My True Love (30 page)

She only raised one eyebrow.

“I could do with some expansion, perhaps. Build another wing. Or a better dining room, so that guests might be more comfortable. More gardens, too. I know nothing about gardens.”

“Is there a reason for this determined litany, Richard?”

He didn’t answer her, simply continued to talk. “My daughter is a lovely girl,” he said. “I expect to be made a grandfather shortly. But they live some distance from my house. I do not see them often. Her husband is a prosperous man. A Parliamentarian, like myself.” He looked over at her, as if his political leanings had anything to do with her.

“I believe that I will be safe enough in the coming years. My belief is that the king will lose this war. Do you have some softening in your heart for the Royalists?”

She huffed out a breath. “Richard, I have spent the greater part of my life on an island. I do not care what either side does or does not do. I tend to my animals and my herb garden, and attempt to bring health to those who come to me for aid.”

“And have odd ideas about some perfectly acceptable practices,” he said.

She was formulating her arguments when she glanced up and noted his smile. It silenced her.

“My son is, I am sorry to say, one of the great disappointments of my life. He has taken himself off to France, and the only missives I ever receive from him are requests for money.” He frowned at the stream in front of them as if it were an affront. She suspected, however, that it was his son Richard saw and not the sparkling water.

“The problem with Harold is that he whines,” Richard said. “It’s an affectation. It’s a grating, nasally thing. I find myself disliking the boy almost constantly, even to the extent that I bless providence that he’s chosen to live in another country. He is rarely underfoot, but when he is, he’s as welcome as a blister on my…” He looked over at her, then away again. “I am sorry, Hannah. I have a deplorable habit of returning to the conversations of my youth. Aboard ship there is apt to be little gentility.”

“On an island,” she said wryly, “there is none. I can say whatever I wish, with only the squirrels and the birds to hear me.”

“You are a truly unique woman, Hannah.”

She felt her cheeks warm.

He smiled at her, a toothy grin. He was a rather formidable-looking man, what with his shock of white hair and his bushy eyebrows of the same color. His teeth were good. A comment he made next, as if he divined her very thoughts.

“I’m in good health, my teeth are sound, my habits not unduly rude. I’ve a staff of ten to keep me pressed and combed.” He looked over at her again. “Not that I need all of them to do so,” he explained. “They mostly clean. And cook,” he said. “I do have a cook. She sometimes makes too rich a sauce, but that is not often. Only when boredom sets in. Not that life at my home is excessively boring. It is of a calm and placid nature.”

She knew better than to try to interrupt this charming bit of boasting.

“I’ve a sister. She is a sweet woman, but she lives by herself. A cousin resides with her, and they are no burden. They come and stay with me at Christmas time, however. I think it’s important to share the holidays with family, don’t you?”

She didn’t get a chance to answer.

“I will confess to having few friends. My profession took me away from my home for years. When I returned, it was to find my children near grown. But these past years have been turbulent ones. Stephen is a friend, although I doubt I’ll see much of him in the future. I’ve one or two others, but not of his rank.”

He braced his shoulders. “I am told I snore, and I’ve a lamentable habit of swearing, but only occasionally.”

“Is there a point to all of this, Richard?”

He turned and blinked at her. He looked, she thought, rather like an endearing hedgehog at the precise second before it rolls into a protective ball. Eyes wide in terror, blinking at the world, and twitching its nose in alarm.

She stood, walked to him, and laid her hand on his arm.

“I forgive you all your faults, all dutifully enumerated. Whatever you feel you’ve done or said to me to induce such a lengthy confession, I hereby forgive you. I am tired now and would like to seek my bed, even if it is only a mattress of moss.”

“Do you want to return to your island, Hannah?” Richard asked suddenly. “Is there anything there for you?” His hand gripped hers, turned her so that she faced him fully. “Do you want to live the rest of your life in isolation? You could, instead, spend it with me.”

“Is that what this has been? A proposal?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Or do you wish another arrangement simply because of what I’ve told you about Anne?”

He stepped away from her, offended. “Good grief, woman. I confess to having some interest in you in that way, but only after exchanging vows.”

It was her turn to blink at him.

“You might have said something,” she murmured. “Instead of insulting me all this time.” The idea of Richard lusting after her was a fascinating one to consider. She tilted her head and considered him. He met her stare.

“I knew you were worried about Anne. Wished to see her safely home. Tomorrow we’ll make the border, and Stephen is releasing those men with families to return to England.”

“You wish me to go with you?”

He leaned close, so close that he was a blur. “What in hell do you think I’ve been doing for the past thirty minutes?” The words were enunciated clearly, each one of them having a bite.

“I didn’t need to hear a list of your assets, you silly man,” she said, reaching up and grabbing his ears. They were quite large, a point she should insist that he enumerate in his list of flaws. “All you needed to do was kiss me,” she said, and proceeded to do just that.

Chapter 26

T
hey rested at noon the next day, the site a curve of meadow beside a stream. Stephen dismounted, held out his arms for Anne. She braced her hands on his shoulders as he spanned her waist and set her down on the dirt road. Next to them, Richard was doing the same for Hannah, the constant bickering between them a source of welcome amusement.

It was obvious that they both enjoyed the sparring.

Stephen extended his arm, and Anne placed her hand on it, not unlike any man and woman out for a leisurely country stroll. Except that the air was thick with dust kicked up by the horses, and the noise created by thirty men dispelled the sense of peace.

Here the earth was fertile, the growth green and lush. Red sandstone peeked from gashes in the land. Rounded hills, shrouded in a pale gray-green mist, were mirrored in small silver lakes. In the distance there was the hint of mountains and gray skies covering snow-capped peaks, as if the earth was shedding itself of its polite drapery and becoming sullen and stark and wild.

It was neither Stephen’s map nor the terrain that declared them in Scotland, but rather the gap-toothed smile of a man who spoke in Gaelic. Anne conversed with him for a while, wished him a good day, and turned and walked back to where the others were waiting.

“We’ve less than two days,” she said, “before we come to Dunniwerth land.”

They followed the road for a while, stretching their legs. To an onlooker it might appear that they were simply content in each other’s company. In truth, silence was easier. Words might have led to the spilling of emotions, and it was simpler to just exist in a dull state, neither enlivened by joy nor tossed into despair.

It did not mean, however, that thoughts were as easily numbed. Two days until he left her. Two days. She did not count the hours. She would bear it because she must. What were the choices? To sink into despair, or to hold herself tight in order not to shatter into a thousand pieces. To keep her silence and endure.

For nearly ten minutes they continued their walk, and in unison turned and were starting back. She wondered if she would recall these silent moments for the rest of her life. Would she regret that she had not spoken? No, because the words trembled on her lips and craved release. Not those that would explain, but instead, beseech.

“Will they lose their pardons by being with you?” she asked finally, looking ahead to the assembled men. Even at ease they congregated in a group, sent men ahead and behind them. She had heard her father say that the measure of a commander was the behavior of his troops. How would he judge Stephen? They obeyed him without question, held him in high esteem, witness the devotion they showed. But there was fondness, too. He was occasionally the subject of a joke, a remark that caused him to raise his eyebrow and stare. He was their commander and occasionally acted as their father. Some of them were so young that they looked barely beyond their first growth of beard.

She’d heard that he assessed fines for drunkenness and disobedience. He did not, she’d been told by James, hesitate to order a man flogged if he raped, or looted, or burned a field. Yet his men had showed no hesitation in following him to Scotland when they might have surrendered their arms and returned to their lives as farmers or tradesmen.

“I doubt the Parliamentarians will fault them for a journey to Scotland. Most of them will return home today.”

She turned and looked at him, surprised. “And you?”

“I must be exceptionally careful not to be caught,” he said, the edge of a smile curving his lips.

“Won’t the Parliamentarians punish Lange on Terne?”

“Because I escaped?”

She nodded.

“They have more to lose by alienating the citizenry than by showing them favor. Lange on Terne is now a Parliamentarian town, whether it wishes to be or not. They will not suffer. Besides, as much as I dislike Penroth for his military tenacity, I’ve always known him to be fair. Such acts would be beyond him.”

“You have evidently given this much thought,” she said softly.

“I had to weigh my life, Anne. Whether it mattered enough if I lived or died. In the end, I found that no one would be penalized by my survival.”

“Is that the only reason you did not surrender?” She felt the sting of anger. An emotion to be desired as much as humor. “Because you decided no one would suffer for it?”

His laughter rang through the air. “No, my fierce Anne, it’s not.”

He looked beyond the road to where the mist still clung to the rolling hills. It was noon, but the sun was still a watery globe in the sky, the air damp, although it had not rained. Nature had sensed her mood, Anne thought with a wry smile, and duplicated it.

Because she did not want to look back on these times and regret that she had not told him things in her heart, she spoke now, divulging at least one of her secrets.

“She’s my mother,” she said, looking at Hannah. A half smile was on her lips, even as she batted Richard’s hand away. They were too far away to hear their conversation.

“I know,” he said surprisingly, moving to cover her hand with his. “Richard told me.”

One of her secrets exposed already, then.

“How do you feel about it?”

She moved away from him, stood at the side of the road looking over the valley before them.

“I might have done the same,” she said, obviously surprising him.

He came and stood beside her. An onlooker might think them each engrossed in the view. Instead, she was painfully conscious of how close he was.

“Do you carry my child?” he asked suddenly.

She had not expected that question. She placed her hands over her stomach. A protective gesture. She did not know. How could she? It was too soon.

“No,” she said, to reassure him or to absolve him, she didn’t know which. Perhaps to release him.

He stood with his back to his men.

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“I don’t know,” she said, giving him the truth. It was evidently something he did not like by the expression on his face.

She reached up to frame his face with her hands. He didn’t pull away, but neither did he move forward. Here was the man who’d led troops across England, who’d fired his home. There was a studied stillness to him, as if he held himself tightly so as not to expose any of himself.

Her thumbs reached to the corners of his lips, and she brushed them softly as if to encourage them to curve upward.

She would never forget him. Not the dawning smile that lit his eyes and seemed to color even the air. Not the sound of his voice reading Latin and translating it for her. Not the look in his eyes when he’d watched his home burn. Her fingers stroked through the hair at his temples. She marked the line of the scar there and held her breath as she traced its path with trembling fingers.

“How did this happen?” A tremulous breath of question that he answered just as softly.

“A stone fell at Langlinais.”

“Did it hurt?”

He smiled then, a soft, prompting smile that seemed to be tied to her breath, so tight did it feel in that moment. “I was a boy determined to prove my courage. It no doubt hurt abominably, but I pretended it did not.”

“So brave,” she whispered.

From the corner of her eye she saw Hannah approach. She quickly stepped back, absurdly grateful for the interruption. She was too close to confession, and it would do no good to speak those words that trembled on her lips.
I love you
.

“I would speak with you, Anne.”

She nodded and followed Hannah.

They sat on the trunk of a felled tree, the next seconds spent in gathering their skirts around their ankles, brushing cloth over their knees. Identical gestures Anne might never have noticed a month ago.

All those times when she’d burst into Hannah’s cottage came back to her. The instant joy on the older woman’s face. The tenderness of her expression, the times in which she’d kissed Anne’s face or held her tight in an embrace. A thousand times, a hundred moments. All strung out like glistening drops on a spider’s web.

She sat silent, waiting for Hannah to speak.

“Do you hate me, Anne?”

A simple question. “No,” Anne said honestly. But it would take longer for the feeling of betrayal to subside.

“I am glad,” Hannah said. She pinched the material of her skirt between her fingers. “I would have done the same thing again,” she said, glancing over at Anne, “if it meant protecting you. Fault me for that, if you will.”