She gasped at his disclosure. ‘Did you know?’
‘Only in thinking back on your words did I realise you must have seen him. In the village most likely? And when I thought you were upset over memories of your father, you were really thinking of Edmund.’
She wanted to deny it, but she could not. Fayth wanted to drop to her knees and beg his forgiveness, but she doubted he would believe her to be contrite over her acts. Instead, she nodded slightly in answer to his question.
‘So, since our marriage vows in this very chapel, you have lied to me, betrayed me, deceived me, stolen from me…’ When she would have objected, she remembered the missing supplies that she had accounted for as well as those she knew Edmund took from the village. ‘And stolen from our people. For what, Fayth?’ he asked. ‘What did you hope to achieve by your acts?’
He walked a few steps away and looked at her. ‘A Saxon uprising? It will not happen. William will have England as his, and no inferior little group of rebels like Edmund’s is going to stop him. Harold’s army and all the major Saxon landholders were destroyed at Hastings, leaving no one to lead and no one to fight.
‘So, did you believe Edmund’s claim that he but needed a stronghold from which to fight in order to win?’
‘How did you know that?’ she asked. It was as though he knew all the things Edmund had told her to gain her compliance with his plans.
‘One of your men, now sworn to me, thought it best to trust me,trust me, with that information. Edmund and his men had been spotted foraging for supplies and sending people into the village. Hallam thought I should know so that I could protect you and our people.’
Her heart broke in that moment. Her people, the ones she thought to free by protecting Edmund’s presence, trusted this Breton knight more than she did, or more than she allowed herself to.
‘You know that he will use you even as William did—if he cannot or will not marry you and use these lands to stage his revolt, then he will dangle you before someone else, to make them jump to his tune. And then he will dispense with you with just as little regard for your safety or happiness as my lord did.’ He sounded exhausted then, his voice giving out as he spoke. But he took in another breath and looked at her. ‘So, if not to win his war, why?’ he asked again.
‘I hoped…’ she began, but the tears clogged her throat. ‘I lost everything, everyone I loved. I thought he could restore the world I knew.’
Her words made her reasons sound weak, as weak as they were in truth, because she yet lived in the house of her birth, surrounded by the lands that had come down over generations to her parents and to her. Her children would stand to inherit them. She felt like a fool now, looking on the problems she’d caused with so little reason.
She realized that, once she’d known that he was a man of honour, she should have trusted him.
Even worse still, as she recognised the pain in his eyes as he waited on her explanation, she should have given him her trust along with her heart the moment she’d known she was falling in love with him. She staggered back and leaned against the wall as the import of her feelings struck then.
She had fallen in love with him. Even as she fought him at every turn. Even as she thought that Edmund was the answer to her problems and the plight of her people.
It was him.
Giles.
He protected her people. He provided for them. He challenged her abilities and demanded more of her. And he cared for her.
‘Are you finally seeing what you have done?’ he asked. ‘Will you finally tell me the truth and tell me where he is?’
She shook her head. No matter that she loved Giles, she could not turn Edmund over to the Normans. ‘I cannot.’
He strode over to her and took her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. ‘If I do not find him and turn him over to the duke’s men, the bishop will arrest me and turn me over. If the duke believes Edmund still lives and is using these lands to hide and wage war on him, he will bring his army through here and nothing, nothing, will remain.’
She tried to look away for the truth was horrible to consider. ‘The next Norman lord sent here will not spend a moment worrying over the conditions of his people. He will be like Lord Huard, treating them worse than he treats his hounds.’ He shook her then and pulled her close.
‘If I fail here, your family ends. You will perish, for William will not even try to find someone to take you as wife, because you are expendable. And, if I fail here, Brice and Soren will never get their opportunity to even try as I have to make a better life for themselves.’ He released her and stepped away.
‘All we have suffered through our lives, all our work, the training, the fighting, the battles and the loss of those we held dear will be for naught if I fail here.’
He rubbed his face with his hands then and she read the same exhaustion from a sleepless night that plagued her, too. Then, Giles looked at her as though he realised some truth.
‘Do you love him so much that you will save him over all else?’
‘Nay!’ she cried out. ‘I do not love him in the way you think, Giles. I told you he holds no claim to my heart.’
‘You told me many things, lady, and I am beginning to doubt every word I have heard come from your mouth.’ He speared her with his stare. ‘Pray God, Fayth, please tell me where he is. Help me try to make this work for all of us.’
Fayth looked away, not able to meet his gaze and refuse his request again. ‘Betraying Edmund to you will not redeem myself to you, Giles.’
‘You told me you would trust me, Fayth. In our bed that night, you gave me your trust and I believed you. Trust me now to see this right. Tell me where Edmund is.’
