“And you married him in Jerusalem.”
“I did,” she said, and those two words seemed to place the final details together in a neat, snug bundle with the rest of the tragedies that had led to this day.
Even though the facts as he’d known them had now been nothing worse than confirmed, Constantine’s mind was a whirl of bitter regrets, and his black, angry thoughts buzzed around his head like hornets. For although the decision to wed Felsteppe hadn’t been her own, Constantine could not allow himself further kindness to Glayer Felsteppe’s wife.
“Please don’t go to Thurston Hold without me,” she said at his side, and Constantine could hear the plea in her voice, although he refused to turn to look down at her waiflike face. “I know you hate me, and I understand why. But I swear to you that once my son is safely away from Glayer Felsteppe, I will do everything in my power to help you. Anything you ask of me, from this point forward, until you release me of my debt. I swear it.”
“I don’t need your help, Theodora.”
“Perhaps not,” she allowed. “But we need yours.”
We. Theodora and her infant son—Glayer Felsteppe’s infant son.
“And perhaps, just perhaps,” she interrupted his dark thoughts, “we will prove useful to you yet.”
At her strange tone, he did look down at her. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, and although Constantine wouldn’t have acknowledged it aloud, her gaze as she stared up at him was clear and without any hint of subterfuge. Guileless, like the young girl she likely had been before being forced to parent her ill father; before Glayer Felsteppe had corrupted her mind with his games and her body with his child.
Constantine felt his principles struggling against some faint whisper of intuition.
“Perhaps I could start by preparing the meal tonight? It’s true that I have no experience as a cook, but I doubt even I could ruin boiled fish.” Her wide mouth curved up the tiniest bit.
His own lips wanted to return her ghost of a smile at the absurdity of her suggestion, but the moment was interrupted by the abrupt barking of a dog, and Constantine looked over Theodora’s head in the same moment that she turned to behold the long-legged gray animal bounding down the riverbank toward them, sounding its deep, staccato alarm.
And coming right along behind the animal was a rotund village man, his arm already raised in greeting.
Constantine looked around for a brief moment, considering their options for flight—the river, the woods, or back to the ruin. With the river they’d be swept away; to the wood, the dog would only give swift chase. Should they retreat to the ruin, the man would gather whatever reinforcements there were to be had in the village before searching the rubble.
Theodora turned back to look up at him, the panic clear in her pale face. “Should we run?”
Constantine looked back to the man walking ever closer to them, what appeared to be some small traps across his back, his long stick helping his waddling progress. The dog was nearly upon them now, his wiry coat flinging water with every leaping stride.
“Constantine,” Theodora insisted. He glanced at her again and saw that she had picked up her pathetic, ragged skirts in one fist and now her hand lay on his chest. “Do we run?”
He shook his head. “I’m finished running.” He took her elbow and pulled her from the rock behind him as he made his own way down. Constantine turned just as the dog gave a final whining bark and leaped at him.
Chapter 10
The prow of the skiff nodded wildly through the thick mist above the choppy water in the bay. It was dawn, but only barely, and the fog made it seem as though night still surrounded the small boat bounding through the waves with each pull of the oars.
“Careful, there,” Adrian said, half-rising to place a steadying hand on Christian’s shoulder when the boy would have been tossed into the air. “Hold to the underside of the seat, lad.”
Constantine’s son looked back at him with a grateful if uneasy smile. “Yes, sir.”
Adrian sat fully next to Maisie once more and turned to her as she slid her fingers into his hand and leaned her mouth closer to his ear. “He’s nae going anywhere, Adrian. You fuss like a mother hen.”
“He’s my responsibility until we hand him over to his father,” Adrian argued, not the least bit perturbed by his wife’s teasing.
“I think we all share in that responsibility,” Maisie said. “At least Valentine and Roman feel they do. You are being too selfish with the boy.”
Adrian now turned to look past the oarsman and their belongings behind him and found the smoky outline of the second boat, carrying the other two couples. Satisfied that they weren’t lost in the mist, he faced forward once more, smiling to himself as he caught sight of Christian leaning this way and that, trying to see ahead through the fog.
“I don’t intend to disparage their sense of obligation,” he said. “But I will behave as I see fit. As far as I’m concerned, I am Christian’s guardian. Stan would want it that way.” Although he hadn’t intended the statement to have such connotations, a chill made its way up his spine, as if a finger of the damp fog had found a way beneath his heavy cloak and tunic.
Maisie only squeezed his hand, and so he knew she’d heard the worry in his words. What if they were too late? What if they returned to England only to find that Constantine had achieved what he had set out to do, not knowing that his son lived, and had met his own death in seeking his revenge of Glayer Felsteppe?
But Constantine could not be dead, not now. Not when Adrian was bringing to him the person he’d loved most in this world and thought lost forever. No, Adrian would not allow that possibility to enter his mind. Or Christian’s.
