Page 54 of Saxon Blade Norman Blood
It was not.
She was an orphan, she had failed in her mission and soon she would have to leave a man she had come to cherish above all others. Everything wasnotall right.
She slapped her palm flat against his chest. He did nothing to stop her, as if sensing she needed an outlet for her pain and frustration. Grateful for his compliance Rowena hit him again and again, conscious she wasn’t hurting him in the least.
He was letting her use him for her own benefit, and the experience was cathartic. Eventually, having exhausted her anger, she let her arms fall by her side in defeat.
“I do not know how she could have protected you, but you did not deserve to be used in such a way. Your mother died, but you had to live through it all, which is perhaps even more difficult,” William said eventually. “What I do know is that you will have to find a way of accepting the fact that you are never going to kill me now. You could hardly bear to injure me. You should try to come to terms with the idea you are not a murderer instead of steeling yourself for a task you find abhorrent.”
They stayed silent for a long while.
“Do you want the dagger back?” he asked once she’d had time to absorb what he’d told her. “Now I know why it seemed familiar to me. It’s the knife Godric drew on me that day, is it not?”
“It is, and I don’t want it.” Rowena shook her head in horror. “I never want to see the wretched thing ever again.” It would always remind her of the awful scene she had witnessed.
“You need never see it again,” William promised her. “I will dispose of it.”
“Thank you. Now I need to be alone. I need to think.”
He nodded and watched her go.
19
Rowena’s feet brought her back to the river. The soothing babbling of the water was exactly what she needed to bring some peace to her thoughts. She felt different, lighter. For the first time since her mother’s death, she had shared her torment with someone. It felt good, because that someone had been William himself and she now knew the truth about his involvement—or rather, lack thereof—in her mother’s assault.
It was as if she’d been granted absolution at last.
She plunged her hand into the water, letting the current weave through her fingers and caress her skin. A branch was stuck against some rocks in front of her. With a flick of her thumb, she freed it. As it sped away, she imagined herself like the piece of wood, finally free to make her own path, free of the terrible promise her mother had imposed on her.
Just when the branch disappeared around the river bend, William stepped out from behind a bush. He walked over to her, silent in his catlike gait. Even though she was surprised he’d found out where she was, she was gratified he had sought her out. There were still questions she needed answers to, and she had been about to go to him.
But he’d come to her of his own accord, warming her to the bottom of her soul.
“How did you guess where I would be?”
His perfect mouth twitched. “It is not the first time we have been here, is it?”
Of course. And last time, he’d saved her from assault. She glanced at the ring on her finger.
“I did really find the ring here,” she said, pointing to the great boulder in the middle of the river. She knew without a doubt he would believe her now.
“I know.”
He regarded her intently for a moment, then told her what she guessed he had come to tell her. “I swear I never asked Gilles and Sylvain to harm your mother. I am horrified that men under my orders could act in such a beastly way, dare to attack a woman, a woman whose husband had just been killed.”
“Yes. I believe you,” Rowena whispered. The William she knew would never have behaved in such a manner. “What happened to the men?”
They were not in his entourage, that much she had seen, for she would have recognized them anywhere. She had meant to enquire about them long ago. The fact she was now comfortable enough to ask the question told her just how much things had changed between them.
She and William now trusted and valued each other.
“I dismissed them shortly after when they expressed a desire to go back to Normandy. As they weren’t indispensable to me, I allowed them to go back home.”
“Do you regret it?” she asked, picking on the tone. He sounded furious.
“I do. For I have no idea where they could be right now, and after what you told me, I would like nothing more than to see them punished for their behavior,” he said through gritted teeth. “I had suspected them of being less than honorable, that was one of the reasons I was happy to let them go, but if I’d known what they had done, they would have had to answer for it, believe me. I would have made them suffer for this.”
It was only then Rowena wondered if her mother was the only Saxon woman they had treated thus. The idea had nevercrossed her mind before, and she did her best not to dwell on it. It would not help to agonize over it.
