Page 53 of A Constant Blaze

“Assuming what?”

She laughed. “Take your pick. You don’t know whether to despise me for being Adam’s whore or his father’s.”

At last, she’d managed to shake him. Shock stood out in his eyes. He even caught her arm in some instinctive gesture to placate, or perhaps even protect. “No one could despise you after what you have done. As for the rest, God knows I am no arbiter of morals.”

“But you love the lady. You feel for her.”

“I worship from afar,” he said with a hint of self-deprecation. “Like everyone else.”

“And yet you’re close enough for it to hurt more.” The words spilled without permission, but she refused to bite her lip as he gazed at her, his perceptive eyes reading more, no doubt, than she wished.

“Is that how it is for you?” he asked curiously.

“I am no threat to her. I told Donald, so, but God knows if he’d ever remember to explain to her.”

“Did you love Adam, too?”

“Passionately,” she said with a sigh.

“Then I’m glad I returned his gift to you.”

“I am glad to see him happy. With his wife of all unlikely people.”

“You are a cynic, lady. Or try to be.”

She took his arm. “You are so wise, Master Harper. Or try to be. Shall we take a walk?”

*

Although Mairead andAstrid went to the chapel for Vespers, Halla felt too on edge to pray.

It was just after Vespers that Ursula reported the return of the crusader, so there was no question of any of the women attending Compline. The house quietened quickly after that as the monks sought their few hours of precious sleep.

Halla, listening to the deep silence beneath Astrid’s gentle snores, found herself wondering if Malcolm’s prison cell had been larger or smaller than this tiny chamber. Not for the first time, she wondered how he’d stood it, not for mere months or even years, but decades, and her heart ached. He could not be the same man she’d known, not now.

Rising from the bed, still fully dressed, she quietly left the cell and walked as silently as she could along the passage, past Mairead’s door and Ursula’s, around the corner, and up the few steps to the private outside door. Her fingers hesitated on the latch and then withdrew. Turning, she paced all the way back again.

Although it wasn’t yet quite dark, she could no longer make out the colors or figures in the large tapestry. Anyone or no one could stand behind it. She knew that for everyone’s safety, she should return to her chamber, and yet she walked deliberately past her door to the tapestry, where she paused, listening intently.

She imagined it moved ever so slightly; she imagined she heard someone breathing over the drumming of her own heart. She couldn’t afford to believe it. Slowly, she walked the length of the cloth. Someone might have walked with her on the other side, or it might have been the echo of her own, soft footfalls. She stopped when the balustrade became a solid stone wall. No footsteps sounded, no voice spoke. And yet she imagined… No, surely, sheknew.

Slowly, she lifted one hand and touched the fabric of the tapestry with her fingertips.

“Lady,” came a breath from the other side.

Her heart almost jumped into her throat. Now was the moment to retreat before he knew for certain that she, that anyone, had ever been there.

And yet she murmured, “You are the crusader.”

She could actually hear the sardonic amusement in his low voice. “No. It was a misunderstanding I chose not to correct.”

Him. It was definitely him, not Fergus. “Were you…helpingus today?”

“In my own small way.”

“Why?”

There was a pause, as if for consideration. “Chivalry?”

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