They made it back to his lodgings with Ædwen supporting him as he walked, his arm draped heavily over her shoulder. But Stefan was still shaking with rage that that man had dared lay his hands on her.
When he’d got back to his room and found her gone, it had thrown him. He’d dropped the kirtle and pinafore Maccus’s wife had given him and he’d sprinted down the corridor, through the cloisters and back into the courtyard. He’d thought the worst, thinking, somehow, her father’s men had got to her. That she’d run from him. He’d checked the church first, but she wasn’t there. He knew she couldn’t have gone far, but he also knew how busy the streets were in the capital and his chest had pounded in alarm.
He’d asked the soldiers on duty if they’d seen a woman dressed in a blue bridal tunic, thinking she would be easy to spot, and his hope had soared when they’d said they had seen her, going between the stalls asking questions. And he’d been livid that she’d decided to leave him of her own accord. What was she up to?
Then he’d caught a glimpse of her golden hair, heard a scuffle as he’d passed the passageway and his heart had lurched. The moment he’d seen that man’s hands on her, he’d seen red. He would never have forgiven himself if something had happened to her. And he had never been so relieved to be back in his room.
Ædwen helped him down on to the bench and she quickly reached for a barrel of ale, pouring him a cup and offering it to him.
‘I’m sure you could do with some of that, too,’ he said and she poured one for herself as well.
He downed his in one swig.
‘Ædwen, I need you to fetch a needle. Some thread. From over there. In the trunk.’
Dutifully, she did as she was told, rushing off, kneeling down to open the wooden box, throwing things out of it in a hurry to find the things he had asked for. He was aware he was losing a lot of blood and they needed to suture the wound fast.
She came back and placed the items on the table before him.
‘Good,’ he said, nodding. ‘Now I need you to stitch me up.’
‘What? No!’ she gasped, stepping back from him, aghast, her face paling. ‘I can’t. I need to go and get someone. Call for help.’
He gripped her wrist. ‘No, Ædwen, I don’t want my men to know. Nor the King.’
She shook her head.
‘You’ve done it before,’ he said.
‘That was a long while ago. That was different. I didn’t know you...’
‘I thought we were strangers now?’ he said, his eyebrow raised. ‘Come on, you can do this. I know you can.’
He poured himself another tankard of ale and shrugged off his mail coat. Then he began to peel off his tunic, easing it away from the sticky wound, grimacing. She reached forward and helped him, lifting it up and off him. Once it was gone, she swallowed, staring down at his body again, her eyes meeting his, her face flaming.
‘It’s not like you haven’t seen it all before, Ædwen.’
‘Also a long while ago,’ she whispered.
She took a deep breath and sank down on to her knees before him, to get a closer look at the damage.
‘This is all my fault,’ she said.
‘So make it better,’ he said, giving her a brief smile and inclining his head towards the needle.
She nodded and, after downing her own drink, she set to work, cleaning the blood off with a cloth and some alcohol, causing him to wince.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you want them to know you’ve been injured?’
He shrugged, causing a searing pain to ripple across his stomach. ‘No need,’ he gritted out.
Her brow furrowed and she picked up the needle, her hands trembling.
‘Ædwen, take a breath,’ he said, covering her hand with his.
She nodded.
He focused on her beautiful face as she drew his skin together. He knew she was being as gentle as she could be, but each stitch smarted. If it had been anyone else, he might have lashed out, said a few choice words, but he found it helped to focus on her nearness, the floral scent of wildflowers in her hair.
Last night, when she had fallen asleep on the table in the alehouse, she had looked so beautiful it had made him ache. And he’d wanted to hold her, to draw her closer, so he could breathe in her scent. For someone who had protested she didn’t want to be there, that she felt on edge around him, she’d fallen asleep pretty quickly. She must have been exhausted.
He’d wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gently pulled her backwards, into his chest. He’d taken the chance to study her freely, learning the lines of her face again, her eyelashes resting against her cheeks, her perfect rosebud lips. She fascinated him. It had felt good to have her back in his arms...and that kiss! Damn.
He could still feel her tongue moving against his. It had pleased him more than it should that she’d responded so eagerly. Yet he hated that he still wanted someone who had kept so much from him, who had witnessed the murder of his family and pretended it hadn’t happened. He was furious with himself that he’d acted on his desires with someone who was just as capable of betraying him as... No! He would not think about her. That was all in the past. Before Ædwen. Another lifetime ago.
How had he allowed himself to be deceived by two women? It would never happen again.
‘Tell me about Maccus,’ she said now, and he knew she was trying to distract him from what she was doing.
‘Do I have to?’ he jested.
‘He seems nice.’
‘He’s a good man. We’ve gone into battle with each other a few times. He has my back.’
‘And you his,’ she stated. ‘He obviously looks up to you. Is he also from Denmark?’
‘Yes, although he came over when he was much younger than me. He showed me round when I got here.’
‘And he doesn’t mind you climbing the ranks, rising above him?’
‘If he does, he’s never said.’
‘What brought him here?’
‘The same as everyone else. A better life. They decided it was better to try their luck across the sea.’
‘Quite a risk to cross the sea.’
‘Especially when you don’t know what’s waiting for you,’ he said, the pain making him irritable. But he instantly regretted his snide comment when she pressed her lips together and ceased their conversation.
When she finally finished the last stitch, she sat back on her knees in obvious relief and looked up at him. ‘All done.’
‘Thank you.’
She dropped the needle into a bowl and wiped off her hands, before fetching a blanket and draping it over his shoulders. ‘You should keep warm. The shock could set in.’
Their fingers brushed as he took it from her. ‘I’ll be all right now.’
He noticed she was staring at his wrist again. His new ink. He could tell it fascinated her.
‘It’s a sun,’ she said. ‘I wondered. In the alehouse. I wondered if it was a sun or fire...’
‘Speaking of which, I’ll light one,’ he said, standing up, keen to change the subject. He didn’t want to talk about his new ink and what it meant to him, why he’d got it. He wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. She was still a mystery to him...he was still trying to work her out. He knew he couldn’t trust her and today hadn’t helped matters. Had she been trying to escape him? Yet she confounded him at every turn. Why had she shown mercy to Lord Werian and that man out there so much kindness, after he’d attacked her? Why had she forgiven him and given him her ring?
‘Shouldn’t you rest your wound? It’s probably not a good idea to move about too much,’ she said and he was aware she was following him with her eyes as he walked across the room. He shrugged off the blanket as he crouched down, carefully, so as not to rupture his stitches, and he began to light the hearth.
‘I’m fine, Ædwen. Better now.’ He rubbed the flintstones together and got them to spark, lighting the kindling.
‘Why did you give that man your ring?’ Had it been a gift from her betrothed?
She shrugged one slender shoulder. ‘It wasn’t important to me. And it doesn’t seem like I’ll be needing it now. But he did.’
Interesting... ‘By the way, I got you a tunic and kirtle to wear tonight,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the garments he’d thrown down in haste earlier.
Her lips parted on a gasp. ‘Surely we’re not still going?’
‘Why wouldn’t we?’ he said darkly.
‘Because I just got attacked... You nearly got killed!’ she said, standing up, putting her hands on her hips.
‘Did you hope my wound would get you out of it? Unfortunately not. It’s just a scratch. Nothing a good meal and another tankard of ale can’t fix.’
She gave him a defiant look. ‘It’s hardly a scratch.’
‘Why don’t you want to go?’ he said, standing, too.
She raised her outstretched palms. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anyone. And I’ve never met the King. Or Queen. What if I’m not liked?’
And there it was, her vulnerability, hitting him in the chest again.
He came back towards her. ‘When have you ever not been liked?’ he said.
‘You don’t like me.’
He raised one perfect eyebrow at her, his hand coming up to smooth over her cheek. ‘No, I don’t think like is the right word to use here at all.’
Her pulse flickered in her throat. Was he causing that reaction?
And then he removed his fingers from her skin.
‘Here,’ he said, reaching inside a pocket in his breeches to pull out the armband and gold chain he’d taken from the brute outside. ‘Shall I put this back on?’ he said, nodding to the necklace.
‘Please,’ she said.
She turned around and gathered up her hair, moving it out of the way, giving him access to her long, slender neck. He wanted to bend his head and kiss her on her pale expanse of skin, trail his tongue over the curve of her shoulder. Instead, he placed the chain around her neck and deftly did up the clasp, smoothing the metal links down over her skin. She shivered.
‘You said it was your mother’s?’
‘Yes,’ she said, turning round to face him, toying with the little gold cross pendant.
‘It’s the only thing I have of hers, to remind me of her. My father got rid of everything else.’
He nodded. ‘And you still don’t know why she left?’
Ædwen had told him, when they were younger, about her mother leaving one day, when she was nine, and never returning. The woman had never even said goodbye. He wondered now at how the loss of her mother at such a young age had impacted her. He’d known it had hurt her, deeply. She’d wanted to understand. She had blamed herself, thinking she’d done something wrong. And she’d blamed her father, too.
‘No. I still don’t know. As I’ve got older, I wonder if she’d just had enough. Of him. Of me.’
‘I’m sure it had nothing to do with you, Ædwen.’
‘If I had been a boy...maybe that would have ended her suffering at my father’s hands.’
‘I’m glad you’re not.’ He smiled. ‘You never told me much about her. What was she like?’
‘Young. Beautiful. I remember her smile. Her touch. Her tucking my hair behind my ears. But more than that, I remember how she made me feel. Safe. Loved. But I was too young to really know her as a person...she was just my mother. Always there. Until she wasn’t.’
He stared down at her, wondering if she knew how ironic her words were. He felt for her, about her situation, but it didn’t justify her own behaviour. She was criticising her mother for leaving her, when she herself was the queen of abandonment. For she had done exactly the same as her mother, hadn’t she? She had given up her child.
He reached out and took the little cross pendant between his fingers. Her eyes widened and he felt her breathing halt. ‘This was one of the first things I saw that day on the beach when you leaned over me,’ he said. It had been glinting in the sun breaking through the clouds. He had often wondered if it was a sign.
He abruptly turned away from her, breaking the moment, reaching for his tunic, taking it over to soak in a bucket of water. ‘Why don’t you try the garments on Kendra has given you? Up there,’ he said, gesturing to the stairs and the platform above.
‘But—’
‘Ædwen,’ he warned. ‘It’s that or stay here, cooped up with me all night.’
She thought about that for a moment, then blew out a frustrated sigh. Resigned, she gathered up the items Maccus’s wife had lent her and reluctantly began to climb the stairs.
He wondered what had her so worried. And was that why she ran? Or was it something more? Something she wasn’t telling him. Again. She was definitely hiding something. She would never usually tell him that he was right. He was shocked she’d said the words outside in the street, and almost felt she’d uttered it to stop him asking her more questions. Yet, when he’d given her the chance to leave, she had stayed to help him. That was something, at least.
He reached in a trunk and pulled out a fresh tunic and tugged it on, trying to avoid it grazing his wound. Damn, it was sore. But he’d better put on a brave face tonight. He didn’t need the King knowing he wasn’t on form.
When Ædwen came back down moments later, he was waiting for her. His eyes raked over her, admiringly.
‘It’s a beautiful colour. It was very kind of Maccus’s wife to lend it to me. Will it do?’ Ædwen said, turning from left to right, smoothing her hands over the silk, biting her lip.
His mouth dried. The fabric fitted as if it was made for her. She looked stunning. Perfect. Apart from that graze to her cheek. ‘I asked for blue. To match your eyes,’ he said. ‘You look beautiful, Ædwen.’ Temptation itself.
He looked down at her. ‘But there’s something not quite right,’ he said, crossing the distance towards her, tugging her hand out of her mouth.
‘Oh, yes, my wimple. I forgot,’ she said.
He grinned. ‘I was going to say a smile, but I’m pleased to see you’re learning fast.’