Page 95 of The Saxon Lord's Unwanted Bride
“I prayed, every day, for my real mama to come,” the child sobbed. “You were always so kind—I wished that you were be my mama.”
“Forgive me,” Eloise whispered.
“Youaremy mama,” Violette choked out the words, “and I love you so much. My prayers have been answered!”
Eloise stroked the soft golden head. Violette loved her! She opened her eyes to see Agatha and Irene standing nearby. Their faces were streaked with tears, their smiles telling her that Violette’s prayers were not the only prayers which had been answered.
Chapter 25
Harald hunched his shoulders against the sharp wind, and banged his fist on the convent door. Winter had England in a firm grip, and his wife’s absence from Wildstorm only emphasized the somber mood among his people.
Jeanette turned accusing eyes on him daily—and she was not alone. The woman, Gerda, whose daughter Alyce thrived and now worked in the kitchens, reminded him how Eloise had delivered Alyce from death. At least for the boy, Alfred, Harald could make amends. The boy now slept soundly in a chamber in the main hall, having been adopted into the main household. Jeanette had taken him into her care, when she’d heard how Eloise had almost died to protect him.
As for Violette—the child in the convent who had shrunk away from him in fear the first time he’d set eyes on her—she now welcomed his visits. Her child’s insight understood his wish to tend to Eloise. Once, he would have sneered at the notion of assisting a small child brewing a broth in a convent kitchen—but he relished their companionship, working together to help the woman they both loved.
The door swung back and Agatha’s face appeared.
“Lord Harald.”
“Is she asleep?”
“Aye. I’ll take you to her.”
Agatha’s delicate footsteps were almost inaudible. In contrast, Harald’s heavy tread echoed off the stone walls, invading the silence of the convent almost as brutally as he’d invaded their privacy the day he’d learned of Eloise’s history.
Eloise—how he longed to hear her voice again.
“How does she fare?”
“She ventured outside today.”
“But it’s so cold!”
“She needed fresh air, and it’s done her good. She is recovering.”
“Then I’ll take her home.”
Agatha shook her head. “Not yet, I beg you.”
Anger bristled through his body. “She’s mine by right, woman.”
She placed a hand in his arm. “You have every right to take her if you wish it, but let it beherchoice. Victory would be all the sweeter if your quarry came willingly.”
Never did he think he’d seek the approval of a nun—a skirted, sexless woman who spent her days confined behind four walls doing lord knows what. But he valued Agatha’s opinion almost as much as his wife’s. He even valued the good opinion of the child, Violette. What was happening to him?
“You’re too kind,” he said.
“Not at all. I merely recognize one who, like myself, abandoned her to her fate but now wishes to atone. You love her, though you try to conceal it.”
“I’ve never said as much,” he said gruffly.
She smiled. “I hear it in your voice, and see it in your actions. Why keep a night vigil over your wife, subject to the whims and instructions of nuns, if not out of love?”
How could she understand him so well?
The mother superior had permitted him to visit Eloise—but only while she slept—though she had done so at his brother’s behest. Edwin’s eloquence surpassed Harald’s own as the light of the sun dwarfed that of a candle. Harald’s weapons were his fists and axe, but words and insight—skills Edwin possessed in abundance—had been the only means of securing victory here.
Aye, Agatha had the unsettling ability to see beyond the protective wall Harald had fashioned around his heart and understand feelings and desires he did not understand himself. The gentle scholar within him had been all but destroyed by Margery—the jealous, scheming harlot from his youth who’d abused his trust and destroyed his faith in humanity.
