Unbidden (The Evolution Series) (25 page)

He readied to leave
. It seemed only seconds until he was tying a small parcel of clothing and food on his saddle. He turned to Rochelle.

“Here,” she said, extending her hand
. Three small cloth sacks landed in his palm. “It is for your head. Just in case. You know how to brew it?”

“I do,” he answered gruffly.

“I hope it is enough, until you return.”

He smiled
. “Keep Magnus with you. I have taken the liberty of giving Gilbert and Ardo a few instructions, but you have the final word in ensuring your own safety. I will see you in Ribeauville soon.”

Her eyes widened
. “I do not want to come.”

“Louis will want you there
. I want you there. I will send someone for you.”

Her head shook negatively as he mounted Woden, but then she remembered something else she wanted to say.

“David,” she said, touching him softly on his knee, “I am grateful for what you did this morning.”

Woden pranced sideways so she backed away from him. David’s gaze already looked to the open gate. “Denes was a good steed and a faithful friend.” 

“I wish I had been more careful with him. And with you.”

“It was a badger hole, Rochelle
. It was not your fault that Denes fell. As for the other, I was harsh with you yesterday at the river, but I am fine.
We
are fine. I must go for now, but trust me. All will be well.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Rochelle was weary. She found it difficult to eat or sleep since David’s departure a week ago. Now that harvest had ended, the more mundane preparations for winter filled all her days. Buildings were repaired, firewood gathered, and animals brought in to pens to be fattened for butchering. The trees released their last leaves and the bite of cold settled into the air more heavily each day. Today she’d been riding the estate on the old farm cob, checking the condition of the outbuildings and the peasants’ homes with Ardo, whom she’d just left at his house nearby. This task did not require her attention, but she searched for diversions to fill the time and keep her growing unease at bay.

She and David had not parted well
. Even if his words said otherwise, she’d sensed an eagerness in him to leave. She couldn’t blame him considering the pressure of the tournament, her uneven moods, and her repeated refusals to become his wife.

He’d told her he loved her
. It was not a sentiment she reciprocated. Or, if she was being truly honest with herself, the love of which he spoke — the kind shared between a man and a woman — was not an emotion she would immediately recognize. Even if she did love him, she’d never admit it with the black cloud of her betrayal hanging over her head like a funeral shroud. Love, as she pictured it, required honesty, did it not?  The ideal marriage would meld that love with the everyday, year-to-year business of life. That combination of love and business demanded absolutely sterling truthfulness between two people.

She’d already failed
.

As she crested the rise near her house, she sensed the emptiness in the buildings just as she sensed it in her own heart
. An unexpected symptom of an undiagnosed disease. Was it only dependence she felt for David, as she’d claimed?  Did she really yearn to share his strength and wisdom?  Or did she only want him to assuage the guilt that nearly crushed her with its weight?

Magnus yipped beside her
. The silhouette of a person on horseback moved down the road toward the house,  another horse being led behind. A frisson of excitement went up her spine. “No, no, no,” she schooled herself quietly, knowing David would not have returned for her himself. The rider reminded her of him.

Her heart sank.

“Oh Magnus, how could you let Doeg come here again?  I told you I do not like him.”  The dog wagged and panted happily at her words. “Well, come on then.”  She guided her horse to the courtyard where she met her least favorite person in the world. The extra horse he led looked remarkably like Woden, though only about three-quarters his size.

“Good day, Lady
Rochelle. It has been too long.”

“Has it?  I have been too busy to notice.”

“I can see. The fields are clean and every little house is cozy and tucked up for winter.”

“Are you just passing through?” Rochelle asked hopefully.

He looked confused. “Passing through to where, pray tell?”

She met his eyes in direct challenge
. “I was under the impression you had developed some local friendships.”

A shadow passed through the clear blue depths
. “You are struggling with some misinformation. I am here for you.”

Rochelle recoiled
. What was the man capable of to keep her from marrying his brother?  He’d already tried to have her kidnapped, she was sure of it, and she did not trust him to not have some other nefarious plan in place.

She took a calming breath she hoped sounded like a bored sigh
. “I am afraid there is a list of men who think they are
for me.
Four to be precise. Perhaps you should have signed up for the tournament.”  Just thinking of the tournament made her feel ill.

His laugh was not pleasant
. “Again, you purposefully misconstrue my meaning. David sent me here to take you to the exact event of which you speak. It is only a week away, as you must know.”

Doeg droned on about crowds of people already in town waiting to see her fate decided for the emperor’s pleasure, but she could not concentrate on his words
. Doeg intended to accompany her to Ribeauville!  The thought of the opportunities for mischief he would have on the open road between Alda and there made her nerves jangle. Almost anything could happen when traveling. A journey with Doeg coupled with the looming prospect of the horrible tournament brought panic. She did not want to witness the thing, but she
really
did not want to be kidnapped and disappear forever while trying to get there.

Rochelle silently slipped off the farm nag, letting a waiting boy take the reins
. She turned tired eyes up to Doeg as he finally stopped rattling on.

“I heard about your horse,” he sneered
. He offered her the lead for the black gelding he’d brought. “David sent a new one for you.”

“He sent a horse?  For me?” she said, warm pleasure cutting through guilt and exhaustion as she accepted the rope
. The gelding had fine lines and was well muscled. He snuffled his fuzzy nose willingly against her palm. She could not repress a smile, even in Doeg’s presence.

“How did he have time to get him?”

“It is Woden’s half-brother,” he explained, only pleasing her more. “The dam’s owner lives near Ribeauville.”

“What is his name?”

“Name?” he asked with contempt, as if the question was ludicrous. “How should I know?”  He slid off his own horse to untie his pack.

She reluctantly gave the stable boy the new horse’s lead
. “Keep him in the barn and give him some hay and water.”

The boy nodded.

She walked to the house. Marian met them at the door. “Doeg has come to take us to Ribeauville for the tournament,” Rochelle told her. Doeg and Magnus followed on her heels into the house.

“Did David send him?” Marian asked.

“So he says,” Rochelle answered shortly.

“Have I ever given you reason to doubt my word?”
he asked sharply.

“As a matter of fact you have,” Rochelle answered hotly
. “The last time you showed up here unannounced your brother had no idea of your coming, despite your claim otherwise.”

She felt a certain satisfaction seeing a flush come to his cheeks beyond that of the cold air outside
. It did not last long as a thin smile lifted just the corners of his lips. He changed his tactic.

“I would think the outcome of the tournament would be of great interest to you both
. After all, the winner gets all of this,” he said, his hand sweeping around the room. “I am here to escort you into your future.”

Rochelle felt sick to her stomach. “This tournament is an abomination,” she said, her voice flat.

“Perhaps you should tell that to the emperor when you see him. I have heard that he may attend.”  Doeg’s cold blue eyes glittered. “We leave tomorrow morning. Early. See that you are ready.”  He marched into the men’s quarters.

“I do not trust him, Mother.”

“Nor do I. What do ye think he is planning?”

“I do not know
. David did say he would send someone to bring us to Ribeauville. I never dreamed it would be his wretched brother.”  Rochelle dared not tell her mother the depth of her suspicions about Doeg.

Marian sighed
. “I ken yer worry. But he is right. We should see the tournament, even if it is irregular. If not illegal,” she added.

Rochelle steeled her resolve
. “Rest well, then. And pack lightly. I plan to ride hard and fast. If Doeg has plans of his own, he will have to catch me to see them play out.”

She dawdled in the stable on her usual rounds that evening
. David’s specter lingered here, as it did around every part of Alda he had visited with her, but was made stronger by the new gelding in Denes’s stall. She hadn’t thought it possible to feel David’s presence more powerfully than she had at times in the past week. On some evenings she had all but conjured him here. His voice, his understanding, his steadying presence and unsteadying caresses.

But now, with Woden’s half-brother eating bits of apple from her palm, if she turned she was sure she would see David leaning on the post where he had driven her to distraction and she had driven him to complete frustration
. The night everything had begun to fall apart. The night she’d plotted her betrayal.

David had never plied her with gifts
. He’d never brought her jewels or gold or even a flower. Yet here stood a fine nameless gelding, brother to David’s own stallion, replacement for her beloved Denes whom he’d compassionately killed and buried for her. He’d gifted her with an excellent horse to help her continue her work at Alda, a mount for a job many considered inappropriate for a woman.

She could not summon the emotions that had driven her to betray him
. In their time apart, all her anger and distrust had slipped finally and inexorably away, leaving her with…what?  Loneliness, guilt, a shell of herself she barely recognized just waiting to be filled.

Alda was no longer a source of pride
. It was a place to hide her shame and while away the hours until David returned to her life.

If he returned.

And that would never do. She leaned her forehead against the gelding’s black neck. “Tomorrow we ride,” she whispered. “You and I can outrun Doeg. When we get to Ribeauville, I will try to fix this mess I have made.”

David and Theo were in deep discussion by the fire in the center of Theo’s hall. One of Theo’s best soldiers had discovered The Black’s training area. He’d been secretly watching for three days, giving them guidance on favorite moves David might expect or weaknesses to exploit.

Absorbed in the topic
, they paid no heed to the other occupants, most of them young women not allowed to partake of the nighttime festivities in the town. Many honorable families had come to stay in Theo’s fine home and make a holiday out of the tournament. Unfortunately among them were a small group of marriageable girls who found David and Theo fascinating. They and their chaperones talked and giggled in high pitched tones that set David’s teeth on edge. He’d suggested more than once that he and Theo adjourn to the small office just off this room, which had a nice solid door they could closet themselves behind. Theo enjoyed a full hall, even if the occupants were silly women. He abused the ability to set them off in birdlike twitters just by looking at them.

David couldn’t help but compare every one of them to Rochelle
. How ridiculous they were in contrast to her strength and self-assurance. He’d been confused when he left Alda. She’d refused to marry him. She’d barely acknowledged his declaration of love. Something had changed. Something that had her clinging to him yet driving him away. He couldn’t make sense of it and had stopped trying, sending his brother to fetch her instead. These girls were like children compared to Rochelle’s complexity. Had he really accused
her
of being coddled?

His anxiety to see her rose day by day since Doeg left
. He wanted her near again, no matter how exasperating and perplexing she’d been. He didn’t expect her until tomorrow at the earliest, so he set his anticipation aside to concentrate on the business at hand.

As such, when the din dropped to dead silence and all the girls’ faces turned to the door,
he paid it no heed. When one of them hissed, “I think that is
her
!”  and another added  “And her mother too!” David raised his head so fast he felt a pop in his neck.

There she was, the answer to his prayers, Marian barely visible over her shoulder.

Rochelle halted in the entry, looking slightly stunned, with a parcel in one hand and her tiny dagger in the other. Her riding clothes were spattered with mud, her nose and cheeks blazed red with cold, and her veil sat slightly askew, allowing a few tendrils of hair to hang down along her cheeks and around her neck.

She was, to his eyes, completely magnificent.

Her brilliant eyes quickly scanned the room and she undoubtedly heard the rising hiss of whispers from all the eligible girls who recognized the woman of current notoriety who had just arrived. David stood slowly. Her chin rose just a fraction as her gaze found him, and she gave no quarter. A moment of raw hunger and fierce recognition passed between them. He curled his toes in his boots to keep from pushing people and tables aside to get to her.

Magnus slipped in past her, bumping her slightly and breaking the spell of their stare
. Shrieks filled the air when the girls – children! – saw the dog. Theo rose to shout a greeting as he worked his way to his new guests. “Come to the fire!  You must be frozen coming in on a night such as this!  Welcome!  Welcome!”

Rochelle turned to put her arm around her mother, weaving her thr
ough the crowded room to the fire, feeling every pair of eyes follow her. David offered Marian his chair while Theo summoned a maid to bring hot stew.

Rochelle barely felt David peel her chilled fingers off the dagger
. He set it aside with her bag of clothes and personal items.