Noble Hearts 03 - The Courageous Heart (18 page)

Ethan pulled his eyes down from the heavens. “Joanna is…. Joanna was….” He glanced away, rubbing a hand over his
face
.

David stood still. “I see,” he muttered at length, shaking his head. “I see, I see, I see. How foolish the young can be and how deep the pain they cause.”

“I never meant to cause her any pain,” Ethan regained himself enough to speak. “All I ever wanted, all I want now, is to do what’s right and to go home.”
The truth hit him like a rush of fresh air after being trapped in a dungeon.

“And to take her with you?”

“Yes.”
He couldn’t side-step the truth forever. She could accuse him of everything under the sun, but it was Joanna he wanted, Joanna he needed. It always had been.
And Joanna was the reason he would stick his neck out for his enemy. Because he owed her.

“
Alright, Sir Dunkirke.” David slapped him on the back again as they turned the last corner to the inn. “Here is what we will do.” Ethan raised his eyebrows. “You will go off and attend to the king and I will watch out for
your friends
.”

“
It’s a lot to ask, sir. Madeline’s father is bound to come after her
at some point. And Joanna…. Joanna
is a handful when she sets her mind to something.”

David laughed. “You leave that to me. I’ll do my best to remind her that the best place for you to act on her behalf is by the king’s side. That is what you intend to do now that you have the king’s ear, isn’t it, son?
”

“
Of course it is.” He squirmed. The itching down his back was as strong as ever.

Chapter
Ten

Dear Joanna,

There is a chance that this letter will find you long before the others as I am sending it home with Sir Geoffrey. Although I’m not sure he’s in good enough shape to be mindful of it after the ordeal he has been through. You must do all that you can to help the Lady Aubrey as I fear her reunion with her brother will be a bittersweet one. But I get ahead of myself.

So much has happened since my last letter! When I last wrote we had just set out from Sicily. We are now in Cyprus
which, believe it or not, we have unexpectedly conquered
!
Our passage across the Mediterranean began smoothly enough. Then there was a terrible storm. I tell you, Joanna, I was certain I would never see you again. Waves the size of mountains crashed over our ship. We were tossed about like
toys
a child
was
drowning
in
a tub. It was all Ethan could do to keep me from losing my mind entirely. He tried sending me to help bail water from the hull with the sailors to distract me from my terror, but when he saw that would do no good he held me as I wailed like a newborn in his arms.

Of course I was mortified when the storm broke and I came back to my senses. Imagine my surprise and dismay to find myself
tucked in Ethan’s arms when I awoke from my stupor. Ethan was kindness itself though and didn’t hold a lick of it against me. Sir Baldwin started to tease me, more out of regret that he hadn’t though
t to comfort me first I suspect.
Ethan gave him a thorough dressing-down because of it. For a moment I was afraid things would come to a head, but then the king’s matters drew all of our attention.

A few of the ships in our group were missing including the one that Princess Joan and King Richard’s betrothed,
the lady Berengaria of Navarre
,
were sailing in. It was quickly discovered that they had landed on the south shore of Cyprus. Our joy at their safety was followed swiftly by shock and fury, for the ladies and many others had been taken prisoner by Duke Isaac Komnenos. Richard demanded their safe return and hospitality on the island as was his right, and while Komnenos initially agreed, he quickly turned against us.

Well, Richard wasn’t having that. It was just his luck that some of our allies had landed at the same port as us after the storm. They agreed with Richard that Komnenos was in the
wrong, and together we laid siege to the entire island, storming the city of Nicosia. Alas, while we were successful in defeating that villain Komnenos and rescuing the ladies Joan and Berengaria, Sir Geoffrey was grievously wounded. I will spare you the details and simply say that he lost his leg. Do not ask him about it when he returns home for he is devastated.

Ethan knows nothing about Sir Geoffrey’s injury, I might add. He saw that his friend was wounded, but before he could visit him or comfort him
,
King Richard gathered a select group of men to pursue Komnenos to the city of Tremetousia. He was so proud to be one of the men Richard took with him that I could not bear to tell him of Sir Geoffrey’s misfortune. Sir Geoffrey is leaving Cyprus this very morning on a hospital ship set to take the wounded to a more amenable climate for healing.

I do not have much time left to write, but Joanna, you would have been so proud of our
Ethan
! He continues to fight with all the courage of a lion. I have heard King Richard referred to as “Cour de Lion” of late, but it is Ethan who deserves that title more. His heart is so big and so fierce. The way he cared for me in the storm, risking his own reputation to comfort me, the way he volunteered for the hottest battles and the most perilous missions Richard has devised, only fans the flames of my passion. I know that if you were here with me to see his valor you would pledge your heart to him a thousand times more than you already have.

I’m told I have to give this letter to the departing ship now or it will not go. I send it with my love.

-Toby

Joanna scribbled the last line of her letter to Aubrey, spattering ink across the page
as the pen nib gave out
. She sighed in irritation and threw the useless pen across the room.
Wulfric snapped his eyes up from where he sat drawing with chalk on a schoolboy’s slate.

“It’s alright,
my lord
,” she told him, feeling anything but. “That’s a lovely drawing.”

“It’s a knight,” Wulfric explained his scribbles. “My knight Ethan.”

Joanna could only manage a sour half smile.
Ethan was as far from a heroic knight as she could imagine.
For the last fortnight h
e’d been leaving
for the Tower
early
in the morning
and returning at all hours, stumbling home drunk half the time and avoiding her the rest. Every time she’d taken him to task for his behavior he’d grumbled the same excuse: the king demanded his presence at court.

He hadn’t brought
any news of Crispin and Jack or
one letter of reply from
Aubrey
in all that time
in spite of his protestations that he was doing the best he could
.
She doubted he was even delivering her letters.
She should have known better than to get her hopes up. The warm flicker of hope that had spurred her to kiss him was failing
already
.
Whether she wanted it to or not she couldn’t decide.

“There you are.” Madeline’s tired voice pulled Joanna out of her
dark
thoughts. “Rebecca said you were in here reading.”

“My lady, you shouldn’t be
out of bed
. You should be resting.” She
left her writing and
stood to
take Meg from Madeline’s arms.
Wulfric spared Madeline one curious glance before going back to his slate.

“If I rest any
more I think I’ll go mad.” Madeline laughed
, high and breathy
.
Her health had been steadily improving for a fortnight but she still had a ways to go.
S
he reached for th
e nearest chair and
sank heavily into it.

“I know how you feel, my lady
.
”
Meg was fussy as well, making all three of them tense as deer.

“No word from Ethan, I suppose?”

Joanna shook her head, grinding her teeth.
“If
David would
just
let me
go out I could try
to get into the Tower again
to speak to Aubrey
.
Or if I could find out something about the letters
your father
says he has. Someone has to know
if they’re real or not
.
”

“
Could you ask Ethan to find out specifically about them
?”

“
My lady,
Ethan has
abandon
ed
his duties to his friends so that he can
smile at the king’s jokes and talk nonsense with the rest of the nobles
.
I’m not as
king him to do anything anymore.
”
H
ow it hurt! All of the hope she had built up when he agreed to go to the Tower lay in shambles around her feet.
He wouldn’t lift a finger for her, even now.
She didn’t know what was worse, Ethan’s behavior or the fact that she
had convinced herself he was turning over a new leaf
.

“You care about him, don’t you.
”

Madeline’s soft question
struck shame into her heart
.
“I don’t care one bit about that arrogant, selfish prick!” she protested.

Madeline took in a breath and sighed, “Oh dear.”

“What’s the matter, my lady, are you well?”
Joanna rushed to Madeline’s side.

Madeline cast a sympathetic look up at her. “I’m fine. The only thing wrong with me is my health. You, on the other hand, have a much bigger problem.”

Joanna’s face flushed pink. She walked away, soothing Meg as an excuse. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, my lady.”

There was a pause.
Madeline leaned forward, pulling
the pile of letters on the table
closer to her.
Joanna had been reading as well as writing. Madeline reached straight for Toby’s letters.
Joanna
gasped
as she read the one that lay unfolded,
but held her tongue. Watching
Madeline’s
reaction was like being on trial.

“This is beautiful,” Madeline said at length, sniffing and wiping a tear from her eye. “You are so lucky to have these.”

All Joanna could do was nod and swallow the lump in her throat. Meg gurgled against her shoulder, fighting sleep.

“You should share these with Ethan,” Madeline went on.

“No,” Joanna said. “Never.”

Madeline set the letter on the table. She stared at it, biting her lip before fixing Joanna with a sad smile. “You grew up in Ethan’s household, didn’t you.”

It wasn’t what Joanna expected her to say. She searched for any way she could not to answer, but Madeline deserved honesty. “Yes, my lady, I did. Toby and I both did.”

“Aubrey told me the story.” Madeline
settled
in her chair. “There was a fire that killed your family.”

Joanna nodded, the pain of that long-ago tragedy buried to numbness
under
so much more pain. “In the middle of the night. Toby and I were eight. He was a light sleeper and when the smoke reached our room he woke me. The rest of the house was already engulfed. We had to jump out the window. I was terrified. I wouldn’t have made it if he hadn’t helped me every step of the way. But everyone else, our parents, our brother and sisters, died. Lady Anne, Ethan’s mother, took us in.”

“So you and Toby were Ethan’s foster siblings?”

“Not quite.
”
Joanna
worried a hand across her
brow
. “Our parents were prosperous, but they were still farmers. We were vassals of Lord Harold, not their equals in any way. Toby
was
trained as Ethan’s page. I was intended to be Lady Anne’s maid, but she took ill and died only a few years later. At Ethan’s insistence Lord Harold kept me on as a housemaid.”

“At Ethan’s insistence?” Madeline blinked, tilting her head to the side.

Joanna turned away. “We were close, the three of us. He was an only child. All of Lady Anne’s other babies died young.”

“I see.” Madeline remained silent for a long time. She rested her hands on the table, fingering the beads of a rose quartz rosary. At last she said, “So Ethan was like a brother to you?”

Joanna pursed her lips, a maelstrom of emotion unsettling her even more than she already was. She turned to find Madeline studying her, the serenity and wisdom of having spent so long as a cloistered nun in her eyes. There was no point in lying to her.

“No, Ethan was not like a brother to me,” she admitted quietly. “An
d he never saw me as a sister
.
Not at all.
”

“I see.”
Madeline let out a breath. “
Did T
oby know?
”

The pain of that unhealed wound only added to the agitation in Joanna’s soul. She forced herself to meet Madeline’s eyes. “
Yes
, my lady
, he did know
.
He knew everything.
I
knew he loved Ethan as well
.
It was the deepest of many secrets we shared.
”

Madeline
lowered her eyes
from Joanna to her rosary.

“I always expected Toby to be jealous of,” she braced herself to admit it, “my affair with Ethan, but he never was.” Madeline blushed. “He knew it was impossible for him to be with Ethan the way I
could
. I think he considered
Ethan’s attention to me as
the next best thing. I would tell him….” The pain and shame of her memories overwhelmed her. More than that, the grief of missing Toby squeezed her heart and throat.
She felt like she was drowning.

“My lady, I can’t talk about this anymore.
I can’t sit still anymore.
I have to get out of here. I have to go to the Tower.”
She paced the room, patting Meg’s back.

“There is a way, you know.” A light flashed in Madeline’s eyes that Joanna hadn’t seen for months.

“How?”
S
he
distracted herself from her own problems by
encourag
ing
that light.