Page 76 of The Knight's Pledge
“Of course nae. You’ll always be mine and Mari’s lass. If we’d have had wee ones of our’n, we’d have wanted them all just like you—fiery and full of heart.” He reached across himself to squeeze Effie’s hand on his arm. “But then I suppose that’s what the Lord had in mind for us—to have nae one or three bairns,but a hundred.”
“A thousand,” Effie said through a smile.
“And so, as your honorary da,” Gale said with a mock-solemn look, “it’s me duty to tell you that you’re making a mistake.”
Effie froze. “A mistake?”
“With our properknight friend.”
Her cheeks heated. “I know.”
“You canna keep pushing him away like that.”
Effie looked up at himagain. “What?”
“We all knew this day would come, gel. Even you, I suspect. I’m not saying it shallna be hard nor painful, but it’s necessary.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about, Gale.”
“Aye, you do,” he said gently. “But that’s nae matter. You’ll work it out on your own. Only don’t wait too long, ken? You’d nae disrespect either man by pretending that they doona matter enough to you to face it head-on. You’ve always met your battles squarely. That shouldna change, even if everything else will.”
Effie pulled away slightly and sat up straight, as his echoing of Winnie’s prediction faded into the shadows of the quiet common room. “Nothing will change. People make mistakes, is all. Sir Lucan has his own agenda and his own future planned. Gorman is George Thomas’s father.”
“Aye,” Gale said even more gently if it was possible. “But Gorman’s naeonlyGeorge Thomas’s father.”
Effie turned a confused frown up to him. “I must be tired. I’m not followingyou very well.”
“You will if you think upon it.” Gale gave her a pair of firm pats between her shoulder blades and slid out from the bench. “Come now—let’s setout the bread.”
* * * *
Lucan Montague didn’t show his face at dinner, and no one mentioned it at all amidst the happy chatter over the meal—not even Gorman. And although Effie gratefully allowed herself to be drawn into the familiar meal pattern of the White Swan, she couldn’t help her darting eyes that kept fitful watch of the doorways.
Where was he?
She knew the fact that no one had asked where the dark knight was was even more telling than his absence. It was a rule in the group that no one—no one—went anywhere alone beyond the Warren, not even at the Swan.
And after George Thomas, not even once they were returned to the Warren,she suspected.
Soon dinner was over, and the drinking began. Drinking and dice and draughts—a last night of pleasure before the hard road that lay ahead. Dana took charge of Gale’s little lute and sang lovely old ballads in a breathy voice. Effie picked up the last tray and walked back to the kitchen in Mari’s old, swishing skirt where several of the rescued girls were doing the washing up with the proprietress, smiling, joking, amidst the clattering of knives and cups.
“Thank you, my dear,” Mari called over their heads with a smile. She was in her element now, Effie knew.
She stepped back toward the door. “I’m for the pit,” she said, neither loudly, nor in a whisper. No one answered her, no one looked her way. She backed against the plank slowly and pushed it open just enough to slide through, and then she eased it closed.
The yard was dark, and the wind cut through the space like little whipping ropes, slashing at her thin blouse and molding the skirt to her legs. The only lights ahead of her in the dark night came as little sparkles through the timbers of the horse stable. She wrapped her arms about her and setoff at a trot.
Effie pulled open one half of the double door and slipped inside, feeling her shoulders relax at once as the warm, humid smells enveloped her in a welcoming embrace. Four torches lit the space over the stone thresholds at either end. Lucan’s head popped up over a half wall at the very last stall as the door creaked shut.
“It’s only me,”she called out.
“Oh.” He stepped from the stall into the aisle, a saddle bag dangling from one hand. “Is everything alright?”
“You weren’t at dinner.”
“Mari brought me a round.”
“What are you doing out here?”
