“God forgive me, Gray, but I married you in order to help kill you.”
He didn’t think he could breathe for a moment. Her words hammered through his skull with cracking blows. She stared at him now as if he might crumble to dust before her eyes. And he felt like doing it. Felt like disintegrating rather than having to face what she’d just said. He should have expected as much, but hearing her say it made it that much more real and painful.
His breath finally exploded from him in a rush, and he jabbed his hand through his hair, swinging away from her. He held himself very still, very stiff. What he’d stumbled upon in Somerset was true, then. His real betrothed, the woman he’d forced himself to accept to appease King Henry, was dead, and he’d been duped into a marriage whose sole purpose was to ease the way to his murder. And Montford had plotted it all…
His stomach rolled, his mind careening with the duplicity of it. With a growl, he slammed his palms into the wall above the fireplace, closing his eyes against the pain.
God it hurt.
The lies…sweet Jesu, the lies. Even with his eyes closed he could see her face, so beautiful and serene—on the altar, with his people, in front of his men. Aye, even cradled in his arms as they made love with a passion that had pierced him to his soul.
And it had all been a lie…
Desperately, Gray searched within himself, looking for some dark, dangerous emotion to swell and ease the pain of this betrayal. He’d always been able to summon such feelings at will, call up rage or battle lust to wipe out all else from his mind. But this time, nothing happened. This time, the hurt went too deep. No matter how hard he tried, it still seethed beneath the surface, vying for power and precedence.
And for the first time in his life, Gray feared that the hurt would win.
“I’m sorry,” Catherine whispered. “I should have told you the truth long ago.”
“Aye,” he said finally, still leaning into the wall. “But you didn’t.”
“Because I was protecting my children.”
For the second time in less than a minute, Gray felt like someone had impaled him with a bloody lance. “Yourchildren?” he asked in a raw voice, swiveling his head to look at her. “You have children, lady?”
“Aye,” she murmured, looking startled. “I thought you’d learned about them as well.”
Of course. The realization of it sliced him like a blade. He should have made the connection back at the tavern, only he hadn’t allowed himself to think beyond the excruciating point of learning that she’d played him false.
When he didn’t answer, she looked down at her hands, still clasped tightly in front of her. Then, with slow, even steps, she walked over to the trunk by the bed, lifted the lid and retrieved the portrait that Gray had somehow known from the first would come to mean more than just a wedding gift. His heart throbbed, the ache inside him thrumming with each beat.
“I named them Ian and Isabel,” she said softly. “They were born to me eight years ago, through my cursed union with Eduard’s brother, Baron Geoffrey de Montford.” She stroked her finger over their images, her lips tight. “They were the only joys of my existence, and that is why Eduard chose to use them against me, to get to you.”
“How?” Gray couldn’t seem to stop himself from asking.
When Catherine raised her gaze to him again, her eyes were shadowed by that same haunted look he remembered from their very first night together. “’Twas simple. Eduard forced me to comply with his schemes by threatening to kill my children if I did not.”
“Sweet Christ.” Even through his own pain, Gray couldn’t escape the horror of what that must have meant to her. Montford was a sick bastard. As corrupt and evil as the devil himself, to be willing to threaten the lives of his own niece and nephew.
Gray shook his head, feeling blessed numbness begin to creep in. It was all starting to make more sense now. At least he was beginning to understand why Catherine had betrayed him. He couldn’t blame her for going along with Montford’s plots. Nay, not when her children’s lives were at stake.
But that didn’t change what had hurt him more than anything else in all of this. She should have told him the truth. Weeks ago. Christ, she should have trusted him enough to tell him the truth.
He pushed away from the wall, the heaviness in his soul near to choking him. “On the morrow, lady, I will lead my forces to Faegerliegh Keep and take your children back, by force if necessary. At the same time a message will be dispatched to the king, informing him of the situation. We will await his answer and direction here, with you and the twins safe under my protection.”
She stared at him, eyes wide. “You would do that for me? Even now, after all this…?”
“I would do no less for anyone, lady. ’Tis justice, pure and simple.”
“But what of King Henry’s sanctions against it? Will you not be risking everything if he does not see this thing in the same light?”
“Aye,” Gray said, snapping his gaze to hers in exasperation. “’Tis a distinct and unhappy possibility. And yet do you think I could live with myself if I let any number of sanctions—or even the king himself—stand in the way when children’s lives weigh in the balance?”
She looked as if she would answer, then. Perhaps assure him that, nay, she’d been foolish not to trust him. That she’d always known he would do what was right, regardless of what he risked or how he’d been hurt. But in the end she said nothing. She just stood there, pale and haunted, her gaze downcast.
“Ah, lady,” Gray said at last, shamed to find his voice gone suddenly as husky as hers, “here you stand before me as you did on our very first night together, silent and frightened, uncertain of what the future may bring.” He swallowed hard. “And still knowing me, it seems, not at all…”
Unable to say more, Gray walked to the door on legs of wood, hardly aware of leaving the chamber or pulling the heavy door closed behind him. He took several stumbling steps before the pain finally overwhelmed him and he jerked to a halt.
