Page 6 of The Knight's Pledge
“Effie?” Rolf’s gentle, low voice sounded behind her, amidst the shuffling of his footfallson the grade.
She sniffed and wiped her face on her trousers leg. She hadn’t wept since that night long ago, the night another grand manor had burned, and now the night had turned into apale sunrise.
“Aye, Rolf.”
He squatted at her side. “He’s sleeping now. Gorman’s watching over him lest he wakes. I believe Winnie has donemuch for him.”
“Perhaps she has, and he will live,” she allowed. “But you said yourself that he already refused you.”
“He doesn’t know the whole of it.”
“And you think he will have pity for usonce he does?”
“He’s a good man, Effie.”
“He’s the king’s man, Rolf,” she reminded him. “And evenifWinnie can heal him, and evenifhe agrees to help us, it will be too late. We should have setout yesterday.”
Effie took the steward’s silence as agreement with her assessment of the situation, but after a long moment the gentle manbegan to speak.
“It’s not too late. I never gave up hope that Gorman would be found. Five years, Effie. Five long years of not knowing whether he was dead or alive. And not only was my son returned, but now I have you, and George. I had nothing—now Ihave a family.”
“Gorman was older than George,” Effie pointed out past her constricted throat. “He escaped, and the man responsible for his abduction is dead. I cannot be optimistic about this, Rolf. My slight grip on sanity willnot allow it.”
“I’ll not ask you for optimism,” Rolf said quietly. “But let us dwell on the predicament immediate to us: Lucan Montague is here, now. I feel that if he can help us, he will.”
Effie turned to look up at the man who had become like a father to her. She wanted to tell him that his trust in Lucan Montague was misplaced. That the high and mighty knight of the Royal Order of the Garter was selfish, spoiled, and greedy. Once a pampered, adolescent brat who had been swaddled and swept away to be reared in luxury in France, now he was a pompous coward who thought only of saving his own skin and furthering his reputation among the nobility. She’d seen it herself, hadn’t she? One didn’t easily forgetsuch a lesson.
But footsteps on the path saved her from making a response. Effie looked over her shoulder and saw Gorman approaching the mouth of the cave entrance, his long strides effortless, his face wearied and yet made more handsome by his trials. She could see just there as the sunrise lightened the shadows under Gorman’s eyes from where George Thomas had gotten the wideness of his cheekbones and his sturdy forehead.
Her son was made partly from this man approaching, and unlike Lucan Montague, Gorman Littlebrookwasgood, through and through.
Rolf gained his feet to face his son. “What news?”
“He’s stirring,” Gorman allowed as he reached them. He looked down at Effie. “You’re exhausted. Give me the message—I’llspeak to him.”
She shook her head. “We’ll do it together.”
Gorman helped her to her feet. “Perhaps it would be best if you were not the first person Sir Lucan sees when he awakes.”
“What do you mean?”
Rolf took the opportunity to disappear into the mouth of the cave without further comment.
“I mean,” Gorman said gently, “that ‘twas you who shot him. He holds you a grudge for it, and if we are to enlist hishelp, perhaps—”
“Iapologizedto him,” Effie insisted. “At Darlyrede before more than a hundred people! It’s not my fault an incompetent priest rubbed shitein his wound.”
“I don’t think he’ll see it that way.”
Effie felt her ire rising, and it was a welcome change from the despair and terror that had haunted her since that sunset in the wood two days ago when she had seen George’s footsteps disappear in the snow beside a setof hoof prints.
But she knew that, for George’s sake, she could not drown herself in one emotion in order to numb another. It could be potentially deadly to her son. And Rolf was right—Lucan Montague was here. Rolf trusted him. Effie trusted Rolf.
“I’ll make amends. Again,” she vowed, looking up into Gorman’s eyes. For a brief moment, it was like the old days, the spark she felt when Gorman Littlebrook turned his deep brown gaze upon her, the look on his face a combination of admiration and desire.
He dropped his head and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “It’ll be alright, Effie,” he said against her skin. “We’llget him back.”
* * * *
