Gawain by Gwen Rowley

Author:Gwen Rowley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-11-23T21:04:47+00:00

He had been right. It was a mistake to look back; he already knew everything that mattered. Aislyn had used him. Her kisses were sweet poison that robbed him of his wits; every lie a new betrayal of his trust. For whatever reason— be it the one she had given him or some secret purpose— she needed to leave Lothian; he was the means of her escape. Her words of love were as false as everything about her.

Unless . . . unless she had been honest with him that last night.

“I’ll never know now,” he said aloud.

Ragnelle stirred beside him. “Eh?”

“It was nothing. How do you feel this morning?”

She sat up and knuckled her eyes. “Well enough for an old woman. But what were you saying before?”

“Oh, I was remembering what we spoke about last night.”

“The lass, you mean?” Her eyes were on his face, those clear, light eyes that were so incongruously beautiful. “The one they told you was drowned?”

He nodded. “I was just thinking that I’ll never know why she came to me and told me all she did.”

“Oh, I think you do. Listen to your heart, the truth is there.”

No. His heart had misled him before, why should he believe it now? Aislyn had betrayed him.

But his heart refused to be silenced. She loved you, it said, she trusted you with her life. The ultimate betrayal was not hers, but yours.

“God forgive me,” he breathed, “I left her and she—but I did not know—”

“’Course you didn’t,” Ragnelle said roughly. “How could you? It takes a wise head to sort truth from lies, and you were but a lad. She should have understood that. And you went back, didn’t you?” Her gnarled fingers closed over his. “That was a fine thing, Gawain, a—a noble act, and ’twas no fault of yours you were too late.”

Her words eased something in him, as though a splinter had been drawn from a festering wound he’d borne in secret, hiding it even from himself.

“Ragnelle,” he asked, “do you think the dead can see us? Do you think she knows that I am sorry now?”

“Oh, she knows,” Ragnelle said, and her voice was oddly choked. “And I—I reckon she is sorry, too.”

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