In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,110
me from interfering or getting in the way, you mean.”
“To keep you safe,” Eduard insisted, turning to her. That was a mistake, for her eyes were soft and lustrous in the firelight, reflecting the glow like polished gemstones. Her hair floated around her face like a tarnished cloud, all red and gold and copper sparks. There were blotches on the whiteness of her throat where the stubble of his beard had chafed her, and a swollen tenderness about the mouth, the cause of which a man would have to be blind not to recognize. She looked half ravished and more desirable than it was safe to appear to a man who had already come perilously close to consigning his honour to the fires of hell.
“Keeping you safe,” he continued softly, “is even more important now, and will necessitate a change in our plans.”
Ariel looked startled. “A change? Why?”
“To use you and the guise of a wedding cortege to gain access to Gorfe Castle? No.” He gave his head an adamant shake. “No. I did not like the scheme when it was first put forth and I like it even less now.”
“Even if it is the only way to gain entry?”
“It is not the only way. It was just the most convenient way at the time this whole charade came into being. In fact, I am more than half convinced to dispatch you to Wales on the first ship leaving port.”
“No!” she cried, sitting straighter. “I mean … no. No, you cannot jeopardize my uncle’s position. By your own words, you said he might be charged with treason, and I … I would sooner marry Reginald de Braose than see any such thing come about. You say you have letters proving you are escorting me north to the Marches; it would seem then, and at least until we reach the Marches, my uncle’s plan is the safest and soundest. No one in all of Britain would dare challenge the seal of the Marshal of England.”
“Despite what I may have said, I have strong doubts the king would charge your uncle with treason for attempting to make a better marriage for his niece. He would exact a heavy fine, no doubt—”
“Or he would take my uncle’s five daughters away from Pembroke and hold them hostage in castles of his own choosing until such time as he could find the lowest, most vile grooms in the kingdom! Perhaps you could live with that, sir, but I could not. And yes, before you say it: I should have thought of them before now, but I was too busy thinking of myself. I have already admitted and will admit again to anyone who might care to hear it, that it was a foolish, childish, dangerous, thoughtless thing I have done, and if the plans for my own future happiness go awry, it will be no one’s fault but my own. My uncle’s future, however, and the future happiness of my aunt and my cousins … sweet Jesu and all the martyrs! You cannot be so cruel as to expect me to bear that upon my shoulders too? You cannot!”
“What would you have me do?” he asked carefully, as wary of her temper as he was of a naked blade. “Take you with us when we storm the castle? Have you stand with bow and arrow in hand, guarding our backs while we scale the walls?”
“It would not be the first time you have trusted my hand or my eye,” she reminded him.
Eduard smiled faintly and felt such an overwhelming need to kiss her, that he did so. Lightly. Affectionately. And very deliberately on the smooth expanse of her brow.
“This past sennight was child’s play compared to what will happen if we are successful in stealing Eleanor away from the king’s prison … assuming we are even successful enough to get close to her. Here, in Normandy, John’s Brabançons are too busy guarding their backs against the French and the Bretons, but in England, they will have nothing more important to do than to hunt us down. There will not be an inn or castle open to us for refuge, and even the deepest wilds of the forests may hold as many enemies as friends—men who hold only scorn for a knight travelling in any guise, be it pilgrim or Crusader.”
“Yet you would carry the Princess Eleanor through these same dangers?” Ariel demanded. “Would the risks not be as great for her as for me—greater, even,