Page 84 of Wed By Proxy

He did not answer, just gave a sharp push to her middle back, propelling her forward. Mathilde drew a sharp breath as she negotiated the slippery rock floor. Something is very wrong here. She managed to come to a stop before the next gaping hole in the rock face, but then he was behind her, forcing her to continue through it into the pitch blackness. Her hands groped around on the walls blindly as she stumbled along.

“I wrote to Lord Vawdrey,” he said, his former light and breezy manner returning. Somehow it seemed rather chilling to hear it now in the darkness, when his presence was so menacing in every other way. “I told him that my position had become… sadly compromised.”

“Compromised?” she repeated through numb lips. “How so?”

“Keep walking,” he ordered sharply, then sighed. “Let us have frankness between us at this point, Mathilde. You have fathomed out, have you not, why it was you saw me issuing forth from Vawdrey’s study?”

“I am persuaded I must have been mistaken that time, as you suggested” she said, and leaned against the wall of the cave a moment. “Please,” she begged. “Let me only catch my breath a moment.”

“You were not mistaken,” he said heavily, and his hand landed on her shoulder, making her jump. “Walk,” he said abruptly. “Now. There’s a good girl. I won’t tell you again.”

Mathilde gritted her teeth and carried on farther into the caves, sealing her own doom. I will never find my way back out of here, she thought despairingly. Was he going to retreat into the shadows and leave her here? To wander around in the dark, getting increasingly more and more lost? She had remembered now what it was Guy had said about people walking in to these caves and then never walking back out again.

“Lettys knows we have come here together,” she reminded him, and was surprised to hear how calm her voice sounded. “She will tell Firmin and the others that you have ridden out with me.”

“What of it,” Tristan answered coolly. “Do you really think me incapable of spinning some yarn to satisfy them? Perhaps you will be wrested from me by a band of villains, robbers and thieves. Yes, I rather like that. I struggle of course, valiantly, but in vain. I stumble back to Acton March on foot but by that point you will have been at their tender mercies for a matter of hours. Who only knows what will have become of you? I will be distraught at your cruel fate, of course,” he added as an afterthought. “But since the war, there have been some desperate, dispossessed men who roam the countryside, looting and taking what is not there’s. The story will have a ring of truth to it.”

Would it? wondered Mathilde. After all, the household at Acton March were loyal northerners all. They would probably take the word of one of their own trusted countrymen. Except possibly for Prudie. Prudie was loyal to her. And Robin, of course.

“What are you thinking?” he asked with an idle curiosity that disconcerted her.

“I’m wondering what everyone will say,” she answered truthfully. “If you return without me.”

“Precious little against me, I assure you. People are rather stupid like that.”

She thought back to his expression that day when she had thoughtlessly remarked she had seen him at court. He had denied ever setting foot in the southern court. But he had lied. At the time she had been so distracted, she had not really thought through the implications of this. It had not really seemed her business. She had been heartbroken, forlorn. She had cared nothing of what he was about. But this one comment it seemed had sealed her fate. She remembered his look of regret. At the time it had struck her as strange, but now she realized he had contemplated this moment. This moment where he was going to have to do away with her!

“I don’t understand,” she said through teeth that chattered slightly, and not just from the cold. “How can you be in the employ of Lord Vawdrey? You are a northerner.”

“I am,” he agreed. “But there are always traitors, on both sides.”

Traitors? Mathilde’s blood ran cold. “I am sure you are not that!”

“Oh, but I am,” he said. “I am the ultimate traitor. For I am in the pay of both the north and the south.” He gave a soft laugh. “As dear Julia noted only the other day, I have no loyalty whatsoever.”

Mathilde gave a muffled gasp as yet again, he shoved her forward, and she half stumbled over a loose rock before righting herself. “B-but what is that to me?” she asked. “The war is over now. I lost no kin. I bear you no grudge.”

He was quiet a moment. “You don’t understand. It is more what could fall from your lips at any moment that concerns me. I must silence that pretty mouth forever, you see. Although you may not care, there are many in Karadok who would kill me as easily as draw breath for the role I have played over the years. You must not think,” he added in a kindly tone. “That it is in any way personal. I like you Mouse. You are refreshing, quite wasted on all these grim northerners. In truth, I like you far better than I do my own flesh and blood.”

Mathilde’s heart began to beat louder as she came to the horrible realization that though Tristan liked her, he was going to kill her. That was why he had looked that way before, so regretful. He had known then that he was going to have to do this, to take this dreadful step to ensure her silence. She felt sick, as her brain scrambled to cope with these terrible facts.

Her thoughts turned to Guy’s blade she wore at her hip. It was wickedly sharp. Did she really have what it took to stick a knife into a man? A man she liked. For the awful thing was, she did like Tristan. But her every instinct shrieked at her, that he was not only a traitor, but a killer. From the casual way he talked about it, he had likely killed before and would again. Being fond of her, even regretting the necessity, would not stop him.

She swallowed as she thought of Guy, her friends, Robin, Fenella, Prudie and her mother even. I have people who love me, she thought, feeling her resolve stiffen. People whose lives would be affected by the discovery of her dead body, perhaps years from now in this secluded cave.

And what of Guy, what would he think after their argument the previous night? That she had been fleeing him and had a foolish accident? She turned cold all over. He would blame himself for her grisly fate.

I have to fight, a small cold voice told her. The dagger she wore was not the same as a necklace or some other decorative ornament. It had a purpose. It was there for her defense not decoration.

They had come out into an open area again, a section was missing from overhead and the light streamed in. She watched as Tristan approached her with feigned casualness. It was the way you would approach a skittish animal to win its trust. She had to fight him. But her body was small, she definitely did not have the strength to go toe to toe. Which meant she would have to use cunning.

“Please Tristan,” she said in appeal even as she discreetly dropped her hand to her knife. “I won’t tell anyone. You can depend on my silence.”

“Ah, Mouse,” he said sadly, drawing closer. “I wish that I could believe you. But depending on the word of a woman, in my experience…” He let his words trail off. “Even if you did not intend to let it slip, at some point you undoubtedly would.”

Swiftly he closed the gap between them, his eyes boring into hers, not noticing her hand as it unsheathed the dagger beneath her cloak and held it pointed toward him. Instinctively she took a couple of panicked steps backward as he loomed over her, his hands seizing her upper arms in a painful grip, his eyes blank and expressionless. Somehow in this moment, he no longer looked like Tristan at all, but some frightening stranger who wore his semblance like a mask.

Then she felt a sickening give in the tension between them and something was running down her hand and wrist. Something warm and forbidden. She looked down and all she could see was the hilt of the blade and her hand covered in blood. She stared a moment, and then looked up in dawning horror. Tristan was blinking at her, his own expression returning to his face. He was looking down too, in disbelief.