Page 87 of Rogue Knight
He had held on to the wise one’s words, hoping they meant Emma would choose him and Talisand. Anxiously, he had awaited a summons from her, some word, but there had been no news from York. He could wait no longer.
He reached for his shirt where he had laid it against a stone in the grassy area and looked at Alain. “I’m bound for York.”
***
Emma gazed at the flowers shooting up through the ground, their yellow blossoms catching the light of the sun. She had always loved the crocuses that hailed the coming of spring. “’Tis time we decide,” she told Sigga who walked beside her, Magnus ventured ahead of them roused by new scents. “Father will come soon, expecting us to leave with him.”
“You do not look to the land of the Scots for your future, my lady, no matter the Scottish king offers refuge?”
“I would prefer Talisand as our destination, but ’twill be a hazardous crossing and I still have doubts I’ve not shared with the others.”
“Sir Geoffroi cares for you, my lady, and I believe you care for him.”
Emma had never told Sigga of Geoffroi’s declaration of love. “Do you think me wrong to want to be with the Norman?”
“Nay,” said Sigga. “He has proven himself many times. If he says we will be welcome at Talisand and that ’tis a place of peace, I believe him.”
“Father spoke with Sir Geoffroi when I was ill. I overheard their argument. He knows Geoffroi has offered me marriage.”
“Marriage?” Sigga raised a brow.
“Aye,” she said and felt her cheeks heat. “I forgot to say.”
Sigga tossed her a grin. “’Twas an important omission.”
“’Twas in the summer,” Emma murmured wistfully. Thinking back to their days in the meadow and their lovemaking before he had left with his king. She spoke her thoughts aloud. “It seems so long ago. I do not even know if he lives. What if we were to go to Talisand only to find him gone, or worse—dead?” Emma did not believe Geoffroi was dead or she would have felt something, a loss that she did not feel. He lived, she knew it.
“Nay, my lady, do not think it. He has survived so many battles. What can one more be to such a knight?”
“Aye, what can one more mean?” Her voice trailed off. Would Geoffroi always return from his battles for his Norman king? He might yet live but would the blood on his mail one day be his own?
“I wonder what Inga will decide,” said Sigga. “The others are for Talisand, even Sker’s wife has come around.”
“I would not go without Inga,” Emma retorted. “I have told her we will be a family, that I will help her raise Merewyn.”
“Do not worry, Mistress. Inga may hesitate to go where there are Normans, but she oft speaks of the squire’s kindness and, beyond that, she will not want to leave you.”
Emma was thinking of Inga when Sigga suddenly said, “I had best see about what food there is for our dinner. Are you coming?”
“In a moment. I want to think a bit here among the flowers. Magnus and I will return shortly.”
Emma did not stray far, knowing with the warmer days the knights might stir from their castles to hunt, though typically it would not be this late in the day. She idly wondered if there were any deer left for them to hunt in the forests of York.
York was not the place of her birth, but with her marriage to Halden, she had made it her home. It was here Finna and Ottar had been born and become like her own children. It was here she had ridden through the meadows on Thyra with Magnus bounding along. And it was here she had first glimpsed the fierce blond knight whose laughter softened her heart as well as his face. But her future did not lie in York.
She paused at the edge of the stream, swollen with the spring rains. Magnus wandered a short distance away. As she watched the rippling water, in her mind she saw Geoffroi’s face, his blue eyes she had at first thought so stark but now remembered twinkling with laughter. She remembered his kisses, too, and the last time they had made love.
The fever had disrupted her woman’s bleeding, but she was fairly certain they had made a child that last time nearly three months ago. She was still slim from her illness and the lack of food so there was only the barest hint of a change in her body and she had experienced no urge to vomit as some women did.
She had told Geoffroi she loved him and it was truer now than it was then for her love had grown in his absence. And now there was more to draw her to him.I want this child as I want him.
Even if she had to face the uncertainty of crossing the western fells and the thick forests between York and Talisand, she would do so to be with him. He was her heart’s desire, had been since the night he’d first kissed her while saving her from his fellow knights. And if he still lived and had returned to his beloved Talisand, she wanted to be with him.
But she had to wonder. Had he forgotten her? Were his feelings still the same?
Aloud she whispered to the crocuses, “Does he still love me? Does he still want me at Talisand?”
CHAPTER 17
