Page 40
Chapter 18
Two men rode in front of them, two behind them. The sun had not yet made an appearance, but despite the chill, Cait shrugged off her mantle. She wanted to feel the air touch her skin. Despite the brevity of their stay at Lennox Castle, it felt like they’d been cooped up inside for too long.
She’d woken early after a fitful sleep, disappointed that Conrad had not visited her last eve as he’d promised, only to break her fast in the great hall under the sting of the countess’s intense scrutiny. Cait could not have left the hall quickly enough.
As they passed the gatehouse, Cait looked around for the other men, assuming their retinue would be joining them. But there were no mounted knights and supply carts. Indeed, no one followed them at all.
“The others?”
She peered ahead, sitting higher in her saddle, but still, nothing.
“Left at dawn. To London.”
Cait didn’t hide her confusion. “Why are we not traveling with them?”
Conrad seemed different this morn. Something was not quite well.
“I met with the countess privately last eve after the meal. She has pulled her support.”
Oh dear.
“Without it, I fear Londoners may not welcome us as we’d hoped.”
“France,” Cait muttered. She understood how important it was for the order to have a connection to the French king’s heir apparent. Even the appearance of one might be enough for them to successfully capture London and force King John’s hand.
“As such, the others will continue on to London. We’re headed to Lindemere Castle.”
Cait gasped. Surely she had misheard.
“Lindemere?”
“We’ve no other choice. The countess assured me her ties to France will still serve us if necessary, but without a public show of support, that fact hardly matters.”
“So Lindemere . . .”
Cait thought back to that particular missive. The one where Conrad had shared the saga of his cousin. Lord Lindemere had coveted the man’s bedchamber at court, and so he’d had his belongings removed, without permission, and taken the more prominent room for himself. The situation had escalated, and Conrad’s cousin had been arrested, and nearly beheaded, for his part in the matter. Which had led to his father’s famous gambit of bringing two hundred armed men to court.
After the incident, the former earl’s relationship with the king had obviously been strained. It had become even more so after he refused the earl and countess’s request to cure them of the illness known as the king’s evil, which some said could be healed with a touch from the king. Although she doubted the veracity of such claims, the insult could not be denied.
“Aye. Lindemere. I came to you last eve to mention it, but you were asleep.”
That pulled Cait from her reverie.
“You came?” She didn’t try to hide her surprise. Or her pleasure.
“You were asleep, I assume. I met with Ansel well into the night.”
Cait had been so consumed with thoughts of them, of her and Conrad, she’d forgotten temporarily they were in the midst of a rebellion. Although she’d waited for him to come, fretted over it, she had never imagined such complications could be the cause for his delay.
“I did not realize,” she mumbled.
“You assumed I had not come?”
Glancing from his profile to the dusty Roman road on which they traveled, Cait admitted as much. “’Twould be no less than I deserved.”
His silence, she assumed, was Conrad’s way of agreeing with her.
But as a pair of riders approached them, Conrad transformed before her eyes—one moment, he was simply a man, albeit a dangerously handsome one, the next a knight. He greeted the two men stiffly, positioning himself in front of Cait. Neither man appeared particularly ominous, but the fierce look on Conrad’s face startled her.
