The Kindling (37 page)

Christian Lavonne halted his destrier to the left of Durand’s. “How fare you, Helene?”

She raised her chin. “I am well. For that, I thank you. More, I thank you for taking in my son.”

“’Twas no hard thing. What will be hard is the ride ahead with Sir Durand and Sir Abel, for if we are to ensure your safety, you must be gone from these lands this night.”

Something nearly slipped past her, but it caught on a remnant of reasoning that had yet to succumb to the trials of these past days. “What of you?” she asked.

“I shall journey to Firth Castle to meet with its lord and put this matter to rest—in his eyes that it might be so in his villeins’ eyes.”

Her chest tightened as, with the ebbing of fear, she realized she was not alone in the world. Her brother, albeit unacknowledged, her friend, albeit shunned for errors of the heart, and Abel, albeit once more placing himself out of her reach, had set aside all—risked all—for her.

Mouth once more dry, she swallowed. “I thank you, my lord.”

He shifted his gaze to the man at her back and considered him before returning to her. “
Am
I your lord, Helene?”

She startled, for there was more to the question than it sounded. However, she shied away from it. “I would return to Tippet if you will still have me.”

“That is not what I ask,” he said low, though without anger or threat.

She longed to deny him again in favor of a better time and place, but perhaps there was none better. “This I know,” she said.

“And?”

Weariness seeking to bend even her bones, she inclined her head. “’Tis so what you ask of me.”

As his shoulders lowered, the corners of his mouth rose. “I am glad to know it. Most glad.” He put his head back and eyed the bits of sky amid the canopy of leaves that, save for shades of billowing gray and black, knew no color. “Those clouds will not long hold their peace. We ought not tarry.”

Helene also sensed the coming torrent, and more intensely than when she had passed through these woods alone.

“‘Tis time I give you into another’s care,” Durand said.

Catching her breath, she peered over her shoulder. “You are leaving me?”

He looked to Christian Lavonne whose face evidenced he had also been taken unawares. “I shall ride with you to Firth Castle, Baron Lavonne, for I am yet in service to its lord and shall request my leave now that I am done here.”

Then he had stayed near for John and her?

“As you will,” the baron said and turned his destrier away.

“Where will you go?” Helene asked.

Durand shrugged. “There is coin aplenty for a Wulfen-trained knight, mayhap even with the king if he deigns to overlook my past offenses.” He swept his gaze to the baron who guided his mount to where Abel and their escort continued to watch the villagers’ retreat. “Of course, there is always France.”

Where he had told her he had family. “I shall miss you, Durand.”

He chuckled. “Fortunately, not as your brother fears.”

“What do you mean?”

“’Tis obvious he is wary of our feelings for one another, for if there was something other than friendship between us, it would be awkward. Far better his sister wed his wife’s brother than her…”

Jolted by his belief that Abel would take her to wife, it was some moments before Helene filled in what he left unspoken—better Abel than the man by whom Gaenor had first been known.

“Alas,” Durand said, urging his destrier forward, “I shall miss you as well, Helene.”

As they drew near the others who had watched the last of the villagers go from sight, Abel looked around and she glimpsed pain in his eyes, though only for a moment, and then it was Durand who captured his regard.

“You intend to ride with the baron to Firth Castle,” he said.

“I do.” Durand halted his horse alongside Abel’s. “Thus, I give Helene into your care.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Abel reached for her.

She went into his arms, wishing she did not so badly want to be there—that she did not so strongly feel the rise and fall of his chest when she settled back against him, that she did not savor the strong arm he turned around her, that she did not relish his breath that warmed her ear.

Despite all, peace swept over her then that was more comforting than the softest coverlet beneath which she might curl in upon herself. Her lids lowered and would not lift again, not even when the first raindrop found her cheek…when Abel drew his mantle around her…when Durand said, “I have done as you asked, Sir Abel. I have fulfilled my vow.”

What had been asked of him? What vow fulfilled?

“Know if never I see you or your lady again, I wish you long life and happiness.”

If never he saw Abel or…his lady again?

A small sound slipped from Helene’s lips as she sought to remain in the world, but she was lost to it, her questions sliding away like the raindrop that became but a streak upon her cheek.

Chapter Thirty-One

He appeared to her amid the din of a night whose edges were jaggedly bright and stingingly wet. But for all that, she could not raise her lids long enough to focus upon his face, not even when the flashes of light followed one after the other.

Something was different, and her body knew it, though it revealed it only when the rain upon her face ceased, the whipping wind became a breeze, and the lightning viewed mostly through her lids softened. The jarring rhythm of a horse’s long-reaching, four-legged gait was now but a memory to muscle and bone. Instead, she was carried upon two legs whose gait was not quite even and held by two arms, rather than the one that had curved about her waist during the ride. Had they reached Broehne Castle?

Straining to lift her lids, she called, “John!” and gasped when her voice returned to her.

“You are safe, Helene.”

Abel’s voice…

“We are returned to the barony of Abingdale and have stopped to take shelter until the storm passes.”

Though soothed by his words and presence, something that went beyond the echo of this place pecked at her slippery consciousness. The smell…

“Find the driest kindling you can,” Abel ordered as he lowered her to the hard ground, and she frowned to hear his raised voice return just as hers had done. “We require a fire. And soon.”

“It will be done, Sir Abel,” answered another.

Grateful it was not she who must seek the least sodden branches and twigs, Helene sighed. Here it was blessedly dry and the cracks of thunder and flashes of light were muted enough that they did not rattle her senses. The only thing worse than what they had come in out of was the smell, though it was not entirely unpleasant. It but reminded her of—

She flung her eyes open, and though her fear loosened its hold when she recognized Abel’s briefly lit face, it tightened again when she glimpsed rock on all sides of him. “Nay!” She tried to rise. “Not here!”

“Fear not.” He gently pressed her back to the ground. “All is well.”

She sought him with her gaze, but darkness had once more descended. “The cave…”

“It is not the same as that one.”

“My father…”

“In the past, Helene.” A heart-stopping crack sounded and light once more allowed her a glimpse of the concern upon Abel’s face. “Not even a shadow can he cast upon you,” he said with such sincerity she feared she might cry.

Staring into the absence of light, she yearned for more flashes that she might see him.

As if in answer to her longing, he drew his hand up her shoulder, over her neck, and cupped her face, then he bent so near that his breath was in her ear. “I am here. Now sleep.”

She wanted to, but when she awakened, would he still be here? Determined to keep him near, she pulled a hand from beneath her mantle and clasped it over his upon her jaw. Then, lowering her lids, she drew his hand downward and pressed it to her heart as he had done hers that first night when she had come to him at Castle Soaring.

“Stay,” she whispered and once again fell under sleep’s spell.

Kneeling beside her, reliving hazy memories of that night too many months ago when it was he who had needed assurance that the darkness would pass, he found hope in Helene’s gesture and her entreaty that he stay. Perhaps she could, indeed, forgive him.

While the two knights given to him by Baron Lavonne for the return to Broehne Castle secured the horses and built a fire near the cave entrance to better allow the smoke of the temperamentally damp wood to escape, he remained at her side. Only with great reluctance did he finally give up the beat of Helene’s heart.

Sliding his hand from beneath hers, he started to stand but paused when firelight slipped past him and played over her dark red hair. Tempted to touch the wild tresses, he closed his fingers into his palms and was only distantly aware that the right hand was less willing to do his bidding than the left.

“My lady,” he murmured, daring to claim what Durand believed belonged to him and what, he prayed, she had owned to in placing his hand upon her heart. Telling himself he would know soon enough—too soon if Durand was mistaken—he straightened and turned to the packs that had been removed from his saddle. Shortly, he spread the thickest of two blankets near the struggling fire and returned to Helene.

She did not awaken when he eased the damp mantle off her shoulders and examined her gown, which was mostly dry despite heavy mud stains. And when he carried her to the blanket, she hardly stirred. However, when he applied salve to the abrasions on her hands and wrists and wound the latter in strips of linen, she roused sufficiently to speak.

“What was it?” she whispered, then something else that was too murmured and slurred to more than allow him to pick the word “vow” from it.

Did she speak of Durand’s parting words when he had said his vow was fulfilled? Though Abel had thought Helene had passed into sleep, perhaps not.

She made a sound of distress and, again, he assured her, “I am here,” then drew the blanket over her upper body.

He removed her muddied shoes, next the empty sheath strapped to her leg. Pausing over the latter, he told himself that her having kept the Wulfrith dagger upon her all these months represented more hope, then he tucked the blanket around her legs and stood.

As much as he longed to stretch out beside her, he knew she would not lack for warmth providing the fire was fed throughout how many hours were required for the storm to discharge its anger. Too, they were not alone, and he would have no ill-flung words taint her name and reputation.

After setting one of the knights to guard the cave entrance and the other to bed down that he might relieve the first knight three hours hence, Abel removed his own mantle that had taken the brunt of slashing rain and spread it and Helene’s upon large slabs of rock to dry. When he settled on the thinner of the two blankets, he felt every ache to which he had subjected his body in order to reach Helene. Thus, he was surprised when he did not soon find his rest as she did where she faced him on the opposite side of the fire.

Thunder continuing to shake the heavens, lightning to cleave the space between leaden clouds and earth, rain to douse the land, he watched her through the flames and prayed she did not succumb to fearful dreams or sickness.

How much time passed before she next opened her eyes, he did not know, though once he had added wood to the fire and beyond the cave it remained black upon black. His first thought was that he should go to her, but the next was that, left undisturbed, she would all the sooner return to sleep.

Her brow furrowed as she searched beyond the flames, but when her gaze found his, her face smoothed and mouth curved.

“Abel.”

Amid the fire’s hiss and crackle, he could not be certain if she spoke his name or merely mouthed it, but he did not doubt it
was
his name. However, before he could answer, her lids lowered, lips parted, and the breath of sleep once more moved in and out of her.

Can she truly forgive me? More, am I deserving of the smallest portion of her forgiveness?
Those questions kept him awake until the knight on guard roused the other. Then, at last, an uneasy sleep claimed him.

Abel was gone.
If
he had ever been…

“Nay,” Helene breathed. He
had
been—there on the other side of the fire where he no longer was.

Pushing up onto an elbow, she surveyed the cave that, as he had assured her, was not the same as the one where she had been chained to her father and left to die.

Though the fire was well enough fed that it cast light around the stone walls, a pale, constant glow lit much of the space, foretelling a dawn that would not be marked by the din of thunder nor an unrelenting rain.

She sat up and shifted her gaze from the slack face of one of her brother’s knights who slept near her feet to the one who slept not far from where she had laid her head. Did Abel now stand guard?

When she saw he was not amid the gray-blue mist hovering at the cave entrance, the alarm she had been suppressing began to sound. As she grasped the edges of the blanket together at her chest, she noticed her wrists. Though she recalled little of the night past, she was certain the bandages were the work of Abel.

She stood and only then felt the absence of something beyond Abel. She lifted her muddied skirts and saw that the scabbard was missing in addition to the dagger. It had to be Abel who had removed it. But did it mean what it was to have meant when he had first given it to her? That he needed it again? Believed himself worthy of it?

In her hosed feet, she skirted the fire and crossed to the cave’s threshold where she paused to search the sodden wood that was floored with a mist so thick it seemed as if the clouds had fallen to earth after emptying their bellies of rain. And there, thirty feet out, was the one to whom Durand had made and kept a vow.

Gripping the blanket closer to keep out the chill, humid air, she took a step forward, but though her footfall was nearly silent to her own ears, Abel came around with a snap of his mantle and a hand upon his sword.

In the next instant, he splayed his fingers off the weapon. “You are well?” he asked.