Page 98 of Historical Hotties
Doncaster averted his gaze and dropped his hands from Cassius. “If she has been given too much, she will never awaken,” he said sadly. “I pray that is not the case. Mayhap prayer is the only thing that can save her now. Did Darian tell you about Amata and her confession?”
Cassius nodded. “He did,” he said, his voice husky from fatigue. “She actually confessed everything?”
Doncaster nodded. “She did,” he said. “To the priests, to the entire village. Her father brought her here to apologize to Dacia.”
“Did Dacia forgive her?”
“Nay,” the duke said, shaking his head as if to suggest just how badly that apology went. “It was not a pretty sight, Cassius. Dacia lost her moon and her sun because of Amata. In other words, she lostyou. There was never any chance she would forgive the woman.”
Cassius seemed to look uncertain. “She has spoken those words to me before,” he said. “Did… did she speak about me after I left?”
“Only when Amata came,” the duke said. “When I look at you now, I know that her distress equaled your own. She had the same look in her eyes that you do. She was a shell, Cassius. A shell of who she used to be. Just like you.”
Cassius knew that feeling well. The duke, a man who usually kept to himself and didn’t get involved in the problems of others, seemed to be a man of understanding when he took the time to think of others.
Oddly, it gave Cassius some comfort.
“May I go to her now, please?” he asked.
Doncaster nodded, just once, stepping aside so Cassius could move past him and up the mural stairs. In the entry to the keep, Bose and Rhori and Darian stood, watching the conversation, now watching Cassius as he made his way up the stairs. Argos wriggled out from behind them and trotted after his master.
No one stopped him.
Now, the lovers would once again be united.
The rest was in God’s hands.
*
The door toDacia’s suite of chambers wasn’t locked. Cassius didn’t even knock. He simply pushed the door open.
The rich and lavish chamber opened up before him, the largest chamber in the suite. Dacia’s bed was over near the far wall, positioned near windows in the spring and summer seasons, away from them in the fall and winter. Cassius could see the maid he recognized as Edie standing at the foot of her bed and a small, gray-haired man bending over something on the mattress. His back was turned to Cassius.
There were other maids moving about, silently, carrying linens or bowls of water. One was by the hearth, heating something over the flames in a heavy, iron pot. Cassius could see the steam. He came into the chamber but stopped immediately and began to remove his things. He’d no sooner pulled off his gloves than Argos darted past him, ran across the floor and hid under Dacia’s bed. The swift movements of the animal startled both the physic and Edie.
“What on earth was that?” the physic asked, trying to get a look under the bed.
“That was Argos,” Cassius said. “He is… Dacia’s dog.”
The maids gasped when they heard his voice. All of them. Edie rushed in his direction, her pale face full of exhaustion and hope.
“You came, my lord!” she said. “Sir Darian found you!”
Cassius nodded, still holding his helm. “Aye,” he said, putting everything on a table that was next to the door. He began to unstrap his sword. “How is she?”
Edie watched him quickly undress. “The physic thinks she is better,” she said. “But… oh, thank God you are here. Let her hear your voice and awaken, my lord. I know she will!”
Cassius pulled his tunic over his head, eyeing Edie as he put it on the table. “You are her maid,” he said. “Edie, is it?”
Edie nodded quickly. “Aye, my lord.”
“Were you here when she was given the poison?”
Edie’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “It was me,” she said. “She asked me to bring her sleeping powders and the names on the phials… I cannot read very well and I showed her the phial and she said it was the one, but it wasn’t. She hasn’t been sleeping, you see, and she wanted to sleep. I gave it to her, but it was an accident, my lord, I swear it. She wasn’t trying to take her life and I wasn’t trying to kill her.”
Cassius bent over at that point to shimmy off his mail coat. Edie watched him fearfully, finally giving him some help when he couldn’t get it off his wrists. He tossed the mail coat over the nearest chair.
“For being honest, I thank you,” he said quietly. “You have told me what I needed to hear.”
