Page 3 of The Thornwyck Rose

When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper as if afraid someone might hear. And she was right to be fearful.

“Commander de Montfort, is it true?” she asked, her voice, though low, was firm and direct. “That he’s had four wives?”

He didn’t answer right away. His jaw flexed, then unclenched.

“Yes.”

She extended her hand against the young five-year-old stallion’s mane as it drank from the ravine. Viggo never let a stranger touch him. But she cooed at the beast, and he let her stroke his mane. The corner of Payen’s mouth twitched. Maybe she could tame the beast that was Lord de Thornwyck as well.

Her whisper came again, not soft but assertive. “And his wives . . . They are all . . . ?”

“Gone.” The word cut from his throat.

The pause between them pulled like a taut bowstring.

“Why?” she asked and looked up at him.

He hesitated.

Her eyes weren’t pleading. Not yet, anyway. But they held that same quiet searching he’d seen in others before the lord broke them. If he answered wrong, if she twisted his words—if she whispered them into Henry’s ear to gain favor—the result would be swift. The lord’s justice was rarely clean, and Ragnar would suffer for it.

Still, there was no cunning in her expression. Only a grave, unnerving calm. It didn’t appear she was baiting him. She wanted the truth because no one else would give it to her.

“Because,” he said finally. “They longed for kindness. For protection. Escape.”

“I see,” she said, low. Her fingers stroked Viggo’s mane again. “Did they try to flee, then?”

“No.” His voice was flat. He should have left it at that. “They . . . proved disloyal.”

He scanned the knights. All but a few respected him as a warrior, but they all hated his lineage.

The few who wished him dead were Master de Bramber and Captain de Léry.

Geoffrey de Bramber glanced his way. Payen had been better than Geoffrey, so Henry took the nobleman’s prestigious rank of Commander and gave it to Payen and reduced Geoffrey to second-in-command, Master-at-Arms. Made him report to Payen, a nobody, a foreigner, with no title and no land.

Jovin de Léry, the third-in-command, whispered to Geoffrey as they both watched Seren speak in hushed tones to Payen. When Jovin’s aunt had fallen from grace, Henry ordered her dead, and Payen obeyed.

It wasn’t good that Seren was spending so much time alone with him. Payen always wondered when those two would finally get what they wanted—him dead, rank returned, and revenge satiated.

He gestured back toward the wagon. They needed to get moving.

“And you?” she asked, quieter now. “Did you eliminate Lord Henry’s wives? Did you help them?”

He peered down at her. He weighed the risk of honesty like a blade in his hand. Too sharp, and it might turn on him. Too soft, and she would trust him—and that could get her killed.

Her hands clasped at her waist, knuckles pale. Her lips pressed tight, but she did not beg. She did not tremble. She asked him to tell her what sort of man stood before her, and she waited, with no scheming in her eyes.

He scanned the men and again nodded her to her wagon.

“I did as I was ordered,” he said, finally. “As Ialwaysdo.”

Her eyes narrowed, but not in judgment. It seemed she was still trying to understand him. He shouldn’t have looked at her through the wagon’s drapes. She probably wondered what man could be known for such brutality and look upon a woman fated for misery with such sorrow.

He hated that.

“What does Lord Henry require in a wife so that I may not be eliminated?”

He was right. She was the one to ask. Smart girl. Maybe she would survive.