“I do it for you, Julianna.”
Her breath faltered on her lips. His emerald, somber gaze fell to her mouth. She brought her hand there like a shield.
He looked away.
“For whatever reason you do it,” she continued, lifting her chin from her hand, “You have my gratitude.”
He cared for her. Why else would he risk so much? She was sorry he could never win her heart.
“May I sit?” he asked, motioning to the chair close by, before the hearth.
“Of course.” She would deny him nothing but her body and her heart.
She watched him settle in and began to braid her hair to keep it from flying into her face.
He held up his hand to stop her. “Not all of it.”
She stopped midway and tied it with a strip of cloth from the pocket of her léine.
“You have told me much about your Nicholas,” he began. “I feel great compassion for him and—” he crooked his mouth to one side. “—a measure of jealousy for what he shares with you.”
She smiled and shook her head at him. He was silver-tongued and full of charm and decadence. She pitied any woman who fell under his spell.
“But you have told me little about you,” he continued. “How did you escape Alnwick and DeAvoy?”
“With great planning and the clothes on my body,” she answered. “I drugged him one morning at breakfast and left the castle while he slept. None of the guards stopped me since I was often sent to search for fresh berries just outside the gate.”
“Why did you drug him if nothing you did was suspicious?”
“Because I needed a horse and I wanted the best. His. He sometimes went riding in the morning and I wanted to ensure that he would not call for it to be saddled since I had drugged all the guards’ ale the night before and while they thought they had slepton duty, I stole Phillip’s horse and led it outside the gate. I tied the beast to a tree, saddled it, and left it waiting for me until the morning.”
The viscount’s smile widened on her and his gaze brightened with admiration.
“I was very frightened,” she told him, stepping down from a place she didn’t want to be. “I ran away—abandoned my husband. I did it to survive.”
He nodded and softened his smile. “I know.”
“What about you, my lord?” she asked, wanting to veer away from the topic of her. “Tell me of your life in Bamburgh and what made you pick up your sword?”
“My mother was a Scot,” he confessed quite bluntly, much to her astonishment. “Damnation, but that felt good to say to someone.” He grinned at her. “Graham. Sarah Graham she was called.”
“Then why do you fight for King Edward and England?”
“Because I was raised in Bamburgh as an English noble. You understand,” he said. “You were raised in an English house. The Scots killed your family.”
“Aye, and the English killed Nicholas’.”
“Aye,” he agreed softly. “Both sides are guilty.”
“And here you are,” she reminded him with a curl of lips and a playful slant of her eyes, “trying to save the life of a Scottish nobleman.”
He laughed at himself and shook his head. “Truly pitiful.”
“Then all men should be as pitiful.”
He looked at her and smiled. For a moment, he appeared as if he might spring from his chair and go to her. He didn’t. He left his chair with a quiet word or two of thanks and then left the chambers.
Julianna was thankful he hadn’t tried to force himself on her. She felt safe enough with him to remove her rings and bracelets. That feeling of safety fled when a movement caught her eye outside, just beyond the trees.
