father had ever looked at her as a human being, as someone of flesh and blood.
She knew that Cambridge had never looked at her that way.
He’d only looked at her as a possession.
But Aidric looked at her like a woman.
In fact, all of these men looking at her seemed to have more sympathy in their expressions than anything expressed to her over the years by either Cambridge or her father.
She didn’t even know these men, yet she instinctively trusted them.
Still, she knew she had one advantage over them when it came to the Archbishop of Cambridge and that was the fact that he would have been on his guard for any one of those men.
But he wouldn’t be on his guard for her.