Reckless (Age of Conquest #5) - Tamara Leigh Page 0,55
that she would do as told no matter how much her reckless self longed to relieve Vitalis of the burden of her.
The sound of falling water forcing its way into her messy thoughts, she looked past Vitalis who strode five feet ahead. There the Little Ouse, its steady coursing interrupted like many waterways by drops into ravines, creating a frothing veil that plunged into a pool before the river gathered itself back together to once more resume its journey. This waterfall was not as grand as the one near Wulfen Castle, but the din of the last of spring’s rainfall seeking the summer sea was great.
As they neared, Nicola pulled in deep breaths of sweet, moist air in the hope of calming the bile and covering the scent of horse dung Vitalis had smeared on her mantle to discourage men from troubling the beggar made of her.
Her hope was for naught, her belly turning so violently she could not make it to her knees ahead of its emptying. The front of her mantle soured, she landed on all fours and heaved up even the dregs.
Feeling alone throughout, she guessed Vitalis had continued on with or without knowledge of her collapse. Thus, when she shuddered back onto her heels, she was surprised by the appearance of boots.
He said naught, whether because he believed this sickness was the least due her or he feared the utterance of a single word would cause him to speak far more.
Both, she thought. She did not know how she was able to read the deep of others, but like her youngest brother, Theriot, who possessed knowing beyond the natural, so did she in smaller measure. Nor did she understand why she should be gifted with such since often that insight was overridden by actions and words.
“Forgive me, Vitalis.” She raised her head, further distancing her from the sick on the ground, straightened her back, and raised her eyes up over boots, knees, and the tunic covering thighs and hips. She paused on his chest, felt its straining and the pounding of the heart behind that broad cage as though it were her own. Then she lifted her chin and the hood slid off her head and slumped to her shoulders.
If her face revealed evidence of tears shed since departing Thetford, he was unmoved—mouth thin, eyes hard, and a tremor about his head that presaged the loosing of a storm the same as a rumble of thunder across the heavens.
“I…” She glanced down her mantle and nearly gagged at the sight and scent. “I would like to stop here and clean myself. If you are well with that.”
She heard breath drawn through his nostrils and thought he would refuse, but he jerked his head toward the waterfall-fed pond and gave her his back. Stride even, there no longer evidence of the limp for which she had been responsible, he led the way down a gently descending path. When she veered toward the pool where it narrowed ahead of resuming its course, out of the corner of her eye she saw Vitalis continue toward the veil of water that spilled over the edge thirty feet above.
Nicola unfastened Vitalis’s brooch from her mantle, knelt at the pool’s edge, and sank the garment in the cool depths. As she scrubbed at the material to remove all that was foul, she felt watched, but only once did she venture a glance across her shoulder.
Vitalis stood atop a large, relatively flat boulder near enough the falling water the spray would dampen all of him if he lingered. But either he did not care, else he found it soothing.
Not the latter, she thought as she rubbed harder at the stains. Cool water could not soothe so wounded a soul any more than she could soothe it with apologies.
Would it help if he raged? Swung his sword? Spilled blood? Or would loss of control make it worse? Might the animal he loosed devour him alongside his enemies?
“If only you never knew me, Vitalis,” she breathed.
Not until she had wrung out the mantle and scooped water over her face to remove dirt smeared on it lest any tried to peer beneath her hood, did she realize she was no longer watched.
She turned her head and saw the space Vitalis had filled was empty. He had left her, but was it impatience that returned him to camp without her? Or what could prove abandonment when she found him and his mount gone?