Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

“Who, Ian?”

“It is not important, darling. What you must understand is that when she heard I had been killed, her spirits soared because then she was free to be with her lover. But when I was not dead, and when I was elevated to the status of hero… for her to have left me, for any hint of the scandal to be revealed, would have destroyed her and perhaps even her lover. I gather that he spurned her from that point forward, and this is why she took her life.”

“Oh, Ian.” Catherine took his hand in hers and raised it to her lips. “It must have caused you terrible heartache, my dear.”

He nodded, his throat thickening to block any words.

“Who was it, Ian?”

He shook his head.

Catherine’s voice sharpened. “You must tell me, Ian. You are too good a man to see it, but whomever this is, he is your enemy. He will have to destroy you, so you must be careful, and I will help you there. Who was it?”

Ian exhaled slowly. “Duke Deathridge.”

Blood drained from her face.

Ian pulled her to him. “I knew I should not have told you, my love. I know you could not have thought evil of Owen’s uncle. Some men might have thought it fitting, my taking you to my bed because Richard Ventnor had taken my wife to his, but I am not vindictive. I love you, and that is the reason I cannot give you up.”

Catherine pulled back and caressed his cheek. “Oh, darling, you are a noble and brave man. Already he has tried to destroy you. He sent Owen here to win fame and riches for the family. You he sent on a much more difficult mission, hoping to destroy you. And now it makes sense, why you downplay your role. Instinctively you knew that to draw more attention to yourself would be to invite him to work more diligently to destroy you. I should have known. I should have seen. I should have protected you before this.”

“You have, my love.” Ian kissed her palm. “Deathridge would have had copies of the Gazette story sent to him. For me not to include it with my report would be suspect. He must not know that I know. This is the only way he shall think me harmless, and that orders shall be issued that bring me back to Norisle. When those orders come, I shall take you and Miranda with me.”

“Oh, darling.” Catherine kissed him softly on the lips. “Yes, I shall go with you, happily, proudly.”

Ian kissed her more firmly, his arms encircling her in a fierce embrace. He trapped her against his chest, and would have dragged her into his lap, but she pressed a hand to his breastbone and held him off. He loosened his arms. “What is it?”

She looked away. “I will go with you, Ian, but Miranda cannot come with us.”

“But she must.”

“No, not immediately.” She rose from her chair and drifted toward the room’s shadowed corner. “From the day of her birth Owen has made her a creature of this place, of Mystria. She would be completely out of place in Norisle. Do you know that on occasions when Woods brings his half-breed children to Temperance, Owen allows Miranda to play with them? Savages, Ian, unbathed, heathen, bastard savages who play at hunting. Miranda can read a track by the river better than she can read letters. Just last week, when the Prince’s man, Baker, had trapped several rabbits, Miranda was upset that I would not let her help him butcher them. Right now, at her age, she does not understand why this is wrong.”

“But, darling, time in Norisle will break her of these things.”

Catherine shook her head. “Oh, Ian, you are too noble a man to even imagine the other side of these things. Were she to come over now, she would be teased mercilessly. She would not understand why, and would cry herself to sleep every night. No, in three years, perhaps five, when she is old enough to reason, then we can send for her. We can prepare her. Perhaps, by then,” Catherine turned and smiled at him, “she shall have brothers and sisters.”

That idea sent a jolt through Ian. He rose from his chair and went to her, embracing her from behind, pulling her back against him, kissing the back of her neck. “From the first moment I saw you, and again when I woke up and you were my healing angel, I thought, I dreamed, of you someday bearing a child of mine. You were so gentle with me, and are so gentle with your daughter, that I knew I could not want for a better mother for my children.”

“Oh, Ian, I shall bear your children, and proudly. Once in Norisle we shall find a prelate who will annul my marriage to Ian, then we shall wed.” She turned in his arms, the sheet falling from her, and hugged herself to him. “I already feel I am your wife, and dream of the day our love is sanctioned.”

“Nothing will make me happier, darling.”

She sighed and laid her head against his shoulder.

“What is it, dearest?”

“Ian, we shall know pain before we know joy.” Her hands came up over his back, hooking on to his shoulders, the nails biting in. “I would tell everyone that you are my lover, but we cannot. We will be able to meet here, from time to time-not as often as either of us would desire, but enough, perhaps.”

“I will never get enough of you, Catherine.”

“Or I of you, Ian. But until the time we can be together, there is something I must do. For your sake, to protect you.”

“What is it, darling?”

“Duke Deathridge is a powerful man. Owen is his nephew and his agent in Mystria. Were there to be any suspicion of our love, Deathridge would destroy you.” She looked up and kissed his throat. “For the sake of our safety, I will have to make it appear as if my marriage to Owen is as solid as granite. Luckily I am known to be in town when he is not, and vice versa. We will be able to see each other without arousing notice. But I do not want, my darling, for you to be hurt by my being with my husband. If you see my hand on Owen’s arm…”

I will imagine you in his bed.

“…know only than I am wishing most fervently that it was you beside me.”

Ian shivered. “You will share a bed with him?”

“Does that hurt you, darling?”

Ian swallowed hard. “The thought of it, more than I would have imagined.”

“Oh, Ian.” Catherine clung to him fiercely. “I shall share his bed, but my body will not be his. I promise you this.”

“And if he demands you perform your wifely duties with him?”

“Were I unable to resist, were he to force himself upon me, I should wish it was you and I would count it as a trial to endure to be with you forever.” She kissed his chest. “But I do not think Owen will press. And Miranda can always be encouraged to have a night fright and join us-and would anyway in the winter.”

Ian shivered. “How odd is it that I, the man who is stealing you away from your husband, begrudge him any time spent in your presence? Seeing you in Church beside him shall drive me mad.”

“I shall endure the same torture, darling, knowing that very soon thereafter, I shall enjoy the balm of your love.”

Ian held her tightly, his mind racing. He had once believed he was an honorable man. That was how he had been raised. He believed it fervently until the events at Rondeville had proven otherwise. He’d had a window opened into his soul, and he saw himself for who he really was. And since that time he had been very careful to keep that window closed, and to hide it away behind layers of curtains, shaped of lies and denials. Catherine saw that as humility.

Though he loved her dearly, and had convinced himself that this love had sparked when first they met, then roared alight as she cared for him, he could not deny that Owen’s relationship to his late wife’s lover had not played a part in his pursuit of Catherine Strake. Whenever it occurred to him that what he was doing was wrong, the concept of redress of the grievance Deathridge had done to him had convinced Ian his affair with Catherine was only fair.