“We’ve had to defend against raids,” Alastair offered. “Twice the parties included soldiers of the king.”
“They meant to set fire to the house,” Herne said, glancing down the road to where the boys had disappeared. “Just as they did to Benningsgate Castle. Although the king’s men weren’t party to that particular event.”
Alastair added, “But we have tried to stay in Henry’s good graces by pleading our case regularly. It’s kept him from sending soldiers here again thus far.”
“Thus far,” Herne added darkly. “We’ve had no visitors for nigh on six months, and we think it’s due to the rumors that the man responsible for the accusations against you will gain Benningsgate lands any day.”
Adrian felt his jaw tense. “Constantine Gerard has come back to kill the one of which the rumors speak; his name is Glayer Felsteppe. He is prepared to do whatever it takes to see the man dead. But he doesn’t know his son, Christian, lives. Our friends—”
Herne nodded as he walked to Adrian, pressing his arm and smiling up at him and then Maisie. “Let’s go home, shall we? You can tell us about your plan once we see you settled. You do have a plan, do you not?”
Adrian smiled, and some of the anxiety he felt building inside him at learning what his family had suffered in his absence—and on his account—faded. He placed his hand atop his father’s.
“We do have a plan, Da. It’s already been set in motion.”
“I thought as much.” Herne squeezed Adrian’s arm again and then began walking down the road to retrieve his mount.
Alastair gained his saddle and looked to Maisie, who had been quietly observing the men the entire time. “My lady wife will be much pleased with your arrival, Lady Maighread. Although I must admit that if my brother chose you for his bride, you likely don’t wile away your hours laboring at the needle.”
Maisie smiled at him. “I’m certain I’ve nae idea what you’re talking about, Lord Alastair,” she said as she urged her mount forward and passed him, choosing to ride alongside Herne Hailsworth.
Adrian swung into his saddle, then kicked at his horse. He tried not to notice the jarring sound of the gate when it closed behind the riders, a reminder of the danger that had reached across oceans and years to stalk them all still.
He only hoped the brotherhood found Constantine first.
Chapter 18
“My lord.”
Constantine straightened, breathing hard, a large piece of rock suspended in his hands. He propped the jagged edge on his thigh and twisted slightly at the waist to look behind him at Harmon. The man knelt on one knee, his bent back to Constantine, the single window of the hall high above him.
Constantine thought briefly of when he’d dangled from that very window only the day before, through which Theodora Rosemont had delivered him to safety.
He tossed the rock to the side, then swiped his arm across his wet brow. He rested his hands on his hips while he attempted to regulate his breaths before answering.
“Yea, Harmon?”
The carpenter looked over his shoulder but didn’t say anything, and Constantine felt his skin freeze over, his heart stop in his chest. Above him, the birds swooped and sang their sweet songs, slicing the air with gay abandon. The sun was gentle, warm, suddenly sending long beams of golden light into the ruin and filling it with a tender glow.
Constantine began slowly walking over the uneven rubble toward Harmon, his chest growing tighter with each scuffling, sliding footfall. He wanted to run toward the man and whatever he had found; he wanted to flee to the farthest corner of the world to avoid seeing the discovery with his own eyes.
At last he was just behind the man, unable to bring himself any closer at the moment. Harmon stood at once and turned away, averting his face from Constantine’s as he passed and leaving him alone above the slight depression in the rubble. Constantine kept his head cocked, his eyes on the charred red stone of the wall proper while he listened to Harmon’s footfalls echoing across the debris floor.
His gaze came around in jerks and starts, as if a great hand had taken hold of his skull and was forcing him to look. Amid the gray and black rubble he saw the charred, curved anomaly among the shapes, the bone-white patch streaked with black, and his breath fled his lungs as his knees buckled and he collapsed near the depression, his hands catching him on either side of the discovery.
Constantine reached out with his right hand and touched the curve with shaking fingertips. It did not rock—Harmon had obviously ceased his excavations at first sight of it—and so Constantine shifted the stones around it aside. He pulled the bone from the rubble, turned it toward himself. It was the top half of a slender skull, the front teeth long and white.
She had smiled up at him so on their wedding day . . .
Her gentle looks of love for the new babe she cradled in her arms . . .
The flash of her grimace as they’d shouted at each other . . .
“Patrice,” Constantine whispered.
The birds above his head started from their secret nests and all together, causing him to startle and look upward. He pulled the skull to his chest, cradling it, the vision of the birds’ graceful flight above bulging and blurred with the tears in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” he gasped on an inhalation. “Please forgive me.”
