Shattered Vows(92)

She touched a lean cheek. ‘I’m sorry, will he heal?’

‘Yes, but it’s a mercy he wasn’t with them for long, they’d have ruined him.’

She sent him a wry look. ‘Ah well, that puts me firmly in my place. To be rated more highly than a warhorse was perhaps too much to expect. I see now my true worth – you would have exchanged me for a broken nag.’

He looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Angel, I do want to marry you.’

She tipped her head to one side. ‘Why?’

A dark flush ran up under his skin, and he nuzzled her shoulder. ‘Lord, I don’t know, I like having you by me.’

‘Tell me, Oliver, I have to know. Do you love me?’

A hand reached for her, coming to rest on her breast. ‘I’ll love you all you want,’ he murmured, moving his thumb.

Rosamund frowned and tried to ignore the slow ache of desire. ‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Why did you ask for me?’

The wide shoulders lifted. ‘You’re not wed and I might already have got you with child. I’ll not see my son or daughter named a bastard.’

She stared at him. ‘That’s not the whole truth. I think you love me. You said you were incapable of loving but I don’t believe you. You’re in love with me but you’re afraid to admit it.’

Oliver snorted. ‘Afraid?’

‘Yes, afraid. My brave knight, you’re courageous on the battlefield, but in the bedchamber...you’re afraid.’ She took his hand. ‘Admit it, Oliver. Admit that you love me. I love you so much, it hurts. And I need your love. I can’t marry you without it. I’ll need your love to support me if I’m to learn to be a lady.’

A muscle flickered in his jaw. ‘Why must you insist on the impossible? I told you I couldn’t love. I warned you. As my wife, you’ll have a title and position. You’ll never go hungry and you’ll have fine clothes and money. Isn’t that enough?’

‘Lord, give me strength. Oliver, only a fool would turn down the chance to sleep between smooth linen sheets like these, and drink fine wine like that over there. But I wasn’t born to this. I’ll never be a real lady, not without your love. I need your love. I will need it to support me. To help me, to teach me – to forgive me when I make mistakes.’ She cupped his face with her palms. ‘Without your love, we cannot wed.’

Silence. Clouded grey eyes looked deep into hers.

‘Oliver, I love you.’

He stared at her and she held her breath for his answer.

He swallowed. ‘Angel, I love you,’ he murmured, in a cracked voice.

She smiled up at him. ‘Thank you, my love.’

His lips twisted. ‘Though why on earth I should pick such a nagging wench... I’d rather fight a dozen Angevin armies than wrestle words with you. However, since you need the words...’

Rosamund’s lips curved. ‘I do, I need the words.’

He picked up a strand of her hair and stared at it. ‘I’m no troubadour to give you pretty words, my angel, but know that I love you. I think I loved you from the first, although I couldn’t admit it even to myself.’ He kissed her ear. ‘I should have realised when you ran away, but I was hot with rage – you’d dented my pride. All I could think of was that I wanted you back. Yet it was more than that, I was afraid – yes, desperately afraid that you’d come to harm. I’ve never felt that way about anyone else.

‘A man who is illegitimate has to steel himself against feeling early on. I thought I was well protected. But you...from the first you were so easy to talk to. You’d no haughty airs, and such innocent eyes. You crept under my guard and before I knew it, my heart was in your keeping.’

‘I’ll treasure it,’ she said, smiling through a shimmer of tears.

He gave a rueful grin. ‘It took a blow from a rebel’s cudgel to knock some sense into me. I’d not been used to trusting myself to others. But back there, in that squalid hut, there was nothing but you between me and oblivion. I trusted you completely. At the time it seemed perfectly natural. I never doubted either you or our love, I knew I could trust you with my life.’

She grimaced, remembering a moment when her integrity had been sorely tested. ‘I almost failed you. There was a time when I-’

‘When you thought to deceive me? Angel, I know. I overheard some of that in Lufu’s hut.’

She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry for it.’

‘Don’t apologise, when it came to it, you were honest. After I came round, when Alfwold was about to take you back to the mill, you deliberately called me Sir Oliver. You weren’t to know I’d overheard and understood I was a knight.’ He tugged her to him. ‘Back then, everything was so clear. Sadly, the more my memory returned, the more confusing it became.