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

that there he was safe from Robert’s anger and could continue to play this little game with complete impunity. There was just no way to get at the man without bringing the full force of the monarch’s anger on his own head.

No, Robert had to wait and see exactly how the game was being played, wait until the prey dared to reveal itself out in the open before he could extract his revenge. It had to happen eventually and hopefully before Imogen was broken entirely. When it did, Robert would remove every last trace of the man from the face of the Earth.

All threats to Imogen had to be annihilated utterly and this sick little game ended absolutely.

He rolled his eyes in disgust when he realized that they had got him doing it now, calling this abomination between brother and sister a game, when it was nothing of the kind. Games didn’t take live hostages, didn’t have body counts, didn’t leave behind victims. That was war, a deadly war that Imogen was losing and there was nothing he could do about it.

His hands were tied till Imogen trusted him enough to tell him what the hell was actually going on here.

Robert lifted the axe high and brought it down with all the force at his disposal.

“You do realize, of course, that you have a veritable army of people whose job it is to chop your wood?” Gareth asked lightly enough.

But Robert’s teeth were bared as he lifted his head. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the man leaning casually against a wall.

“What do you want?” Robert spat out tersely.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Those are not the words of a happy leader,” Gareth murmured, levering himself off the wall and ambling over to the woodpile. “And need I ask whose head you envision as you abuse those poor, innocent logs?”

Robert’s smile was almost feral. “They’re messengers. Each and every bloody one is some liveried bastard’s head.” He brought the axe down again, imagining that instead of wood, the cutting edge was burying itself into flesh, sinew and bone.

Gareth’s brow shot up. “Well, you had better not mention that to the bandy-legged man who is uncomfortably standing near the main fire as we speak. The poor man is of that unpopular profession and might lay an egg if he had a glimpse of your—uh, wood-cutting frenzy.”

Robert groaned as he leaned wearily on the axe handle. “Good God, won’t that man ever run out of parchment? That would make it four in five days.” Robert shoved his hair out of his eyes again, feeling heartsick at the thought of losing yet another piece of Imogen. “Have you sent for Imogen yet?” he asked quietly.

“No, can’t say I have,” Gareth said nonchalantly, reaching up a finger to scratch his roughened cheek. “It wouldn’t be the sensible thing to do at all, especially when you consider that the messenger isn’t for her.”

“It’s not?” Robert asked blankly.

“Nope.”

Robert waited a moment before grinding out in exasperation, “Well then, who the hell is it for?”

“Why, just for novelty value, the messenger is actually for the master of the Keep, not our little mistress.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” Robert asked without heat, too busy absorbing the relief that washed through him. Strange, but it almost felt like a reprieve. He buried the axe blade in the cutting block and grabbed his tunic off the pile of logs where it had landed.

“Any idea where this messenger comes from?”

Gareth’s smile was devilishly amused and Robert almost groaned, knowing from long experience that could mean only bad things. Gareth’s humor was always at its best when it was at someone else’s expense.

“Well,” Gareth drew out, “judging by the livery and our man’s general air of pomposity, I’d have to most certainly say that this one comes straight from the king himself.”

Robert stood still midstride. “You’re kidding!”

Gareth shook his head, his smile only growing.

“Well, what the hell could he want?”

Gareth leaned closer and whispered, “Well, I thought you might ask me that, so I asked him, and he said that our beloved monarch has been so lonely without you, he has decided to recall you to court.”

Robert stared openmouthed for a second, hoping against hope that this was one of Gareth’s perverse jokes, but it wasn’t.

“Shit!” he said succinctly.

“So when do you leave?” Imogen asked politely.

“Early tomorrow morning,” Robert said stiffly, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from drinking in the sight of her even as he mouthed mindless pleasantries. “We will have to travel hard if we’re to be back before planting, and I certainly intend to spend as little time as possible on this folly.”

She smiled and nodded, but her expression remained blank. It was like she had already dismissed him from her presence and from her mind.

His hands clenched at his sides. She was so close, yet she might as well have been one hundred leagues from here for all the good it did him. He could no more touch her than he could the moon. He watched the early spring breeze ruffle her hair as she stood by the window, her hands held tightly together, her spine resolutely straight. His eyes saw her serenity, her apparent regal acceptance, but that wasn’t what his heart knew to be true.

In his heart he heard her soul’s endless screams of pain. He had only to look at her to know that for all her apparent strength and resolve, she was slowly being crushed by a great weight. It chilled him to the core that she might be so easily destroyed. In all his life he had never seen anything that frightened him more than Imogen’s living death.

It hurt him just to look at her, hurt to see her passiveness in the face of her own destruction. It hurt so much that it angered him. He wanted to slap her, shake her, kiss her or perhaps all three at once—anything that might bring her back to life, back to