In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,132

into Robin’s face. She blushed and lowered her lashes quickly, then raised them again, staring into his face as if she could have devoured him whole. “Aye, Lord Robert,” she whispered. “’Tis me.”

“You look … well,” he said awkwardly, flushing to the roots of his hair.

“You look … a welcome sight, forsooth. I had given up hope of ever seeing the face of a … a friend again.”

Her dark brown eyes were attracted by movement over Robin’s shoulder, and she saw Eduard FitzRandwulf standing by the hearth. Her fingers lost their grip on the jute handles of the buckets and both crashed to the floor. With a cry of unselfconscious joy, she ran across the room and threw herself into the dark knight’s arms. The mature, resolute facade she had been determined to maintain these past months for her princess’s sake, crumpled into a child’s sobs as she buried her face against his shoulder and clung to him for all she was worth.

Ariel was helpless to do much more than stand in the shadows and watch. She thought to signal Robin to close and bolt the door, but one look at his face, straining not to crack and fold in on itself, betrayed how close his own emotions were to the surface. She moved on silent feet and lifted the buckets herself, setting them down again inside the door before she closed it and stood with her back pressed against the banded oak.

“My lord, my lord,” Marienne sobbed. “I confess we were still afraid it was not you.”

“It is me,” Eduard assured her gently. He smoothed a hand over her hair and tilted her head enough to press a kiss on her forehead, wiping a thumb across her cheek in a futile attempt to staunch the flow of tears. “Did you honestly doubt I would come?”

“N-not I,” Marienne declared. “I never doubted it for a moment. I just never thought you would come here. H-how did you …?”

Eduard shook his head. “It is of no consequence how we came, only that we have come, and that we have come to take you and Eleanor away from this place.”

“Would that it were possible,” she said in a whisper.

“Anything is possible if the heart is willing,” Eduard insisted. “Now, what is this tripe the captain tells me? What is this nonsense I am told that the princess does not want to escape this place?”

“Oh … my lord—” Marienne sniffed and wiped her cheeks, then dragged her sleeve across the wetness streaming from her nose. “It is true. She has sent me here tonight to beg you to leave Corfe, leave England before the king’s men catch wind of your presence here. You would be a grand prize to offer as hostage against my lord La Seyne Sur Mer’s actions. A grand revenge for the king to hold you ransom.”

“Think you either I or my father care one wit for the king’s men or for the king’s petty retributions against us? It is Eleanor whose safety must come before all else. Eleanor whose future must be protected against those who would harm her.”

Marienne swallowed hard. “She is … convinced her uncle will keep his word and merely banish her. She is convinced his guilt over … over her poor brother Arthur will protect her from farther harm.”

Eduard frowned. “He must have twisted her mind if she believes this. I cannot fathom how she would, after all that has happened.”

“After all that has happened,” Marienne said softly, “her beliefs are all she has left.”

“She has me. And I will not allow her to remain an hour longer in her uncle’s web than is necessary. I have come to take her away from here, and by God, I will take her away, willing or not.”

“My lord … she loves you very much; surely you must know this.”

Eduard’s face remained taut and Ariel’s drained to a paler shade of gray as she bowed her head and stared at her twined fingers.

“Just as I know you love her,” Marienne continued. “She asks you … nay, begs you … because of this love, to heed her pleas and do nothing more to endanger yourself.”

“And she expects me to obey? To simply ride away and leave her in this damp-ridden, pestilent prison governed by drunks and lechers? What happens when John’s guilt over Arthur’s death fades—if, indeed, it ever affected him? What is to stop him from ordering a more permanent means of ending any further threats to his