Chapter 10 #2
Rafe didn’t look as if he was worried in the slightest about Dobson’s bigger size and heft. “Drop it,” he advised. “I don’t want to kill you. I’ve got questions.”
“You? Kill me?” Dobson growled. Then he attacked, wielding the dagger like a madman.
Angelet was sure Dobson would soon win the fight. But Rafe was trained to a degree Dobson was not, and nearly every blow Rafe struck landed, while Dobson’s often went wide, as Rafe’s superior reflexes allowed him to dance out of the way.
The two continued to struggle, until Rafe knocked the dagger out of Dobson’s grasp. It seemed like time had stopped, though less than a minute had passed.
Dobson gave a roar and lunged for the dagger. Rafe got there first. At the last second, Rafe snatched up the dagger and plunged it directly into Dobson’s chest.
Dobson’s eyes widened, but he made no sound. Rafe’s aim had been true, and the dagger blade pierced the heart. The off-white fabric of the man’s shirt turned into a vivid red, and a second later, Dobson’s body sank to the floor, his now sightless eyes staring upward.
Angelet had seen death in her life, but never this violently, or this close. And yet, her first feeling was relief. It’s over, she thought.
Rafe swiped the blood from the dagger with the edge of Dobson’s shirt. Then he stood up and glanced at the various shocked people in the room.
“Tad was on watch with Dobson,” he said, very calmly. “Someone find him and get him in here. Now.”
Laurence hurried out. Rafe turned to Angelet. Bethany had reached her and flung a blanket around Angelet’s shaking shoulders. It wasn’t just for warmth, but for modesty as well, since Angelet wore only her thin shift.
“Should someone fetch your shirt, sir?” the maid asked as she shot a look directly at Rafe’s bare upper body.
Angelet looked too. She couldn’t have avoided it, not when he was right there in front of her, still breathing fast from the short but vicious fight.
Angelet knew she shouldn’t be staring at his perfectly conditioned torso, or his arms, or shoulders…
every muscle starkly contoured by the light of the few candles in the room.
“Bethany,” she whispered. “Please do that. Fetch his clothes. Immediately.”
The maid left and returned with Rafe’s shirt, which he pulled on. Not that it mattered now. The image of him was seared into Angelet’s mind.
“What happened?” Rafe scarcely raised his voice, as if this was an ordinary conversation and there wasn’t a dead body at his feet. “Angelet? I need to know.”
“I…I’m not sure. I wasn’t sleeping well, and I heard a noise, and I woke up to find someone here in the room.
I asked who was there, and he rushed toward me.
I didn’t even see who it was, but he capped his hand over my mouth.
To keep me quiet, I thought. But his hand was over my nose, too, and I could barely breathe. ”
“Then what?”
“I bit the hand. Then I screamed. That woke Bethany. She screamed and ran from the room.”
“To get help,” Bethany added. “I pounded on the door next to ours.”
“That’s true,” Simon confirmed. “The screams woke us, but the pounding on the door got us all up. But by the time we reached this room, you had already got here, sir.”
Rafe nodded, then turned back to Angelet.
“So, from when Bethany left to get help, what happened?”
She shuddered, thinking of it. “Dobson had his hand on my mouth again, and I knew it wasn’t to keep me quiet. He meant to suffocate me. I just kept trying to get free of him, and trying to breathe. Then you were there, and you pulled him away. You know the rest.”
Rafe looked down at the body in disdain. At a word, Simon and Marcus hauled the body out of the room. Immediately after that Laurence came back with a rather disheveled-looking Tad at his heels.
“Found him sleeping, Sir Rafe,” Laurence reported. “Seems even the commotion didn’t wake him.”
“Sleeping. When you were supposed to be on watch.” Rafe’s gaze was cold. “Tad, explain what the hell happened. Where were you?”
Tad shuffled his feet and said, “I had rather more ale than usual, Sir Rafe. About an hour into the watch, Dobson told me I was nodding off…he said I should just go early to bed, and he’d rouse the second watch himself.”
“Leaving him alone and unobserved to sneak into the room and try to steal the gold from the chest. God damn.”
“I swear I didn’t know what he was up to! I’d never have gone along with it!” Tad looked utterly ashamed, and every time his gaze fell on Angelet, he dropped his eyes to the floor. “What’s to be done with me, Sir Rafe?”
Rafe glared at him. “I’ll think on it. Meanwhile, get back to bed and stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, sir!” Tad was out of the room faster than Angelet had ever seen him move.
Rafe pointed toward the empty basin. “Bethany, please go draw some fresh water from outside. Now.”
The maid hurried out of the room once more. Rafe ordered the men still there to take the body out, then turned to Angelet. His expression was far more concerned than before. “Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice. “Truly?”
“Yes. He didn’t manage to harm me.”
“What about your condition? Did what just happened…will it trigger anything?”
“I don’t think so. But it’s possible. I’ll tell Bethany to watch me carefully.”
Rafe sighed. “Jesu. You seem to be in danger both from within and without.”
“The seizures are rare.”
“But could happen anytime,” he said. “And even if you do not suffer from that, we cannot forget that one person has tried to kill you to get at the gold. There could be another.”
She shivered. “You’re probably correct.”
“I need to think of some way to lessen the risk.”
“How?”
“I’ve no idea,” he admitted. “Give me the night, and with luck some saint will slip the answer in my brain by morning.”
“I’ll pray for your success.”
He gave her a tiny smile. “However you wish to use your lips on my behalf, I won’t complain.”
“Rafe!” she scolded. The blood still surging through her veins after the terror she’d been through now heated up at his innuendo. Terror and excitement felt very, very similar, she realized.
His eyes widened in mock innocence. “What? Did you think I meant something besides prayer?”
Her cheeks burned. “I know what you meant. You’re—”
“Incorrigible. Yes, I know. It’s part of my charm.”
“How can you joke after…”
“Killing a man?” Rafe shrugged. “He was a killer himself. Should I weep over him?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Rafe’s expression cooled. “It was his life or mine. The whole point of being my own master is that I decide my fate.”
She tried to reach out, to tell him she didn’t blame him for what happened. “I didn’t mean—”
But he shook her hand off his arm. “Get some rest, my lady. We still have a long way to travel.” Then he left.
* * * *
Angelet didn’t think she’d sleep again after what happened.
Even Bethany, in a hushed voice, asked to shove her pallet next to Angelet’s so the women might sleep next to each other.
Angelet agreed instantly, feeling there was some sort of safety in that.
She woke in the morning to find that she had slept after all, and this time, blessedly, she remembered no dreams.
In the tavern room below, the mood among the men-at-arms was grim.
From the fragments of conversations Angelet overheard, everyone was perturbed by Dobson’s attack on her life.
Even the few who muttered that a man might break his oath and steal so much gold were still aghast that one man went beyond theft to attempted murder.
“But not Dobson,” one of the men muttered to his companion. “He served Otto since they were boys!”
Rafe finished his breakfast quickly and stood up. He gestured to Simon and Angelet. “Come along, please,” he said.
Curious, Angelet followed as Rafe walked to her personal carriage, where the chest had just been loaded. Laurence was there, guarding it.
“Simon,” Rafe said curtly. “We’re going to move the chest from Lady Angelet’s carriage to the supply wagon. Laurence, keep an eye on the inn. I don’t want everyone to see what we’re doing. My lady, keep an eye on us the whole time to reassure yourself we’re not tampering with anything.”