If Edmund wasn’t bandaged from head to foot, he’d pick him up and slam him against the wall.
“There is another explanation,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “There has to be.”
She promised she would not leave again. She gave her word.
“She deceived her last husband for years,” Edmund said. “You’ve known her, what, three months?”
Less than that. But he knew her. He loved her. And she loved him. Didn’t she?
He looked at the crusted blood on the bandage around Edmund’s head and the seeping wound on his neck. “If you think so little of her, why would you nearly get yourself killed trying to protect her?”
“Out of loyalty to you, of course,” Edmund said in his croaking voice. “You entrusted her to my protection, and I have an inkling of what she means to you.”
Edmund could have no notion of what she meant to him.
“I will pay whatever ransom they ask,” he said more to himself than to Edmund. “There is nothing I will not do to get her back. Nothing.”
“Women are fickle. Perhaps she’ll change her mind and return,” Edmund said. “Or the men she trusted to take her away will play her false and hold her for ransom.”
“Enough of your poison tongue!” William said, shaking with anger. “I swear to you, Edmund, injured or not, I will throw you out if you speak another word against her.”
“What do I know about women?” Edmund’s breathing was labored now, and his words were punctuated by long pauses. “I’m sorry… I won’t say it again… No one will be happier than I… to be proved wrong about her. I…”
William couldn’t berate an unconscious man, so he left.
He tried to push what Edmund said out of his head. But the damage was done. Against his will, the doubts and questions came. They raced through his mind, around and around. Was Jamie’s father not dead after all? Did she go to him? Was he one of the rebels? Or that damn troubadour?
Nay, it could not be true. Surely she would not have taken Stephen with her?
William was in a poor state by the time the prince and Stephen arrived. The moment Stephen slid down from his horse, William took hold of him. It was the first time he had embraced this young brother of his.
“Your lady wife is well,” Stephen said.
“Who has her? Where is she?” William demanded.
“The Tudors will take good care of her,” Stephen said in a rush. “They are good men, for rebels.”
“Sweet lamb of God!” William thundered. “The Tudors! Are you saying the Tudors have her?”
The prince stepped forward and put a hand on William’s arm.
“Let us go inside,” he said, and cast his eyes meaningfully toward the men and servants gathered around them. “We will tell you all we know, but it is a tale too long for the bailey yard.”
William escorted Prince Harry and Stephen into the keep and upstairs to the family’s private rooms. As soon as they were seated in the solar with the door closed, William looked at them expectantly.
“Tell FitzAlan what happened when you and Lady Catherine were captured,” Prince Harry directed Stephen. “Give him the shortened version now. Later, he will want to hear it with all the detail you can remember.”
Stephen’s abbreviated recounting of events relieved William’s worst fears. In his darkest moments, he had imagined his wife lying raped and murdered in a wood somewhere.
He had so many questions, he did not know where to start. “Why did they take you to Monmouth?”
Stephen looked uneasily at the prince.
“I was as surprised as you,” Prince Harry said, pulling a letter from a pouch at his belt and handing it to William. “This is the message they sent with Stephen.”
He noticed the prince and Stephen exchange glances before he began to read. As he read the message, signed by Owain Glyndwr himself, the blood drained from his head.
“Can you please tell me,” he addressed Prince Harry in a coldly polite tone, “why my wife’s captors would present a demand to you, rather than seek ransom from me, her husband?”