A Hope for Rauri Ch. 03

And it brought her a very small sense of alarm; not much and like this, easily overlooked and almost forgettable.

Just not quite so.

After another long moment, she decided that it was time that she’d better leave. With him asleep and not having really met him - and not wanting to awaken him - she felt as though she’d gotten everything that she could from him in trying to learn about him.

It really wasn’t enough for her, though she knew what she’d say if her queen asked over it. She found that she liked him and she’d say that. It wasn’t as though she’d been given a range of men to choose from, was it? He was the one; she’d been told who could live alongside her for however long she still had remaining to her on this earth, so he would be enough, since he had to be.

As she got ready to stand up to go, she noticed with a shock that his eyes were open and he lay there regarding her quietly. She wondered how it was possible for her to have missed it when it had happened and those eyes opened. She wondered why there was no shock visible to her in him.

He smiled at her. She couldn’t believe it.

He was smiling at her!

He thought for a moment about the differences of speech over the long time. “Prithee,” he said very quietly, not far at all above a whisper, “Stay but a moment. I would hate to have to wait as long again to speak with you.”

To him, she looked for a moment as though she thought to run, but then ... she didn’t.

“My name is Wesley,” he said as he lifted himself up just a little to regard her with his hand holding his head up, “Roger Wesley de Valence. I was born in the year 1286 in England and I am the bastard of Aymer de Valence. I fought in his army and I even saw him a few times, though I never spoke to him as he did not know me.

I did not come to rob you and others of your country. I came because the army was work which could feed me.”

She nodded slowly then, reeling a little over the way that she now suddenly wanted more than anything to throw off her clothing and get into the bed with him. She’d have given him all of the turnips that she owned - which was none, now that she thought of it.

She’d have given him anything just to lie against him and to feel those arms around her for a quarter of an hour. She wondered then if it happened whether it would be enough and she doubted it, knowing herself as she did, even though the way that she felt now was the strangest thing after so long.

She was so torn, wanting to feel him against her and wanting also to accept what she’d been told.

If this was the one - and he looked like this ...

She wanted an end to her uncertainty about her future. She wanted to cling to him for the life that she’d have.

But there was that something about him - that unknown quality which seemed to hover around him and trouble her somehow.

He looked into her shocked face and his smile appeared a little strained for a moment, “I have always remembered your kindness to me. Please tell me your name, Lady.”

She blinked for a moment and then she said, “Brìghde I was baptized in our parish sir, but I am not and never was a lady as you may know the word. My father always called me Rauri from when I was a girl because of my hair. But it is a man’s name, to be sure.”

He smiled then as his eyes drifted to her hair, though it was too dark to see the color of it, “Aye, it was and still is a man’s name, though I have heard it used by some women over the last fifty years now. I think that Rory is a fine name as is Brighde.

I am so happy to find you here, Rory, but if I can ask it, why are you here? I do not ever have dreams this pleasing to me that I can remember.”

“I - I ... “she hesitated, “I saw you at the graveside this day and I thought that I knew you. I came back to see.”

She looked down, completely flustered now over the way that her eyes had drifted as she’d sought for something to say to him in reply. In doing it, her eyes had drifted over him and the way that he was so obviously naked - as nice as it was to see, but then she was now realizing in a little bit of horror that he must have seen her eyes as she looked there just as she’d said that she’d come to see and -

“I don’t mind.”

She was about to stammer out that she had to go and she even began to say the words, but ...

“I must go, I - I should not be here with you there in the bed and I feel ... as though I have taken advant - “

She looked at him, “Your pardon, sir, what did you say?”

He tried not to grin, feeling her discomfiture very clearly. He kept his little smile there, though as slight as it was, he had it going full blast, “I said that I do not mind you being here at all.”

He reached for the covers and drew them up only as much as he needed to cover what he thought might be distracting her. “If I had but the right words to say which might make you want to stay here a little longer, then I would say them and any others that I knew of if only they might keep you here so that I could speak with you, since I am enjoying it so.”

But his words seemed to be having the opposite effect on her and she got to her feet and began to back away.

Wesley wanted desperately to find a way to cause her to want to stay a little longer, but he knew that there was nothing which would help his cause, just by looking at her face. He guessed that he could understand the reason, though in actual fact, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

She did want to stay.

She wanted more than anything now to stay right there and speak with him - even if that was all that happened. In the short time that he’d been awake, she knew that the queen was correct. He was more than a little charming and attractive and he was someone who she now wanted to know, the first in so very long, but, ...

She’d remembered her legs and feet.

“I must go, Wesley,” she said, walking toward the wall.

“Wait Rory,” he said, “Will I ever see you again?”

“I - I do not know, I - I hope I - “

And then she was gone, right through the wall.

He jumped up and ran to the window, but she was already almost out of sight.

A second later, ‘almost’ no longer applied, and he sighed.

He gave a thought to grabbing some clothes and running out after her. He was easily desperate enough to do it.

But he knew that it would do no good. She was gone. Even if he could catch her somehow, he knew that it wasn’t something which would have gone well.

He eased himself back down onto the bed and looked at the ceiling, trying to burn her features into his memory even more than they’d always been.

And he knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t be getting very much sleep at all tonight.