Is the tale true?” Honore whispered.

“He embellishes here, unembellishes there—if that is a word.” Lady Susanna smiled. “But it is mostly as told me by Lady Annyn. And her husband did not gainsay her. He but gazed upon her much the same as Everard gazes upon me, as if only half present, the other half praising God for the one he beholds.”

Honore savored the lady’s words that were as nourishing to the imagination, heart, and soul as those penned in the depths of Sir Elias and sent across tongue and past lips for nearly an hour. Upon hearing his voice, she had started to return to her chamber, but the tale of a woman garbed as a man and in possession of a sword had made her lower out of sight on the stairs.

The story had intrigued, and more so knowing there was truth to it, but what entranced was the means by which it was delivered. Sir Elias was no ordinary warrior. He was that of which she had only heard tale—a troubadour knight. And as he had woven his words under and over and in and out of her imagination, she had longed for her foundlings of an age not easily given to fright to sit at his feet. They knew happiness at Bairnwood, but—oh!—to lose big and small hurts in this man’s company.

“Certes, a gift he has,” Honore said low, though the conclusion of the tale had caused those gathered around him—including Squire Theo and Cynuit—to chatter and their feet to creak the floorboards.

“Indeed,” Lady Susanna said where she had lowered alongside Honore upon discovering her on the stairs.

“Were he not noble,” Honore continued, “methinks a good living could be made traveling village to village and castle to castle with such tales.”

The lady laughed softly. “Who says he has not?

Honore stared. “Has he?”

“That is best heard from him though…” Her shrug was apologetic. “…I would wait. Methinks the story of Lady Annyn and Baron Wulfrith has lightened him, but his loss will surely be eager to return to his shoulders. And with one who possesses a heart like his, that loss may be weightier beneath guilt over this brief escape.”

Honore understood, in that moment jagged by guilt at the realization she had escaped fear and worry over Hart. She had gasped, smiled, suppressed laughter, and at times felt so light she was happy.

“Mama! You missed Sir Elias’s tale!”

Both women startled to find the little boy before the stairs, and Honore held her breath as she looked up the man whose hand Lady Susanna’s son held.

“I did not miss it.” The lady gripped the railing and raised her bulk. “Not a single word, did we Honore?” She looked across her shoulder.

Honore hastened to her feet. Unfortunately, the added height made it more obvious she avoided Sir Elias’s gaze, having ventured no higher than his tanned neck.

Less grateful for the gorget’s cover that provided no distraction for the eyes above, the blue of which surely reflected guilt as if she had eavesdropped, Honore set her eyes upon his. “No word did we miss,” she said and wished it were the troubadour knight before her, certain the excitement and joy in his voice had shown upon his face. Once more there was no lightness about it. Once more, she was the woman who accused him of her own wrongdoing.

“A well-told tale, Sir Elias,” she said as Lady Susanna descended the steps. “Many a time I was near breathless.”

His eyebrows rose, then as if she paid him no compliment, he said, “Your cough is resolved?”

As evidenced by its absence that had concealed her presence on the stairs. “I feel better. Lady Susanna tended me well. When you are ready to depart, so shall I be.”

“You are leaving, Sir Knight?” the boy exclaimed.

Sir Elias looked down. “Regrettably, not this day. But God willing, on the morrow.”

“Then you can speak me another tale!”

“Perhaps this eve.”

“About papa and mama?”

“Possibly, or your Uncle Abel and Aunt Helene. Too, I have tales of your aunts Beatrix and Gaenor, and one of my friends Sir Durand and Lady Beata that began upon a storm-tossed sea.”

“And Judas?” The boy’s eyes widened further, and there was no doubt he admired his older cousin.

Sir Elias ruffled his hair, and once more Honore heard lightness in his voice when he said, “Judas as well, though his tale is best told alongside your parents’ tale.”

“That is the tale I want!”

“I make no promise, but I shall do my best to reveal it ere Squire Theo and I depart.”

Honore stiffened. Oversight only? Or did he plan to leave her behind regardless of her health? She descended a step. “May I speak with you, Sir Elias?”

He looked to her, and she wished he retained some of the smile he had gifted the boy. “Of?”

Before she could answer, Lady Susanna said, “We shall leave you to it,” and turned her son back into the hall.

Displeasure flickered across the knight’s face, and she guessed it due to the accusation she had made at the stream.

“Of what do you wish to speak, Honore?”

“As told, I am sufficiently recovered to continue our search for Hart. I seek assurance you will allow me to accompany you.”

He set a forearm on the wall alongside its turning up the stairway. “I fear you and the boy will slow me. Were you able to ride a horse—”

“I am able. If Sir Everard will lend me a mount, I can keep pace.”

“Just because you have been astride a work horse and tugged the reins and tapped it forward does not mean you know how to ride.”

“Certes, not as you do, but as told, I have visited the children placed in homes outside Bairnwood.”

“As also told, never have you been more than ten leagues distant from the abbey. That does not make you able.”

“But I am.” She moistened her lips, and once more tasting the fouled gorget, wished there were time to launder it. “I did not walk my horse all those leagues. I gave it full rein. It was dangerous, but only until Brother Will gave me lessons. And that he did because I sat a horse well. A natural, he said.”

He did not look pleased at being denied an excuse to break their agreement. But that did not mean he would honor it.

Keeping her feet firm on the one step up that allowed her to look directly into his eyes, she pressed, “Provide me with a horse of my own, and I will not fall behind.”

“I believe you will.”

“Do I, I shall not begrudge you for leaving me.”

He glowered. “You think me so dishonorable I would abandon you, a woman, that you find your own way back to Bairnwood?”

The prospect was daunting, but she had a solution. “Methinks I could if necessary, but it will not be. Many are the abbeys across England. You could deliver me to one, and I would be returned to Bairnwood.”

From the pinch of eyebrows and flare of nostrils, he was frustrated, but if it meant she was winning the argument…

He pivoted, but before he could stride opposite, she snatched his sleeve. “Sir Elias!”

The momentum carrying him forward yanked her off the step, and she stumbled against him and might have gone to her knees had he not steadied her.

They were almost as near as when she had sat the saddle before him, but she felt the narrow space between them more than the absence of space when she had rested against him.

She released him at the same moment he released her. Ashamed he so affected her, praying he did not know it, she said, “I am sorry for accusing you of impropriety. My only excuse is you were not alone in suffering Finwyn’s ill. I was not myself. I know one such as me does not…”

She halted her explanation that would not entirely make sense whilst she hid behind the gorget. But before she could correct her course, he said, “One such as you?”

“A…servant.”

The narrowing of his lids told her explanation fell short, and she guessed he was thinking of another servant—Lettice with whom he believed he may have made a child. But had she truly fallen short? After all, he had not wed the woman. In the absence of a ring, he had relations with her.

Wishing she could work a smile on him as some women did to move a man in a direction he did not care to go, she said, “Pray, Sir Elias, keep the word of a Wulfen-trained knight. Until I prove a burden, do not leave me behind.”

He closed his eyes, opened them. “Weather permitting, we depart at dawn. Be ready.”