Page 60 of To Protect

He left unspoken, that is why I did not come to you.

“By the time Roland returned, this escape plan, which had been devised the moment we arrived, was set into action. He was sent initially with Eamon and Empress Matilda’s captain to secure the queen, which is why I came for you,” Alden said.

Amalia looked at Roland.

“You left the queen to return for me?”

“I did.”

One of the other men looked back from his position in the front of the boat with an expression that could only be read as, that was not very wise.

“How will they escape the crowd?” Amalia asked.

“Very carefully,” he said.

“Are they not in danger?”

“We are all in danger,” said one of the men, earning a sharp look from Roland.

It was that danger that Amalia had so focused on that it wasn’t until much later, when they began to make their way back toward land, that she realized the repercussions of what happened this eve.

They had escaped the Tower of London from an angry crowd who did not wish to see Empress Matilda on the throne. The coronation at Winchester would not happen. She would not become queen. And Roland would not return home the only de Vere supporter of the new English monarch.

She turned to him, wondering if he’d considered the same already.

Roland’s eyes met hers.

He had, for there was a sadness in them Amalia had never, not once, witnessed ever before.