Page 63 of The Champion

“Stryder?” she asked gently.

He didn’t appear to see her.

“Stryder!” she said more forcefully as she neared him. She was beginning to fear for his sanity.

“You should leave here, Rowena.” His low tone sent a shiver over her. His gaze was glazed by churning emotions.

“Why?”

He moved away from her so that all she had of him was his rigid back. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Like what?” she asked with a frown, trying to understand why he would wish to be alone when it was obvious he didn’t want solitude. “Afraid?”

His breathing was ragged. “I would rather be hanged than locked in here.”

Her heart clenched at his words and tenderness spread through her. Poor Stryder. For him, this was his worst nightmare. She closed the distance between them, but refrained from touching him as she longed to do. She wasn’t sure if her touch would help or only cause him more grief.

“All will be well, Stryder. I’m here with you.”

He raked his hand over his face as if he were fighting images in his mind. As if he were reliving a hell so unimaginable that, at any moment, he would die from it. She wanted to soothe him so badly that she ached from her inability to make things better for him

“You can’t be in here because of me.” He turned around and urged her toward the closed door. “Don’t you understand? I need you to leave.”

“Why?”

“Because!” Stryder shouted, then he lowered his voice and spoke to her between clenched teeth. “Because I was responsible for Simon and Raven. I was supposed to protect them. Instead, I let an idiot divide our number and then I led them all into captivity. I was stupid and arrogant and... You have to leave. Please.”

Rowena cupped his face in her hands and tried to make him understand something she didn’t really understand herself. She didn’t know why she was here other than the fact that leaving him alone hurt her. She couldn’t stand even the thought of it. “I won’t leave you alone in this horrid place, Stryder. All will be well. You shall see.”

Stryder wanted to believe that. He needed to, but right now the past was swirling through his mind with vicious clarity. He could smell the stench of decay and hell. Hear the screams of his friends, their prayers that they would die rather than suffer another day.

’Twas more than he could stand.

“You’re not in Outremer.” Rowena reached out and touched his arm. “You are with me, here, in England.”

He focused on her gentle face. On her light green eyes that showed him compassion and warmth. Not hatred. Nay, there was no hatred or scorn there. Only concern.

Her face and her emotions helped to drive away the horrors of his past. Her eyes, her hair, her touch...

She was the present. She wasn’t part of his nightmares.

He focused on that and held tightly to it.

Rowena took a breath as she realized she had reached him. His eyes were no longer glazed. They were sharp and focused, and they stared at her with a heat that made her entire body burn. Made her shivery and instantly needful. God love this man, but there was something about him that was undeniably irresistible.

Seeking to distract them both, she released him. “Tell me what happened this morning. Why did they accuse you of murder?”

He took a deep breath as if to draw in strength and to combat the sudden anger she saw flash in his eyes. “I know not. One moment, I was asleep and, in the next, Henry was there with his guards. They said I had been seen, again, in the middle of the night leaving Roger’s tent. I tried to argue, but one of Henry’s men saw my tunic over a chair and told Henry it matched the fragment they had found in Roger’s hand.”

“Who would want to blame you for such a crime?”

He shrugged. “I know not. I can’t even imagine why someone would do something like this.” His face hardened and turned into the visage of the knight she’d glimpsed that evening when Cyril had insulted Kit. This was the Stryder of legend. The one who made grown men flee in terror of his wrath. “But whoever is responsible had best give his final confession. Once I’m away from here, I swear I shall murder whoever did this.”

She couldn’t blame him for that. He didn’t deserve to be locked away in this horrid place. “Your men are looking into the matter. They will find the assassin.”

“Nay,” he said, his voice thick with doubt. “He’s too clever for that. Whoever went to such lengths as to steal into my tent and rip my tunic for an incriminating piece of fabric wouldn’t be so foolish. He won’t attack while I’m locked up.”

“But why frame you and not another?”