Rendezvous With Yesterday (The Gifted Ones #2)(56)

Surprised, she glanced up. “Thank you.”

Marcus shrugged and seated himself beside her. He was a tall, thin, yet muscular boy who might very well attain Robert’s height before he stopped growing. “I would not wish you to catch a chill, my lady.”

Tugging the warm material more closely around her, she realized it was Robert’s.

It must be. His scent clung to its folds.

Burying her nose in it, she breathed in deeply.

Please come home safely, Robert. Please.

“After the hours you spent toiling over Sir Miles and Sir Winston, I thought you might be hungry.” Marcus held up a wineskin, a goblet, and a hollowed-out loaf of bread piled high with food. A trencher, they called it.

She would have refused, but her stomach chose that moment to growl.

The boy’s lips twitched. “Please, my lady. Lord Robert has been sorely concerned over your meager appetite, and will be displeased should he return to find you have not supped.”

Sighing, she chose a piece of what she hoped was overcooked chicken and forced herself to chew and swallow it. Marcus swiftly offered her additional morsels with his knife.

“Aren’t you going to have any?” she asked. Maybe if he was distracted with satisfying his own substantial appetite, he wouldn’t notice if she ate less. A lot less.

If she ended up trying to make a place for herself here, she would have to have a serious talk with Robert’s cook.

Marcus declined at first. A few prods and encouraging words later, however, he dug in with amusing enthusiasm. For every five mouthfuls he devoured, she nibbled another piece of chicken.

Boy, she hoped it was chicken.

A somber though companionable silence sifted down around them. After a while, Beth gave up even pretending to eat. Her stomach was still unsettled by the wounds she had plunged her fingers into earlier. She didn’t want to end up vomiting all over Robert’s squire.

“You need not worry so, my lady,” Marcus told her softly. Having demolished the food, he reclined beside her, unwilling to leave her alone despite her assurances that she would be all right if he would rather be somewhere else. “Lord Robert will return whole.”

She bit her lip. “How do you know? How can you be so certain he won’t return the way they did?” She nodded toward the keep behind them.

Marcus smiled, so handsome Beth thought he must make all of the girls his age swoon. “Had you paid attention when you watched him train, you would not ask that. There are none greater, my lady, in all of England. None fiercer. I have watched him take down two or three men at once. Even his brother, the much-feared Earl of Westcott, can no longer best him. Their sparring ever ends in a draw.”

The boy’s brown eyes glowed with pride as he spoke of his hero.

Beth felt a smile touch her lips. “Admire him a little, do you?”



“More than any other, my lady.”

She nodded. “Me, too. He’s a good man.”

“That he is, my lady.”

“You are, too, Marcus. I hope you know that.”

He ducked his head shyly.

Her gaze inexorably returned to the barbican.

How much longer?

Lightning flashed, skeletal white fingers reaching across the sky above them and tunneling through the clouds. Thunder fleetly followed, a lion’s harsh roar of warning. Around them, the temperature dropped as a brisk wind whipped through the bailey, climbed the steps and lifted her hair from the back of her neck.

Normally, Beth would close her eyes and let the storm vibrate through her, reveling in the wildness of it. Not tonight, though. Tonight she sat and watched and waited, her fear for Robert rendering her nearly oblivious to nature’s turmoil.

“Marcus?”

“Aye, my lady?”

“You’re not one of those Neanderthals who thinks that all men are strong and all women are weak and will pounce on any feminine exhibition of fear, are you?”

Marcus frowned and remained silent for a moment. He wasn’t quite as adept at deciphering her odd accent and words as Robert. “I know not what a Neanderthal is, my lady, but know well the kind of man you describe. I am not such a man, nay.”

“Good.” Beth reached over and took his hand, lacing her fingers through his substantially larger ones. She thought she heard him suck in a breath as he looked down at her pale hand enclosed in his, shocked no doubt by her boldness. But she needed the contact. And the more time she spent with Marcus, the more familiar he seemed to her, odd as that might be.

Beth needed a little familiarity just then. Needed someone she could trust as much as Robert. And that intuition that had told her before her mind would accept it that she could trust Robert now told her that she could trust Marcus.

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “He is well, my lady. You shall see.”

She nodded, acknowledging his words silently, and continued her vigil.

Jagged streaks of lighting illuminated the writhing clouds with increasing frequency. Thunder raced to catch up until, at last, the two spilt the night simultaneously.

Beth didn’t move when the first big drops spattered her arm, her cheek, her hair and dappled the steps around them with damp spots.

When Marcus tried to entice her to wait inside, warm and dry, she politely refused.

Rain began to fall in earnest, the wind unrepentantly throwing it in their faces. Yet Marcus neither left her side nor forced her within.