The horse beneath him looked moments from collapse. Geoffrey handed the reins off without argument, which terrified me more than if he had started issuing orders. He only surrendered control when he was truly exhausted.
The Baron appeared in the lower hall moments later already dressed, because apparently fathers developed supernatural abilities where sons and danger were concerned. The two exchanged several rapid words I couldn’t hear over the rain.
Then Geoffrey looked up. Straight toward my window. The courtyard disappeared around me for one suspended moment. Relief hit so hard I had to grip the stone ledge beneath the window.
Alive.
He was alive.
The Baron followed Geoffrey’s gaze upward. Then, with the weary expression of a man personally offended by romance occurring during wartime, he pointed toward the stairs.
A moment later someone knocked at my chamber door. Not Maud or a servant.
Three quiet knocks, sending my pulse immediately into overdrive.
I crossed the chamber before common sense could intervene and opened the door.
Geoffrey stood there dripping rainwater onto the rushes.
For one absurd moment all I could think was that he looked exactly like the kind of medieval knight women in museums quietly lose their minds over. Exhausted. Dangerous. Beautiful in the way of men who have not slept properly in days and are too tired to remember they are supposed to be charming.
Rain darkened his cloak nearly black. Wet curls clung to his forehead and temples. Mud streaked one sleeve where he had clearly either fallen or caught himself against stone. His gloves were soaked through. One was missing entirely.
And beneath the exhaustion there was something else in his face.
Relief.
Not because he had reached safety. Because he had reached me.
“Your father sent you?” I asked softly.
“He informed me,” Geoffrey said, “that if I tracked mud through his hall and did not at least allow someone to stop me freezing to death, he would personally resurrect the law of filial obedience.”
“That sounds like him.”
I stepped aside.
The moment he crossed the threshold, cold rain and wet wool followed him into the room. The chamber suddenlysmelled like stormwater, horse, smoke, leather, and the sharp mineral scent of summer rain on stone.
I shut the door behind him. For several seconds neither of us spoke. The silence felt different now.
Candles glowed low around the room. Firelight from the hearth flickered gold across the damp stone walls and caught on the rainwater still sliding from Geoffrey’s hair.
“You’re freezing,” I said.
“I am English. We call this weather.”
“You are shivering.”
“That is patriotism.”
I laughed despite myself. The sound softened something in his expression immediately. There it was again. That look he got sometimes now, as though my laughter surprised him every single time it happened.
“You should sit down,” I said.
“I may not get up again if I do.”
“That does seem inconvenient.”