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“When your safety is not a concern, aye.”

She seemed to contemplate that. Then finally, she said, “’Tis a bargain.”

He’d not realized they were negotiating. Shaking his head, Conrad stared at her in awe. “You are a wonder to me, Cait Kennaugh.”

“But I am your wonder, am I not?”

Of that, he was certain. “Aye.”

Which was why he could not wait much longer to marry her. He knew the implications of what the bishop had told him—if they failed, the rebellion failed. All of them, but Conrad more than the rest. He’d started this movement, after all. The possibility that he would be taken, imprisoned, killed, was stronger than the outcome they prayed for—that the rebels would be welcomed, embraced, as champions of justice against a corrupt king.

He would not die without knowing her as fully and completely as a man and woman could. And so, they would marry before they entered the city.

Slipping away from her, Conrad jumped from the bed.

“What are you about?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for the leather bag that carried his belongings. Pulling out an old slip of parchment folded into a small square, he returned to the bed. He handed it to Cait and watched as she opened it.

Her expression told him she’d understood at once. Propped on one arm, lying sideways, he could not resist smiling as she looked in astonishment from the letter back to him.

“How . . . but you, you did not know I had come when you brought this.”

Conrad shook his head gently. “I did not.”

“’Tis the very first one,” she said.

Conrad waited.

“Did you look for this when I came to Licheford?”

Again, he shook his head.

“You carry it . . .”

“Always.”

Cait’s eyes filled with tears.

“You could not know I’d come. Lady Threston . . .” She took a deep breath as Conrad wiped a tear from her cheek. “You could not have known.”

“I did not,” he confirmed. “Neither did I believe I would ever see you again.”

“But . . .” She looked down at the letter she’d sent him, the simple thank you note for helping the others to rescue her.

“’Twas a reminder of a time I had succeeded. A reminder,” he continued, “of a woman I’d loved.”

“You kept this with you?”

“Always,” he repeated, taking it from her hands. “I love you, Cait. I wish to marry you the moment we meet up with the others.”

“The moment?” She reached up, her hand covering his cheek. Conrad held his own over it.

“The moment. Before we go to London.”

Before we either force the king’s hand or die trying.

“Yes. Yes!”

She sat up and kissed him in a way that made Conrad rethink his position with Terric. Her lips moved across his own so sweetly and thoroughly, Conrad wondered if the entire plan could not be altered. If they could, all eight of them, forget London. And King John. Escape to France, or anywhere really, and find peace without the need for war.

But even as he held the woman he’d never quite forgotten, positioning himself for sleep behind her, breathing in her sweet scent, he dismissed the wild notion. Guy and Sabine could escape. Idalia and Lance too. Even Terric could flee across the border to Scotland, never to return to England again.

But Conrad had begun this rebellion. He would see it through.

Whatever the outcome.