White Lion's Lady (30 page)

Scarcely able to breathe for her excitement to start a new day with him, to put herself near him again, Isabel pushed up off the pallet and reached for her clothes. And then she heard it.

The slowing beat of horses’ hooves on the approach. The clink and shift of riding gear. The jangle of armor and the low rumble of men’s voices. Someone hailed the father abbot in the courtyard with an indiscernible greeting, the tone short, serious. Demanding.

Dear God, was it Dom’s men?

Panic rising in her throat like a knot of cold, cutting steel, Isabel threw on her chainse and blue silk gown, her fingers working like mad to lace the bodice, the injury at her arm burning for her haste and lack of care. She shoved her feet into her shoes and lunged for the door to her chamber, frantic to find Griffin. Frantic to warn him that they had been found.

She flung open the panel, dashing out as it banged against the wall, a sound that seemed to echo like a clap of thunder in the corridor. The leather soles of her slippers slapped on the smooth stone floor as she ran through the quiet infirmary building. Isabel headed for the main artery of the maze of halls and passageways, in the hopes that she could flee to the back of the compound before the guards forced their way inside to search for them.

With every pained stretch of her legs, every lurching beat of her heart, she prayed that Griffin was safe somewhere on the monastery grounds. She begged God to keep him hidden from the soldiers in the yard, asked for speed in reaching him before either of them fell into Dom’s hands.

Let her be taken if one of them must go, she pleaded as she rounded the last corner, breathless and panting. She half stumbled, her fingers clawing at the rough wall to keep from falling as she pitched into another wild run down another corridor.

Please, Lord, she silently intoned, let her find him before the guards did. She would go with them willingly, so long as she could be certain Griffin would not be harmed …

“My lady.”

The deep, unfamiliar voice issued forth from behind her, a calm command that stopped her halfway down the wide passageway that would have led to freedom.

“My lady, Isabel de Lamere.”

Slowly, making good her bargain with God, she turned to face her fate. A knight stood in the gloom at the end of the main corridor, his large frame blocking out the scant
light at his back, casting him in ominous silhouette. A rich surcoat of shadowy color fell from his broad shoulders to his knees, the line broken by a wide belt of leather cinched at his waist. Though his clothing bespoke his titled rank, he wore a suit of chain mail armor, as if fully prepared for the prospect of battle; his sheathed sword a slash of darkness at his hip, his polished steel helm tucked under his arm.

“It is I, my lady,” he said when she made no immediate reply. “Sebastian, Earl of Montborne. Your betrothed. I have come to take you home.”

Griffin sat on a turf-covered bench in the monastery garden, his elbows resting on his knees, his head dropped low between his shoulders as he stared sightlessly into the small reflection pool at his feet. He had gone there for solitude, to find some space to think, having been able to tear himself away from Isabel’s side only a few short hours before. But now, hearing a shuffle of activity within the cloister—the stir of voices, the unmistakable sounds of arriving soldiers—he knew the true reason he had sought the garden’s seclusion: He had gone there to hide.

The day he had been dreading was here …

Sebastian of Montborne had arrived, and Isabel was soon to be leaving.

He supposed he had felt the awful coming of it in his bones that morning, when he woke up beside her, holding her with a fierceness that was too gnawing, a contentment that was too complete, too profound to last. It hurt too much to hold her knowing he would have to let her go, and so he had left her. Now that her betrothed was come to fetch her, Griffin hoped that she would understand his absence. He hoped that she would not regret the beauty of the night they had shared, that she might know what it had meant to him … what she meant to him, and always would.

But more than that, his cowardly heart wished—prayed as never before—that she would simply ride away to where she belonged, and spare him the pain of watching her go.

“My lady, did you hear me? You’ve nothing to fear anymore; you’re safe now.”

Sebastian of Montborne took a careful step toward her, his free hand extended in a gesture of peace, surely meant to comfort the stranger who was his bride, a woman who stood numb and trembling a few paces away from him. She could not believe what she was hearing, could not make sense of what she was seeing. Not Dom, not a retinue of hard-eyed guards ready to seize her to meet the whims of a scheming lord and a wicked prince … but her betrothed.

She should have felt grateful. She should have felt relieved. Instead she felt a deep sickness in her soul, a wretched hopelessness that clawed at her, sucking the breath from her lungs as it sought to sap the strength from her legs.

It had been easy to deny that she was sworn to the earl when he was merely a name flitting about in her head, a guilty feeling of obligation that she had allowed her heart to push aside. But now that he was here, flesh and blood, a man whose only trespass was to be chosen by the king to be her husband, Isabel knew a terrible sense of shame. He had given her no cause to fear him and yet she shook with bone-deep dread as his spurs ticked on the stone floor with his approach.

“P-please,” she stammered, unable to stop herself from taking an unsteady step backward. Her heel caught in the train of her skirts, nearly tripping her, but the handsome, dark-haired earl had already closed the space between them, reaching out as if to catch her before she could fall. Isabel flinched away from the firm grip that held her elbow, staring into her affianced’s slightly confused, but noncondemning eyes.

There could be no denying him now, no denying what was happening.

She would have to leave the monastery. After all that had occurred, after all that she had been through, now she would have to leave Griffin. Just like that, the small happiness she had known was ended.

“I can’t—” she gasped, struggling to speak for the way the ground seemed to be opening up beneath her, the air seeming to close in tight around her. “Oh, God, I … I can’t … can’t breathe—”

She backed away, first one step, then another, shaking her head, her voice all but robbed. The earl reached out to her, though not with force, nor did he try to curb her flight. Closing his hand around the empty air where she had been standing, he watched, his dark brows drawn together in a slight scowl as she retreated another pace, then turned on her heel and bolted.

She didn’t care if he followed or stayed; she ran along the corridor tunnel without direction now, nearly sobbing, arms crossed over the ache swelling in the pit of her stomach. At the end of the cavernous hallway, she rounded a sharp bend, and crashed into one of the monks, scarcely pausing to acknowledge the startled young brother, her head spinning, heart roiling. Light beckoned from the other side of a door up ahead of her, clear white sunrays outlining the dark shape of the old oak panel. She lunged for it, bracing her palms against the rough wood and pushing it open, staggering into the warm daylight of the garden.

Outside, still running, still sucking in choking gasps of air, Isabel navigated the maze of flower beds and shrubbery, the branches of an alder bush snagging at her skirts and long flowing sleeves as she stumbled past, blind with panic. She came around the alcove where she and Griffin had spent last afternoon, their private corner of the garden.

And, by Mary’s sweet mercy, there he was.

“Oh, Griffin!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms as he rose from the turf bench he had been sitting on and turned to face her. She gulped in a fortifying breath and pushed the awful words out in a rush. “It’s him … Sebastian of Montborne! Oh, God, Griffin—he’s here. I don’t know how he found us, but he’s here. He’s come for me and I don’t know what to do!”

She felt his arms drop down around her, lightly, as if he was reluctant to embrace her now. Her heart was still racing as she clung to him, her breath still rapid and harsh in her ears, but not so drowning that she did not hear the heavy sigh leak out of Griffin. She sensed his queer stillness, his vague withdrawal.

Sensed his total lack of surprise at this terrible, unexpected news.

“You knew he was coming,” she whispered, drawing away from him. Heaven help her, but the truth was there in his eyes. She could hardly find her voice to speak. “Did you … my God, did you send for him?”

That he would not reply was answer enough. She pulled out of his weak embrace, stunned, feeling as if she had been physically struck. His face gave her no comfort either; he looked down at her in expressionless silence, the skin seeming tight across his cheeks, his jaw held firm. But he would not deny his betrayal. Isabel was miserable with the idea, hurting someplace deep inside.

“When?” she asked, her voice choked and raw.

It took him a moment to answer. “The day I brought you here. I had one of the brothers scribe a message to Montborne and see that it was delivered. You were so sick … I didn’t know what else to do.” He shook his head and let out a soft curse. “I thought your betrothed had a right to know where you were.”

“And what about me?” she scoffed brokenly. “You should have told me you had sent for him. I had a right to know—”

“Yes, you did,” he admitted. “In truth, I didn’t think it would matter; I hadn’t planned to stay. I thought I would leave once I saw that you were better, but then …”

“But then I threw myself at your feet and you thought differently,” she supplied, a bitter edge to her tone.

“It was nothing like that, Isabel.”

“No?” she scoffed. “Well, then, mayhap you stayed to make sure you were able to claim your reward for my return.”

He exhaled sharply. “It’s not about some damned reward. I don’t want anything from Sebastian of Montborne.”

“What about me, Griffin? Do you want nothing from me, either?”

“I want you to be happy.”

“Liar,” she shot back. “You say that while you’re standing here breaking my heart.”

“We knew this day was coming, didn’t we?” he asked matter-of-factly. “We knew the day would come when you would go to Montborne and I would go my own way. All we were doing was delaying the inevitable.” He reached out to touch her face, but she turned away from his caress. “I thought it would be easier this way,” he said. “For both of us.”

She felt a tear slide down her cheek. “I must mean nothing to you at all if you found it so easy to simply turn your back and let me go.”

“God, no. You couldn’t have it more wrong, my lady.” His voice gentled, nearly to the point of a whisper. “Isabel … I love you.”

It killed her to hear those precious words when her betrothed was but a few hundred yards away in the monastery, preparing to take her with him at any moment. “How dare you say it,” she charged bitterly. “How dare you tell me you love me—now, when it’s too late for us to do anything about it. When you knew all along that he was coming for me!”

Griffin moved closer. “I love you.”

“No,” she said, needing to deny it, for it hurt so badly to think he might mean it after all.

“I love you, Isabel, and I always will.”

She brought her hand up to slap the words from his lips, but he caught her by the wrist and held her steady, his grip unyielding, his gaze intense with emotion. “Unhand me!” she cried, fisting her free hand and beating his shoulder in a fit of helpless, heartbroken rage. “I hate you! Let me go!”

“The lady said let go, sirrah. I suggest you release her at once.”

The growled demand made both of them still, then Griffin slowly freed his hold on her arm. Together, they turned toward the source of the interruption, Isabel’s face streaming with tears, Griffin’s hard with frustration and something deeper that she could not read. The Earl of Montborne stood before them like an impassive wall of muscle and tight-reined determination, but he was no longer alone as he had been in the corridor with Isabel a few moments ago. Four knights flanked him, two on each side, the lot of them poised to strike and awaiting his command.

“You are Griffin of Droghallow?”

Isabel saw Griffin’s vague nod of acknowledgment in the corner of her eye, then glanced up to find the earl’s hard gaze fixed on her, his gray-green eyes narrowed in an unwavering stare: cool, assessing … knowing. A muscle jerked in his dark-bearded jaw, his nostrils flaring as if he could scent her betrayal. Isabel’s ears burned with the depth of her shame, but she struggled to keep her chin high, forced herself to hold his gaze. Sebastian seemed to consider her for a moment in stony silence, then his focus leveled on Griffin.

“Arrest him,” he ordered his guards. “We’ll take him with us to Montborne to stand trial for his crimes.”

The two days spent en route for Montborne were easily among the worst of Isabel’s life. Although the earl had taken steps to see to her comfort, having brought her a gentle palfrey outfitted with a soft padded saddle and rich wool blankets to warm her during the journey, Isabel could not recall when she had ever felt so miserable. Riding alongside her betrothed and his caparisoned white charger, flanked at the fore and aft by two pairs of armed knights, it was all she could do to not bolt from the group and flee for the beckoning escape of the distant hills. Instead, she marshaled that urge along with another, equally compelling one: the urge to constantly turn her eyes to the tail of the traveling party, where Griffin rode on a bay gelding, bound and under guard.

As they left the monastery, Sebastian had given Griffin over to two mounted Montborne soldiers; one held the bay’s reins, the other held the rope that had been fastened around Griffin’s wrists. He was being treated with a modicum of care, but as a criminal nonetheless.

For her part, Isabel, too, felt somewhat the criminal. In her guilt, she could hardly bear to look at her betrothed, and so she stared at the road ahead, unable to offer him more than the weakest of replies when he tried to engage her in polite conversation to pass the time, and eating beside him in awkward, prolonged silence when they
stopped to rest and refresh the horses during the trek north.