“You would have me believe your tête-à-tête was of politics?”
He pushed her away in disgust, and she dropped to the floor.
Standing over her, he said in a low growl, “I will get the truth from this troubadour of yours. I will put him on the rack if I have to.”
She rose to her knees and grabbed his leg. “Please, William, do not hurt him!”
He watched her groveling on the floor, begging for her lover, and felt a crushing pain in his chest.
“Did what passed between us mean nothing to you?” he asked. He heard the plaintive note in his voice and hated himself for his weakness.
He turned his back on her and went out the door. The rush of cold night air could not cool his burning skin. Not since his mother sent him away as a child of six had he felt such an aching, overpowering sense of desolation. For the second time in his life, his world crashed down around him.
He loved her. Only now did he realize it. The girl he met in the stables years before touched his imagination and filled his dreams. But it was the woman, his most reluctant wife, who stole his heart. And she did it without his even knowing it.
He was used to deciding what he wanted and setting a course to get it. But he could not begin to think what he should do about Catherine and his feelings for her.
Tonight, however, he would find this too-handsome troubadour and send him packing.
Catherine sent her maid away and barred the door. Not that it would keep William out if he was determined to come in. She paced the floor, waiting for him to pound on her door and demand to know where Robert was hiding. Thank God she had shown Robert the secret tunnel and hidden boat long ago. With luck, he would be well down the river by now.
William did not come. Exhausted from the ordeal, she pushed the heavy chest in front of the door and went to bed. She slept fitfully and awoke in the morning feeling bone-tired.
“The men have left the hall, m’lady,” her maid called through the door. “Shall I help you dress now?”
Catherine heaved the trunk aside and let Mary in.
“I shall rest a while longer,” she said, sitting down on the trunk. “My stomach is a touch uneasy.”
“I shall bring you sop, m’lady,” Mary said. “There is nothing like bread soaked in warm milk and a touch of honey for belly trouble.”
Though Catherine felt well again before the midday meal, she sent word down that she was ill and would take her dinner in her rooms. She was not ready to see William. Also, she needed time to figure out how to get the news of the French invasion to Harry. Clearly, William would not do it for her.
Could she be sure enough of Robert’s information to risk sending word to Harry? She did not like sending him a message of such import until she heard it from two sources. She was always cautious; it would hurt the prince’s standing with the king and his council if the information later proved false.
Prince Harry and the king were on the Northern border. With the royal armies so distant from Wales, it was all the more urgent to get news to them of the imminent arrival of the French. If only she could be sure! Even if she could confirm it, how would she get a message to Harry?
She heard a light knock, and an auburn head popped around the door. In spite of her troubles, Catherine gave Stephen a warm smile.
“How do you fare?” the boy asked, drawing his dark brows together. “I heard you were not well.”
“I am better, thank you,” she replied, feeling guilty her deception had caused him concern.
“A message arrived for you from the abbey,” he said, handing her a sealed parchment.
Leaving Stephen to fidget behind her, she stepped inside the doorway of her bedchamber. With her back to the open door, she broke the seal. She found two letters, one rolled inside the other. She read the hidden one quickly, with a rising sense of urgency.
The abbess, too, had received word of the imminent arrival of a French army.
God was with her. No sooner had she slipped the secret missive through the slit in her gown and into the small pouch she wore underneath than William burst into the solar.
She held the other letter in her hand as she went to join him. It gave her a good deal of satisfaction to see he did not look as if he’d slept any better than she had.
“Edmund told me you received a message,” he said without greeting her. He held out his hand for it.
“ ’Tis from Abbess Talcott,” she said coolly, and dropped it into his hand.
If he was surprised to see it was, indeed, from the abbess, he did not show it.
