“Do not listen to me; worry is making me ramble.” She gave her a comforting smile. “Let me help you to bed and then I will be on my way.”
She remained silent. After her maid left, Marie curled into a tight ball but couldn’t sleep. Gaston’s harsh words repeated in her mind. Did her father love her, or had all he’d claimed been a lie? She hated the doubts, the misgivings that undermined her father’s support, which she’d never questioned before.
And Colyne—he would be thrilled at the news. She easily envisioned him holding their son or daughter, the pride, the love in his eyes as he told their babe stories of the fey. But he would never know they’d created a child.
With a frustrated sigh, she shoved her bed covering aside and rose. There was no way she was going to sleep this night. Unsure of anything, she moved to the window and stared into the night.
A thin film of clouds shielded the stars overhead.
As she started to turn, a movement on the wall drew her attention. Narrowing her gaze, she tried to make out the murky figure. Failed. Someone was hiding in the shadows near an arrow loop.
Why?
An assassination attempt against her father?
Her pulse raced as she studied the covert stranger. Whatever his intention, she must inform the guards of his presence.
As she started to move back, she caught sight of another man hurrying down the wall walk.
Moonlight spilled from a break in the clouds, illuminating the lone figure.
Gaston.
She frowned, surprised by his presence, believing he’d returned to his chamber. Or, as troubled as she by the news he’d imparted, mayhap he couldn’t sleep as well?
Marie steadied her emotions and glanced toward the man hidden in the shadows. As her betrothed approached, the stranger stepped from his hiding place.
He was going to attack Gaston. She started to call out a warning, but as the duke spotted the man, he waved him back into the shadows.
Both men slipped into the shield of darkness.
Unease rippled through her. A planned meeting. Why? Was Gaston’s rendezvous somehow connected with her abduction? Shame filled her at the thought, one driven by fear. If indeed her betrothed was right, she’d lived a lie, her father’s words of love naught but sympathetic offerings from a man who’d tried to appease an unwanted child. Tears welled in her eyes. Her foundation of love was but a story, conjured up like one of the tales of King Arthur.
King Arthur!
So caught up in her doubts, stunned by the realization of her pregnancy and devastated at losing Colyne, rational thought had fled.
Her heart pounding, Marie bolted to the hearth. Angled on a ledge sat the volume of King Arthur tales, its edges worn from use. She picked up the leather-bound volume.
With unsteady fingers, she flipped through the hand-penned parchment. Through the blur of her tears, she read the inscription.
My dearest, Marie. Your birth is a blessing. You are a daughter who fills me with joy and one whom I welcome into my life, home, and heart. One day, when you are grown, my greatest wish is that you too may be blessed with a child created by love.
Your father, Philip IV
The fragile parchment shook in her fingers. Marie closed the volume and slid it on the ledge, then clenched her fists.
Gaston had lied.
Anger knotted into a hard ball in her chest. The bastard thought he could convince her that she was unwanted, sway her to believe she could ever stop loving Colyne or the child she carried.
Her anger shoved up another notch. The bastard had played on her fears of love, her doubts that any man would want her if not for her royal tie. Before she’d met Colyne, she might have believed his words.
No longer.
Through Colyne’s trust, friendship, and patience, he’d taught her that she was a woman a man could love, not because of the royal link but because she had a good and honest heart. With Colyne, she felt complete.
Marie glanced to where Gaston remained cloistered in the shadows with the stranger. What other devious decisions had he made? Did they extend to her abduction? Grabbing her cloak, she ran out the door.
