Page 82 of The Thornwyck Rose

A ruckus outside the alcove caused both of their heads to snap toward it.

Erik bowed his head to Seren and went out to meet the men who’d come to announce they’d won the fray, mock though it was. Erik brought out Seren, telling her the children were safe. She graciously thanked the men-at-arms.

He placed Seren sidesaddle on Viggo and mounted with her in front of him. They had about an hour’s ride back to Thornwyck, but they couldn’t say much with the other men around, especially Jovin, who rode on his left flank. Seren’s back was to the third-in-command.

As the retinue settled into their formations, Seren leaned into Erik’s chest and gathered his cloak into her fingers. Her head rested on his sternum, and he heard the faintest sigh. Perhaps as a thank-you for warning her, or perhaps indulging her own wish for a life not hers.

He adjusted the reins and grazed her mid-back with his forearm, pulling her a little closer. Her grip on his cloak tightened, and her whisper traveled to his ears as she turned her face toward his chest.

“Erik.”

Nothing else, just his name, whispered low enough for only his ears.

To the others, it looked like the event had drained her, slumping against him. But he knew otherwise, or at least he thought he did. The hallway, the stairwell, the council chamber, and the alcove all rushed through his mind.

Perhaps when she called him “friend,” it wasn’t so much a boundary for him as it was a gate for her. Maybe she had to say it to keep herself from him. Maybe that’s why when he held her in the stairwell, it was as he thought when he kissed her neck—she ached for him as he did for her. That at least some of her tears in the council chamber were for him. That his first whispered warning in the alcove, she thought perhaps was him whispering her name as a lover would.

But her veil brushed under his chin, a stark reminder of her marriage to Lord Henry.

He wanted what another man did not. He loved, respected, and honored what another man did not. What a twisted irony was his life, her life.

David was eight years old, still a child by all accounts. Not yet old enough to assume his father’s place or power. They had to survive until he was.

XXX

THE UNHOLY TRAP

THORNWYCK KEEP, MAY 1094

It happened with no warning.

One morning in the month after the attack, Seren was summoned to the hall. Margot and Isolde were behind her. Bishop Thurstan and Bishop Alaric sat at the high table, having traveled at the request of Lord Henry’s pending proclamation. Father Osbert was at his usual corner.

The lords of Stafford, Shrewsbury, Wellenford, Chester, and Warwick had gathered as well.

Seren dipped and smiled and kissed the hands of the bishops, but before she could cross the dais to her place on the side, Henry stepped forward to block her path. She stood in the center of the dais before the high table.

“Lady Seren,” he said, with a smug sneer. “You are accused. Seize her.”

“What?” she said, her head spinning, just as Margot and Isolde were dragged aside.

Steel pressed to her back. Two guards forced her down to her knees, one blade crossing at her neck, the other held just above her spine. She tried not to tremble. Henry would not see her fear.

“My lord,” she whispered, forcing calm into her voice. “What is the meaning of this?”

The eyes of the church turned to Henry.

“Is this the proclamation, Lord de Thornwyck?” Bishop Alaric said, tilting his head.

Henry dipped his head to the London bishop. “You see, Father, my wife has a reputation of being divinely favored. She is rot beneath it.”

Alaric lifted an eyebrow. “What has yourfifthwife done?”

Lord Henry pressed his lips thin at the insinuation. He stood at the head of the hall, arms spread as if it were a performance.

He addressed Seren.

“You know what you’ve done.”