“I do not know, Max,” he muttered. “I should not be feeling anything more than duty, yet I am afraid I am. I am genuinely afraid that I am.”
“Feeling what?”
Caius lifted his big shoulders. “I wish I knew,” he said. “All I know is that when I look at her…”
“So you feel something forher?”
Caius threw up his hands and moved away from the hearth as he began to pace. “I do not know,” he said. “That is what I am trying to determine. I’ve known the woman a mere day and, already, I want to save her. I want to protect her from that bastard de Wrenville.”
“I know.”
Caius stopped pacing. “What do you mean ‘you know’?”
Maxton had a hint of a smile on his face. “Because the moment you wrapped your hand around de Wrenville’s neck back at Winterhold, I knew something was happening with you. I assumed you would tell me when you were ready.”
Caius deflated a little, realizing that whatever he was feeling was something he had not been able to keep to himself.
“Did anybody else notice?” he asked.
Maxton shook his head. “I do not believe so,” he said. “Mayhap Kevin did; you know he idolizes you, Cai. He hasn’t known you as long as the rest of us, but because of your relationship with his brother, he thinks the world of you. He watches everything you do, closely.”
Caius smiled weakly, thinking of the pious, powerful knight, the younger brother of Sean de Lara. “It wasn’t always like that,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the first time I met Kevin was a few years ago when he came to Richmond,” he said. “I realized he was Sean’s brother and when I saw how Kevin reacted to mentionof Sean’s name, I could see that there was a good deal of hurt and animosity. For what Sean had become, I mean. I told Kevin that when the opportunity arose to position a man close to King John, The Marshal spoke to Sean and me in private. He presented the situation and asked which one of us wanted to assume the duty. Sean knew the sins of my past and because he knew of the terrible things I had done, he spared me more sins and volunteered. Were it not for Sean, The Britannia Viper would now be the bodyguard and advisor to the king. Kevin told me that he could never forgive me for doing that to his brother and, in a sense, he was right. I bear Sean’s sins as if they were my own.”
Maxton knew that. Caius and Sean had been very close for years, and still were in many aspects, but Kevin had never been able to agree with the mission his brother undertook. He had spent years hating his brother for what he’d done, but they’d been able to reconcile as of late.
“It is of little matter now,” he said. “Sean and Kevin have repaired their relationship. Kevin understands why his brother did what he did, and I know he does not hate you. Don’t you see the way he jumps to attention when you are around? Whatever animosity he felt for you is gone. He is very attuned to your will, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Caius shrugged. “I suppose I have not,” he said. “I still thought he hated me.”
“He doesn’t,” Maxton said. “But back to what you were saying; I think I’m the only one who realized you were more involved in this situation that you wanted to let on.”
Caius nodded as they turned away from the brief subject of Kevin de Lara. His frustration returned.
“Emelisse is an unusually strong woman,” he said. “I saw that from the first. But she has been through a great deal since de Wrenville started his campaign of harassment, all of itculminating in the death of her father and brother yesterday. When I told her that de Wrenville planned to marry her to his son, she tried to throw herself from the window. I spent the evening with her until she calmed sufficiently and I found myself speaking with an intelligent woman, kind and compassionate, who has been brutally abused by de Wrenville. That is when I realized I could not be neutral about this. Max, I want to protect her.”
“To what end?”
“I do not know what you mean.”
“There is one way to solve this. Marry her.”
Caius looked at him as if dumbfounded by the suggestion. “After only knowing her a day?”
Maxton grinned. “Take it from a man who married a postulate,” he said. “I cannot remember when I have not loved my wife. It could have been the first moment I saw her or mayhap it developed later, but I do know that I knew within a week that I wanted to marry her. Sometimes you just… know.”
His answer seemed to dumbfound Caius even more. He wasn’t exactly appalled by the suggestion, which appalled him even more. He was appalled at himself for notbeingappalled. He was not a man to make life-changing decisions on a whim.
“Maxton, I donotwant to marry her,” he finally said.
Maxton clearly wasn’t convinced. He began to rub his gloved hands together because the hall seemed to be colder than the air outside.
“Then ask yourself this,” he said. “What if you were to leave tomorrow? What if you were to go back to Richmond? Would you still think about her and wonder how she was? Worse still, what if The Marshal tells you to use his army and purge Lady Emelisse and her thirty-one soldiers from that keep? What would you do, Cai? Be honest because that is a very real possibility.”
Caius almost told him that he would follow The Marshal’s directive to the letter, but even as he opened his mouth to say it, he knew it wasn’t the truth. As he reminded himself… he wasn’t in the habit of lying to his close friends.
