“In the first place, Mistress Elizabetha, it is not your right to know the business of the king,” he said steadily. “In the second place, you have no choice in who you trust or support during this dark time. I am your liege and you will support whom I dictate.”
“My parents are dead because you withheld the truth,” she fired back with more strength than she felt. “My home is burned and my life devastated. You are no better than Mortimer’s men sneaking around in the mist except that you deliver your deception under the guise of virtue.”
“There was no deception.”
“We trusted you!”
The last exchange was rapid-fire, overlapping, Tate’s calm voice against Toby’s agitated one. They stared at each other, feeling more emotion than they should have. Toby was filled with sorrow for reasons she could not begin to understand while Tate resisted the urge to beg her forgiveness. He did not like to see her so upset, especially when he knew she was right. He had tried to leave Forestburn before things got too dangerous, but the threat had come too quickly. It had been upon them before they realized it and had been the cause of the destruction of her home. But he would not surrender.
“You are overwrought,” he said, his voice quieter as he tried to calm the situation. “Let me take you to rest. You will feel better when you have had some sleep.”
She shook her head and turned away from him, almost falling for the weakness in her legs. “Nay,” she whispered. “I… I want to go home. I must leave this place.”
“Why?”
She whirled to him and ended up stumbling against the wall. “Because whatever poison follows that boy will come here and destroy us all. I do not want to be here when it comes. I do notwant my sister to fall victim to it. If you will not protect us, then I will.”
Tate could feel himself softening. “So the true reason is revealed,” he murmured, taking slow steps in her direction. “You do not feel that I will protect you.”
On the verge of collapse, tears welled in Toby’s hazel eyes. “You did not protect my parents.”
He was almost upon her as she slumped against the wall, his storm cloud eyes gentle as he gazed into her pale, lovely face. “Had I known what harm was to come, I would have most certainly done my best to protect you,” he said quietly. “But I swear to you now, upon my oath, that I will protect you with my life; you and your sister. No harm will come to you as long as I have breath in my body, Elizabetha. Please believe me.”
She stared up at him with her almond-shaped eyes, so beautiful yet so sorrowful. When she finally blinked, fat tears splashed onto her cheeks. Tate moved in closely; so close, in fact, that his torso brushed against hers. His voice was low, soothing.
“Do not blame the boy,” he murmured. “He has sorrow enough with his mother and her lover attempting to destroy him. We never meant that your family should fall to destruction.”
She sobbed softly, unable to continue with the conversation. Without another word, Tate swept her into his arms, feeling more relief than he would admit when her arms went around his neck and she wept quietly against his shoulder. He wanted nothing more than to soothe away her fears. His gaze found Ailsa, a few feet away, and he smiled weakly at her.
“Come along, sweetheart,” he said quietly. “You and your sister are off to bed.”
Ailsa trotted after him as he quit the hall. The chamber on the third floor was dusty but passable. Tate put Toby on the bed and covered her with the cleanest blanket he could find, a dusty oldthing that had been tossed into a corner. Ailsa climbed in next to her and Toby wound her arms around her sister, holding her tight. Tate pulled the blanket over Ailsa as well and tucked them both in very tightly, like a father tending his children. But Toby was still weeping softly and he just couldn’t leave her in that state. He felt responsible. After a moment’s deliberation, he lay down against Toby and pulled both ladies into his arms.
“Go to sleep,” he kissed the back of Toby’s head as he felt Ailsa squirm around to get comfortable. “Nothing will happen to you, I swear it. You may sleep peacefully.”
Toby didn’t even protest, nor did she say a word. She simply lay there, a hiccup now and again as her tears faded. She could feel him against her and rather than fight it, she accepted the comfort it gave her. Through all of the illness and turmoil over the past few days, Tate had proven himself to be a rock. At the moment, she needed the rock, no matter how unattainable he was. For the moment, she would pretend otherwise.
Tate lay with his chest against her back, feeling her soft body against him and thinking there was surely nothing more wonderful in the world. His thoughts began to drift to the day he first saw her and how beautiful he thought she was in spite of her boorish demeanor. But that opinion had quickly fled; she wasn’t boorish at all. She was simply strong, opinionated and intelligent. As his mind began to reflect on the days past and the moments when he saw her smile, Ailsa’s head suddenly popped up.
“Sing the baby song!” she demanded in a loud whisper.
Tate frowned at her. “Hush,” he hissed sternly. “I will not sing anything if you do not lay still.”
Ailsa stuck her lip out but obediently lay back down. When all was still and quiet in the room and Ailsa stopped fidgeting, Tate’s pure baritone filled the stale air as gently as the brush of a butterfly’s wing.
To the sky, my sweet babe;
The night is alive, my sweet babe.
Your dreams are filled with raindrops from heaven;
Sleep, my sweet babe, and cry no more
The words faded and he began to hum the tune, his lips against Toby’s head and his arms tightly about her. He swore he felt her snuggle against him, sighing contentedly with slumber, and Ailsa wrapped a little hand around his enormous fingers as she drifted off to sleep. When he should have been seeing to his men and the threat of Mortimer’s assassins, he found himself content to daydream away the morning with Toby and her little sister.
It was a joy he had been denied once, those years ago when his wife and child perished in childbirth. He would not be denied it again.
CHAPTER SIX
