Page 49 of Lord of Loyalty

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Will couldn’t bear to leave her—neither could he cope with the icy wall she’d thrust between them. It wasn’t something one could attack with a cavalry charge, or ranks of archers, or the cunning deployment of troops. All week, on his sickbed, he’d been preparing pretty speeches, hoping to find an excuse for his behavior.

Dare he explain he’d been drinking on that last night because he was trying to make sense of his feelings? What if she were to mock him? Love as deep as this, so swiftly formed, was new and agonizing. Each cold look, each word of censure from Isobel, stung like a thousand lashes. He was a soldier—he’d stared Death in the face many a time, yet here he was, unmanned by a woman.

Could she understand how frustrated that made him? How often had he suggested marriage, and been spurned? If he was to have any hope of winning her, he must be circumspect and bide his time. But he wasn’t about to leave the battlefield just yet.

Gazing at the slender line of her neck, and the smooth curve of her cheek as she continued with her needlework, he fought the compulsion to take her in his arms and kiss the coolness out of her, confess that he wanted her with an urgency he’d never before experienced. But what good would it do? She had run away from him, been hurt by him. How could he make it up to her?

“If you have more crimes to lay at my door, then do so. Nothing is worse than simmering resentment. Let us air all your grievances, here and now.”

“There’s no need. I’m no longer distressed by that final night. You were in your cups, still angry from the morning when I inadvertently crossed you. Let us speak of it no more, for it did not matter one jot. Ouch!”

She had jabbed her needle into her finger. He was out of his chair in an instant, grasping her hand to inspect the damage.

She snatched it away and sucked on the wound. “I’m quite all right, I assure you,” she snapped. “You need not treat me like a child.”

He stepped back, affronted. “I meant well. But I’m tempted to treat you like a child when it seems to me you behave like one. You rushed from my house on a whim and despite all my warnings, you threw yourself back into the path of danger again. If I seem churlish, ’tis because I care for you—I swore to keep you safe. Don’t underestimate Hubert Pike. I’ve already done it once, to my cost.”

“I know. I’m sorry for your hurts. But I didn’t leave on a whim—I stayed up all night—”

She broke off and sucked at her finger again, refusing to meet his eyes. There was a hint of pink on her cheeks—she hadn’t meant to reveal that, had she? Was that reason for hope?

“Isobel, I’m merely trying to point out that you don’t know what you’re dealing with. I have lived in the world, experienced its worst side, for a lot longer than you. Pike won’t give up easily. Manners has doubtless kept you safe, but you cannot truly relax your vigilance until your cousin is caught and condemned. Manners is not infallible. What if Pike should slip through unnoticed? Once within the grounds, he’d be screened by your high walls and needs but a knife blade to give him entry to the house through a window. Think what harm he could do with that knife if he finds you here alone.”

“Once I have my legacy, I’ll send Manners back to you, and employ other men to guard the house. I’ll have a carpenter check the windows and put bolts on them if need be, and a locksmith will fasten the external doors. Not that I relish the idea of dwelling in a fortress when I have been a prisoner for so long already.”

Turning away, she stared out the window as if to reassure herself no enemies lurked without. Then she glanced coolly back at him. “However, if I were Hubert, I’d be well away by now. He must know everyone is looking for him. He must also know he has nothing to gain by harming me, now that his scheme has been discovered. I have the papers I need to claim my legacy—he does not. Aye, I took them from your document chest before I left. I saw no wrong in it since they were mine.”

He hadn’t noticed, hadn’t even been into the parlor. This was his first day out of bed, and his thigh was already protesting its ill-usage. He ran a hand over it, trying to rub the pain into submission.

“The papers do, indeed, belong to you. I’m still prepared to accompany you when you visit your lawyer, to ensure the funds are made available as soon as possible.”

“No need. As you can see, I didn’t leave on a whim—I thought very carefully about what I was doing, and adequate precautions have been taken, or soon will be. You need no longer bear the burden of my care—send me a note with your expenditure on my behalf. As soon as I have my money, you’ll be reimbursed.”

He recoiled as if she’d touched him with a burning brand. Pay him back? How could she think so little of him?

She must have taken his stunned silence for compliance, for she added, “Be assured I shall return Manners to you directly, and will pay his wages for the time he’s been with me. Please tell me what you’ve spent on my behalf so I can settle my debt to you.”

He stood and turned away, raking his hands through his hair as he tried to compose himself. His breath came in short, panicky bursts as if his lungs were being crushed. “You owe me nothing.” It was hard to speak around the lump in his throat. “I shall not send you my reckoning. Excuse me, Mistress Marston, but my leg pains me. I must away.”

Without a bow or a word of farewell, he limped to the door and let himself out. The stairs were a trial, but it was his heart that felt bruised, not his thigh. He’d meant to stay and win her over. What had he done instead? Stalked out in a fit of pique. How ironic that he should accuse her of childlike behavior when it was him who was being puerile.

He struggled to mount Jennet, relishing the pain it cost him as a distraction from the agony in his mind. Did Isobel think so little of him that she wanted to pay him back? Did she seriously believe all he’d done had been from loyalty to Edward? How he could prove his love to her—when she appeared to want none of it—was a conundrum of massive proportions and one that could not be readily solved.

He should concentrate on his own position. There were rumors Robert Dudley might be in favor again—he could renew his friendship with the man and see if his dreams of becoming a courtier might still be realized. Yet he had little heart for that now. Something had changed him—Isobel had changed him. If only he could persuade her to come with him, he’d be happy to live in obscurity. A friend had recently written to say he was selling a moated house and farm at Foxwell in Suffolk. What better place to dwell quietly, away from faction and favor, and raise his own livestock?

And if it came to the worst, and Mathieson somehow found a way to foist Paulina onto him again, he would sell his services as a mercenary and seek some foreign battlefield upon which to breathe his last.

And sweet oblivion would destroy all memory of Mistress Isobel Marston.