“I am a fool, demoiselle. Your opinion of me cannot matter if you are dead by Miles’s hand. Better you look upon me with loathing than I never see your smile again.”
Briar stared at him in dismay. “Ivo? You make me uneasy with such talk. Tell me what you mean?”
Dark eyes moved intently over her face. As if, she thought, he were fixing her in his mind, remembering every little detail, as if he expected never to see her again. Briar’s fear grew, trembling over her skin like butterfly wings, until she barely felt the cold outside for the cold inside herself.
At last he seemed to make up his mind.
“Come,” he said abruptly, and held out his hand. “I will take you to Lord Radulf.”
Radulf!
Briar could not hide her shocked surprise. Radulf, her enemy, the man she had hated for so long, had wanted to revenge herself on for so long. Could she go there now, and look upon him, without all those old memories surfacing? But Ivo needed her, and he was waiting. Ivo, her husband to be, the father of her child, was in some desperate trouble. Ivo, the man she loved above all others, even above herself.
Which was the more important? Her old memories and longing for revenge—the past—or Ivo, her future?
Briar reached out and placed her fingers in his.
Chapter 13
Lord Radulf was surrounded by important men. Some were allies in his fight with northern rebels, some were vassals, and some were simply there to hear what he had to say.
Ivo recognized a dozen or more as he passed, his hand firm on Briar’s arm. Lord Henry clapped him on the back, and gave Briar an interested stare. Ivo drew her protectively closer, feeling the tension in her body thrumming through her, as if she were one of the strings on Mary’s harp.
She was afraid. This was not safe ground for her. But despite that, she straightened her back and lifted her chin and prepared herself to face her father’s old enemy.
Ivo admired her more than he could say. She was beautiful and brave, and she deserved to be held close and dear, to live a long and happy life. She deserved to be cherished, to have her children about her. But Ivo also knew, with an impotent sense of rage and frustration, that if Miles got hold of her, he would kill her. Kill her despite all her courage and fiery temper. Aye, Miles would kill her and enjoy doing it, and he had come so close to doing it today.
Today, when Ivo had finally accepted that he was no longer able to protect her without help. As much as he wanted to do this alone, he could not afford his pride. It was a risk too great.
Miles almost took her from me.
The rage was deep inside him, a core of molten fury, but he held it back, kept it in check, surrounded it with ice. There would be time enough to let it free when he came face-to-face with Miles. This time, he swore to himself, Miles would not win. This time he would be ready for all his tricks.
But for now Ivo needed to bind Briar more tightly to him, and right soon. And he needed someone to stand behind him. Someone with a great deal of power, someone who was not afraid of anything or anyone.
Lord Radulf was that man.
Radulf would watch over her, if Ivo should perish—and the doubt was there, that little niggling voice, no matter how hard he tried to shout it down. For every other time they had met, Miles had won. Aye, it was possible he might die, and if he did, then Radulf would make sure that Briar did not wander starving in the hedgerows as she had done these two years past. The thought of leaving her worse off than he had found her was far more painful than the thought of Miles ending his life.
Radulf glanced up from his conversation. When he saw Ivo and Briar, his gaze sharpened, and then he simply waited for them to reach him.
Briar saw a man with dark hair and eyes similar to Ivo’s, but other than that they were not at all the same. Whereas Ivo’s face was angular and fierce, Radulf’s was battered and brutal.
This was the great Lord Radulf, the King’s Sword. She swallowed in her dry throat. Aye, here was a man to scare children up and down the countryside. Mayhap the legends were true…
Ivo spoke. “My lord, this is Briar, once Lady Briar, daughter of Lord Richard Kenton.”
Radulf nodded to Ivo, but he watched her. And while he watched, he stroked his chin with one long finger. There was a ring upon his hand, a heavy red and black ring.
“Lady, I knew your father,” he said at last, in a voice low and husky, and she waited, heart thumping, for the accusations to begin. “I deeply regret what happened to him.”
Surprised, Briar faced him in silence. She had been ready to retaliate, to accuse him in turn of destroying her father and her family. Now he had made her think again.
For so long she had believed one thing, but gradually Ivo had turned her mind to other possibilities, and clouded her certainties with doubts. Nothing was as simple as she had believed it. Just as the fairytale love affair she had thought existed between her father and Anna wasn’t real. Anna had never loved him, she had used him, and he had clung to her despite all.
“You knew my stepmother,” she said, and the words were harsh and uncompromising. Ivo’s fingers tightened a warning, and she added, “My lord,” with a reluctance that made Radulf’s lips twitch.
“Anna was my stepmother, too, lady. Did you know that?”