“Except he has broken his word and taken Raf. He is a liar and a cheat, and we will not give in to him.”
Jenova stood up then and lit a candle. The flame wavered, illuminating her face as she set it down on the lid of a trunk nearby. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her eyes reddened, as though she had been weeping, and yet he had not heard her. She had sat and listened to his story and wept, and he had not even known it.
“Look at me, Henry,” she said.
Henry met her eyes. And waited. For the noose to tighten.
“I can understand why you would believe your London friends would desert you, although I am a little surprised you would think Radulf might do so. And I can understand why those women you share your body with would leave you—they are hardly in love with you, or you with them. But I am…angry that you would believe I would turn my back on you when I heard the truth. I would have liked you to tell me before, when you first realized who Jean-Paul was. I can understand why you would wish to forget it, but in not telling me you have allowed this man, this Jean-Paul, to work his spite upon us all. If I had known, then Raf would still be here.”
She paused, thought a moment. “Well, maybe not. Agetha would still think Alfric a suitable husband for me if he had two heads. But you should still have told me. I suppose this is why you wanted to marry me? So that you could save me? Even though you believed I would hate you when the truth came out. Oh Henry, you are a silly, wonderful man!”
“But Jenova,” he said, his voice hoarse with the effort to keep it steady, “I could not let Baldessare hurt you. I could not let another woman be degraded and hurt by a monster….”
She felt sick. A wave of nausea washed over her. He had tried to save her. Just as she knew he had tried to save all those poor people, and he had only been a boy. A child. She imagined Raf in such a place and shuddered. She thought of Henry as she had known him back then, so vital and handsome, so alive. How could all that have been taken and twisted, just so that a monster could gain pleasure from it, and his son could have a friend….
“Do you understand?” he was asking, and his voice broke, the pain in his eyes making her own heart ache. “Do you understand what I have said?”
“Yes, Henry, I understand. I know what you are saying, and what you fear. But you were not like them—you were a boy, alone, frightened, and you did what you had to do to stay alive. ’Tis necessary, sometimes, to do bad things to stay alive.”
She squeezed his hand, but now it lay still and lifeless in hers. So she took his other hand, and then she moved to sit close by him and drew his head to rest upon her shoulder. He stayed there, but she could tell he would not let her comfort him. He was holding himself rigid, as if afraid to give in to her. In case she changed her mind and abandoned him after all, she supposed.
How could she have been so wrong about this man? She had believed he did not care enough, and in fact he cared too much. He had been hurt so badly that he’d kept his pain hidden, and never allowed anyone to prod it or poke it. He’d never allowed anyone close enough to understand, or to help take some of the burden from him. He’d felt he had to bear it all on his own.
Until now.
“Henry,” she whispered, “oh my dearest Henry. Do you remember when we were young, and you asked me if I had ever been kissed? And I said no? You told me then that you would be the first to kiss me, and we lay together in the flowers in the meadow, with the sky blue above us, and we kissed. We kissed for a very long time. And I still remember it. That memory is such a joy to me. When my days were dark, I would remember those moments with you. So, please, please, let me comfort you. Let me bring some light to your darkness, my dearest love.”
He stirred, but she would not let him speak. It would be just like Henry to deny himself comfort because he felt he did not deserve it. Henry, who had been w
illing to sacrifice everything he was, to stay and protect her. Henry, who would lay down his life for her and Raf, even though he expected to be abandoned all over again. How could she not have known that? She, who thought she knew him so well?
“I am appalled by what happened to you. I would like to kill that man, but you have done it for me. I am sure if we were to ask the villagers what they thought, they would weep their gratitude, Henry. I do not know what the king will say, and I do not care. You are my friend, my oldest friend, and I would never turn my back on you. Never.”
He turned his face into her breast, and it was then she felt his shoulders begin to shake. He was weeping—silently weeping, because Henry did not cry. Jenova held him close and kissed his brow and shared his pain.
Chapter 23
There was a child crying.
Rhona could hear it, soft but definite, coming from the tower room above hers. It had invaded her sleep, making her wonder whether she was dreaming, but now she was awake and she could still hear it. A child, crying.
There were no children at Hilldown Castle. So, who was it crying?
Rhona rose, shivering, and pulled her cloak over her chemise. She slid her feet into her indoor slippers, curling her toes against the bitter cold, and went to the door. It opened at her touch, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Jean-Paul had threatened to lock her in, but her door was open. He probably thought she was beaten; she had not left her room since her visit to the Black Dog.
Reynard would be wondering where she was.
Was he the sort to wait long at Uther’s Tower, or had he shrugged his shoulders and dismissed her and gone on his way? Perhaps he had not expected her to be there; perhaps despite all he had said he had not believed anything she had told him.
Rhona bit her lip. Mayhap for his sake it was as well if he didn’t, and yet she was weak. She wanted him to think well of her. She did not want him to believe she might have lied to him, or played him for a fool, duped him with false tears and sad stories.
But why not? She had done it to other men. Reynard probably thought he was just one of many. How could he know he was the one, that he was the only one….
The crying sound was louder as she climbed the stairs. Outside the arrow slit in the wall the air was icy, and stars shone in a cold sky. They gave her enough light to see her way, as she continued to climb until she reached the door.
This one was barred.
The room was used as a storeroom, or sometimes for inconvenient guests. It was small and out of the way and, most of the time, forgotten. That someone was occupying it now, someone with a child, was very strange. Especially when, to Rhona’s knowledge, no one had arrived at Hilldown Castle for weeks, and even then it had been one of her father’s elderly cronies. Surely no one in their right mind would send a child to stay here!