He dropped Adrius’ arm.
“At least let me tend his wound,” he said quietly but firmly. “Show us that mercy.”
The man drew closer to him, and to Roi, he looked vaguely familiar. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he’d seen that man before. Roi didn’t take his eyes off him as the man peered down at Adrius.
“There is no need to tend his wound,” he said. “He is dead.”
Roi sighed faintly, daring to look down to see that, indeed, Adrius was dead. The man was lying there, blood coming out of his neck, his mouth, and his nose, staring up at the sky. A good knight, so wastefully taken. That realization inflamed Roi, but it was a rage tempered by fear. Fear that he was the next to die, and he very much didn’t want to. He wanted to go home to his new wife and live a full life by her side. He’d finally found the love of his life, and the thought that he was going to be brutally taken from her made him sick to his stomach. Not for himself, but for her. He knew how badly she would take his death. But here he was, facing down his own mortality and wondering how in the hell he got here.
He still didn’t know what was going on.
“Whoareyou?” he finally asked, sounding exasperated. “What is this all about?”
The man looked at him for a moment before answering. “What is your name?”
“Richard de Lohr,” Roi said without hesitation. “Now that I have told you my name, what is yours?”
The man’s face lit up as if he’d just met an old and dear friend. “Itisyou!” he said. “I was hoping that you were part of that army, but I could not be sure. Finally… Roi de Lohr, in the flesh.”
Roi was having trouble breathing, trouble standing, and it was taking every bit of strength he had to stay upright.
“Your name,” he said again, decidedly unfriendly.
But the man held up a hand as if begging patience. “We’ve not been formally introduced,” he said. “But I know all about you. I know about your family and your father, the great Earl of Hereford and Worcester. I know that the House of de Lohr controls nearly everything on the Welsh marches. I know the greatness you come from. I also know that you married Diara le Bec.”
Roi was at a distinct disadvantage. The man did look familiar to him, but he still couldn’t place him. And he didn’t like the fact that the man had mentioned Diara by name.
“How would you know about my marriage?” he said, pressing his hand hard over the hole in his chest. “Whoare you?”
The pleasant expression from the man’s face faded. “I am the last man you will see on this earth,” he said. “You see, you took what belongs to me. Now, I am rectifying that situation.”
Roi had no idea what he was talking about, mostly because his mind was starting to muddle from blood loss and the inability to breathe. “Be plain,” he said. “I’ve no time for this. Tell me what you want and be done with it.”
“Why are you in a hurry to die?” the man said. “You will not leave this place alive, de Lohr. But I wanted you to see the face of the man who took your life. I want you to understand what it took to come to this moment in time. You see, this was all planned for your benefit. The battle, the ambush—it was all meant for you. You have asked who I am—can you not guess? You married the woman meant for my son.”
The light went on in Roi’s mind. Now, he knew who the man was before him, and he wasn’t surprised. But he still wasn’t clear on what was happening and why Cirencester had evidently lured him into a trap.
“Cirencester?” he muttered.
Riggs’ eyebrows lifted. “Then you know you married a woman who did not belong to you.”
Roi wasn’t feeling fear at the moment so much as he was feeling rage. He looked around, seeing a few of his dead soldiers on the ground several feet away, seeing Adrius dead at his feet.
Disgust washed over him.
“You set this up to trap me?” he said. “You knew I would come to Cheltenham’s aid, so you did this to trap me? To kill me?”
Riggs was back to looking pleased with himself. A faint smile creased his lips. “There was no other way to do it,” he said. “Robin and I agreed—”
Roi interrupted him, shocked. “Robin is in on this, too?”
Riggs nodded. “Of course he is,” he said. “He realized that he’d made a mistake by betrothing his daughter to you, and since he knew you would not break the betrothal, because what man would when an earldom is involved, this was the only solution. Now, my son will marry Lady Diara and inherit Cheltenham. It’s all quite simple.”
Roi was feeling sick. Sicker than he already was. In fact, his body was beginning to tremble and he was finding it difficult to stand. To realize that Robin was in on this scheme brought back all of the things Diara had said—how she thought her father was acting strange, how she’d warned Roi about him. How she hadn’t wanted Roi to answer her father’s call for aid. She’d been trying to warn him, and he’d brushed her off. Her paranoia had turned out to be true. He’d thought she was just being a nervous bride.
As it turned out, she’d been right all along.
Now, he was going to pay the price.
