Page 106 of Peregrine's Call
Cecily embraced Robin, who was horrified to realize that her face was wet with tears. “My sweet little Robin,” she murmured, her cheek pressing against Robin’s own tear-stained one. “I remember when we first met, and you laughed at the idea of falling in love. You thought it was a lie troubadours told.”
“Then I am paying for it,” Robin said. “I am in love, and I’m miserable. You can laugh at me now.”
“I would never do such a thing. I never want to see you in pain.”
Robin sniffled. “I don’t know what to do.”
Cecily pulled back and looked Robin over carefully. “You say you love him. Does he know it?”
“I never said it.” Robin couldn’t bear to tell him that and risk being turned away. “It’s too humiliating for me to say. Besides, he would be better off not knowing how I feel.”
“Why is that?”
“Because eventually he’ll go away, whether on his lord’s business or his own. He shouldn’t have to think of…”
“…a little robin who misses him?” Cecily finished. “My darling, you must talk with him as soon as he returns. You owe him the truth. And he owes you his own truth,” she added.
“He won’t want to speak to me. He regrets what happened between us.”
“You don’t know that, not until you speak to him.” Cecily put her hand over Robin’s. “And no matter what you decide, you will always, always have a place here.”
Robin closed her eyes, unwilling to look at the woman who worked so hard to make Robin into a lady, only to learn how thoroughly Robin failed. And then still offered her a home.
“Speak to Tav,” Cecily said softly. “You won’t have much time before he leaves again. And then itwillbe too late.”
Robin spent the next several days in quiet misery, increasingly aware that she’d behaved like a petulant child and had leapt to the worst conclusion she could have, all without benefit of a scrap of evidence. Every day Tav didn’t return felt like another punishment, and she worried he might never return at all. Perhaps he’d just pass the message to Lord Drugo and then…keep going, to wherever he chose. Somewhere far away from Robin, because why would he want to return to her? They had no understanding, no agreement, and in the end, no future.
Cecily offered the same quiet, calm support every day. She kept Robin’s secret, and only once did she bring up the issue of Robin’s transgression.
“My dear,” she said one morning. “I must ask you to tell me when your monthly courses return. Or if they do not. So that…we may plan, if necessary.” She patted her own gently swelling middle to make her point.
Robin swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ll do that, my lady. Do you think it’s…likely?”Oh, Mary, Mother of God, I amnotready to be a mother myself.
“You said you only engaged in the act once, and once is enough. But it is a slim chance.”
“I was so stupid.” She closed her eyes. How could something that felt so right end up being so terribly wrong?
“No. You were thinking with your heart. That’s all. And there’s no help in worrying until you know there’s something to worry about.”
Nevertheless, Robin worried. She wandered about the orderly environs of Cleobury as if she were lost in a forest, seeing multiple paths and not knowing which one would take her home.
And then one morning, she discovered she had no need to worry after all, and paradoxically burst into tears. The relief of not being pregnant warred with a strange sense of loss, and she wasn’t even sure why. All she knew was that her heart was wracked and she couldn’t take another blow.
How would she ever speak to Tav and confide her true feelings for him when he might not return her affection in the same way? Perhaps it was better to stay silent, to stay safe at Cleobury for the rest of her life. She had a place here, and she could make a life for herself. A helper to Cecily, a part of the daily routine of the manor, a woman alone. She’d so often leapt into fire. Her whole life, she’d acted on impulse and never thought of the consequences. Perhaps she’d finally learned her lesson.
The next day, Octavian returned. Robin saw him ride in, and half of her wanted to run to him and beg him to speak to her, while the other half ordered her feet to stay still, to not disrupt the fragile balance she’d found here over the past week.
He wasn’t alone when he arrived. Lord Drugo rode with him on one side, and on the other, Robin was surprised to see another man she knew. It was Luc of Braecon, one of Alric’s brother knights. He was the son of an important baron, and his family was close to King Stephen. If he was here as well, it must mean they were very serious about dealing with a potential rebellion.
Not long after, Robin was called down to the solar. Knowing the status of the guests, and how much store Cecily set on proper behavior, she had dressed carefully, in the same green gown she’d been wearing when she first saw Octavian all those weeks ago. She brushed her long hair and let it fall down her back. Braiding was too much effort when her hands were shaking at the thought of being in the same room with Tav again.
When she stepped into the solar,everyonewas already there. And everyone turned to look at her. Pierce, looking more like a host than a prisoner, stood by the fire and smiled widely, not bothering to hide his appraisal of her.
Lord Drugo examined her with a cold eye. He was about fifty years old, bald with a pointed beard, and possessed an air of quiet power. Stephen’s spymaster was not a man to be trifled with. “You are Robin,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Sir Octavian told me you accompanied him on his assignment of your own volition.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said in a voice that nearly came out as a whisper. Would she be punished for such presumption?
“He said you were essential to both locating our informant, and later in preventing his escape.”
