I knew none of the things she would not tell me, but I knew what she did when people were frightened. Perhaps, for now, a man could begin there.
She looked up at me.
“Are you angry?”
“You may tell me your tale when you are ready.”
Her gaze snapped toward me. “That’s it?”
“Aye. But until you do, the story remains. You are my widowed kinswoman from beyond the western sea.”
She groaned. “That still sounds dreadful.”
“It is a fine story.”
Darcy stared at me before she laughed, the sound making me let out a bark of laughter.
The sound surprised me enough that I almost stopped, though the greater surprise came from the warmth that followed it, swift beneath my ribs.
“So,” she said when the laughter faded, “you’re still protecting me.”
“Aye.”
“Even though you know I’m lying.”
“I know you are not telling me everything. I do not know who you are, Darcy Patterson. Not truly.”
For a moment, the world seemed to narrow to the space between us, and I had the uneasy sense that whatever had begun there was no longer simple enough to dismiss as curiosity.
Then a horn sounded from the southern watch.
One call. Two.
The men on the rise froze as a third blast came, longer than the others. A warning.
I turned toward Ashford just as Wystan burst from the trees below, running hard enough to stumble when he reached the slope.
“My lord!”
Wystan bent double, dragging breath into his lungs.
“Riders crossed the stream.”
“How many?”
He looked up, fear plain upon his young face. “More than fifty.”
Behind him, from somewhere deep in the southern woods, another horn answered.
Norman.
I drew my sword.
“Ring the bell.”
Eight
DARCY