They looked everywhere.
At least, Roi thought they did. Two hours after he started his search for Diara, he was no closer to finding her and struggling not to get panicky. He came in through the kitchen yard, into the kitchens themselves simply as a back way into the keep. He’d come through the warm, steamy kitchens before in his search, but that had been early in the process and he hadn’t asked any of the servants if they’d seen her. But on his second pass, he happened to ask if they’d seen Lady Diara and was rewarded with a few nodding heads.
They pointed out into the yard.
Now, he was getting somewhere. The cook, a big woman who had been making de Lohr meals for years, seemed to think thatDiara might have gone into the stable because she never left the yard or came back into the kitchens, as far as she knew. The woman also happened to mention that she thought Diara might have been weeping, which concerned Roi even further. If he couldn’t find her, then perhaps she didn’t want to be found. But he was going to tear Lioncross apart until he did just that.
Find her.
The stable was dark and quiet at this hour except for a few oil lamps about, placed strategically so they were away from anything flammable. Horses were snorting, some were crunching the leftover grain in their buckets, and still others were lying down, sleeping. Roi’s own horse, an enormous black stallion with white streaks in his mane, must have smelled his master, because he nickered softly as Roi passed by. Roi slapped the beast affectionately on his big arse and continued through the stable block, finally reaching the end. Still no Diara. He knew the soldiers had searched the stable earlier to no avail, so he was about to turn away when something caught his eye.
A ladder to the loft.
He had nothing to lose, so he quietly took the ladder, up into the darkness that was the hayloft, and poked his head up through the opening. It was fairly dark in the loft, with very little light penetrating from below, but it was enough to see a figure off to his right, several feet away and sitting against the roofline of the stable.
He struggled to see in the darkness.
“Diara?” he whispered.
The figure jumped as if startled, and Roi took it as an affirmative that he’d indeed found whom he was looking for. He climbed up into the loft, crawling over to the figure, only to see that there were two figures. Peering closely, he could see that Diara had her arm around Dorian, who was asleep with her head on Diara’s lap.
“God’s Bones,” he muttered. “You scared the life out of me when I could not find you. What are you doing up here? And why is Dorian with you?”
Diara hadn’t been asleep. She’d simply been dozing when Roi softly called her name, but was now focused on the man she’d been agonizing over for the past several hours. To hear his voice, soft and deep, was like a dagger to her heart. He sounded so concerned for her, and she loved that. She loved that he’d tracked her down, as if she was important to him.
And that’s what was so heartbreaking about the entire situation.
“She was tending her horse in the stables,” Diara whispered. “She and I have become friends. You have a very intelligent and clever daughter.”
“Thank you,” he said. “But why are you up here in the dark?”
“Because she found me,” Diara said simply. “We spoke for quite some time until she fell asleep.”
“That still does not tell me why you are in the loft,” he said, looking around as if expecting to see others. “Are you playing a game of some kind?”
Diara thought on that question. Her hand was on Dorian’s dark head, and she put her palm over the girl’s ear, gently, to muffle the voices.
“I suppose I have been,” she said, leaning her head back against the wall. “I’ve been playing a game all along, ever since we met. A game that pitted the reality of me against the reality of you.”
Roi wasn’t following her. “What reality?” he asked, no longer whispering. “Why are you up in the loft, and why has no one seen you for hours? What are you doing here?”
Diara looked at him. There were so many answers to those questions, answers that she didn’t want to give.
But she knew she had to.
“I want to go home,” she finally said, though her lower lip was beginning to tremble. “I wish to leave tomorrow morning.”
“We are to be married tomorrow morning.”
“Nay.” She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “Roi, we have been fooling ourselves. That is the game I am speaking of. The truth is that I am not meant for you. No one thinks so. If we go through with this wedding, eventually, you would come to realize what a mistake you have made, and I could not stand it. I could not go on knowing how miserable you were.”
He frowned at her. “What in the hell are you talking about?” he said. “What do you mean that no one thinks you are meant for me?”
Diara was starting to weep. She was also still trying to remain still and quiet as Dorian slept on her lap, but it was a struggle. She was hurt and angry and filled with anguish, so much so that she didn’t see any need to be evasive with Roi about her reasons any longer. He wanted the truth, and she would give it to him.
“When I was going to find the lace that your mother asked me to fetch, I heard Tiberius talking,” she said. “I recognized his voice because of our conversation earlier in the ladies’ solar. I do not know whom he was talking to, but I suspect it was his brothers. He told them that his Uncle Westley had informed them of the rumors he’d heard about me. Tiberius is under the impression that you are marrying a whore.”
Roi flinched as if he’d been struck. For a moment, he simply stared at her, and she could see his eyes glittering in the darkness as he processed that statement. It was several long and tense seconds before he replied.
