Lady Thief (27 page)

Anne and John followed quickly behind,
fearful he would be rash with her, Nicholas did not.

Anne’s voice shrieked with panic behind him.
“Please do not tell her I told!
I gave my word and she would not
forgive me!”

John’s pace equaled that of his wife but he
remained behind William, his voice much calmer than Anne’s had
been.
“Do not be rough with her.
You know how severely women can
take matters of the heart.”

William stopped his hunt and turned to Anne,
though there was no ice in his stare.
“My lady you cannot for one
moment believe that Marianne does not know what you have just done.
She is the lady of this castle and you her guest.
Being out of her
company for so long there is only one place you would surely
be.”

Anne’s face twisted in horror and she turned
towards John.
“She could not know!”

He pinched the bridge between his eyes and
sighed for the tenth time since Anne dragged him into the Solar
with her.
William pitied him but knew well enough not to let it
show.

“Your cousin is correct.
Logic would state to
anyone that you have run off only to shout whatever secrets you
hold to anyone who will listen.”

“I did no shouting!
And certainly not to
anyone who will listen!”

William clasped her shoulders, the wild panic
in her eyes proof that she had been punished enough for breaking
her word.
“Aye, and Marianne will know that you innocently made
mention of this to your husband before he told me when I speak with
her.
She shall hold no grudge against you.”

The moisture in Anne’s eyes disappeared.

William did not release her shoulders.
“But
you must learn to hold your tongue when secrets pass your ears and
not turn them into gossip.”

Panic twisted her face again.

William smiled and released her.
“Now, where
did you leave her?”

***

Marianne was leaving the stables, having
completed her daily visit with Mare and Archer, an act she found
much more pleasing and peaceful now that she no longer had to fear
that Robert would be there.
James was no longer trailing her like a
lost dog since tonight he was spending the night in the chapel for
his knighting ceremony the next morning.

After surviving his attack from Robert and
telling his lord what happened, William decided that the event
could not wait for spring.
And when Lady Anne excused herself
Marianne gave Olma leave to sit outside the chapel to pray for
him.

Food was being prepared for the occasion and
minstrels were hired.
William made a special plan of presenting him
with a horse since James’s father could not afford one.

‘Twas more proof of his large heart, and
while preparing to disappoint herself with thoughts of how it was
not large enough for her, she looked up and sighted William
casually strolling towards her.
He quickened to a trot when he
spotted her.

She sighed.
Her stomach had been doing clumsy
flops when Lady Anne excused herself from her company.
When she did
not return fifteen minutes later Marianne knew what she had gone
and done, and also knew that she should have known better than to
trust a woman who loved to gossip.

‘Twas only a matter of time before her
husband came to set her straight, to tell her to stop moping and
accept what she could have rather than what she could not.
Now was
that time it seemed.

He came to her, his face betraying nothing of
his emotions though his eyes did dart behind her to the stables.
“If you continue to spend all of your time there you will smell
like a horse.”

She stood straighter.
‘Twas not what she had
expected him to say.
“I thought I smelled like the autumn
leaves.”

He shook his head, a grin touching his lips
as he refused to answer her question.
His next words were straight
to the point.
“I have heard some unsettling things just now,” He
crossed his arms behind his back.
“Perhaps we can put them to
rest.”

Bitterness swelled inside of her, and she
folded her arms and looked away.
“From your dear cousin, no
doubt.”

He took her arms and unfolded them.
“Nay,
this particular news came from her husband.”

Marianne opened her mouth but he cut her
off.

“She told him and he told me, do not be cross
with her.”

Despite his words, Marianne found it
difficult not to be.
“I suppose you will now tell me I am
foolish.”

“Aye.”

She looked away from him, unable to let him
see her own eyes lest it become apparent that they burned with
moisture.
Treacherous things that they were.
She imagined this
moment coming for weeks, and in none of her reenactments had her
eyes swam so.

He gave her no choice but to look at him and
lifted her chin, inspecting her dripping eyes so closely that his
nose was inches from her own.

Abruptly he released her and stepped back,
shaking his head and blinking at her.
“You truly believe that I
hold no love for you?”

The question dried her eyes.
“Don’t you?”

He clasped her shoulders and gave her one
hard shake.
“Of course I do!
I have told you as much with my
actions as well as my words!”

Marianne lashed back, anger raging inside of
her at his blatant lie.
“Said as much?
You have said how much you
love Alice!
Never me!”

William’s face dropped.
“You can find it
within yourself to be bitter over my love for my first wife?”

“No!” She turned away from him, out of his
arms, circled and tried to regain what she had meant to say to him.
“No.” She said again, wishing she had chosen to her words more
carefully.
“I am not bitter.
I am glad.”

William’s arms were the ones to fold now.
“Glad?”

Marianne nodded, picking at her nails for
there was no other occupation for her hands, or place for her eyes
to look.
“Aye, glad that such a thing could be the cause for all
your years of kindness, that your love for her has shaped you into
the man that I love now.”

Both brows shot up.
“Love?”

She nodded again, dropped her hands and
looked at him, hardly able to keep herself from looking away now
that her eyes were on him.
“Aye.”

A lazy smile radiated his face, he stepped
closer.
“You love me?”

Marianne frowned.
She could not tell if he
was playing at her expense, but it had quickened her breath and
sharpened the beating of her heart with a new hope.
“Aye.”

His hands found her shoulders and rested
there comfortably, as though he felt no need to shake her again.
“Why have you never told me?
For how long?”

An unbelievable smile lifted her cheeks.
“Since the day you brought home Hawisa and Molly, but I think ‘twas
sometime before that and I simply had yet to notice.”

She did notice that despite how she could see
her own breath in the chilled air, she could only feel the warmth
wafting from his chest that was so close to hers, and the
comforting touch of his hands as they rubbed up and down her arms,
traveling upward once more before resting on her shoulders and
pulling tingling sensations with them, his thumbs lifting to caress
her cheeks.

His voice was gentle, the smile never
wavering as he sought her secrets.
“But why have you never told me
of this, my dear?”

The familiar endearment strengthened her
courage, though she still swallowed roughly.
“I had thought, at
first, that ‘twould be impossible to expect you to feel the same,
because of the circumstances in which you married me,”

He chuckled as though she had spoken a fond
old joke.

She did not understand this but pressed on
quickly.
“And, I would not have you believe that I am bitter of
Alice, I am not.
‘Tis just that you spoke so sweetly of her, and
then told me of the acts you performed because of her,” Now she had
to look away.
“I…simply thought myself unable to compare.”

His eyes sparkled with the same amusement as
when she reminded him of their wedding.
“And how do you explain
away on the night of our lovemaking, in your old home, when I
confessed my love to you?”

Marianne’s bulging eyes whipped back to his,
her mouth dropped.
Half formed words sputtered from her mouth and
died on her lips as she desperately tried to determine whether he
was being truthful, or simply was the cruelest man in the land.

Finally, the heated words came.
“‘Tis untrue!
I would have remembered if you had said such a thing!”

“Well, remember when I say it now.
I love
you.”

The tirade he knew was coming immediately
stopped.
Marianne blinked wide disbelieving eyes at him.
“What?”

He leaned closer, ensuring that his voice was
clear and, this time, heard.
“I said that I love you.”

She shook her head.

He cocked his head.
“You do not believe me?
And here I thought we had grown to trust one another.”

“But, how can you—”

“While ‘tis not the most easy of occupations,
I can love you because you have brought my servants, my castle, my
son, and myself to life like we have not been in so long.
This
place,
our
home, would never have known the happiness it
knows now had you not been so rash and kidnapped a husband for
yourself.”

She blushed at the reminder, but his words
lifted her heart out of her chest.
Marianne thought that it might
sprout wings and fly away.

Because she enjoyed hearing him speak so
endearing of her, she pressed him.
“And had Blaise accepted
me?”

William’s brow came together stubbornly.
“I
imagine the two of you would have continued to make each other
miserable, spoken only when necessary, and even then only in
hateful increments.
And as you both have only reconciled due to my
own words of wisdom with you regarding your temper, such a thing
would have been impossible had you not married me.”

He looked at her pleased smile, waiting for
her to speak, but she grabbed his ears and pulled his face down for
a kiss instead.

William was only beginning to enjoy himself
when she pushed him away, the same victorious grin on her face.
“And had I married him, our hatred for each other would have
naturally prevented our copulating, and I would not currently be
with your child.”

William rubbed the area where his child grew
lovingly, his other hand reaching around to her back and pulling
her closer.
“Aye.
‘Tis better for you to have forced me to wed you,
and then have your own child to look forward to, than to let
yourself be married to a man who would not give you any.”

He looked at her, the small joy leaving his
eyes.
“You truly have no memory of my claim to love?”

Marianne looked away from him, her cheeks
heating.
“I thought I had been dreaming.”

“Dreaming!”

She nodded.
“Aye.”

He laughed, a full hearty thing that made
Marianne’s heart beat faster.
“And here I was coming to see you,
thinking of throttling you, for claiming to Anne that I had no love
for you when you had never returned my love at all.”

The smile abruptly left her face in
replacement of bewildered laughter.
She touched his cheeks, kissed
them, his eyes, his strong jaw, and his lips.

He smiled through their chaste kiss and still
did so when she released his mouth.
“You wish to heal away my
broken heart with your mouth?”

“I wish to apologize for my judgmental
behavior.
I had been so happy when I thought I dreamed your words
that I never bothered to say them, to risk my heart like you had
yours, only to be rewarded when I fell asleep.”

The smile would not leave his face.
“You do
tend to provoke me with your strange actions.
‘Tis apart of your
spirit that I love,
truly
love, and admire.”

She rewarded him with an impish smile, he cut
her off before she could speak.
“I know you do it purposely.
If I
had gone through with my plans of making your life hell when you
came here you would have only ensure that you made mine doubly hell
as well.”