Page 88 of Hers To Command
Yet there was still something he wanted—needed—to ask, even though it meant treading into a place where his friend preferred not to go. “How long did it take you to forget the woman you loved?”
Ranulf’s visage was bleakly grim as he looked down at his friend. “Who says I have?”
The door opened, and Mathilde appeared on the threshold, a tray in her hands.
“Ah, my lady,” Ranulf said, once more the coolly genial nobleman. “Come to relieve me, have you? As you see, your patient is once again awake. I trust you managed to get a bite to eat?”
“Yes, thank you,” Mathilde replied, her eyes on Henry, and his pale face, his lips pressed so tightly together. She hurriedly set the tray on the table and went to him. “Are you in pain, my love? Would you like something to ease it? Giselle’s potion—”
He shook his head, and to her relief, smiled, one side of his mouth rising as it used to, the other not so much.
“I shall leave you two alone, then,” Ranulf said, strolling to the door.
On the threshold, he looked back at his friend, formerly the handsomest man at court, and the woman who looked at him as if he still had the face of angel.
LATER THAT DAY,Mathilde gathered up some linen from beside the pallet of a soldier who’d been seriously slashed with a sword. After tending to Henry’s wounds she no longer felt ill in the presence of blood and wounds and the smells of the ointments Giselle concocted, so she’d offered to help Giselle with the other men who’d been injured.
Henry’s brother had agreed to stay for a few more days, although he was anxious to get home to his wife, whom he very obviously loved. Every time he mentioned Riona, his eyes brightened like Henry’s, and his deep voice softened.
Lord Merrick was planning to leave in the morning, because of his wife’s condition, or so he said. She was expecting their first child, and he did not want to be away from her for long. However, like the stern Lord Nicholas, Merrick’s eyes glowed when he spoke of his wife, and it was clear he loved her deeply, perhaps nearly as deeply as she loved Henry.
Ranulf was going to go back to Tregellas in a fortnight, after the repairs to the wall that he was supervising were completed. Although she had told him he was welcome to stay longer, he claimed his troops might fall into disarray and lax ways if he did. Merrick had replied that they were too terrified of the mocking Sir Ranulf to do that; however, Ranulf was clearly anxious to go back to Tregellas, so Mathilde didn’t press him.
Giselle was so quietly pleased about marrying Cerdic and being with child, Mathilde could only marvel at how distracted she’d been; otherwise, she would surely have noticed the relationship between her sister and their friend earlier. Cerdic, soon to be the new lord of Ecclesford, never seemed to stop smiling now, and the tender way he spoke to Giselle brought happy tears to Mathilde’s eyes, even though she believed it was impossible anybody could be as joyfully contented as she.
Yet all was not completely blissful. She still had bad dreams sometimes, where Roald and Charles De Mallemaison both attacked her. Yet now when she awakened, panicked and sweating, she could think of Henry, and the worst of the horror would dwindle. Occasionally, the troubling memories of the attacks returned in the day, but now she could vanquish them with thoughts of Henry, and the happy future they would share. The laughter. The love. The desire. Perhaps, if they were blessed, children with his merry smile and handsome features.
“My lady, may I have a word with you?”
She looked up to find Ranulf regarding her gravely.
“Yes?” she replied, leaving the linen to join him in a quiet corner of the hall, away from the wounded.
His expression was grim, and dread crept down her back. “I hope nothing is wrong,” she said anxiously. “Do you fear the wall will collapse after all?”
“No, we’re filling that hole so firmly, it’ll likely be the strongest part of the wall. It’s Henry.”
“Henry?” she repeated, her chest clenching with fear. She turned to go to him at once, but Ranulf put his hand on her arm to restrain her.
“It’s not his wounds,” he said, “at least not the ones to his face and shoulder. He’s apparently got some foolish notion that if you marry him, you’ll be doing so only out of pity, or gratitude, or perhaps remorse. I myself think you have other, very good reasons—”
“Of course I do!” she cried, appalled that anyone, and especially Henry, would think otherwise. “Naturally I am grateful for his help, as is everyone here, but I love him for far more than that!”
Ranulf stroked his beard and gave her a wry smile. “I thought so, but I fear nothingIcan say will be able to convince him otherwise.”
“Then I will find the words,” Mathilde vowed, marching toward the stairs leading to the bedchambers like a general on the way to do battle.
“Yes, I rather believe you will,” Ranulf murmured with a chuckle, very pleased with himself.
Until he thought of Beatrice, and sighed.
ASHARP KNOCKon the door interrupted Henry’s melancholy ruminations. When Mathilde appeared, he managed to smile, one side of his mouth rising more than the other. He suspected it would always be that way—the best he would ever be able to manage would be a crooked grin.
Mathilde strode briskly into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, as boldly defiant as he’d ever seen her. “Henry, do you no longer love me?”
Caught off guard by her attitude and her brusque, almost angry demand, he shifted beneath his covers. What had brought this…Surely Ranulf would keep a confidence—had he asked Ranulf to keep their conversation private. He—fool!—had not.
What about not offering unwanted advice? Except that Ranulf hadn’t, at least not to him and not directly.
