Different because he believed her.
It was too much for her to ponder in his presence, so she turned to the door, opened it, and was gone into the black, stinking corridor.
* * *
Constantine dropped his forehead into his palm after Theodora had closed the oratory door and then smoothed his hand over his head with a sigh, looking up into the flames before him.
She’d expected him to kiss her. And hadn’t he thought about it? This fairylike woman-child with her pixie’s hair and elfin face, her wide mouth that should have been sensuous but was made innocent by its honest expression of expectation. How could she have had such stars in her big eyes when they were in a cell below the ground?
Theodora’s beloved father had deserted her with his mind long before his body had died, and now that Constantine was here, perhaps she thought to cling to him in Lord Rosemont’s stead. She was little more than a girl who’d been made vulnerable by her circumstances.
And yet she was the girl who had married Glayer Felsteppe. By her own admission, she had run to the Holy Land after him once her father was dead. Why? Because, as now, she had no one else to look after her? Was she so unsure that she needed someone, anyone—even Glayer Felsteppe—to claim her rather than be left to her own devices?
But she’d come to Benningsgate alone. She’d stayed here when it probably should have meant her death rather than seek help and risk any chance of her ever going after her son without Felsteppe knowing she was coming. That didn’t seem like the actions of an insecure girl but rather the gamble of a determined woman, willing to wager her own life against Glayer Felsteppe winning the prize of her child.
It didn’t matter. She had still married the fiend and nothing could ever erase that fact. Even after Felsteppe was dead and Constantine had his revenge, Theodora Rosemont would still be Glayer Felsteppe’s widow. Her boy would forever be Felsteppe’s son. Each time Constantine looked at his red hair, he would think of the blond little boy who should have his place.
The thought caused a wave of nausea to rise up against his sternum. How could he have entertained the thought of kissing Dori when his wife and son lay dead and buried under the rubble of their ruined home only hundreds of feet away?
Constantine decided he was only sad and lonely, touched by the obligation of love he would perform in the ruined keep, as well as the absence of his friends, so far away. They might not forgive him for his desertion, if he was so fortunate as to ever see any of them again. He didn’t blame them.
The oratory door burst open and Dori rushed back inside, closing the door quickly but quietly, reaching down for her ridiculous stake and then shoving it into the groove in the floor. She rose up at once and pressed her back to the door, her wide eyes staring at him in horror.
“What?” he said, gaining his feet. “What is it?”
Her mouth came open, as if she would answer, but no sound issued forth. She pushed away from the door and began gesturing sharply with her hands, as if gesticulating a conversation she was incapable of having.
“I was . . . there is . . .” She took a deep, gasping breath and swept her hands toward the door, then back toward Constantine. “In.” She closed her eyes for a moment and took another deep breath while making tight fists of her hands. She at last looked at him once more and loosened both forefingers from her fists. “The ward.”
He winced at her. “What?”
An escalating, humming noise came from her throat, clearly a sound of distress, but Constantine could not decipher the cause for Dori’s panic. She clasped her hands together, lacing her fingers as if she would fall before the commandeered altar and pray the jumble of words that sounded as though they were trapped behind her teeth.
Constantine thought perhaps seeking divine intervention wasn’t a terrible idea, the way she was behaving.
“Do you need to sit down?” he asked.
“N-n-no!” The word finally forced its way between her lips in the same moment her hands forced themselves apart. She rushed to him and grasped his tunic, and he found himself catching her with his hands on her waist. “Constantine, there are . . .people! In . . . theward!”
“People?” he repeated while looking down into her face.
She nodded tightly, her eyes wide with fright, and then emphasized on a whisper, “In the ward!”
“What sort of people?”
“What sort of—?” She broke off and winced at him. “The sort with arms and legs. What do you mean, what sort of people?”
He gave her a frown. “Are they men, women, soldiers?”
“I don’tknow,” she insisted and jerked on his tunic. “I didn’t think it wise to put forth an inquiry.”
He saw her point. “How many?”
“Ten? A score? Does it matter?” she said. “There are supposed to benone!”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so.”
