Crying out in pain, Seren pressed her hands to her ears, refusing to hear, even knowing he spoke true. She simply could not accept it. Arwyn died on her birth anniversary, no less—alone!
Goddess, please, she begged.
Let it not be true.
How could she face Rose and Elspeth?
How could she look her sisters in the eyes and confess how miserably she’d failed Arwyn?
Perhaps sensing her distress, Wilhelm stepped forward, and all Seren’s years of careful aplomb shattered like Merlin’s Stone. White hot intensity surged through her veins, and she felt a tempest rising in her soul, manifesting a wind that spun between them and eddied into the tree tops, shivering the boughs. Witchwind. It seemed as though all her twenty-one years of careful restraint loosed at once, and the potency of it changed the weather.
Seren herself might have been startled, except that fury held her in its throes. She surrendered to the feeling, allowing her spirit to unfurl into the aether, hoping for the first time in all her life that her demeanor could be frightening.
She wanted to frighten this man. She wanted to scream. She wanted to send trees toppling. She wanted to shout obscenities at the heavens and drive a silver blade into her palm to cast the most hideous hud du. For the first time in all her living days she welcomed rage, and intuitively understood how the feeling could drive her mother to dark magik.
Fury, hot and savage twisted through her like a maelstrom, and something deep inside her snapped, like a twig. Something broke. Something Seren was sorely afraid she could never repair.
Somehow, she managed to recover herself, crossing her arms to keep from trembling, and after a long, long moment, the witchwind settled, but she could spy through the treetops that the sky was no longer blue. The storms that had plagued the city for more than a sennight had returned, and the air held a new chill.
5
She was doing this.
Somehow, she was causing the change in the weather.
It took Wilhelm a full moment to realize what precisely was transpiring, and if he hadn’t understood intrinsically who and what she was… he might never have believed what he was witnessing. His skin prickled as he watched storm clouds form overhead. In scant seconds the air went from balmy to blustery, and every tree without substantial girth shivered against the onslaught. The occurrence was enough to make a grown man piss his breeches, and nevertheless, he wasn’t afraid. He understood intuitively what she was going through. She was taking refuge in her anger—as had he. No matter what he’d wished to believe of the lady his brother was once betrothed to, he recognized a gentle soul when he met one, and realizing he was only making matters worse, he stepped back, giving her space to breathe.
The wind calmed when she calmed, but Wilhelm was more ashamed than he was relieved. He’d never once manhandled a woman, and if she still had eyes to see, Lady Ayleth would have been mortified by his rudeness. He took meager comfort in the fact that if he’d not taken Seren out of that city, she too would be lying six feet under, like Ayleth.
For his own part, the scent of smoke clinging to his leathers was enough to make him empty his guts, but he swallowed the bile that rose again and held his aplomb for the lady’s sake. Desperate to have her heed him, he said very gently, “M’lady?”
Seren peered up, blinking.
Her face, though filled with outrage, was as beautiful as he remembered. But, as livid as she might be, he recognized the sorrow nestled in her wintry eyes, and God’s bones… the sight of her suddenly discomfited him, because, in contrast, he was nothing more than a lumbering beast.
Even as far as Warkworth, he’d heard tales of men who were driven to duel over the Beauty of Blackwood, and he could easily see why. It was this aspect of her that he’d been so afraid would blind his brother. He’d been sorely afraid Giles would turn his heart against Warkworth and against vengeance if only for the grace of her smile, because, in truth, hers was a face that could inspire men to war.
Standing here, now, regarding her, he couldn’t help but remember the day they’d arrived in London so Giles could claim her as his bride—was that only three months ago? On that day Wilhelm had vowed to keep Lady Seren as far away from Warkworth as humanly possible. He’d called her a witch and he’d promised to thwart Giles at every turn, certain as he was that she was a spy for the king. And for all that ado about nothing, he stood here now, fully prepared to see the lady home. Only now that he’d witnessed her untempered emotion, he knew in his heart that she was innocent of her mother’s treachery. These sisters were all blameless, and one had lost her life to prove it.
Seren, too, might have met that fate. Now it was his duty to keep her safe. And yet, what a tricky web they’d spun. For, even now, he was certain King Stephen had no inkling his brother had forsaken Seren to wed her younger sister; and he doubted Seren knew it either.
How could she possibly? Rosalynde and Giles were wed in secret, and even if their vassals suspected, none would defy their lord to divulge it. For better or worse, Seren must still believe she was betrothed to Giles, and Wilhelm wasn’t sure how much to reveal. “M’lady,” he said when she was calm enough to listen. “I swore an oath to find you and return you to Warkworth; this is what I must do.”
Her brows slanted. “To my intended?” she asked, and it took Wilhelm a full moment to respond. Though, in the end he decided it would be best if she thought he acted with authority.
“Aye,” he said gravely. “To your… intended.” But he cursed even the sound of that lie on his lips.
Seren’s brows collided.
On the day her sister quit London, she and Arwyn had spied Rosalynde in their mother’s crystal traveling with two men. She was so certain it was Giles de Vere, and some part of her had dared to believe Giles must be her sister’s champion. But it would seem Lord Giles still intended to honor his vows. But what if, after Seren denied him, he would feel compelled to return her to her mother? Or, worse. What if he were the very one her mother had sent to retrieve her?
Plainly, Giles couldn’t care one whit about her, else he’d have come to find her himself, instead of sending his bastard brother in his stead.
But, of course, he must have delivered Rose to Aldergh. Her sister would never have trusted him. Rosalynde would have kept her glamour spell and she would have allowed the king’s lackeys to continue believing her a hapless nun. Only then could she have avoided their lechery and rest assured of their compliance. Men were generally faithless, were they not? Even her own father had discarded them so easily. But she remembered the undisguised look of hatred on Giles’s face as he’d regarded her mother in the King’s Hall and hope flared in her breast. “You said you were sent by my sister, Rose? Where is she?”
He made some frustrated sound, then, once again scratched at the back of his neck. “Warkworth,” he said, and, before Seren could speak another word to question him, he reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, looking her straight in the eyes. It was impossible to think clearly while he gazed at her so compassionately, and to make matters worse, she found his voice, soft as a whisper, equally as disconcerting. Perhaps under different circumstances, Seren might have even considered him handsome, except for that razor-thin scar that parted his left brow.