“What will we do now?” she asked softly. “My father is here to retrieve me. Keller is doing all he can to protect us.”
Garren looked at her. “De Poyer is a good man,” he said. “I have known him for years. He would have made a good husband for you.”
She could see the mirth in his eyes and she shook her head, a faint smile on her lips. “Perhaps. But I would rather have you.”
His smile broke through and he kissed her tenderly. “How fortunate for me,” he murmured against her lips. “In answer to your question, however, I do not know what we are going to do right now. But I can do one of two things; I can return to the Marshal and beg his forgiveness, or we can leave England entirely and start a new life somewhere else.”
She gazed at him seriously. “You said the Marshal would kill you if he found out you faked your death.”
“It is entirely possible. But an honorable man would hone up to his actions. They were, after all, in pursuit of a noble cause and I have always considered myself a man of honor.”
She fell silent, pondering the greater implications. “I would be honest when I say that I do not want to risk it,” she whispered. “I would rather have you alive, Garren. Is your honor worth more than your life with me?”
He took a long, pensive breath. “Nay,” he murmured. “I do believe that I have demonstrated that. I have destroyedeverything I have ever worked for but it matters not. I am nothing without you.”
“Then we will flee England?”
He looked at her, seeing the light of hope in her eyes. He knew, as he lived and breathed, that he could not return to the Marshal to tell him why he had faked his death. He was fairly certain the Marshal would never trust him again and he could no longer continue as an agent for the king. All of that was destroyed the moment they dressed that old, rotted corpse in his battle armor at Lincoln. Garren realized, as he gazed into Derica’s eyes, that a whole new life was before him, something richer and more wonderful than he could ever imagine. He was very eager to know it.
“Aye,” he whispered. “We will leave and never look back.”
Derica threw her arms around his neck, holding him close against her and praying they were making the correct choice. All she knew was that he was alive and they were together, forever, whatever may come. He had given up everything he had ever worked for because of her. She would spend the rest of her life making sure he did not regret it.
As night fell on another brutal and bloody day, the de Rosa army camped at a safe distance around the walls of Pembroke with the exception of the area of the swampy marsh that surrounded the water gate on the northeast side of the castle. There was no way to cover that area without getting too close to the castle and too close to the archer’s range. Bertram saw no reason to cover the old, mossy iron grate that sat half-buried in the water, instead choosing to focus his attention on the south and west sides. The decision would cost him.
By the cover of darkness as the sliver moon barely illuminated the velvet expanse of sky, Garren, Derica, Aneirin and Sian escaped in the chest-deep water that filled the swamp. Garren carried both children in his arms and his wife wastethered to him with a rope that Keller had tied about the two of them. Fortunately, Aneirin and Sian were good swimmers and when Garren told them to hold their breath, they did. Into the river they went, through the dark and murky water to safety on the other side.
Keller watched the four heads cross the ghostly gray river in the dead of night, more sorrow in his heart than he could comprehend. But seeing the joy in Derica’s face, and seeing the love in Garren’s, told him that he was doing the right thing. Heartbreaking or not, it was the correct thing to do.
Bertram de Rosa laid siege to Pembroke for four more days before finally giving up and going home.
He knew he would never see his daughter again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Beaucaire Castle
Languedoc, Southern France
1220 A.D.
The day wasbright, warm and beautiful. Just a few miles from the Mediterranean Sea, Beaucaire was normally bright, warm and beautiful, something that Derica loved about her adopted home. Norfolk had been such a cold, wet place that the balmy warmth of the Languegoc region of France was something she had taken to immediately. She adored the climate.
Gazing up into the blue, blue sky, she was startled when two out of her four sons came barreling out of the stable yard astride new Belgian chargers that their father had recently purchased for them. Derica moved out of the way as her eldest son, Weston, came too close to her, wrestling with a big blond beast that was unwilling to be tamed. When the horse began to buck, she leapt up onto the flight of stone steps that led into Beaucaire’s resident hall.
“West,” she scolded. “If that horse throws you, I’ll not lift a finger to help. Do you hear me? Break your neck and I’ll not weep for you, not one tear.”
Weston le Mon smiled at his mother; an extremely handsome man with his father’s good looks and his mother’s bright green eyes, he continued to happily wrestle with the animal.
“Not to worry, sweetheart,” he told his mother. “I will not keep this animal, although I would dearly like to. I plan to give him to Rose’s betrothed as a wedding gift.”
“Ha!”
The shout came from the gaping entry into the gray-stoned resident hall of Beaucaire. Stunningly beautiful at seventeen years of age and awaiting the arrival of her betrothed, Roselyn le Mon scowled menacingly at her brother.
“You will do no such thing, Weston le Mon,” she gathered her skirts and took the stairs angrily. “I’ll not be made a widow before I even become a bride.”
As Weston laughed softly at his sister, his younger brother by fourteen months came up beside him on an equally fired-up war horse. Davin le Mon, the only sibling with dark hair in a family of light-haired people, grinned at his sister.