“I’m certain if he survived his fall and managed to gain the road once more to find that I, his servant, and the carriage for our departure to the docks had vanished, he assumed I had taken advantage of the opportunity to leave.”
“His fall?”
She met his gaze levelly. “I pushed him over the embankment at the roadside, into a ravine.”
Constantine felt his eyebrows raise.
“I’d hoped to kill him,” she clarified unnecessarily. “If I’d had any sort of weapon on my person at the time, I would have made certain he was dead.”
Constantine remembered the strength with which she’d fought him when he’d cornered her in the ward and had no doubt that what she’d said was true. If only she had used such cunning and will to lay her husband low. “There is no one at all, then, who would have any reason to suspect you are still in the area of Thurston Hold,” he pressed.
“There is likely no one who thinks I’m still alive, let alone still in this area.”
He nodded. “I’ll need money.”
She stared at him. “For what?”
“The longer I wait to go after Felsteppe, the greater the risk that either or both of us will be discovered. If I am not to be arrested for Glayer Felsteppe’s murder, I must have the means to flee.”
“You seem to have done well enough evading the authorities on your own thus far,” she pointed out. “Has this become a mercenary task for you, Lord Gerard? Avenging your family?”
“No, but after he is dead, you and your son will once more live in the comfort of Thurston Hold while the king finds a suitable husband for you.” He gestured around the small oratory. “I have nothing left. And there are some friends I would help provide for if they are in need of it after all this is over. They, too, have lost their homes, their livelihoods.”
“So you are telling me that you will help me rescue my son?”
“No. I am telling you that I will wait to go after Glayer Felsteppe until you have secreted the child safely away from the danger.”
He saw her throat convulse as she swallowed and then nodded. A faint sparkle came into her eyes—the first Constantine had seen.
“How much will you require?”
“How much can you lay hand to?”
Theodora was still for a moment, as if considering her words carefully. “I’ve hidden a shallow trunk in a hollow of the wall behind a stone in the nursery. I hoarded away what coin and valuables I could lay hand to, so that after my son was born and I had recovered, we could flee. There is a considerable amount of silver. Jewels as well.”
“That will do,” Constantine said.
“Very well. Then we have an agreement,” she said.
“You shall have to take more care than you have in the past. It is not above Glayer Felsteppe to torture those he seeks information from, and I’d not have you leading him right to me.”
“I’m not stupid, Lord Gerard,” she said coolly.
Constantine’s mouth thinned. “I suppose, between the two of us, you had a more intimate knowledge of him than I, but I know how he behaves when trapped.”
“As do I,” she said, and her hard gaze made Constantine wonder for a moment just how deep that knowledge went, and exactly what Theodora Rosemont had done to make Glayer Felsteppe wish dead the beautiful, wealthy woman who was the mother of his child.
It also increased his wariness of her. “Don’t think to betray me, Theodora.”
“Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, Lord Gerard,” she said, and her words let the unspoken threat hang in the cool, humid oratory, where once, a lifetime ago, Constantine had knelt to receive God’s blessing before departing for the fortress at Jacob’s Ford.
He stood away from the wall. “It’s started to rain. By the looks of the sky, it’s likely to continue for some time. I’ll collect the fish from the pit and return with more firewood. After that I plan to see who’s still about in the village.”
“Aren’t you afraid someone will recognize you?”
“I am much changed from the time when I was lord here.”
“I knew who you were,” she challenged.
