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

known that your beautiful, brooding face could only be surrounded by midnight hair.” She turned her head to the side carefully regarding the face she was seeing for the first time, although she knew it as intimately as she knew her own, her finger moving along his cheekbone. “And midnight eyes.”

It took a second for him to understand. Stunned, he raised his hand to cover her eyes wonderingly, feeling her lashes against his palm as she blinked.

“You can see?” He scarcely recognized that unsteady voice as his own as he removed his hand and saw the truth radiating from the liquid depths of her brown eyes.

“Yes.” She pulled his palm to her lips. “I really did find justice in that tower, just like you said. Roger gave me back what he had taken from me all those years ago. I will now be able to see for myself if our baby has your eyes or mine.”

Robert felt a tear fall on the back of his hand and didn’t know if it was his or hers. They stared at each other in wonder and then slowly moved into each other’s arms. Robert buried his head in her breasts as his shoulders heaved with tears of joy and relief. Imogen just wrapped her arms more tightly around him and held him close as her own tears fell.

Now was the time for tears both happy and sad, and neither tried to stop them.

Their tears healed them, made them whole.

Made them one.

Epilogue

Robert swung easily down off Dagger’s back and handed the reins to the waiting groom. He looked around the bustling courtyard and smiled with satisfied pride. His improvements had come along nicely while he had been away and there was no reason why they shouldn’t be finished within the year if all went well.

The speed could at least in part be attributed to the fact that they hadn’t had to quarry stone straightaway. Robert had derived great satisfaction in pulling the tower apart block by block and, because of that ready supply of good stone, his home would be as well defended as any of the king’s castles.

Not that stone fortifications had been enough to save William, Robert thought with a slight frown. A man couldn’t live behind fortifications forever, it would seem, and away from their strength even a king was vulnerable. William had found that out while hunting in New Forest on a hot August day when a stray arrow had ended his troubled reign.

News of the king’s death had spread like wildfire, and Robert had heard many different stories. Some said Walter Tirel had shot at a stag, aimed poorly and hit William instead. Some said that Henry, William’s younger brother and part of the hunting party, had paid Tirel to shoot William deliberately. The church said that God had reached down a hand and redirected the arrow with careful precision to hit the king’s black heart.

Whether it had been a hunting accident, an assassination or the final judgment of an angry God, publicly, at least, most accepted the official view that it was simply an unfortunate accident with a fortunate outcome. Robert wasn’t so sure.

Henry was something of an unknown quantity, and Robert was wary but had cautiously joined the new king’s many supporters at the recent coronation.

In fact, that was the one definite thing he had against the man. Because of the coronation he’d had to travel to Westminster to pledge his allegiance to the new reign. He would much rather have stayed at home with Imogen and their little baby, Kathryn, than spend a month in the murky confines of the court.

He inhaled the sweet air of home and let it sooth his tired soul. Now all he needed was to hold his wife close and he would feel human again. He cast a searching glance around the courtyard but didn’t find Imogen running to meet him.

The groom grinned at Robert. “We weren’t expecting you for a couple of days yet, Sir Robert, and I believe Lady Imogen said this morning that if she had to wait forever for her errant husband she would at least do it in the tranquility of the rose garden.”

Robert nodded and strode over to the walled garden, only just resisting the urge to break into a run.

He quietly walked through the arch and hung back in the shadows, content for the moment just to watch as Imogen moved amongst the brightly colored flowers. She stopped to pick one of the blooms and lifted it to her face, closing her eyes to bathe herself in the scent for a moment, then opened them again to absorb the lushness of the color of the rose.

She gently placed it in the basket that hung on the crook of her arm, its edges already hidden with the riot of color from the varied array of flowers she had already collected. Robert crossed his arms over his chest and smiled with contentment.

Color. It was his wife’s newfound addiction and consequently his life had become filled with it.

Imogen seemed determined to make up for all those years of darkness by filling every corner of her life with the brilliance of color. Sometimes the results were a little startling, it had to be admitted, but Robert didn’t mind. To him it was simply a sign of health and happiness, and looking at her moving gracefully amongst her gardens he could feel both radiating from her.

The sudden sound of a sleepy gurgle drew Robert’s attention from the beauty of his wife. Imogen had brought Kathryn out with her, he realized with a smile. Her little basket nestled in the shade of the rosebushes and she yawned as he watched, sticking her fist in her mouth before finally giving in to sleep, obviously impervious to the nearly fully grown sheep that contentedly ate grass nearby.

Robert’s face softened as he looked at the tiny human. It still seemed amazing to him that he had a daughter, that his