He glanced at her. “It’s doubtful I’ll recover Benningsgate or my title any matter. Once I’ve accomplished what I came here to do, it’s possible the king’s men might apprehend me. I’d likely be hanged.”
“But,” Dori stammered, “I promised you that I would vouch for you. And I will. I will go to the king myself and testify to Felsteppe’s misdeeds. You’ll surely be exonerated.”
Constantine turned his head with a sniff of incredulous laughter. “Henry’s not going to believeyou.”
He might as well have struck her. She felt the breath go out of her lungs and her fingers tightened around the warm cup still in her hands. The tea he’d made her. She looked down into its dark, murky depths to avoid his amused gaze and then stepped to the table to set the cup down carefully. Her eyes burned with humiliation as she stepped to the peg on the wall to remove her cloak, now little more than a long, hooded rag.
“Have I upset you?” he said behind her.
Her fingers paused for only an instant as they struggled to fasten her cloak at her throat. “How could you have possibly upset me?” The blasted loop was so worn and stretched that the knot wouldn’t stay hooked. “You only suggested that my testimony would be completely worthless and unreliable. Am I known as a liar now, too? I fear I’ve been out of the circle of gossip, so I can’t be sure what’s been said of me since my fortuitousdeath.”
He sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”
The cloak wouldn’t fasten, so she jerked it from her shoulders and threw it to the stones before turning around to face him.
“You didn’t mean the king couldn’t possibly believemebecause of my reputation before my father died? Because I journeyed all the way to the Holy Land to become married to the very demon I would accuse? Because I allowed everyone to believe I was dead while I cowered in this hellish, ruinedhoveland my infant son is at the mercy of that beast and his servant dog?”
“No,” Constantine said levelly. “That’s not what I meant. That’s whatyouthink.”
She gasped. “What?”
Constantine rose from his stool with a hitch as he pulled his leg beneath him and then walked toward Dori with a slight limp. She held her ground, her wounds so raw and painful that they were easily covered by anger. She would not shrink from him.
He stopped before her and bent down, picking up her cloak and shaking it out. He swirled it behind her and then looked down his nose while he worked the closure at her collarbone.
“That’s what you think,” he clarified. “I meant that Henry isn’t likely to release my estate back to me at your word when it’s your son who will inherit both Benningsgate and Thurston Hold after his father is dead. It would be in the king’s best interest to retain a modicum of control over both houses, which he will be able to do upon realizing that you have been resurrected as a widow.”
His hands fell away from her throat and his gaze met hers. “If Henry were going to do justice for me, he already has received letters testifying to my innocence and to Felsteppe’s treachery. He stands to benefit from Felsteppe’s purchase of Benningsgate, and once I see that one dead, it will again fall to his guardianship. He shall profit twice.”
“But you’ve been gone for years,” Dori argued quietly, not certain which emotion was the right one to feel out of the tangle of them that mired her thoughts. “Perhaps it is only your presence he needs to attest to your fidelity.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Perhaps. But even if that were so, I have lost everything. Henry will know soon enough that I’ve nothing with which to rebuild this place,” he ended on a whisper. “Not even the will.”
“Then why did you agree to help me?” she insisted. “If I am so worthless to you, why not just chase down Felsteppe now that you are so close to him and do that which your vengeance demands?”
He pressed his lips together, and Dori’s eyes lingered on his upper lip, where the sensuous curvature she’d noticed only moments before was nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice low, and now, as his eyes looked into hers, Dori didn’t know if it was regret she saw there or only a reflection of her own fears. “Perhaps it’s because if I had a chance to save my own son I would. If I had a chance to see that he was cared for and”—he paused here and swallowed, and the obvious pain of it caused Dori to wince—“safe, I would wish him in the hands of one who could protect him. Even if those hands weren’t my own.”
Dori felt her eyes welling with tears. “I’m sorry, Constantine,” she said. “I wish I could have been that person for you. For Christian.”
He raised his hand and smoothed back a lock of her hair behind her ear, which had been bent against her cheek while she’d slept. How stupid of her to have cut it. She had been impetuous even so near death. What must he think of her appearance, this general, this earl, who had been married to one of the greatest beauties in all the land, who had surely seen the most enchanting and exotic of women in his many travels?
And yet here he was before her now, still staring down into her eyes, and Dori could not look away from him. Even if he thought her ridiculous in her appearance, a foolish child, she didn’t care. The strength and depth of his gaze was more potent than any food, any warming potion she could consume, and it rendered her unable to move at all.
“I believe you,” he whispered, his thumb grazing the underside of her jaw as he withdrew his hand.
The phrase was like some magical incantation, for when she blinked, he was no longer simply Lord Gerard, Earl of Chase, the brusque, handsome general who had come back to avenge his family. No, it was as if his words had kindled a fire behind his eyes, a glow within him that Dori was suddenly drawn to like a dumb, helpless moth; as if he was a portrait of manhood exquisitely rendered but then gasped to life and crawled out of the still frame to stand before her so close, breathing the same air that she did.
He was a man who owed her nothing, had no reason to placate her. She was entirely without influence in any area of her life, at the mercy of God and fate and—truly—of Constantine Gerard himself. And he’d said he believed her.
This is when he shall kiss me, she marveled to herself, and even felt her lips part in anticipation.What a strange turn of events.
Constantine’s gaze went to her mouth and then she saw his own lips quirk, a rueful smile coming over his face. He reached up suddenly and raised the hood of her cloak over her head.
“It’s raining again,” he said and then stepped away from her to limp back to the stool, where he sat with a weary sigh.
Dori stood in the center of the floor for a moment, as if she’d just been dropped through the ceiling. He hadn’t kissed her after all, and she wasn’t quite sure what had just passed between them, but she was certain the air in the oratory was somehow different—that their lives were now different because of each other, and that perhaps their futures would be, too.
