He reined his stallion to a halt, waiting for the others to catch up with him, shrugging out of his cloak. The evening was unseasonably warm. The setting sun cast the keep’s turrets and battlements in shadows and darkness, a brooding contrast to the pleasant breeze that rustled through the trees, carrying the first scents of spring and rebirth: wet grasses and melting snow and swollen streams.
That there should be such life in this place of death seemed a bitter jest. Even the towns and fields they had passed through, so ravaged by Tourelle’s forces last autumn, had been swiftly rebuilt, repaired, renewed. All was as it had been.
Yet it would never be the same again.
The injustice of it gnawed at his gut. The cold indifference of fate galled him. All his life he had indulged every whim, emptied every cup, tumbled every willing wench, fought for every greedy lord willing to pay his price. Never had he given one thought to the future. Not one. Profit had been his ruler, pleasure his muse. By all rights, he should have been killed two dozen times over.
Yet here he was, hale and hearty, sitting before one of the finest new chateaux in all of France. As its lord.
While the one who had built it, invested every year of his life and every fiber of body and soul in creating it, the one who had earned it, his brother, Gerard ... was gone.
Pharaon whickered softly and turned his head, ears pricked. A moment later, Gaston heard the sounds of hoofbeats, of tired horses blowing, and the creak of saddle leather as weary riders stretched and yawned. He moved his mount to the side of the familiar path in the gathering darkness.
Marcel rode in the lead. Gaston spoke to him briefly, then sent him and the rest on ahead. He waited while they rode slowly past. He would bring up the rear, in case the keep’s lone occupant was harboring more hostility toward him than he guessed.
Riding in the middle of the line, his wife kept her eyes straight ahead as she passed. She did not glance at him, did not even acknowledge his presence—as had been her habit the entire month they had been traveling. She ignored his very existence.
He should be pleased about that, should find it a welcome relief from the arguing and defiance and chattering he had been subjected to for so long.
But he was not pleased, and it was not a relief ... and he missed her chattering. Her indifference bothered him almost as much as the bone-tired, fragile look of her: she hunched over her palfrey, clinging to the saddle with one hand, to the horse’s mane with the other.
The grueling pace he had set had taken far too great a toll on her, though she had never complained. Like an idiot, he had not noticed for the first few days. He had been too angry with her, determined not to look at her, determined to keep at least one vow in his life—that she would not confuse him further with her mad tales.
But his will had weakened, and his gaze had wandered to her once ... twice ... constantly. He had seen her fatigue. The way she rubbed the small of her back after the long days in the saddle. The way she shifted uncomfortably on her pallet at night, when they had to make camp in the open because there was no inn or abbey nearby. She would lie awake, unable to sleep because of her sore muscles. He lay awake a few paces away, unable to sleep because of a far different sort of ache.
As soon as he had noticed her discomfort, he had slowed their travel to avoid tiring her. With four weeks’ riding behind them, they should have already reached their destination, but Chateau de Varennes was another five days from here. At this pace, the servants would reach their new home before their lord.
As the last of the little caravan rode past him, he nudged Pharaon back into line, and found his gaze again lingering over his wife. She was so tired that she swayed in the saddle, practically asleep. He had to fight an urge to sweep her from her horse and carry her the rest of the way. The thought of touching her ...
He gripped the reins so tightly that the leather cut into his gloved hands. He had not touched her since the morning they had left his castle. Not even a casual brush of his fingers over hers, or an accidental contact as they passed each other.
Though he had considered that. Plotted it. Imagined it until his body and his brain were fevered with wanting it.
She sighed, her slim shoulders rising and falling beneath the soft outline of her cloak. She pushed back her hood and turned her face to the right, closing her eyes at the touch of the breeze. He almost thought he could see the outline of every dark lash resting on her ivory cheek. Her lips parted as the last rays of the sun caressed her coppery hair with golden light. The breath-stealing vision lasted only a second before she turned away again.
Just long enough for Gaston to feel something inside him wrench painfully. Questions clawed at him again, as they had during too many tormented nights while he watched her sleep: Who are you? Why are you here? Who has sent you? What do you want with me?