Page 12 of To Desire

Chapter 7

“You ride well.”

The road had opened wide enough for the two of them to ride side by side.

“For a mage? Or a woman?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Liana wished to recall them. They sounded more like her mother than she. Liana loved her mother, but there were times bitterness tinged her thinking.

“Certainly not the latter,” Darien said, before she could recall the words. “There is a woman at Castle Blackwood, a fellow archer, who rides better than any man alive. As to the first? I’ve no knowledge of how well mages typically ride, so I will withhold comment on that.”

Glad he’d chosen not to take offense, Liana laughed. “My mother rides passably well, but I will admit to knowing few other mages myself.”

“Few? But you do know some?”

The steady clop of their horses’ hooves on the thankfully dry dirt roads was the only sound that reached them as she considered her words. Now that it was day, there were fewer animals to terrify her, apparently.

“There is a woman,” she said. “She’s come to our cottage a few times throughout the years, asking my mother for advice. I know little about her and Mother will not allow me to ask her questions, but I know she is a seer, like us.”

“Where is she from?”

Liana shrugged. “I know not. It has been years since we’ve seen her and my mother refuses to answer any of my questions about her, saying ‘some questions are best left unanswered.’” Hence her hesitation to speak of the woman Liana knew only as Elowen.

“Of all the mysteries rumored of Isle of Ely, that is a new one to me.”

“I do not believe my mother has mentioned Elowen to your father, though I could be wrong. Forgive me if I’ve spoken too freely. I do not wish to disparage my mother and am certain there is a good reason for her reticence.”

The way Darien looked at her then reminded Liana of his expression when she woke. The sun had not yet risen when he’d gently called her name. For so many years, she had heard of the fearsome earl’s son, more deadly with a bow and arrow than any man in England. None had been surprised when he left Ely to fight for Empress Matilda, though she and her mother alone were privy to the secretive nature of his quest with the Guardians of the Sacred Oak. Since her mother had foreseen Ely would not face the same scrutiny as many of the others King Stephen deemed as traitors, the Earl of Ellswood had encouraged his son to fight for their rightful ruler.

The man looking at her now, however, was not that fearsome warrior. His eyes were as kind and affable as any she’d seen; this was a man Liana could lose her heart to. The heart she’d guarded closely for many years.

“Our relationship is our own, Liana. Worry not about either of our parents. They forged their own paths, as their ancestors have done for centuries before them. You’ve no need to guard your words with me.”

“You are gentle, for a man raised by one such as the earl.”

“If you claim me to be gentle at Blackwood, my friends will laugh me from their halls.”

She smiled. “Will you tell me more of these friends I am to meet?”

Darien did so, explaining that he’d met the three men he considered his closest friends not long after arriving at Castle Blackwood. Although each of the recruits was considered among the finest warriors in England, the unique nature of their mission required them to continue to receive training at Blackwood in between missions, which fostered a camaraderie that made his friends—Alden, Roland, and Gareth—more like brothers than fellow recruits.

“So after the Master of Horse was killed, Gareth was offered his position?”

“It was not so easy a path as that, though aye, eventually he was, and he is now the new horsemaster at Blackwood.”

“Why was it not so easy? Because he’d begun as a recruit?”

“Nay, because he’d fallen in love with the daughter of Lord Ashcroft, the Guardians’ chief financier. The two married in secret anyway.”

She gasped. “Surely not. Did he accept the marriage?”

“Nay, at first he did not.”

She sensed there was more to his story. Indeed, as Darien looked at her, just as they’d begun to cross a slow-moving stream, Liana was certain of it. Concentrating on the crossing, it was only as they emerged from the stream back onto dry land that he continued.

“There are things I would tell you,” Darien said finally. “Of which very few are aware. It is not in my nature to do so but . . . you are different, of course.”

“Because I keep your family’s secrets?”

“Perhaps.”