The Unintended Bride (18 page)

"True." He rose from the table, brushing the crumbs away hastily. "We should leave at once for the abbey ruins."

Hero had thought herself clever to get the directions from the innkeeper, and carefully write them down. But that was before they spent hours following the cryptic directions. "Find a mighty oak; next take ten paces to the left, past a rock shaped like the channel, pointing to the sky .... "

"Do you think he meant us to find the ruins, or to circle them for eternity?" She asked, at last, having contained her frustration for as long as she could manage.

Arthur took her arm and helped her over a rough patch of tumbled stones. "Would you say that boulder is more a rabbit or a wolf?"

"Rabbit." Hero guessed, having no real opinion.

"I would have said wolf," Arthur stopped to consult the page of directions again and Hero continued forward. "But perhaps you are right. "They were arguing over the shape of one rather large boulder when they

"I can see a wolf, now that you mention it," she could not, but if he saw it, then most likely he was right. As she spoke, she caught her toe against something in the grass and began to fall with a soft cry.

Arthur caught her, dropping the useless directions, which fluttered away on the wind. He kissed her on the forehead and pressed her to him briefly — much too briefly — and then said in wonderment, "Look."

They both looked down to see what they had been searching for all along.

For a while, delighted with the find itself, they explored the site, calling to each other eagerly at each overturned stone or remaining bit of wall they discovered.

"What is it that we are supposed to find?" he muttered at last as they sat to eat the bread and cheese the innkeeper had reluctantly provided them — for a pretty penny.

"Perhaps we are meant to take a stone home with us?" she offered a bit churlishly, biting into the stale bread she held.

He laughed, taking out his handkerchief to mop his brow. "Or perhaps we are meant to expire out here of sheer foolishness?"

"Do you think we have been hoaxed again?" She didn't like to ask the question out loud, but she didn't want to waste any more time than necessary on the impossible, either.

He took out his flask and drank before he answered. "I fear I do." He held out the flask to her.

She took the flask and drank deeply, surprised by the deep bite and burn of alcohol. She began to cough uncontrollably.

He scrambled to her side and pounded her on the back until she stopped coughing, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I should have warned you. I thought we needed something stronger on this journey." His hands stroked at her cheeks, her arms, her back, at first frantically, and then with more purpose.

One hand cupped her jaw tenderly, lifting her gaze to meet his. "Can you breathe?"

Looking into his eyes, which had darkened with worry, she could have fooled into believing that he wanted her. That he would kiss her here, among the ruins. Perhaps more, she hoped, remembering the milkmaid and all the places she had entertained lovers. But he did not.

"I am recovered," she said softly, turning away from the sight of his lips, so close to hers. She wanted nothing more than to close the distance between them, but she could not bear the rejection if he pulled away.

She tightened her hand around the flask. Something stronger. She could feel it warm in her veins. Giving her courage, but not enough to kiss her husband as she wished to do. She looked around at the ruins of the abbey, which was keeping all its secrets today, and shrugged, before taking another swig and handing him back the flask. "Perhaps we should return to the inn?"

"After one more look," he agreed. "If we find nothing, then we will give up."

Hero was the one who saw it. The sun, setting just so, caused a flash of brighter glimmer to appear between two of the tumbled stones from the monastery walls. "What is that?"

She expected it to be a bit of glass from earlier visitors to the site. The young romantics who found this the kind of place to share a bottle of wine and some privacy.

But Arthur reached it first and pulled out the shiny key. "It cannot have been laying exposed to the elements for much time."

"No," she agreed. "This must be what we were meant to find. But to what does it belong?"

"And how can one tell?" He stared at it intently, ran his fingertips delicately along the metal.

Watching him, Hero found herself shivering. She remembered much too vividly how he had used those fingertips against the skin of her cheek not that very long ago.

He looked up into her face, his expression thoughtful. "I feel I've seen it before."

"It appears to be a key to me, like the many that I've seen through the years." Her comment was not particularly helpful, but she was frightened by the intensity she could feel emanating from Arthur as he examined the object. "It may not even be the item we were meant to find."

He shook his head. "It is, I am certain of it."

"Then, what does it mean?"

"I should know it." He closed his eyes, lost in thought for a moment. After a bit he groaned in frustration and said, "It should mean something to me."

"You will think of it if you have seen it before." Hero tried to comfort him.

"I should." He clutched the key in his fist and pressed the fist to his temple. "But I cannot remember." He let out an explosive sigh of anger.

"Was there a note with it perhaps?" Hero went to the stones where the key had been lodged and put her fingers all the way into the gap. There was no note tucked in there, nor was there one anywhere nearby.

"Why do I think I know this key? Is it because I am a fool? Is it because I am not clever enough to figure this puzzle out." His voice vibrated with his tormented doubt. Frustrated by this next, even more baffling clue, Arthur threw it against the stones, where it clinked and bounced away from them into a patch of wildflowers. "Perhaps it is a key some lover left here to help a tryst."

Alarmed at the outburst she touched his shoulder gently. "We just need time, Arthur. It will come to you. Give it time."

"There is no time," he groaned, sinking down onto the stones, his head in his hands.

"There is always time," she argued. "Why do we need to believe that last note? You have three months to meet your challenges. Think of that, not of the note."

Nodding, as if he agreed, he said softly, "Am I such a fool that I will follow this trail forever? Will I never know if the manuscript is a myth or a reality?"

For a moment Hero felt as if she, too, would sink into his despair right beside him. But then she chided herself for her lack of courage. A bit of vinegar was necessary to bring him back to his senses. She retrieved the key from where it had fallen and gave him a sharp look. "Or perhaps it is just the clue we were meant to find. Perhaps we will know the answers in time because we found this key."

He stood abruptly, kicking a stone out of his path. "I hate this game. I feel as if I am being led blindfolded into a bog and soon I will find the ground giving way beneath me."

"I hate it too, Arthur," she agreed. "I hate seeing you doubt yourself. I hate knowing that somewhere Malory's manuscript may lay waiting for you to discover it. But what else can we do but follow the facts as we find them?"

"You sound so wise. I am sorry to bring you into this." He stood and wrapped his arms about her, holding her tightly against him. "I was not meant for puzzles like this. Old books, that is what I know. Not keys and ruins and haring across the country like an adventurer."

"Nonsense! You are doing well enough so far, this is just a small setback," Hero answered sensibly as she stood in his arms with her head against his chest so that she could hear his heart beat wild and fast.

"Is it a setback, or is it a sign that I should give up such an unlikely quest?"

"I don't expect you'll know that until you have what you want," she answered. But she could not bear his frustration without offering some comfort.

After a moment's struggle, she gave in to her need to touch him, to offer comfort from the heart and not just the mind. She took his hand in hers and brought it up to cradle warm against her cheek.

He stared at her for a moment, his gray eyes darkening. His hand tightened into a fist against her cheek. "I just want to know what it means!"

She answered calmly, though she shared his frustration. "We do not have to look upon this as a quest that must be solved today, this very minute, Arthur."

He did not answer immediately, but his fist eased so that his palm now cupped her cheek, his fingers playing idly with the lobe of her ear. His voice was gentle when he asked, "No? What if someone tries to push you down the stairs again? Do you think I could forgive myself if harm comes to you?"

She closed her eyes, giving herself up to the feel of his caress. "We don't know that my fall was deliberate." She drew her arms around his waist and kneaded the small of his back, pulling him closer as if that would make her words penetrate his resistance. "After all, it truly makes no sense that someone would plant the letter from Sir Thomas and then try to harm me even before it has been found."

"No?" His hands skimmed down to her waist, pushing aside her cloak, his fingers playing restlessly up and down her spine until she felt as if she did not belong to her body.

"Who am I to be a threat to him?" And truth to tell, no matter the logic or evidence, she would prefer to believe that her fall had been an accident. Most of the time she could even convince herself she had imagined the hand at her back, the push that sent her tumbling.

He crushed her into a tighter embrace. His voice was hoarse against her ear. "Why should we assume this note writer is sane? Perhaps one day he wishes to tantalize me, and another he wishes to torment me? What better way than to use you as a pawn? I cannot bear that thought."

"Someone is playing a game with us, that is true. But can we not treat it as such? As a game with rules, though we don't understand them?"

He released her so that he could look into her eyes again. "What do you mean when you say we don't understand the rules?"

"We are following his clues, for his purposes, which we don't understand." She paused before asking, "But can we not follow those same clues for our own purpose?."

"I see what you say," he agreed slowly. "Although I don't think I can ever come to enjoy this feeling of following blindly where I am led."

"Can we not enjoy the new things we discover, such as these ruins, while we play the game our way?" It was their wedding trip, after all. And though it was not a typical wedding trip, she thought it seemed ultimately suited to a bookish couple with a strong streak of curiosity and an equally strong ability to dream.

A burst of anger darkened his eyes once again. "Play? You see this as a trivial amusement?" He stopped short, his temper dissolving into shock at the idea. "I suppose you are right. Someone is moving us about as if we were chess pieces. So it is a game — to whoever is behind these notes at least."

"Exactly, and if it is only a game, then we can choose to play, or we can choose to stop playing whenever we like." She held up the key, and turned it so that it glinted in the sun. "Whenever the game becomes boring, or too frustrating to be borne." She was looking at him warily, and her emphasis on frustrating was too deliberate for him to ignore.

"Or" — Arthur hesitated, but it had to be said — "or too dangerous to continue for either one of us." He was ashamed for losing his temper and throwing the key. It struck him for the first time that he could have lost this newest clue among the debris.

He sighed. Her point was a good one, but he would lose to Digby if he did not meet his three challenges. "Never forget for a moment, Hero, this is a game with important consequences."

She nodded. "I know that you wish to be head of the Round Table Society and that obtaining the manuscript would ensure that outcome for you. But are there no other ways for you to meet the three challenges?"

"Of course there are." He missed the feel of her pressed against him, of her straight strong spine under his fingertips. He considered taking her into his embrace again, pulling her slight body against his. She had not seemed to mind earlier, when her hands had been at his back, driving him closer in a dangerous way she was much too innocent to understand.

She laughed abruptly. "Is it so important, then, that we find this manuscript within the three months allotted for your quest? What if the search takes longer? 'What if the manuscript does not exist? What if it is a myth? Does it matter if you meet your challenges without finding this manuscript?"

Arthur stared at her. Not matter? Of course it mattered, it was his whole world. But as he stared at her, he wondered what had made it matter so very much that he would risk his sanity, his life — even the life of the woman he loved? The woman who was driving him to distraction right now without even knowing it. He could not tell whether she would welcome it or be made uncomfortable if he were to continue things to their natural conclusion amid these ruins.

"It does not." He would not risk her life. She was much too precious to be sacrificed on the altar of his ambition to prove himself the best man to head the Round Table Society. If it came to a choice, he would stop his pursuit before he would allow her to come to harm. At last he decided that it would be best not to frighten her any more than he might already have by displaying his temper.

"You will not." She smiled at him with a trust he doubted he deserved. But the way she stood watching him, so open to him, all he could think about was the bed they would share tonight. How would he manage to exercise restraint when he wanted her so much? At the next inn they stopped at, he would make certain to obtain two rooms, no matter what the innkeeper claimed. He could no longer trust himself.

Which thought made him realize that the day was long gone and he still needed to get her back to the inn and fed if he meant to keep his word. He stood and took her arm. "You are a breath of sanity. Now that we have found the key, let us go back to the inn and discuss the matter in . . . relative . . .comfort."