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

been achieved. I happen to think you’re underestimating your enemy, and that is always a fatal mistake in my experience. Do you think he is now blithely waiting in his room for you to come and play creative executioner? Knowing that pond scum, he is already making plans while we speak.”

Robert shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what he is planning, I will beat him. He is not playing mind games with a terrified orphan anymore and, at the moment, that self-same orphan is my priority. Roger can wait his turn and, when the time comes, his opponent is going to be a grown man, not a child.”

“I was just saying it as I see it,” Matthew said with a quiet conviction that temporarily rocked Robert.

“You really can be an old woman sometimes, you know,” Gareth said with another yawn.

“Better an old woman than a dead hero.”

“Play nicely now, children,” Robert said with a slight smile, enjoying the familiar sounds of the two men arguing again. It was strange to confess, but he had actually missed it.

He sat on the end of the bed and put on Gareth’s boots that he had found near the hearth. As he moved his feet away quickly, he blithely ignored Gareth’s disgusted mutter: “Well, make yourself at home, do.”

Robert stood and spread his arms wide. “Well, I think I’m ready to go and tell my lady wife about her exile.” He smiled with relish. “And I even have it in writing and sealed by the king himself.”

“Well, you just toddle along and do that, but for God’s sake do it quietly. Some of us actually need sleep if we are to function normally.” Gareth cast a disgusted look at the glowing radiance on Robert’s face, then pulled a pillow over his head.

“And Roger?” Matthew asked quietly.

“I’ll see to him before we leave in the morning, never fear. But right now I need to be with my wife just to reassure myself that we are both alive.” He gave the old man a beatific smile as he left the room.

“Idiot,” Matthew muttered.

“Not an idiot, but a man in love,” Gareth said, his voice muffled by the pillow.

“That is the worst kind of idiot of all.”

Robert’s good humor lasted till he found Imogen’s chamber empty, then it evaporated as if it had never existed. A cold feeling lodged itself in the center of his heart as he took in the silent barrenness of her room and he knew in that instant that something was wrong. Terribly, utterly wrong.

He didn’t question for a second his certainty that Imogen was in grave danger. She was the other half of him and he could almost taste her terror as if it was his own. His hand went for the hilt of his sword before he remembered it was leaning against the wall where Matthew had put it.

He narrowed his eyes grimly and, acting on pure instinct, went in search of Roger Colebrook.

When Robert found his chambers were also empty and that all of his servants had been summarily dismissed last night, he found out the true meaning of fear. It filled his chest till he almost ceased to breathe; but even so, he refused to let panic cripple him. He knew that, great though his own fears were, they were nothing compared with what Imogen must be feeling.

She would be terrified.

He ground his teeth together as he tried to imagine how she was surviving her worst nightmare, if she was surviving. He had to get to her before Roger succeeded in destroying her utterly. He deliberately calmed down and methodically set about finding his wife. One of the guards on the gate thought that perhaps he had seen them leave on one horse, and he seemed to be under the impression that they had been heading toward the north.

Toward Shadowsend.

It was logical, but if he was wrong, valuable time would be lost, time Imogen would have to spend trapped in her worst nightmare. With that thought, Robert made the conscious decision to stop thinking. Every time he thought, he became paralyzed and he couldn’t afford for that to happen.

He had to act.

Robert tried to get an audience with the king, believing that at the very least William owed him something. He waited outside William’s chamber for what felt like a lifetime, pacing and sending message after message.

Silence was the only answer he got.

Now that William was sure of Imogen’s continued silence and Robert’s exile, he simply wanted them gone from his mind and from his castle. After three hours of frustrated waiting Robert realized that there would be no royal help forthcoming. He would have to act alone.

Strangely, that suited him, he thought grimly as he returned to Gareth and Matthew’s chamber, preparing mentally for the most important hunt of his life.

He didn’t spare Gareth a glance as he found his sword belt and slung it around his hips, welcoming the familiar feel of its cold weight.

Gareth sat at the bench and had been throwing dice idly until Robert’s abrupt entrance. He watched in surprise as Robert carefully slid his weapon into its sheath and mechanically adjusted the belt to the correct position.

“Am I to take it that the second reunion didn’t go according to plan, then?”

“There was no reunion,” Robert said emotionlessly as he reached for a dagger and slipped it into a band he put on his arm. “Roger has taken her out of the castle and seems to be heading toward Shadowsend.”

There was no need to add that he was preparing to follow them.

“What…how?” Gareth yelled, not even noticing the chair he knocked over as he stood.

“He must have been waiting for her when she returned this morning. The guard on the gate thought he saw them ride out about an hour after dawn.” Robert gritted his teeth. “The idiot actually had the balls to tell me that he thought that the lady had looked a little distressed. A little distressed, and he just let her