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

is a convent a day’s ride from here that will take me in.” Mary’s brow furrowed. “But what about the rest of the household? What do you expect them to do?”

Gareth thought for a moment, his fingers running restlessly through his hair. “Some of the men will take you to your convent, and as for the rest of the household”—he shrugged his shoulders—“they will have plenty of time to pick over the corpse of what is left behind before the king confiscates it. Then they can disappear into the landscape.”

Matthew grinned. “After they have finished with their job, the king probably won’t be able to find enough evidence left to prove that anyone at all had ever lived here.”

“We will have to get started now, if we are to get to the coast before the king starts closing down the ports on us,” Gareth said thoughtfully.

“Which port do you have in mind?”

“One far enough away from London for safety’s sake that will also get us to Italy by the most direct route. I’ve got a map somewhere…”

“I’m not going to Italy,” Imogen said suddenly, cutting ruthlessly across the babble of conversation, taking a grim satisfaction in the dumb silence that immediately followed her declaration before pandemonium broke out.

“What are you talking about? Of course you’re going.” Mary said, aghast. “As the wife of an executed traitor and sister to an all-too-powerful madman, fleeing is the only thing for you to do.”

“Well, I’m not going to do it.” Imogen’s voice was filled with calm certainty.

“If you intend to remain here, then I don’t doubt for a second that you have separated yourself entirely from all sanity,” Matthew said testily, then added in a slightly calmer voice, “and may we be so bold as to enquire what it is you do intend doing if not to flee sensibly?”

“I intend to do what any other loyal wife would do. I intend to prove my husband’s innocence.”

Another gratifyingly dumb silence filled the room.

“How?” Gareth growled in confusion. “We have no proof of his innocence!”

“Not that they have a hell of a lot of proof about his guilt,” Matthew said darkly.

“Oh, don’t you worry, I have proof.” Imogen said with grim satisfaction. “The proof has been steadily streaming north for months.”

Gareth narrowed his eyes. “I love Robert like a brother, but I won’t have you put in any form of jeopardy even for his sake. I promised Robert that I would keep you safe and that is just what I intend to do.”

“This isn’t your decision to make. It is mine, and my mind is already made up.”

He looked as if he would like to protest, but instead he nodded his head in reluctant agreement. “Fine. We will travel to the king instead, but I’d like to have a boat held in reserve, just in case you can’t save the world as completely as you seem to think you can.”

Imogen bit her bottom lip nervously. “Then you will come with me, even though I’m not doing what you want me to do?”

Gareth’s face gentled for a second. “Lady Imogen, I’d follow you into the mouth of Hell and tweak the tail of the Devil if you asked me to.”

“There is a certain similarity between the two follies,” Matthew said with evident disgust.

But Imogen ignored him as she groped for the chair and sank into its depths gratefully. Everything inside her was confusion.

Robert truly was innocent of wishing her any harm.

He really was the man who took time to teach his wife chess, the man who took in a lamb on his wife’s whim, the man who had patiently returned to her pieces of her past even when she was afraid to receive such gifts. He too had felt the passion that had burned so brightly and shared in the tenderness that had grown between them as he held her close after passion had spent itself. He had loved her when he had whispered those words to her when he thought she slept. They had actually come from his heart, not Roger’s twisted mind.

He had given her his love and all she had managed to give him in return were the twisted fears Roger had created in her. She could no longer hide behind her numbness. Emotions clamored to the surface and they were almost painful in their intensity. The guilt and fear for his life burned so brightly that they made her want to cry.

But there was also something else.

A something that she didn’t quite dare name.

He had said he loved her. Love. It had been so long since she had been free-hearted enough to either give or receive it. She had lived with Roger’s dark games so long that she had thought all the love had been frozen out of her, yet suddenly she knew that it hadn’t. Deep under the shell of her cold fears she could feel it sluggishly coming back to life.

She loved him in return.

Inside of her a dam released and tears welled in her eyes. She wanted to cry for all the lost time, for the miracle of Robert’s love and hers for him, but most of all she wanted to cry because she could lose it all even as she found it.

She didn’t cry. Instead she lifted her chin defiantly and made an instant decision. She would be damned before she let Roger take from this world the only thing that meant anything to her. For Robert, she would fight, for the first time in her life.

She drew a deep, steadying breath.

“We can’t stand around here all night,” she said shakily, “there is much we must do.”

Gareth looked into her face and smothered the small thrill of sadness that filled him as he saw life in her face once more. It was like she had finally woken up after weeks of sleep, but that life wasn’t for him. Not that he’d ever expected it to be any other way, not really. But to judge from the pain he