albot was quite pleased with himself. Not only had he coaxed more wine from the serving wench, but she had consented to sit by his side. She was a comely creature, all curves and dimples, more than enough to keep a man’s hands full.albot was quite pleased with himself. Not only had he coaxed more wine from the serving wench, but she had consented to sit by his side. She was a comely creature, all curves and dimples, more than enough to keep a man’s hands full.
She perched beside him, filled his chalice at regular intervals, and was not concerned about the roving of his hand. Talbot was quite certain she was the perfect woman for him.
At least for tonight.
Even better, his crusty uncle deigned to ignore what he did. There was naught worse, to Talbot’s mind, than to be the focus of his uncle’s attention, for that man was demanding beyond all.
If only Millard would show the good grace to die soon.
’Twas a mark of his uncle’s disregard for Talbot that he not only lived but continued to amass yet more wealth and keep it greedily to himself. ’Twas as if Millard tempted Talbot with what that man could not have, at least not yet.
The minstrel sang a triumphant closing stanza about the cursed maid of Kiltorren, and the serving wench sighed into Talbot’s ear. “Is it not terribly romantic?”
Talbot had not troubled to listen to the tale, but he smiled for her all the same. “Wondrously so,” he agreed, then gave her buttocks a hearty squeeze. Romantic tales, he well knew, could make a maid lusty.
But Talbot would have no chance to test the truth of that.
Millard snatched his sleeve, the older man moving so abruptly that Talbot nearly lost another chalice of wine. “Did you hear that?” he demanded, his eyes blazing as if they were aflame.
“ ’Twas some tale, no more than that,” Talbot declared with all the scorn he dared to muster.
That man inhaled quickly. “ ’Twas no mere tale! ’Twas my tale!”
“Truly?” the wench asked, her eyes wide.
Millard’s gaze dropped to the breasts spilling out of her bodice, then rose to her face. “Find yourself a decent kirtle, child,” he said with more gentleness than he ever summoned for his own blood. “There are those here who might misinterpret such a display of your many charms.”
She smiled, then raised a hand to her bodice, flushed, and fled.
Talbot stumbled to his feet and called after her, but to no avail. He snorted disdain. “Thank you, Uncle, for that!”
“You have no time to rut with a serving girl. I have a task for you.”
Talbot rolled his eyes and made to sip his wine. “You always have a task for me, Uncle, and ’tis always one at which I fail to satisfy.”
The chalice never reached his lips, for Millard snatched it away and dropped it on the board with a thud. Before Talbot could grab it again, the older man grasped a fistful of his tabard and gave him a shake.
“You will not dare to fail at this task,” he said with a growl, casting Talbot away from him as if the merest touch was offensive. “Or you shall have no chance whatsoever at seeing any trinket fall from my hand to your own.”
Talbot blinked as he found his footing, the delightful languor of the wine abandoning him in a heartbeat. “If ’tis of such import, why not do the deed yourself?”
“Millard!” came a cry from across the hall. “We parlay at your convenience.” Talbot watched his uncle wave and give a nod, then the weight of that man’s attention was upon him once more.
’Twas not a pleasant sensation.
“My liege lord has need of my presence,” Millard acknowledged through his teeth. “And if you understood anything of the pledge you have taken, you would know the import of that.” His eyes narrowed. “Indeed, Talbot, if I had my choice, I would go in your stead, but the choice is not mine.”
Talbot straightened at the implied insult and brushed down his tabard with care. “You know you can rely upon me, Uncle.”
Millard scoffed. “I know no such thing, but I have no alternative. Did you listen to the minstrel?”
“Nay! Such nonsense is for women alone.”
“Such nonsense will decide your fate. This minstrel sang of a maid of Kiltorren, a beauteous woman abandoned by her lover true.”
“ ’Tis a common enough tale.” Talbot shrugged and tried to reach for his chalice.
Millard neatly interrupted his gesture. “ ’Tis an uncommon tale in its details. You will go to Kiltorren, you will ride out this very night, and you will find this maiden.”
Talbot looked up in astonishment, but there was no mistaking the resolve in his uncle’s gaze. The old man had lost his wits. “Uncle! ’Tis naught but a tale!”
“ ’Tis rooted in truth and I know it well.”
This was madness! “But I do not even know where this Kiltorren lies.”
Millard arched a silver brow. “Had you listened, you would know ’twas on the west coast of Ireland, that the waves of the sea crashed upon its very walls. You would know that the Lord of Kiltorren was blessed with two daughters, the eldest of whom he dispatched to Paris to find a fitting match. You would know that she was a blond beauty unrivalled in that town so filled with blond beauties.”
Talbot’s uncle, in this moment, looked every measure the ferocious warrior. Talbot eased away from the older man.
Millard’s lips tightened. “Had you listened, you would know that she fell in love with a knight, a man with no holding to call his own and no hope of a holding because he was the younger son. You would know that she was compared to the legendary beauty in the tale of the unicorn, the maiden so sweet and innocent that she tamed even the ferocious unicorn, a beast deemed to have no heart of its own before it succumbed to her charm.”
Talbot’s mouth went dry as his uncle fingered the unicorn rampant embroidered in gold upon his deep-green tabard. Indeed, there were elements of this tale that were too familiar for comfort.
“And you would know that she returned to her home in shame,” Millard continued, his voice softening over the words, “her belly ripe with her lover’s child. A child!”
There was an intensity about his uncle’s manner that made a shiver of dread roll over Talbot’s flesh.
“You have heard the tale before?” he dared to ask.
“I have lived it,” Millard retorted. “I have sought this woman in every corner of Christendom for nigh upon twenty years, though clearly I missed this Kiltorren.”
He turned that boring gaze upon his nephew. “You will go there in my stead. You will find this maiden, you will find her child, and you will bring them both directly to me. If you fail, do not trouble yourself to darken my threshold ever again.”
Millard paused, looking as forbidding as only he could. His voice dropped dangerously low. “Am I understood?”
Talbot fought to make sense of what he had just been told, he struggled to see his way clear of this dawning sense of betrayal. After all he had done for Millard, his uncle would deny him an inheritance upon this bard’s tale?
’Twas unfair!
Talbot levelled a cold glance at his uncle and dared to voice his objections. “I am to ride to an estate which may or may not exist, I am to retrieve a woman who has no name, I am to seize a child who may have never seen daylight and who may or may not be your spawn, and if I fail, you will grant me naught?”
“Precisely,” his uncle agreed with satisfaction. “But the woman’s name is Isibeal.”
Talbot knew his eyes boggled.
“I can wait for you no longer than a fortnight,” Millard continued with crisp authority. “If circumstance permits, I myself shall ride to Kiltorren before that time and meet you there.”
Millard frowned. “Do not be so foolish as to fail, Talbot. This is a matter of great import to me.” Before his nephew’s incredulous gaze, Millard turned, his cloak swinging behind him, and strode to the chamber where his liege lord would parlay.
The older man was apparently unaware of the indignation rolling through his nephew. Talbot rose to his feet and lifted his fist as if he would cry out at such injustice, but then his hand fell limply to his side once more.
For truly, Talbot did not have the audacity to challenge his uncle openly. He dared not risk that man’s wrath while there was still a chance of making Millard’s holdings his own.
This Isibeal and her child, though, were another matter.
Nay, Talbot would not play so willing a part in retrieving Millard’s heir, not at his own expense. He drained his chalice in one gulp and bent his thoughts to the question of how he could appear to follow his uncle’s bidding without undermining his own ambition.
There had to be a way.
If Isibeal or her child yet lived, that fact must be changed. And it must be changed before Talbot returned to his uncle’s side, or before that man appeared at Kiltorren.
Talbot dared not linger a moment.
Alys lay in the great soft bed and stretched. ’Twas different indeed to not labor all the day long. On this night, for the first time in many nights, she did not fall into slumber as soon as her head hit the pallet.
’Twas wonderful. Alys surveyed her new chamber yet again, smiling. She folded her arms behind her head and listened to Edana snore. And she permitted herself to dream.
Perhaps she would grant Burke a kiss—just one—to show her appreciation for the change he had seen made to her circumstance. Alys’s toes curled as she guessed how he would respond. Burke would smile a slow smile of delight when he lifted his head. His eyes would shine that silver blue that stole her breath away; he would touch her jaw with a gentle fingertip and send her pulse racing.
Something rapped against the shutters, and Alys jumped at the sudden sound. Her eyes flew open, though silence reigned again.
Another rap followed. This time Alys saw something roll across the floor. She crept from the bed and felt in the shadows.
’Twas a pebble, rounded by the sea.
A third hit the shutters and rolled before Alys could think of how it had come to be flying through the air.
Then a low voice supplied the missing detail. “Alys!”
She smiled despite herself. ’Twas Burke, there could be no doubt of that.
Alys knew she should not respond, but still she did. She opened the shutters and let in the indigo of the night. The sky was full of stars, the wind from the sea hinted of rain. Alys leaned out the window, her loose braid falling over her shoulder, and was not surprised to find a knight staring up at her from the bailey.
“How could I sleep when ’tis raining pebbles?” she demanded playfully, and cast the stone back toward him.
Burke caught the missile with a flourish, then clutched it to his heart. “A token from my lady fair,” he crooned, then his smile flashed.
It seemed safe enough to return his smile with so much distance between them. “You are drunk!” Alys charged laughingly.
“ ’Tis true enough.” He executed a sweeping bow. “I am besotted with the vision of loveliness before me.”
Alys choked on her laughter, knowing she should not encourage his nonsense.
“The moonlight gilds the tresses of my lady fair, the stars dance for her alone …”
“Oh, Burke, promise me that you will never seek employ as a bard,” Alys interrupted with a smile. “The company would cast eggs at your head.”
He chuckled then and propped his hands on his hips. “Truly, your concern for my welfare touches my heart, Alys. I shall treasure this hint of progress in my suit.”
Alys chuckled in turn. “You grasp at the wind, sir.”
Burke shrugged amiably. “You grant me little choice.” His smile faded suddenly. “Come down, Alys. Come talk with me.”
“I cannot talk with you in the moonlight!” Though Alys sounded shocked, ’twas not the suggestion as much as its appeal that troubled her.
“Whyever not? You already do as much and ’twould save much shouting if you joined me here.”
“Indeed, she might compel us to wed without delay for such shocking behavior! That would be a calamity.” Burke feigned dismay so thoroughly that Alys chuckled again. “Come down, Alys,” he entreated again. “Come walk with me so that your aunt cannot overhear.”
Alys glanced to the silvery quarter moon, to the stars filling the sky, to the man waiting hopefully for her response. ’Twas a night made for dreaming, and Alys could not deny herself this one moment.
Would it harm anything if she had a walk in the moonlight to recall for all her days and nights?
“I shall come.” Alys shook a finger at the knight below when he grinned to so readily win his request. “But you shall not steal kisses, nor will you regale me with nonsensical compliments.”
Burke blew her a gallant kiss as his response, and Alys knew better than to trust him in this.
But for this one night, she did not care. Indeed, her fingers trembled as she fastened her kirtle. She crept past Edana and fled down the stairs on silent feet, telling herself that her haste was only to ensure that none heard her passing.
But even Alys knew that was a lie.
Burke could not believe his good fortune when Alys appeared in the shadows of the kitchen portal. He had not expected her to join him, he certainly had not expected her to laugh at his jests.
He captured her hand in his, savoring the way she shivered when he kissed her knuckles. Alys glanced back over her shoulder in trepidation, but Burke touched one fingertip to her lips.
“They all sleep,” he whispered. “And none will know what we do. Believe me, Alys, I will not permit your aunt to raise her hand against you again.”
There was such hope in her lovely eyes that Burke was sorely tempted to sweep the lady away this very night, but he knew he had to win her agreement first. He smiled, but she shook her head and pulled her hand from his.
“You will not be able to stop her, once you have left Kiltorren,” Alys said flatly. She brushed past Burke and walked toward the sea wall.
Burke quickly matched his steps to hers. “ ’Twill not be an issue when you come with me.”
Alys cast a glance his way. “I pledged long ago to not repeat my mother’s error, Burke, so do not try to change my thinking.”
Here was a key to his lady’s secrets, Burke was certain. “What error was that?”
Alys smiled. “She trusted a man, probably a charming one, and to her own detriment. I have inherited much from her, according to Aunt, but I do not want to repeat such a mistake.”
“Tell me of her.”
But Alys shook her head. “You did not summon me out here to hear the tale of my mother.”
“Perhaps I should have. ’Twas you who insisted I should know more of you.”
Alys turned to face him then, her expression indulgent. “Oh, Burke, you are the most cursedly determined man that I have ever met. Do you ever take nay for an answer?”
Burke grinned. “Not when the stakes are of such import as this.”
Alys studied him for a long moment, her gaze searching. Burke hid naught from her, though he did not know what precisely would reassure her doubts. The wind came in gusts from the sea, ruffling his chemise and lifting the lady’s hair; the moonlight painted her features in ethereal silver.
“How is your new chamber?” he asked.
“Most fine,” Alys admitted with a smile, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “I suppose you would demand a token of appreciation?”
Burke grinned. “ ’Twould not be unwelcome.”
The dimple he adored made a fleeting appearance, then Alys leaned closer. She placed one hand on his chest as if to restrain him from demanding more than she offered, then brushed her lips across his jaw. “I thank you,” she murmured.
Burke closed his eyes, stunned by the heat that flooded through him from that one featherlight touch. ’Twas the first time Alys had ever kissed him of her own volition, and the realization made his heart pound.
He felt her move away, and his eyes flew open in time to note the pale splendor of her feet flashing as she hoisted her skirts. She climbed the rubble remaining of the seaward curtain wall. Burke stood transfixed for a long moment, both by her kiss and her fine ankles.
Alys fired a glance back Burke’s way when she reached the low summit of the wall. “What ails you?” she asked. “You look to have been struck to stone.”
Burke grinned and decided not to confide that a part of him had indeed turned as hard as stone.
“There is mischief in your eyes,” the lady accused with a smile.
Burke laughed. He leapt to the top of the wall, caught Alys in his embrace, and kissed her fully while he yet had surprise upon his side. Alys parted her lips beneath his own, the sweetness of her kiss nearly undoing Burke’s resolve. He caught her close and kissed her deeply, loving how she leaned against him, how her arms slowly crept around his neck.
It seemed the moonlight had unfettered his lady’s soul.
Finally Burke lifted his lips from hers, knowing that soon he would not be able to stop his embrace. He swung Alys into his arms and leapt to the sea side of the wall. Then he strode toward the smooth darkness of the sandy beach, certain that all would shortly be put to rights between them.
“Put me down!” the lady insisted.
“You will injure your feet upon these stones,” Burke said evenly. “ ’Twould be most unchivalrous of me to abandon you to such a fate.”
“Again you cite chivalry as your justification. Burke, how can you not see that ’tis my situation alone that attracts you?”
“I love you, and ’tis that which sends me in your pursuit.”
“You desire me,” Alys corrected. She squirmed as they reached the wet stretch of sand, proving that assertion so true that Burke set her reluctantly on her feet.
“But ’tis not enough, Burke,” she insisted, her voice low and imbued with no small measure of determination. “Not nearly enough.” Alys held his gaze tellingly, then stepped past him, walking down the beach.
Burke stared after the lady for a long moment. She insisted he did not know enough of her, that his ardor must be measured by deeds. Now he would learn more of the lady. He cast his mind over all she had said, then strode after her, disregarding the likely damage to his boots as he stepped into the surf. They walked side by side, until finally Alys looked his way.
“I accept your challenge to learn more of the lady who holds my heart,” Burke said, over the steady pounding of the surf. “Tell me a tale of yourself, Alys.”
The lady was somewhat less than cooperative. “There is naught to tell.”
“Nay? What of your mother’s error?”
Alys’s lips thinned. “ ’Tis what made me a bastard.”
“You told me this already.” Burke arched a brow. “Do not imagine that this fact troubles me.”
“My father may have been a common serf.”
“Do you know his identity?”
“Then he might just as well have been a king.” Burke grinned. “You could have been stolen away by pirates when you were a babe, as Nicolette was.”
Alys halted and stared at him. “You know that tale?”
“Of course. Though you sang it more beautifully than I have ever heard before.” Burke smiled. “You have a fine voice, Alys.”
The lady flushed and did not seem to know what to do.
“What happened to your mother?”
Alys sighed and frowned across the endless sea. “She died just after my birth. Aunt insists ’twas of shame, though Heloise said ’twas of a broken heart.”
“Your mother’s error was to love?”
The lady glanced up, her bright gaze impaling Burke. “My mother’s error was to love a man who served her false.”
Her head bowed with the weight of this inheritance and she might have turned away, but Burke caught at her shoulders.
Here indeed was the key to the puzzle, the reason why she did not intend to trust him. Burke was not about to lose the chance to learn it, and he was certainly not prepared to let Alys’s mother’s error stand in the path of his courtship. He touched one finger to Alys’s chin and compelled her to meet his gaze once more.
“Tell me, Alys,” he entreated. “Entrust me with this tale.”
Alys bowed her head. Burke’s hands were warm and reassuring on her shoulders. She felt her defenses crumble beneath his patient silence and knew that on this moonlit night, her resistance to him was dissolving like salt in the sea.
This was a tale Alys had never shared before, a whispered secret she had learned at Heloise’s knee. “If I tell you this tale, will you be satisfied this night?”
Burke’s smile flashed like quicksilver. “Nay, I will not be satisfied until your hand is securely within mine, and that for all time,” he declared, then offered Alys his hand.
She considered his outstretched palm for only a moment before putting her hand upon his. Alys felt for the first time since Heloise fell ill that there was another she could rely upon, if only for this one night. They turned as one away from Kiltorren’s keep and Alys cleared her throat.
“My mother was the elder of two daughters born to my grandparents, the first Lord and Lady of Kiltorren. She was named Isibeal, her younger sister is my Aunt Deirdre. ’Twas my grandfather who built Kiltorren, and ’tis said that he was a man of rare diligence and determination.”
“Did you know him?”
Burke’s thumb moved across the back of Alys’s hand in a leisurely caress. With Kiltorren behind them, ’twas easy to imagine that they two were alone upon this coast. It seemed the night could last forever, and Alys half wished that it would.
“I was young when he died.” Alys smiled softly. “I recall that he bounced me on his knee and sang Norse ditties to me.”
“He was not of Ireland?”
“Nay, he was a Norseman. There is a tale that he came raiding on this coast with a shipload of his countrymen and, with one glance of my grandmother, he was smitten.”
“Ah, then you come by your allure honestly.”
Alys flushed. “Whatever the truth, my grandfather never returned to his homeland. He labored for the local king and won the approval of my grandmother’s family. Finally he earned the right to build a holding and he chose this place.”
“Why? ’Twould not have been the first choice of many.”
Alys smiled. “ ’Tis said he could not bear to be out of sight of the sea. Indeed, he was a man that seemed to fill any space he occupied, a man that should be outside in the wind. I can still hear the way he bellowed and the way he laughed, and recall that he had an enormous silver beard.”
Alys glanced to her companion to find a similar smile gracing his firm lips. “He sounds the perfect grandfather.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps I have created him in my memories, I am not certain.” She sobered. “But it seems to me that the hall rang often with laughter in those days. Perhaps I was merely too young to notice otherwise.”
“Hmm. My mother has been known to declare that we are oft overly quick to dismiss the recollections of children, or indeed their understanding of all around them.”
’Twas a surprisingly sombre comment, and Alys found herself glancing at Burke.
He smiled crookedly. “Do not look so astonished that I have a mother, or even that she has a wisdom about her.”
Alys smiled. “You have never mentioned her.”
Burke sobered and looked away. “She is … formidable.” Then he glanced at her again with an affectionate glint in his eye. Alys wondered whether ’twas for her or his daunting mother. “But, please, continue with your tale of your own mother.”
“You are not bored?”
“Far from it. I am intrigued to learn of the woman who brought you into this world.”
Burke’s gaze was so warm that Alys had to look away in her turn. “Well, here there is a parting of the tale, for Heloise told of it one way while Aunt tells almost the perfect opposite.”
“I would hear the version of Heloise,” Burke said quickly.
“ ’Tis far prettier.”
“And undoubtedly closer to the truth.”
There was little to argue with that. Alys frowned at the waves sliding before her and retreating again. She considered the distant silhouette of Kiltorren, only now realizing how far they had walked.
’Twas stunning to realize how much she did not want to go back. All the same, Alys knew there was little choice. She turned deliberately and strolled toward the keep, welcoming Burke’s presence beside her.
“Heloise maintained that my mother was beauteous beyond all. She declared that Isibeal was as fair as a flower, her hair like gilded sunlight. She said my mother’s laugh could coax a smile from the most dour guest and that my grandfather adored his eldest above all else.”
“I knew Heloise would have a finer tale,” Burke murmured. “Gilded sunlight,” he then mused, and cast a sidelong wink Alys’s way. “I shall have to recall that phrase.”
Alys had no doubt he would, though she would not consider further than that.
“For you see,” she continued, “my grandmother had died while Mother and Aunt were young. Heloise said that Isibeal was the only one who could entreat my grandfather to smile. He retreated to his chamber after his loss, and my mother persisted in visiting him each and every day. ’Twas six months before he emerged, another six before he smiled, by all accounts, and by then they two were inseparable.”
“How old was she?”
“I do not know. Eight or ten summers, by all accounts.”
“Then this is the root of your generous nature,” Burke mused.
Alys glanced to him in surprise.
“ ’Tis true, Alys,” he declared with a smile. “You grant the benefit of the doubt to all, you are loyal beyond expectation. Clearly your mother showed the same trait.”
Alys continued, feeling that Burke discerned overmuch in this tale. “When it came time for my mother to wed, my grandfather found no man in all of Ireland suitable for his beloved daughter. He was determined to find her a spouse beyond all others.
“So my grandfather dispatched her to the care of distant cousins in Paris and charged them to find her a suitable spouse.” Alys bit her lip but could not stop the words. “Heloise said that Cedric was compelled to wed Aunt because he owed Grandfather a debt and no one else would have her.”
Burke laughed aloud. “I think I might like this Heloise.”
“Oh, she has a bitter tongue when she does not favor another, and she does not favor Aunt.”
Burke’s grin did not fade. “Then I quite definitely would enjoy her company. You must take me to visit her.”
Alys chose to ignore this suggestion. “So my mother was sent to Paris and introduced to all and sundry. ’Twas there she met Heloise. Heloise was nobly born, though the last of six sisters and at the bottom of her own father’s list of obligations. My mother knew little of fine Parisian manners, and in the course of Heloise’s instruction, they two became friends against all convention.
“ ’Twas at the king’s own court that Heloise says my mother met my father. My father was a knight, by Heloise’s telling, a chivalrous man though stern of bearing. Apparently he was so bent upon his business at the court that he scarce noticed they two. My mother, though, noted him immediately and brazenly introduced herself. She showed no fear of this man who was known to be a merciless warrior. Heloise says ’twas that audacity alone that snared his eye and her beauty that held it.
“And once he looked, Heloise insists, he could not look away.”
“Two more traits you gain from your mother,” Burke murmured. At Alys’s questioning glance, he smiled wryly. “A rare resolve and a beauty more compelling than might be believed.”
Alys felt herself flush. “You do it again!”
“Ah!” Burke smiled mischievously. “You are stubborn yet fetching, then.”
And Alys could not quell her certainty that she had preferred his first, though more flamboyant, compliment. God in heaven, but the man had a way of addling her wits!
“At any rate,” she said primly, “my mother’s guardians thought little good of this match. It seemed the knight was a younger son and destined to inherit naught at all. Certain that my grandfather would eye any resulting match poorly, they tried to keep the pair apart, but to no avail. They met often, they courted secretly, Heloise said they fell in love.”
“Did he have a name?”
“It was never told to me.”
“They must have been intimate.”
Alys forced a smile. “ ’Tis how I came to be.”
“Indeed.” Burke searched her features and seemed to choose his words carefully. “Yet the knight’s suit was never accepted—it could not have been, if you are illegitimately born.”
Alys shook her head. “My mother came home in shame, pregnant and without a betrothed. Heloise said she met my grandfather while he was bellowing in rage. My mother insisted that her lover would follow and do the honorable deed of asking for her hand.”
Alys turned to look out over the ocean.
“He did not come,” Burke suggested with quiet compassion.
Alys shook her head. “Not a word came from him. My mother lived but a year after I was born. Heloise said that once I was weaned, she surrendered all will to live.”
Alys sighed when Burke said naught. “Heloise remained at Kiltorren, despite the fact that she had no family or friends here in my mother’s absence. She raised me as her own.”
Burke’s lips tightened. “She defended you in this household in your mother’s absence. What of your aunt’s version of events? You said ’twas less flattering.”
“Aunt always insisted that Isibeal was oft confused and readily deceived by the words of men. My mother was pretty but simple, according to her tale, indeed even more simple than Brigid. My mother shamed herself, then she made up tales about my father.”
Burke’s eyes flashed in anger. “That is wicked nonsense to tell a child!”
“You do not know which tale is true!”
“I know that Deirdre holds a malice toward you, a malice that I have no doubt was born of your grandfather’s favor for Isibeal.”
“But …”
“But naught, Alys! By your own word, your aunt was wedded by compulsion, while only the finest would do for her favored sister! No wonder she is bitter—such a fate would vex even a woman born with a sweet nature.” He raised his brows. “And I heartily doubt that Deirdre ever suffered that affliction.”
“But, Burke, ’twould be like Heloise to change a tale to see me smile.”
“Because she loved your mother and was loyal to her friend’s memory,” he insisted. “Because she cherished the dream of her friend’s great love. Because she loved you and she wanted you to know the truth.”
Alys frowned. “But if my father truly loved my mother, why did he not follow her?”
Burke spread his hands. “There could be a thousand reasons …”
“Nay,” Alys declared forcefully. “There can be but one.” She pulled her hand from the warmth of Burke’s. “He used the lie of love to steal her maidenhead, then once he had had his due, he abandoned her and me.”
They reached the portal to the kitchen and paused. The knight studied Alys for a long moment, and she feared that he saw more than she would prefer he glimpse.
“And here is where you take your lesson,” he suggested quietly. “That a knight’s claim of love is not to be trusted.”
Alys lifted her chin. “I have the wits to make a better choice for myself than my mother did.”
But Burke shook his head. “Nay, Alys. All you will win upon this course, even with your wits about you, is solitude.” He smiled slowly. “Mercifully, I have taken it upon myself to persuade you that you are wrong.”
While Alys fought to find an argument to that, Burke bent and brushed his lips across her brow. ’Twas a measure of that man’s cursed charm that every word that fell from his lips made her doubt what she already knew.
To Alys’s mingled relief and disappointment, he did not press his advantage. She watched as Burke strolled to the stables, her thoughts churning and her brow tingling from his touch.
Burke turned in the portal of the stables. “Sleep well, my Alys,” he called softly. “I shall dream of you sleeping in my chemise.” And he kissed his fingertips, ducking into the stables with a wink.
Alys bit back her smile. The man had an impossible charm!
If only she knew whether to trust him.
But that, she feared, was not something she ever would know with certainty. Alys lifted her skirts and turned for her chamber, never guessing that she was not alone in the kitchen.