Page 88 of The Unwilling Bride
The battle. They’d been in a battle. There was something important about the battle….
He rested his forehead on her shoulder. “I never should have put you in danger.”
Her heart ached to hear the pain in his voice. If only she could say something to comfort him. Perhaps if sheslept a bit first…. And then there was that other thing, some important thing…
“I’ve lied to you, Constance,” he whispered, and her shoulder grew damp. Was he…was he weeping? “I had no right to marry you. No right to claim Tregellas.”
She must be dreaming. She had to be dreaming.
Yes, that was it. She was asleep and having a nightmare.
“But I’ve held your image in my heart for so long, loved and cherished you for so long…and when I saw you again…when I could marry you and have you for my wife…I was too weak to release you.”
Release? She didn’t want to be released. She wanted only to sleep a little while, to ease the soreness in her head.
“When you wake up, when you’re better, I promise before God I’ll go to the king and the church and anywhere else I must to end our marriage, so that you can be free again, as you should be. I’ve sinned a great sin against you, Constance, and I hope…I pray…that someday you’ll forgive me.”
She tried once more to open her mouth, to say his name, but she was drifting back into that dark oblivion. She mustn’t. Not yet.
“My lord, I beg of you, please!” the unfamiliar voice pleaded softly from far away. “You must let your wife rest.”
She fought hard to speak, to open her eyes. “Hen…ry,” she whispered.
Merrick sucked in his breath and his hand released hers.
He had heard her. She wanted to say more, that Henry had tried to help her, but the effort of speaking had taken what remained of her strength.
“My lord, please!”
“I’m going. Do everything you can, Father. Send word to me at Tintagel. I have business there that cannot wait.”
“The other man you brought, my lord. He’s hurt and should be—”
“He should be dead and he soon will be, but not before I’m finished with him.”
“May God have mercy on his soul,” the other man said sadly.
The last thing Constance heard before she lost consciousness was her husband’s grim response. “May God have mercy on us both.”
“MY LADY?”
Constance’s eyelids fluttered open. Her head still ached, but not so much. She looked at the lime-washed walls around her bed, felt the rough, simple linen against her skin and the scratchy wool blanket, noted the crucifix on the wall opposite—and realized Ranulf was bending over her. “Where’s Merrick?” she whispered.
“Tintagel,” he replied, his expression grave as he sat on a stool beside her bed.
“Here, my lady, drink this.”
She hadn’t realized another man was there, but she recognized the voice from before. He’d been the otherman in the room when Merrick was with her. A sad, distraught, then grimly resolute Merrick.
She turned her head, to find a pleasant-looking, tonsured monk offering her a cup.
“This is Brother Paul,” Ranulf explained. “He’s the physician here and has been taking care of you. You fell from your horse.”
“Yes, I remember.” She put her hand to her head, then frowned as she remembered more. She struggled to sit up, aided by the physician. She took the cup and sipped the soothing mulled wine as Ranulf watched anxiously.
“Why are you here?” she asked Ranulf as she handed the cup back to the monk, her hands trembling slightly. “Is there trouble at Tregellas?”
Ranulf shook his head. “No. I came to find you, my lady.”
