Midnight Eyes (16 page)

She couldn’t help but shiver a little. Joy. Even to think of it seemed to be tempting fate, or perhaps it was Roger she was afraid of tempting. He was the one who had brought Robert to her, and she should never forget that. It was a surprisingly hard thing to remember, especially when it was inconceivable that any action of her brother’s could be the source of so much joy.

Her hands clenched in the soil as her sunny day seemed to lose some of its warmth all of a sudden and she hated Roger for that. Damn, but he was always there, waiting at the fringes of her life to destroy everything. And as much as she tried to deny it, a part of her feared that all she was feeling right now might just be another move in his game. Perhaps he knew that if she lost this life, lost Robert somehow, she would be absolutely destroyed. If he knew that…

She turned her mind from the darkness and stopped thinking altogether, concentrating instead on the pursuit of weeds. She willed her soul to be soothed by the sounds of the early spring. She listened intently to the sound of birds building nests and finding mates, the sound of bees returning, the sound of sheep bleating…

Sheep? In the courtyard?

“Sheep?” She turned to where Duncan had been digging. “Do you hear sheep, Duncan?”

“Yes, my lady,” Duncan said, scratching his forefinger along his nose as he leaned on his shovel, “and I can see one too. Sir Edmond seems to be holding it.”

Startled, Imogen turned to the sound.

“Didn’t mean to stop you working, Little One,” Robert said laconically, “but Sir Edmond couldn’t wait to give you a small…something.”

“Something? You can’t possibly mean a sheep?”

“Actually, I think it might technically be a lamb, but I could be wrong. I am not exactly
au fait
with agricultural matters.”

“Aye, sir, you have the right of it.” Duncan’s face wrinkled into a broad smile. “That is most definitely a lamb.”

“I defer to your greater acquaintance with such things, Duncan.”

“Thankee, sir.”

“Not at all.”

By this stage, Edmond was wishing the earth would open up and swallow him. He started shuffling noisily from foot to foot, longing for what was becoming the most embarrassing moment of his life to end.

“Stop it, you two, can’t you tell you’re embarrassing Sir Edmond?” Imogen scolded as she got clumsily to her feet.

“Don’t blame us,” Robert snorted, “any embarrassment he feels is the sheep’s fault.”

“Lamb, sir.”

“Lamb. That’s right. Thank you again, Duncan.”

“Ignore them, Edmond, they are just being silly,” she said dismissively, giving him a large smile of encouragement, unaware that she in fact managed to dazzle him. “Do you really have a lamb?”

“Ye…yes, Lady Imogen,” he stumbled.

“Can I pet it?” She stepped forward a little. “I’ve never touched a lamb before.”

Edmond almost fell over himself in his rush to gain her side. With a sad, resigned shake of his head, Robert watched another of his men fall. They were all like sailors drowning under a siren’s spell.

Imogen smiled tenderly as she groped to find the lamb in Edmond’s arms. The lamb, perhaps also under her spell, went silent and leaned its small head closer to her touch.

“Oh, isn’t it a dear,” Imogen cooed, then she bit her lip earnestly. “May I hold him?”

“Of course,” Edmond yelled with almost indecent relief, causing Imogen to flinch a little.

Her brow furrowed with concentration as Edmond awkwardly placed the lamb into her willing hands. The lamb settled itself peacefully in the arms of its new protector, resting its head on her forearm and closing its eyes trustingly.

“It would seem you can charm animals just as easily as you charm grown men.” Robert shook his head with disbelief as he moved to her side and slid an arm around her shoulders. He couldn’t help relishing the way she instinctively leaned into him although all her concentration was focused on the lamb.

“Oh, Robert, may I keep him? He is such a dear and won’t be any problem.”

“Now Imogen…”

“I promise, you’ll barely know he’s here. It will be no more painful than having another dog around the Keep. I promise.”

“But Imogen, a
sheep
…”

“Please,” she whispered pleadingly and Robert knew he was sunk.

“All right, it can stay,” he sighed, slightly belligerent in his resignation, “but it can’t stay in our chamber. You’ll have to find somewhere else…”

His stern lecture was cut short by Imogen’s squeal of delight as she threw an arm round his neck and kissed him. For a second he pulled her closer and deepened the kiss, but the lambs’ wriggling protest made him pull back long before he wanted to.

Robert looked up from Imogen’s flushed face to cast a quick glance at Duncan, and was relieved to see that the wise old man had returned to his digging. Edmond, however, wasn’t as quick. He was staring slack-jawed at the couple when Robert’s eyes met his. Robert smiled at his look of embarrassed devastation, but decided to take pity on the poor boy.

“Edmond is looking like a slapped puppy,” he whispered into Imogen’s ear. “He seems to think I stole his reward.”

Imogen’s renewed blush almost rivaled Edmond’s.

“Of course, I’m so sorry, Sir Edmond.” She turned and, with the unerring judgment that always amazed Robert, reached on tiptoes and placed a kiss on Edmond’s heated cheek. “The lamb is absolutely wonderful and I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You could always name it after him,” Robert said wickedly.

“No!” Edmond yelped, forgetting all manners in his distress. Robert watched with amusement as the younger man cleared his throat and started again. “No such thanks are necessary, Lady Imogen.” He touched his cheek reverently. “None at all. Well, I’d best get back to work. Can’t stand around talking all day.”

He lifted Imogen’s hand and bowed over it with more grace than Robert had ever seen him display before, then strode manfully away. Robert only just managed to catch the whoop of victory he let out before disappearing around the corner.

“Imogen, how the hell do you do it?” Robert asked, shaking his head with wonder.

“Do what?” she asked abstractedly as she tried to calm the now seriously squirming lamb.

“Never mind,” he said with a bemused smile.

“Robert, I think it’s hungry. What do I do?” she asked as she slipped her fingers into its mouth and it began sucking on them aggressively.

“Don’t ask me. I’m a warrior, not a farmer.”

“A good lord should be a little of both, sir,” Duncan murmured with a knowing smile. “As for the lamb, I suggest a visit to the kitchens for some milk and a bed by the fire might be in order.”

The concern cleared from Imogen’s face. “Brilliant.” She beamed at Duncan, and moved out of Robert’s sheltering arms so that she could dump the lamb into them instead.

“What the…”

“It’s a lamb, not a sheep, and it’s hungry, so you’d best feed it.”

“How come I get left with the bloody thing?” he protested. “It’s from one of your foolish admirers, you look after it.”

“Edmond’s not foolish and I’m working,” she said sternly, then wrecked the overall effect by breaking into a grin as she ran a hand over the lamb’s head. “Besides, as Duncan said, you can’t just be a warrior. You’ll have to learn about things like sheep, now you might own some. Here’s a chance to get a little practical experience, so go learn about sheep while I get back to work.”

Robert scowled furiously at the suddenly busy Duncan, then looked helplessly down at the frantic creature that had started to suck aggressively on one of the toggles on his shirtfront.

“I don’t want to look after the sheep,” Robert said plaintively, knowing he sounded like a petulant child and not caring.

Imogen leaned up and placed a lingering kiss on his lips. “Sure you do,” she whispered for him alone. “Please.”

He groaned, knowing when he was outclassed and defeated. He snaked out an arm and clamped her close to his body and gave himself over to a hard, hungry kiss in an attempt to salvage something from this disaster. By the time he drew away they were both struggling for air and the lamb was protesting loudly.

He looked down at the beast in resignation. “Milk and warmth, right Duncan?”

“That’d be right, Sir Robert.”

Robert nodded and, with one last heated look at Imogen, turned to leave. He was stopped by a low murmur.

“If you come and get me in an hour, I should be finished here and we can discuss…
that
further in our chamber.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You drive a hard bargain, but all right. One hour, and not a second longer.”

As he walked toward the kitchen he was well aware that he was grinning and had a decided spring in his step. He looked down at the lamb and gave it a smug smile. “Looks like I’m getting a reward out of you as well as Edmond, and I can guarantee, mine will be the better one of the two.”

The lamb met his eyes blandly and bit down on the toggle, breaking it cleanly in two.

Imogen smiled as Robert’s whistle reached her on the breeze. She didn’t understand the man, she thought with a shake of her head, and started to weed once more.

“If you don’t mind me saying, my lady,” Duncan said suddenly, “but he’s a good man, that husband of yours.”

“You think so, Duncan?” she asked, calmly working, pretending that the answer didn’t really matter.

“I don’t think so, my lady, I know so.”

A good man? Did such things exist? Did they manage to live even though men like Roger seemed to be in control of the world? It seemed almost fantastic, but a part of Imogen started fervently praying that it might indeed prove to be true. She carried the hope of her prayers in her heart as she worked. She needed so badly for it to be true. The world so badly needed good men. But to hell with the world, she thought savagely, pulling up a weed, she needed them more. Needed him more. She needed him to be all he seemed to be.

Was she tempting fate by asking for so much?

Perhaps, but she also knew that she couldn’t survive with anything less. If Robert turned out to be Roger’s man, then her new life would turn to ashes, and her life would no longer be worth living.

When the first messenger arrived weeks later, Imogen hadn’t even realized that she had been waiting for it, waiting for Roger to stop biding his time and start playing the game in earnest. He timed his little drop of poison well, filling her with it just when she had started to forget how much pain he could inflict. Not that it wasn’t easy enough to forget his darkness when she was surrounded by Robert’s gentle, cleansing light. It seemed that in no time at all, he had changed her world.

Under his care the Keep had slowly settled into a comfortable rhythm, everyone easily picking up the strands of their new lives. Imogen found herself intoxicated by the simple new life that now enclosed her.

Tonight she could hear the murmur of women sewing and gossiping by the main hearth, hear the men cleaning their weapons or leathers, their deeper voices a bass note in the gentle, soothing hum that now filled the Keep. To Imogen there was no sweeter sound. She absorbed it as she sat opposite Robert at the main table; a chessboard set up between them and the lamb dozing peacefully at their feet.

She smiled contentedly as she waited for Robert to make his next move.

“You’re going to beat me, aren’t you?” he asked incredulously.

“Of course,” she murmured, her serenity tinged with more than a little satisfaction.

He looked up and grinned. “No ‘of course’ about it, Little One. Until I decided to teach you this accursed game, I rarely lost.” His brows dropped suspiciously. “But I didn’t teach you the game at all, did I? You already knew how to play before I stumbled on the idea, didn’t you?”

Her face dimpled. “As much as I’d like to deny it and let you believe that you have been repeatedly beaten by a complete novice I have to confess that my father and I used to play.” She reached out a hand and consolingly patted his. “It has been a while between games, though.”

She grinned at his loud grunt of disgust and couldn’t help adding smugly, “Pity, really, as I seem to still be good at it.”

Robert ignored her gloating, turning his attention back to the board. “It’s not the losing I really mind,” he muttered, “so much as the fact that I have only to tell you my move once and you remember it. You seem to hold the whole game in your head and I don’t care what you say, that can’t be natural.”

She shrugged her shoulders delicately. “Maybe it isn’t natural, but you have to admit that it’s very effective.”

“Witch!” he growled, and her delighted laughter brought more than one masculine head up. Even the lamb lifted his own head for a moment. Curious, he eyed his humans with a mild interest before returning to the more important business of sleeping on his mistress’s foot.

Robert continued to scowl as he made the only move she had effectively left him and read out the coordinates for her grudgingly. He leaned back in the great chair and watched as her brilliant little brain analyzed the move, her thoughts scarcely discernible on her face. It took a depressingly few seconds for her to come up with her countermove, Robert thought dourly, as she rattled off the coordinates with all the confidence of a woman who knew she had won, and won decisively. Her “Checkmate, I believe,” was almost endearingly smug.

Almost.

Robert moved the piece as ordered and knocked over his king in surrender.

He narrowed his eyes and looked intensely at the game, trying to understand his abject defeat, trying to work out where exactly the game had gotten away from him. He didn’t lift his eyes from the board when one of the men from the first watch whispered in his ear but his face darkened ominously. He noisily dragged back his chair, disturbing the lamb once more, who let out a small bleat of protest and slowly stood.

“Excuse me for a moment, Little One,” he said as he stood, “but I must attend to a small matter.”

“Running from your defeat, Sir Husband?” she asked, smiling up at him with deliberately sweet innocence.

“No, that would be far too cowardly for a brave warrior such as I. Think of it more as a strategic retreat. Set up the pieces while I’m gone but, beware, this time I won’t let you win.”

“Let!” she spluttered and her delighted laughter followed him from the hall. He knew she was laughing at the feebleness of his game compared to hers, but strangely he didn’t mind. He didn’t even really mind, all that much, being so soundly trounced, just as long as she was laughing. The sound had become the food of his heart and he’d willingly be her fool if that was what she required.

She smiled broadly as she listened to the sound of his footsteps disappearing into the general hum of the hall. Her hands automatically began returning all of the pieces to their correct position, leaving her mind free to luxuriate in the strange new world Robert had somehow brought into being all around her.

It was a world that was filled with so many unexpected and addictive joys. Who would have thought that a simple game of chess could create within her such wonderful feelings of contentment and well-being? Imogen smiled as her hand gently righted Robert’s king, remembering his endearingly comical surprise at his defeat.

She wasn’t quite sure why she hadn’t told Robert, when he had first suggested the game, that she already knew how to play. It might have had something to do with the charmed warmth she had felt when she thought of spending time with him while he explained to her the intricacies of the game. She did feel slightly bad about her dishonesty, but she also didn’t regret it for a moment. How could she, when her small fraud had opened up for her a world she had never expected existed, showed her a man that she had thought lived only in her daydreams?

Robert had been all that was patient. He had taken such pains teaching her that she had found herself being drawn ever further under his spell. Her body had already burned for his, but now she was also coming to know him as a man of thought and feeling, and that combination was proving to be devastatingly intoxicating and addictive.

He had become as integral to her being as breathing. It seemed his every action made her fall for him that little bit more.

She couldn’t help but smile as she remembered the way he’d even insisted on giving her a constant commentary on the play during the first couple of games, not wanting any unfair advantages because she couldn’t see the board. It had played absolute hell with her concentration, but she had loved the sound of his voice so much that she had put up with it. For a while. In the end she had been forced to beg him to stop it or else she would run mad.

Not once throughout the whole process had he shown any irritation, no matter how confused she pretended to be by the complex rules. It was that gentleness of spirit that had managed to burn its way into her heart. Her smile broadened as she returned the last pawn to its square, her finger moving caressingly over the knick in the ivory Robert had put in all of the white pieces so that she would know which was which.

He was so thoughtful and kind, but of course that hadn’t stopped him from having his suspicions about her assumed ignorance. Even then he hadn’t really been angry, not as she had feared he might be when he realized what a trick she had played. It amazed her. She was bewildered by how he could calmly accept that she had been, to all intents and purposes, lying to him.

He really had to be the most surprising and amazing man she had ever known.

“Come,” Robert said tersely, his voice suddenly coming from nowhere, startling her out of her reflections.

He reached for her hand, engulfing it with his calloused strength, and lifted her from her chair without ceremony. The lamb made a bleat of distress at losing Imogen’s feet and fled to the hearth, where Matthew greeted it soothingly as he watched Robert all but drag Imogen from the hall, his eyes turning thoughtful.

Robert marched briskly from the main hall and Imogen had to trot to keep up with his longer stride and when he stopped suddenly, she catapulted into his back.

“Okay,
now
you can give her the goddamn message and then you can get the hell out of my sight,” he ground out.

Imogen’s brow furrowed in confusion, not sure what he meant. She flinched when someone else answered.

“Ah, my, um, instructions are that only the lady is to hear the message I am to impart,” said a voice, squeaky with youth.

Imogen didn’t recognize it, she realized with increasing bewilderment.

“Well, as that isn’t going to happen, you had better just get on with it.”

Robert’s voice was filled with barely suppressed aggression and Imogen felt a shiver down her spine. Gone was the gentleman who took time to teach his wife chess and in his place stood a cold, professional warrior that she scarce knew.

“What’s going on, Robert? Who is this?” she asked quietly, trying to hide her confusion. Robert had moved so quickly that her startled mind hadn’t been able to keep up. She had only the vaguest idea as to where they were and absolutely no idea as to whom they were talking to.

“Sorry, Little One, I wasn’t thinking. My anger carried me away a little,” he admitted ruefully. “It would seem that your brother has sent you a message, but he seems to fail to understand that I’m your husband now and he cannot hide anything from me.”

“Roger,” she whispered, frightening visions and memories flooding her mind.

She had pushed Roger to the back of her mind and, by doing so, she had found more than a small measure of peace.

Now that peace was shattered utterly with that one simple word: Roger.

She struggled to suppress the nausea that filled her, tried to stop herself from disappearing into a million pieces. She should have expected it. Roger would never let her escape, she had always known that, and she should never have allowed herself to forget it. Not that she wouldn’t be suitably punished for that lapse. Far from it. That small lapse into hope would now suffocate her.

Well, she couldn’t allow herself any further lapses into futile emotions. The fact was that Roger alone was in control and she must never allow herself to lose sight of that again.

She cleared her throat and tried desperately to hide her panic, but even to her own ears her voice sounded unnaturally high, a bad pantomime of calm. “And what is the message?”

The messenger took a deep breath, then plunged on with a rush. “My lady, your noble brother was most insistent that I give your message to your hearing alone.”

“He can insist all he bloody likes,” Robert exploded. “It’s my damn Keep and if I want to listen to my wife’s message, then I bloody well will. Roger Colebrook certainly isn’t going to stop me.”

“I would prefer it if you left me to hear my message alone,” Imogen said quietly.

“Well, I’m not.” The steely resolution was clear in his voice, but Imogen knew she had to ignore that.

“Please leave, Robert. It’s for the best, I’m sure.” She could have almost touched the frustrated anger that radiated from him, and the part of her that still believed in hope felt sorry for it, but the wiser part of her cynically wondered what part he played in the game, why he felt he needed to hear this message. She didn’t know which to believe. She could almost feel the questions that burned in him, but they were questions to which she had no answers. It didn’t matter. In her silence he seemed to hear his own answers.

“Fine. I’ll wait outside the door,” he finally said. He glared with frustration at the now terrified messenger before slamming out of the room.

She flinched at the loud bang of the door and contrarily longed to call him back to her side. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, trying desperately to provide herself with the comfort her heart doggedly kept insisting Robert would provide if she were to call him back.

“The message, if you please,” she asked tensely instead, desperate now to get this over with.

She heard the boy fidget, heard the crackle of new parchment as he unrolled the scroll.

“Your Brother writes:

“And he has signed himself ‘Your devoted brother, Roger.’”

The messenger began searching through his pockets once more.

“He also told me to give you this small token and to tell you to, ‘Wear it all the days of your life in memory of those who have gone before you.’”

She slowly held out her hand but couldn’t stop herself from recoiling a little at the feel of the cold ring he dropped into it.

“Do you have any message in return for your brother, my lady?” the boy asked politely as he handed over the parchment also. Imogen could only dumbly shake her head. The messenger sketched her a quick bow. “Well then, I must return to my master. Farewell.”

She stood numbly in the center of the room, her mind twisting through all that Roger had said and, more importantly, all of the things he had left unsaid.

That he had spies in the Keep was obvious, but then she had always known that, known she was surrounded by people more than willing to do his dirty work, no matter what that might be.

No, that wasn’t the real corrupting poison in the message.

The real reason that the message made her feel sick to her soul was Roger’s sly insinuation that Robert wasn’t all he seemed to be. Roger had hit with an unerring accuracy, ruthlessly drawing to the surface the cold fear that she still somehow carried despite all of Robert’s apparent kindness. It was his knowledge on just how to destroy her fledgling trust that made Roger’s poison all that more deadly, and even now she could feel it spreading through her.

He was an expert at destroying a person from within, Imogen thought bitterly, admiring his skill even as it slowly chilled her. Her mind could logically see the game he played but there seemed to be nothing she could do to stop it. Doubt was eating her up, destroying the whole structure of her fragile new life and Roger had only to lift a pen to do it. A part of her despised herself for making it so easy for him, but then, Roger, the man who had destroyed all of her trust along with her sight, had known that it would take no more than a pinprick to destroy her burgeoning faith in Robert.