Unable to stand still, she began to pace. “Maybe there are others out there, lying in wait for you somewhere along the way. I mean, maybe the man Lord Edward found isn’t even your enemy. Maybe he’s just posing as your enemy while your real enemy actually waits to ambush you on the road. It’s possible, Robert. You can’t deny it’s possible.”
“Beth.” His voice turned soft, coaxing. “You admitted yourself that you are unfamiliar with our methods of fighting, so you will have to trust me when I say that even were I ambushed and outnumbered four to one, I would emerge the victor.” Snagging her hand, he halted her nervous movements. “I say this not as a boast, but to ease your mind. ’Tis a simple errand I am about. Verily, you need not worry.”
She stared up at him, the backs of her eyes beginning to burn. “Josh and I were on a simple errand. Look what happened to him.”
A simple errand. A long shot. So long a long shot that Josh had felt secure in bringing her for backup in place of Grant.
Beth had actually been excited, full of adrenaline.
Then the first shots had rung out and she had forgotten everything he had taught her.
But she knew better now. She could protect Robert. She would protect Robert. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. She wouldn’t lose him the way she had lost Josh.
“You never told me what happened to you and your brother that day,” he broached. “Not really.”
And she would rather not do so now, but… “It was my fault,” she said, a kind of weary hopelessness suffusing her. “I should never have hung back when he told me to. I just stood there and let him go on alone. And then the shooting started and…” Beth shook her head, grief and guilt a constant, heavy weight in her chest. “I should have been with him. If I had been with Josh when he entered the clearing, it might have all ended differently. Kingsley and Vergoma might not have caught him off guard. Or maybe they wouldn’t have fought being taken into custody if they knew he wasn’t alone. Maybe they would have just cut their losses and surrendered themselves. Or slunk away. Then they wouldn’t have shot him or shot me and we wouldn’t have both fallen in that damned clearing and I never would have—” A sob checked her words.
Blinking back the moisture that blurred her vision, she saw Robert’s jaw tighten.
“You never would have come here,” he finished for her.
His words struck her like a punch to the chest. “What?” she whispered.
“Was that not what you were going to say?” he asked, his eyes reflecting the hurt he wouldn’t allow his face to show. “You never would have come here. You never would have met me or—”
“Robert, no,” she interrupted, forcing the words past her tight throat. “I was going to say I never would have failed Josh so miserably.”
Robert’s Adams apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard.
Marcus quietly left the chamber, closing the door behind him.
“You believe me, don’t you?” she pressed, holding Robert’s gaze.
“Beth, after everything you have told me of your world—”
“You can’t think I regret coming here. That I regret what we’ve shared. The time we’ve had together.” Never had she intended to even imply such a thing. “You can’t think that, Robert. Because I don’t. Not one minute of it. Not one second. I promise.” And did not want him to feel the pain that would crush her if he were to say he regretted it.
“Come here, love,” Robert said, his stony face softening. Sliding his arms around her, he drew her into a loose embrace. “’Twas not my wish to distress you further.”
Beth buried her face in his chest and squeezed him closer for a moment, then tilted her head back so she could meet his tender gaze. “I love you, Robert. You know that, right?” And how wonderful it felt to say it.
He pressed his lips to hers. “I do. And I love you, Beth. Forgive me for dismissing your concerns for my safety. I knew not that you were thinking of your brother.”
Warmed by his words, she rested her face upon his chest. “I wasn’t at first. Not consciously anyway. It just sort of crept up on me while I was rushing to get dressed.”
Robert lifted her into his arms. How effortless he made it seem.
Crossing to the hearth, he seated himself in one of the chairs before it and settled her comfortably in his lap. “Tell me again what happened that day.”
Smoothing her hand across his tunic, Beth leaned into him. “You don’t have time for this, Robert. You need to go to Terrington.”
“As I said, my enemy—if the man Lord Edward has captured is indeed the man for whom I have been searching—is being held at Terrington. He will keep.”
“But—”
“You are more important to me, Beth. Please, tell me what happened that day.”
Her stomach churned. “I screwed up,” she told him, almost sick with shame as she admitted both to Robert and to herself what pained her most when she thought of it. That Josh was most likely dead because of her.
Tears clogged her throat, making it impossible to speak for a moment.
Robert waited patiently, caressing her back in long soothing strokes.