His greed, his perfidy, ate at him, gnawing deep in his belly . . . yet, to his great shame, his body remembered. And could not deny the moment of bliss, of relief, of fulfillment . . . of triumph.
It was that last-the sense of victory, of attainment-that made the nausea roil sharply in his belly and brought the foul, metallic taste to the back of his throat.
The faint scuff of a slipper, the nearly soundless rustle of a hem over the floor, pulled Will’s attention from his personal misery. He looked up, noting the dark gray cast of predawn sun filtering over the altar, and saw the slender figure standing there.
“Lady Alys,” he managed to say. His voice was rough from disuse and gruff with annoyance.
“You are like to fall over,” she said, moving toward him.
In the spare candlelight, he saw kindness in her pretty, heart-shaped face, genuine concern in her expression, and as before, it disgraced him. That this little slip of a girl could see something that simply wasn’t there, or, at the least, wasn’t there any longer . . .
Will pulled to his feet, aware that his knees ached and trembled in protest. When was the last time he’d slept more than two hours? He spent his nights in John’s chambers, or taking Marian to hers; he was here . . . or tossing and turning on his own palliasse. Taunted by dreams of the unattainable.
Or he was burning houses in the village. Or condemning a woman to her death.
Did Alys simply not know of his wickedness?
Marian certainly did.
And now, God help her, she comprehended it firsthand.
The wave of anguish stunned him, and he felt his empty stomach rebel. His fingers shook, and he clasped them tightly together.
“My lord,” she said, moving closer to him. Alys barely reached the center of his chest; she must know that he could crush her skull with two hands, or use the back of one to send her flying across the chamber.
After all, he was the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire. Brutal, cruel, without conscience.
Yet, she lifted her hand to touch his arm and he tensed, unwilling for her to feel his weakness.
“What do you here?” he demanded, pulling from her fingers. “And alone, at this hour?”
“Something woke me early and I came to pray,” she replied. “But I see you, and methinks I’ve been drawn here for a different reason. You are ill. Or troubled. Will you not let me see to your needs?”
There was Pauletta, whose obvious interest might have been satisfied once upon a time . . . and might yet still be, if only to keep himself from going mad. There was Marian, on whom he could barely allow himself to think. And then there was this girl, Alys.
Why could it not be she?
Forcing strained kindness into his tone, Will nevertheless knew that his expression remained forbidding. “You have the right of it. I am troubled, but that is why I sought my confessor. All is well.”
“Pardon me for saying so, but . . . it does not appear as if you have met with success. Please, my lord,” Alys said, opening her hands in supplication. “Will you not at the least allow me to fix you a draught? It may help you to sleep a bit. I see the weariness in your eyes.”
In his eyes? It fairly weighted his whole damned body . . . not to mention his conscience. Still. “Nay, my lady. I have much to attend to this morrow.”
“But the sun has not even risen, and Mass is hours away. ’Tis clear you’ve seen no rest this night. A simple draught to help you sleep. And then you can be back to your tasks with a clearer mind.”
“Aye, to the burning of villages and the heavy weight of the law’s sentence in the form of a knotted rope,” he said bitterly, then regretted the weakness of such an admission.
But Alys looked up at him not with condemnation but with understanding. “ ’ Tis no easy task you bear, I trow, my lord. Whilst the rogue Robin Hood dances about, flaunting the law, you are left to do the work no one wishes. Yet without you, there would be no order.”
She was looking at him as if he was . . . he did not want to acknowledge-or even to recognize-what was in her eyes.
“Please.” She reached, boldly, closing her fingers around his wrist and tugging at him. “There is a pallet in the herbary where you might take your ease for a bit.”
“Nay,” he began to say, but then he stumbled and realized how clogged his mind was, how slow his reactions were . . . and it startled him.
Will was no stranger to physical duress-he’d fought in enough sieges and wars that he’d gone for days with little sleep, little food, and great demands on his body. But in those times, the goal had been clear . . . the intent unambiguous, and he had not been torn in two.
’Twas the mental anguish that was destroying him.
Returning to the chamber where his pallet lay, one among the rows of many men, would do little to ease him toward rest. The snores, the snorts, the snuffles . . . all served to assist his already active mind from succumbing to sleep.
In the end, he followed Alys.
