“I wanted to marry you,” he went on, and his sideways glance was sly. “I’ve wanted that ever since Edric died.”
Here then was the truth at last. Rose tried not to look shocked. She had known something like this was afoot, and yet to hear him say it aloud…“And it was me you wanted, Arno, not Somerford Manor?” she asked him dryly.
Arno shifted uneasily. The sweat from his exertions with the boys trickled down his face. “Aye, well, there was that, too. I will not lie to you, Rose. Edric promised me Somerford years ago, before I came here as his knight—he could not pay me, and in lieu of money, when he died the manor was meant to be mine. But then, when he was dying, suddenly he changed his mind and forced me to swear allegiance to you. If you had wed me, Rose, then all would have been well! I tried to woo you, but you would not listen to me. You could not see my true feelings for you, or maybe you just did not want to.”
He looked sullen, his lip protruding like that of a small child who has been denied what it wants the most. Should she feel guilty because she could not love Arno? Because, not being of a grasping and treacherous disposition herself, she had failed to recognize it in him?
“And so you have betrayed me by turning to Lord Fitzmorton. Betrayed Lord Radulf, too.”
“Radulf!” scoffed Arno. “He does not deserve to have so much!” Then, cautious again, he went on, “Lord Fitzmorton wants justice for his dead soldier, that is all. Justice is his right, and Miles de Vessey will see that he gets it.”
Rose shook her head, ignoring Arno’s further efforts to justify his actions. “I have sent word to Lord Radulf, Arno. Ask Brother Mark. He wrote my message. Radulf will be here very soon, and God help you then.”
Arno smiled, and then tried to hide it.
Shocked, Rose stared back at him, not understanding and yet beginning to be terribly afraid.
“Oh Rose,” he murmured softly, his brown eyes glittering with a combination of mockery and satisfaction, “do you not realize yet that our good Brother Mark is no ordained priest? He is a friend I thought might be useful to me, so when the old priest died I sent for him. He lived in a monastery once, long ago, so he knows enough to pass as a priest if you do not look too closely. And, fortunately for us, lady, he can read and write.”
The truth stunned her. Rose tried to find words to voice her question, but she already knew the answer.
“Then the message I sent with Steven to Lord Radulf?”
“Spoke only of your joy at the birth of his heir.”
“I see.”
“Nay, you do not see at all!” He smiled at his own cleverness. “Brother Mark saw you speaking to the boy when you gave him the message. We could not risk him reaching Radulf too soon, even with Brother Mark’s harmless message.”
Rose stared. “What have you done to him?”
Arno shrugged. “He is unharmed. I will release him when Miles comes.”
Would he? Rose didn’t like the way he was avoiding her eyes.
“You mean to give me up to Fitzmorton then,” she whispered. “Oh Arno, you don’t understand what that means!”
She stepped around him and set out across the bailey, toward the stable. He followed after her.
“One baron is much the same as another, what does it matter if it be Fitzmorton or Radulf? Rose? Where are you going?”
“I am going to find Captain Olafson,” she said, her voice rallying. “He will not let you hold Radulf’s boy hostage, and he will not let a man like Miles de Vessey set one foot onto my manor!”
Arno snorted in disbelief. “Do you think the mercenary will care? He will go with whoever pays the most. Fitzmorton is his master, too, Rose. He has been all along.”
“I do not believe it!” Rose cried, hurrying into a run.
“Ask him then, lady! Ask him!”
Rose picked up her skirts, careless of her people turning to gape at her in amazement. Arno had struck her to the heart with his confession, and now, to say that Gunnar, too, would betray her…After the moments they had shared in her chamber? No, she would not believe it! Suddenly she could not bear to.
After the sunny bailey the stable was dusty and dark, and Rose stopped abruptly, blinking, searching the shadows. Her breath was heaving in her chest, as if she couldn’t quite take in enough of the musty air, and she felt light-headed.
“Lady?”
His voice. She heard his step as he came from one of the stalls, and then she could see him. He looked weary and worried, and a tremendous tenderness filled her. She wanted to touch his face, smooth the lines from about his mouth, the dark shadows from beneath his eyes. Rose clenched her hands into tight fists at her sides, stilling the urge.
“I have had bad news,” she said in a rush.