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

Gareth looked quickly to Matthew, who shook his head to the unspoken question, then cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Matthew can explain it all to you.”

Ignoring Matthew’s ironic “Thanks very much!” Gareth walked quietly over to Imogen and, placing his arm around her shoulders, he guided her over to a seat near the hearth. The embers of a fire still glowed gently and Gareth made sure she was settled comfortably before moving to stand behind her. He barely resisted the urge to place his hands protectively on her shoulders, but to do so wasn’t his right.

His jaw clenched and he folded his arms over his chest instead. He would have given everything he owned for Imogen not to have to face the blow that was coming. He would have taken it himself if he could have. She looked so fragile, sitting there, lost in the large chair, and he couldn’t stop from worrying that perhaps she didn’t have enough strength left to survive this after she had survived so much else.

“Well?” Imogen asked hesitantly. “What is going on?”

Matthew dropped stiffly into the chair opposite hers with a small groan and he stared deep into the embers, trying desperately to find the words to say what had to be said. How did you tell a woman that her husband had probably already been executed for treason? A quick, clean cut seemed to him the best way to inflict such a cruel wound.

“Your brother has accused Robert of treason and the king believes him. He has been imprisoned and is now awaiting execution.” The old man sighed before gruffly adding, reluctantly, “For all we know the deed has already been done.”

“No,” she whispered, her horror dawning. Her face became a mask of confusion. “No. He can’t be dead. That’s not the way it’s supposed to happen. That isn’t the way of it at all.”

As Matthew listened to her strangely stilted, un-shocked reaction, the guard’s blithe words about Imogen’s probable complicity in Roger’s schemes suddenly reappeared unbidden in his mind.

“Care to explain to us, lass, just how much of this you already knew?” he asked darkly, his voice cold with suspicion.

Gareth took a protective step closer to Imogen and glared warningly at Matthew, but she didn’t even notice the threat inherent in Matthew’s words, her mind too absorbed by the devastating implications of what they had just told her.

It was unbelievable!

In her agitation, she got up and began pacing the room, words tumbled out unchecked. “Roger wouldn’t do this. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s me that’s supposed to be destroyed by his games, not Robert. For God’s sake, Robert is his man in this. He can’t destroy Robert. Why would Roger do that? It just doesn’t make sense…unless Robert was innocent, unless Robert never meant to hurt me. If that’s so…”

If that was so, then it was she who had betrayed Robert, not the other way round. If that was so, then the world Robert had shown her, the laughter and smiles he had shared with her, the passions he had built in her, they had all been real.

And she had thrown it all away, thrown him away. She had hidden behind her fear, her hate, her pain, and closed herself off from the one good thing to enter her life. She had sent him into danger and not once given him the only thing he had ever asked of her, although he had never put it into words. All he had ever wanted was her love and she had held herself back. It didn’t matter that she had every reason to doubt, not when none of those reasons had anything to do with him.

And that was Roger’s ultimate victory, she realized bitterly. She had been in his dark games for so long that she had not even been able to reach out and take the hand of the man who had wanted to do nothing more than take her into the light.

Now that loving man was going to die and that too would be her fault.

She buried her head in her hands, her thin shoulders visibly shaking.

“I can’t let him die for me,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

Matthew’s suspicions dissolved as his agile mind quickly began to make sense of her garbled ramblings. “It’s not your choice to make,” he said gruffly, trying to ignore that part of himself already grieving for the man he would have been proud to call his son. “What’s done is done and we must move on and start planning for the future. Robert told me to get you out of England, and that is just what I intend to do.”

“Did he say where he wanted us to go?” Gareth asked, his voice thoughtful as he quickly began sorting in his mind all that needed to be done before they abandoned the Keep.

Matthew shook his head. “He didn’t have time to go into specifics. Anywhere out of the reach of the king of England should do the trick. Somewhere warm and Mediterranean, I think.”

Gareth narrowed his eyes. “We could do that. My brother has lived in Italy for the last five years, fighting for a Florentine nobleman. I’m sure he would be able to take us in, help us get Imogen established.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“What will you do about money?” Mary asked practically, already doing mental inventories of everything in the Keep, trying to work out just what Imogen would need. “And I doubt whether either of you realize just how much time it will take to pack up a household this size.”

“We will be able to take only the bare essentials. Anything that can’t be carried on a horse can’t come.” A small smile filtered across Gareth’s face. “I know it will be hard, Mary, but you have to remember that we are fleeing, not going on a pleasure jaunt, and pack accordingly.”

“Well, as I’m too old to go to some damn foreign country, Sir Knight, I don’t think I will be either fleeing or jaunting anywhere. There