Midnight Eyes by Brophy, Sarah (well read books .TXT) 📕

Not that Edmond didn’t have every right to look embarrassed, Robert thought sternly. Knights weren’t shepherds and, as far as Robert was concerned, shepherds were the only ones who should have anything to do with sheep. Judging by the increasingly pained look on Edmond’s face, he was fast coming to that conclusion himself.

“So that’s not my sheep, then?” Robert couldn’t seem to stop his lips twitching at Edmond’s almost frantic head shaking. “So, if it is not my sheep, then why have you brought it in here?”

Edmond shrugged, his face filled with desperation. “I…I thought—uh, I thought…”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Robert murmured but, taking pity on the boy, continued. “Let me guess what you think you thought. You were thinking that if you were to give that vaguely smelly beast to Lady Imogen, my wife,” he emphasized, “she might be so overwhelmed by the—uh, magnitude, of the gift, that she might just bestow on your unworthy person some small favor. Am I close?”

Edmond dropped his head, and nodded dejectedly, a lock of his blond hair falling forward over his forehead. Was I ever that young? Robert thought with bewilderment. Somehow it just didn’t seem possible.

“Well, why then hasn’t my lady been presented with this unusual token?”

“Couldn’t find her,” Edmond mumbled, his misery now absolute, and Robert’s side began to ache with suppressed laughter.

“Ah,” he breathed out carefully and, once he was sure of his continued composure, he added, “would you like me to take you to her?”

Edmond looked up and his grin was radiant. “You would actually do that?” he breathed with awe.

Robert could no longer contain his laughter as he stood. “Of course. Far be it for me to deny my wife such a delightful gift. She was heading to the kitchen garden, I believe, if you care to follow me.”

As they walked through the Keep’s hall and into the courtyard, everyone guessed who the sheep was for, and Robert had to grin at the frankly jealous looks the men were throwing Edmond. The poor boy was beginning to walk so tall that Robert feared he might trip over something if he didn’t cast the odd glance down at his feet. His new dignity was only marginally dinted by the protesting bleat of the sheep. It had to be some sort of enchantment, Robert concluded with amused awe. It was the only possible answer for the insanity that seemed to have descended over them all.

And Robert was as caught in Imogen’s spell as were his men, even as he tried to fight it. He was just more discreet about his.

Not many might know it, but every few days he rode over to the tower to bring back some small thing from the horde that Roger had hidden there. He would have brought everything over to the Keep at once but Imogen had been emphatic that it should all be left where it was. She had been coldly emotionless as she had mouthed the denial of her past, but the memory of the lingering touches she had bestowed on the covers of the books was burnt into his brain. He’d had to grit his teeth to stop the roar that had almost escaped as he had watched her surreptitiously slip a small paperweight into her cloak pocket just before they had left, when she thought he wasn’t looking. That she had tried to hide it from him cut into him like a knife to his vitals, but it was only in the dark of the night, as he watched over her as she slept, that he let himself dwell on the helplessness betrayed in that small gesture. A helplessness she refused to share, dark memories she carefully shielded from his gaze. It was his primal fear of losing her to those memories that stopped him from bringing it all out into the open by tearing down the tower stone by stone and giving her back her childhood, but the anger still filled him.

Anger that it was fear of her brother and his power that made her insist that the tower should stay as it was. Anger that she doubted him and his ability to stand between her and any danger, especially the threat posed by her reptilian brother.

If only she would talk to him! If she but asked him, he would vanquish all of her demons, Robert thought, smiling savagely as he imagined the pleasure to be found in grinding Roger to dust. But she didn’t tell him. She held her enemies and their secrets close to her, denying him.

Still, in his own way he fought them. He fought them every time he presented her with a small piece of her past. Each piece of the puzzle that he returned to her was a silent pledge that he would protect her, to the last breath in his body, from all who might harm her.

He could only hope that she would understand and, in time, let him in.

Until then, he would settle for the smile she gave him each time he gave her back another relic from her youth, would settle for the warmth of her body along his as she silently thanked him at night in the privacy of their chamber.

Robert looked at the jubilant Edmond and had to smile.

If only Edmond knew.

Imogen buried her hands deep in the warming soil. The winter seemed to have lasted forever, but at last it was finally taking flight. The sun was getting slowly stronger, the winds steadily sweeter.

After years of cold, lonely isolation, Imogen couldn’t help but feel that it was a glorious time to be alive. Just drawing breath and smelling the scents of spring was a gift. To be contributing to it, well, that was almost a miracle. There was much she still couldn’t do, but she had also come to realize that there was so much else she could if she tried. Each day she was working harder than she had ever done before and she loved it.

Today,