“If you were to depart now, while the rain fell, or after it stopped, youwouldbe caught. The deluge of water has kept many indoors, and at first respite the farmers will be anxious for their fields and stables. You, in the same clothes in which you last left Thurston Hold, and shoes that are so thin as to be breathed through, would be as obvious on the road as a scarlet unicorn. Especially after you fainted on your face and someone discovered you.”
“I wouldn’t fai—”
“If you are determined to leave now, I will set out in the same moment. I will reach Thurston Hold before you, in order that I might do what I returned to do before your discovery and capture could possibly alert Felsteppe that something other than your purported death has gone awry and he becomes even more careful than he already has.”
“You’d never have the proof you needed to condemn him,” Dori reminded him, but her stomach had fluttered at his matter-of-fact description. “To restore your reputation.”
He shrugged his wide shoulders and turned toward her once more. “Given the choice between Glayer Felsteppe dead or incriminated and on the run, I’ll choose dead. And my reputation took quite the flogging before I left for Syria any matter.”
Her eyes widened at this mention of his past, of the rumors Dori had only vaguely heard, being of such a vulgar nature as to have made her servants and keepers attempt to shield her from the gossip.
“So I’m little more than your prisoner,” she said, trying to cover her discomfort. “Perhaps you have more in common with your enemy than you’d like to admit. He, too, commanded my comings and goings.”
She regretted her words before the accusation was completely spoken. He had cared for her, nursed her, and she had thanked him by comparing him to Glayer Felsteppe—the man who had murdered Lord Gerard’s family. Constantine Gerard’s face closed down even further, while Dori’s own throat clenched, unable to let words out even if she had thought of some poor apology. But that was Theodora’s nature, unfortunately. Hasty. Given to fits of temper.
And so she only lifted her chin and met his gaze.
His voice was so quiet it was little more than a whisper above the crackle of the fire. “You are free to go whenever you wish.”
Dori swallowed. “You don’t mean that.”Please, don’t mean it.
“I do. You may rise from that bench, walk through yonder door unimpeded. Go in whatever direction your heart desires. Only know that once you go, I will do exactly as I have told you. My aim is the same, and I shall achieve it with or without your childish cooperation.”
The barb stung, so often had its kind been flung at her and found its mark. Spoiled, immature, selfish, demanding Theodora.
She got what she deserved, Dori could hear the gossips just as surely as if they were whispering the rumors into her own ear.
“I’m sorry I compared you to Glayer Felsteppe,” she said suddenly and in a rush. “I didn’t mean it. You’re nothing like him.”
“A rather poor and tardy attempt to cover yourself, Lady Theodora,” he said as he stood. He picked up his satchel from the table as he walked toward the door.
Dori scrambled from the bench, dropping the tankard and rushing to him. “Wait! Lord Gerard,” she cried, and grasped his arm with both her hands as she reached him. He looked down at her with ill-concealed contempt. “I didn’t mean it.You have to understand—speaking that way, it’s a habit I developed to protect myself. To stand up for myself.”
He jerked from her grasp and opened the door.
“Please,” she cried after him.
Lord Gerard stopped and turned his head slightly, not actually looking at her. “I’m only going fishing, Theodora.”
“You swear it?” she pressed, sounding so like the child he accused her of being that she cringed inside.
“Only fishing,” he repeated and then left the room, leaving the door standing open.
Dori grasped the edge of the wood with one hand and laid her other palm along the stones of the doorway, watching as Constantine Gerard disappeared into the murk of the corridor. She heard the scrabbling of his footsteps on the stones, but then even his footfalls faded away. Dori continued to stare into the darkness, her heart in her throat, her knees quaking beneath her.
What a stupid, idiotic fool she was! Constantine Gerard could easily set out for Thurston Hold immediately—he had his satchel in his possession. Indeed, he’d left none of his personal possessions behind in the oratory each time he had gone fishing or foraging. Perhaps he had learned to be ready to depart for other destinations at a moment’s notice or been prepared to go another way should he determine he was being followed. She’d thought nothing of the habit before this day. But now . . .
By the time Dori accepted that Constantine Gerard was not returning to the oratory, he could have reached Glayer Felsteppe and accomplished what he set out to do, leaving her baby in the hands of whomever was left alive at Thurston Hold. Her son would become a ward of the king and Dori would have no way of knowing where he was or with whom. She might never see him again.
Lord Gerard had said he was going fishing. But who was the last man she could think of who was completely trustworthy? Dori had also dealt him a grave and humiliating insult only a moment before; what would her reaction have been if he’d compared her morals and loyalty to Patrice Gerard’s?
Dori left the doorway to fetch her raggedy cloak from the bench and then she, too, set off into the blackness of the corridor.
* * *
It was still drizzling as Constantine made his way across the swampy, reedy ward toward the low wall overlooking the river. The sky was gray with low clouds, but they seemed thinner, of less substance than they had on previous days. The air was warmer, too, and Constantine thought the rain would stop very soon. He stepped onto the threshold leading through the wall and hopped down into the long tangle of grass bent low with water.
He tried not to see Theodora Rosemont’s face, hear her voice in his head as he made his way down the slippery hill toward the churning, roaring river. Her hair was dark, not blond; her lament was not an argument about Constantine’s loyalty to his rank. And yet he couldn’t help but hear Patrice’s tone in Lady Theodora’s accusations.
