Page 35 of The Herald's Heart
“Nay,” she whispered.
“Aye,” he insisted, his hard demand at odds with the soft stroke of his hand on her arm. She shivered as she had that night so long ago, but for a much different reason. She almost wished it were fear that caused her quivering. “I cannot.”
“You must.” The hand slipped down to the tender skin on her inner wrist.
In the waiting silence, his tenderness beat back the barriers to remembered horror and despair. She moaned her denial and turned her face away.
He lifted his fingers to her chin, placed his palm on her cheek, and urged her to look at him. His thumb drifted over her trembling lips. His gaze met her glance with a quiet demand to trust him. She wished he were angry still. Then she could defy him and leave the memories buried.
“Why should I tell you anything?” She fought the choking fear and challenged him. “If my claim to be Lady Larkin Rosham is true, what will it gain you? You might even earn the earl’s wrath for unmasking my secrets.”
She forced back the tears that welled.
“The truth will not benefit me at all, nor do I believe Hawksedge would harm a king’s herald. Especially when that king is not best pleased with the earl.”
“Then I ask again, what purpose in my trusting you?”
“Because you have no one else you can trust.”
He was right, she needed an ally, but even an army of loyal folk would not make a retelling of that night any easier. She could not do it.
“I don’t see any of the servants or villagers rushing to your aid,” he continued, blunt and abrupt. “If the abbess could aid you, you would be at the abbey now. Tell me who is left, Lady Rosham? Or should I say, Countess Hawksedge?”
She sought distraction in his question. “Why should I bother? My story will not change anything. Why should I trust you?”
He relaxed his grip and toyed with her fingers. “Your speech demonstrates the truth to anyone who will listen. As for trusting me, have I ever lied or broken my word to you or in your presence?” The question was gentle, as tender as his touch.
She lost the battle with her tears.
“Nay.” Turning her head away, she swiped at the flood with her free hand.
“Then trust me, Lady Larkin. Mayhap I can help.”
In the past seven years, no one had offered her tenderness. Her own strength and defiance had been her mainstays, her only means of keeping the past at bay. She’d come to rely on the disbelief of others as a way to avoid remembering, to avoid weeping and weakness. Now this gentle assault undid her.
“Please do not ask this of me.”
“I must.”
“Why?”
“In part, because I am the king’s herald. But mostly because I care about the truth and you.”
She returned her gaze to his. The patience she saw there opened her lips, and she spoke the tale she’d never given to anyone, reliving the moments as she spoke.
From behind the armored knight and inside a thorn bush, Larkin watched the man with smooth, red leather boots lift himself off her lady mother’s body.
“The bloody bitch died on me,” he muttered with disgust, as if Lady Rosham’s death were her own fault.
“Aye, sir, but ye had her screamin’ wi’ pleasure afore she cocked up her toes.” The only other surviving attacker laughed and slapped her mother’s killer on the shoulder. The henchman's boots were blue but faded and wrinkled. The laughter burned itself into Larkin’s memory, and though she could hear the graveled lisp of red boots, she could not see his face.
“That much pleasure should keep her warm in hell when she gets there,” the murderer laughed. “A shame the earl is suffering an itchweed attack and could not join us.” The knight fastened his chausses and straightened the jerkin that Larkin knew bore the claw and branch of the Earl of Hawksedge.
Blue Boots stood beside the body of Larkin’s handmaid where the girl lay amid the torn scatter of the fine dress given in honor of her young mistress’s wedding. “Too bad I can’t say the same for the young one. She was mighty cold. Didn’t fight or scream or nothin’. Just lay there like a beached fish. Hell, I couldn’t even tell when she died; she was that still. ’Cept when I bloodied her face for to knock her down. She sure screeched then. Woulda thought a red-haired wench like that would have more fight in her.”
“You killed the girl?” Red Boots’s hands clenched.
“Nay, I didn’t kill her. She died of pleasure, just like her mother.” His friend snickered.
