Heart heavy over the parting with Thomas, once more Honore tried to distract herself from his choice of words.

Your son, he had said with more than singular meaning, as if she would parent Hart alongside Elias. He erred. And in another thing—that she would further participate in the search for Hart. When she arose in the morn, Cynuit and she would be under the abbot’s protection, Elias and Theo gone.

Having satisfied thirst and hunger, she rose from the wool-stuffed pallet in the room given her separate from the others.

Were they abed? She guessed they must be, having heard no sound from the other side of the wall for a quarter hour.

Though she had raked snarls from her hair and washed her face and hands in a basin of water, still she was unclean, the mud in which she had slipped having soaked through her garments.

Having earlier secured her door, she unclothed and washed the dried dirt from her body, then opened her pack and removed the change of clothes wrapped in linen and bound with twine.

The bundle was so thick she was certain Lady Susanna had provided two changes of clothing, but it was one, the thickness due to quality Honore had only seen worn by ladies of the convent.

She held her breath as she unfolded a lustrous dark red overgown Lady Susanna had said belonged to her mother who had been taller and of a more sizable bosom than herself. Next, an undergown of the same color but of a lighter fabric, then a thin chemise and hose.

These were hardly the garments of a servant. Upon her person she would appear the lady she had played at Gravelines and look far more the impossible—Elias’s wife.

She considered returning them to the pack, but it was either look and feel what she was not or look and feel less than she was. She lifted the chemise above her head. It was so soft and light drifting down over her that it seemed little more than a cool breeze come through a window.

She slid her hands down the fabric. Though Lady Susanna had said she need not return the garments, she would send them to Cheverel when her journey with Elias was done. Once she was back at Bairnwood, there would be no occasion to clothe herself in finery. All this would be memory and, providing Hart was recovered, one secretly cherished. Though not as cherished as…

“Child,” she named herself what one thirty and two years ought to be ashamed to affix to her person. Elias had been within reach only as long as he played the part that made it acceptable for a woman not of ill repute to travel with men.

Fingering the embroidered neckline, she recalled what she had learned of him at Cheverel when Lady Susanna and she attended to his tale, then what the abbot had added in revealing that before the young man became a knight he had been of poems, songs, and dance. And for that had deserted his family and country.

She doubted she would ever know the tale of when the name Cant replaced De Morville, but she longed for it. And him.

Ashamed her heart and mind had drifted so far from where they belonged—with the boy Finwyn had stolen who had likely suffered much humiliation, perhaps even abuse, she considered the comfort of the chapel beyond the door.

More than sleep, she needed prayer.

Refusing to allow herself to linger over the fit and feel of her garments, she donned hose, undergown, and overgown. And paused over damp slippers she had wiped as clean as possible, the insides having been nearly as muddied as the outsides. Since the altar could not be more than twenty paces from her room, she could do without footwear.

Though tempted to leave the gorget ever she removed whilst at prayer, until certain she was alone in the chapel she would wear it. But not the veil.

Quietly, she unbolted her door so she would not rouse those sleeping in the next room, and opened it only wide enough to slip through. Leaving the door ajar, she traversed the short corridor amid the whisper of skirts rather than the rustle to which she was accustomed.

She did not realize her hands had caught up material as soft as a babe’s skin until shivers coursed her sensitive palms.

She splayed her fingers, clasped her hands at her waist, and surveyed the chapel lit by a dozen candles on the altar. She had it to herself.

Continuing forward, she tugged down the gorget, then prostrated herself behind a wide kneeler where she would finish her prayers after the chill floor ensured it was her beseechings rather than the breath of sleep in God’s ears.

As she settled in, she felt a presence and nearly looked around lest she was watched by one of flesh.

It is our Lord in this Holy place, she assured herself. He who sees me. He who hears me. He who will save Hart.

The dark red of a rose. And nearly the shape, as if that flower in full bloom, cupped in the hand of God, had loosed the first of many petals and that single one drifted from on high to the floor before the altar.

Kind Susanna. Before Elias could ask her to provide Honore a change of clothes, she had informed him she had done so, but he had not thought to ensure she chose ones that would not draw attention. The color of the gown was extravagant, the quality and style befitting a most noble lady.

For an hour of the first watch Elias had taken, he had stood at corridor’s end observing the woman who sought to slip from her room without awakening others. But he had heard her restlessness on the other side of the wall, then the slow slide of the bolt and opening door.

He had let her go, guessing she wished to pray. And so she did, though as fatigued as she was, he had expected she would not long prostrate herself. If not for occasional whispers that revealed she had lowered the gorget, he might have thought she slept.

Having exited the room shared with Theo and Cynuit only after he could do so without alerting her to the watch he kept over her, he had come too late to glimpse the face now exposed to the floor, but when she rose he should be able to see all of it—providing she completed her prayers before the candles snuffed their charred wicks in pools of hot wax.

He shifted his shoulders where he leaned against a wall, rolled his head side to side, stilled when Honore sat back on her heels.

Chin lowered, hair curtaining her face, she remained unmoving as if she yet prayed, then stood.

Elias straightened in anticipation of returning her to her room, but she kept her head down. Yet denying him the whole of her face, she stepped to the altar, settled on the kneeler, and clasped her hands atop the shelf. Doubtless, more prayer for Hart.

That thought led to another that had not found its end. Did he or did he not allow Honore and Cynuit to accompany him to Saint-Omer? Garbed in such vibrant clothes Honore would draw attention, but not the unwelcome sort for any searching for the party that included a woman simply clothed—providing she could be persuaded to eschew the gorget whose unusual placement made her appear to be from middle eastern lands.

That would decide it. If she agreed, she would depart with him ere dawn.

So he would not startle her, he strode forward absent stealth. But she remained at prayer, even when he halted alongside her.

He considered the kneeler and was moved to join her, it being weeks since he had humbled himself in prayer.

“Elias,” she whispered.

Surprised by her acknowledgment, he lowered beside her. And there was the reaction expected, which made him feel the fool for not realizing it was in prayer she spoke his name—head snapping around, candle-lit eyes springing wide, lips…

Her imperfectly bowed mouth opened to take in breath she expelled on a cry that she tried to shove back inside by clapping a hand over what the gorget had hidden.

“Honore!” Elias turned a hand around her arm, rose with her, and lost hold of her when she wrenched away. He could have caught her back, but lest she think he aggressed, he engaged his longer stride, passed her, and turned into her path.

With a flurry of red skirts and tumble of golden hair, she halted. Above the hand gripping her lower face, she looked from him to the corridor beyond.

“Forgive me.” He raised a hand. “I did not—”

She sprang to the side.

He followed. “Honore, hear me.”

“Non!” Her muffled protest became a whimper when her flight ended in a corner to the right of the altar. Back to him, she said, “Leave me!”

Not wishing to incur accusation of trespass as dealt at the stream, he left ten feet between them. “Do not fear me.”

“Pray, go!”

“Honore—”

“Go!”

He sighed. “I am coming to you.”

She swept around. Hand over her mouth, she looked right and left, then as if accepting she could not slip past him, thrust her back into the corner.

He halted, leaving a reach between them.

Honore turned her face to the side, as best she could distancing him from what he now knew was scarred though in Sandwich he had thought the distortion a shadow.

“Do not look at me!” With her free hand, she snatched at the material gathered beneath her chin.

“Why?”

Her eyes flicked to his, flicked away. “You have seen why.”

“So I have, and for that I ask what you do not answer.”

“It needs no further answer! Cease playing with me.”

He stepped nearer. When he caught the fingers seeking to position the gorget, her chin came up. As she strained to free herself, he saw her other hand clasped her lower face so tightly its nails would leave marks.

“Honore, I do not play—”

She snatched her fingers free, but also the gorget. Its ties having come undone, her arm’s forward motion pulled it from her shoulders and loosed it from her hold. As she grabbed for it, she came up against Elias.

Cupping her shoulder, he eased her back. “I do not mean to distress you.”

Her lashes swept up.

“My word I give, I play no game.” He smiled encouragingly, then lifted his other hand and set his fingers on the backs of hers that marked her face. “Let me look closer upon you.” Lightly, he drew his thumb across the side of hers pressed beneath her nose.

She shook her head, between her fingers said, “I am no monster, nor devil-touched. I am the way God made me.”

Then what he had seen was no injury. This the reason for her passion for foundlings? Once she had been one? “This I know. Do you think it makes me feel differently toward you?”

“Of course it does.”

She was right, the attraction he battled for feeling what he should not so soon after Lettice’s murder had grown. The bowed mouth he had imagined as perfectly shaped was not, one of two gentle ridges between nose and lips far from gentle. But not unsightly, though from her reaction someone had named it that. It marred her loveliness but was naught against the whole of her—like a small bruise on a sweetly crisp apple fallen from its branch whilst its sisters clung to their places among the leaves in the hope someone thought them perfect enough to climb up after them. Many there, especially amongst the topmost branches, would go to rot whilst the fortunate passerby delighted over what he nearly trod upon.

“You do feel differently,” she said.

He pulled himself out of his imaginings. “You are right, but what I feel is opposite what you fear.”

She gasped. “You think to dangle me from a string!”

“I do not.” He dipped his thumb against the base of hers, gently pried at her hand. “Show me, and do you watch me, you will see what I see.”

Her gaze wavered. “Elias,” she protested but ceased resisting.

He eased her hand down, and as he shifted to allow candlelight to more clearly illuminate her face, felt the intensity of her moist gaze. He did not fear it, since he need not engage the actor to hide revulsion over a scar that began just shy of her nostril and coursed a fairly straight line down the right bow to the indented under curve of her lip that hitched slightly above even teeth. What he feared was the longing to know her mouth better by way of his own.

“Words forsake you,” she whispered. “I do not know it is better than speaking as you find.”

Raising his gaze in which she would have to imagine revulsion to find any, he said, “I think you more lovely.”

Anger leaping from her, she raised her chin higher. “You are more adept at playing a part than thought. Though this is no longer monstrous as it must have been upon a babe ere it was sewn closed, there is naught lovely about it.”

“Honore—”

“Unless your sight is exceedingly poor, you can see how wrong my lip is.”

“I see the scar, and it is a small thing.”

She laughed derisively. “You speak the same as Lady Susanna.”

“She looked upon you?”

“I did not mean her to, but she did—and said the same as you, though I know not how either of you can expect me to believe it.”

“We speak in truth. It is a small thing.”

“It is not! It drags up one side, making me appear to sneer. Not even a young, beautiful woman appeals when disgust contorts her mouth.”

“You are wrong. For this ever you hide half your face?”

“I do not. I refuse to be ashamed. I…” She seamed her lips.

“Continue.” He bent his head so near he felt the warmth between their brows. “I want to understand.”

Honore peered up at the man who set himself over her, his breath mingling with hers that stole past lips he would have her believe did not disfigure her face. Only once before had she found herself like this, a slight lean and tilt of the head away from her first kiss.

“Tell me,” Elias said.

Here in God’s house was not the place to do so with their bodies touching, but she said, “His name was Uther, a young monk who accompanied his bishop to Bairnwood. He was handsome and kind. When I was ten and six, he happened on me in the courtyard. We walked and talked, and he asked the reason I wore the gorget as I do.” She swallowed. “I told him a lady of the convent insisted I cover my lower face when I moved amongst her and others. He said he did not know why that was necessary, as pretty as I was, and surely she was jealous. We were very near, and when he said it was impossible to kiss a girl with her mouth hidden, I could not think what to say or do. Then he lowered the gorget and…” She swallowed. “He did not like what he found and crossed himself all the way out of the courtyard and never again did he accompany the bishop.”

“Then he was more a fool and even less a man of God,” Elias growled.

Her throat tightened. “I did not give him sufficient warning and, unlike you, he was not adept at bending his feelings out of their natural shape.”

“You think that is what I do? That is why I do not fumble for words and distance myself?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Does not Elias Cant know well his audience?”

“It is not the troubadour before you, Honore. It is Elias De Morville whom you wrongly judge. Hence, no reason to hide your face and no cause to fear my wrath.”

His wrath? Why did he think she—?

She nearly caught her breath at the realization he thought this the other thing she had kept from him besides Thomas’s identity. But then, as she had said it had little bearing on what they did in France, the covering of her lower face was a better fit than the reality of Finwyn’s claim on Hart.

“Believe me,” he prompted.

“If ’tis true my sneer does not trouble you, Elias, it is only because candlelight is far kinder than Uther’s light of day.”

“I would not have you judge me by another man’s feeble, childish behavior, Honore. But if you must, I think there a remedy for that which you name a sneer.”

“You think wrong. My defect was remedied as much as possible, for which I am grateful since it allows me to work with foundlings without cover that would otherwise make them fearful of me.”

“What I speak of is a smile, Honore. Surely you know how to do that, even if only for your little ones.”

She gasped. “That is your remedy? Simply smile and my scar will disappear?”

“As long I have known how beautiful your eyes”—

Long? She snatched hold of the word that made it sound as if years had passed since they met.

—“and now how pretty your teeth, methinks if you add a slightly imperfect smile even Bairnwood’s foul noblewoman would find naught amiss. So oui, simply smile.”

Feeling more heat than her new garments could impart, Honore said, “If you are right, and I do not think it, what am I to do when there is naught to smile about?” It was a silly, argumentative question, but more and more she feared what he did to her. If she frustrated or angered him, perhaps he would give her space to distance herself.

“There is almost always something to smile about,” Elias said, “even if but for the moment, even if that moment can be had only by casting into the past—or future.”

“If only for a moment, why bother?” she furthered the argument.

“The sweetest of life is made of moments—”

“As are the vilest.”

Were candlelight on him as much as her, she was certain she would see frustration. “Hence,” he said gruffly, “seek the moments you would have number themselves into years. If you are blessed, they will.”

Here the poet, seemingly without effort sliding words onto her emotions like beads on a string. And Elias was the clasp toward which her heart aspired—one that would never be strong enough to allow moments over which to smile and dream to number into years.

Infatuation, she told herself. From it you can recover, but do you not cease, ever you may carry the hurt of what cannot be.

For this she was grateful he would leave her at Clairmarais. For however long it took him to deliver tidings of his search for Hart, alongside prayer for the boy’s recovery she would pray away what she ought not feel for this man.

She moistened her upper lip, winced over the dip. “I require my gorget, Sir Elias.”

“You do not.”

“While I am out in your world, I do. Pray, step away so I may retrieve it.”

“You have naught to hide. As told, you are lovely. As not yet told, henceforth it is of benefit you not—”

“Lovely enough to kiss?” Scorn leapt from her even as regret over the impulsive response landed like a stone in her belly. If not an invitation, it sounded a challenge. If not a challenge, pleading.

“I-I did not mean that.”

His eyes lowered to her mouth, and she realized no air moved between them. Then he angled his head.

When she jerked back and her head struck the wall, Elias slid a hand into her hair and gently probed her scalp. More than ache there, she felt the warmth of his touch like embers that slowly, languorously drifted up through her. “Forgive me,” he said, “I did not mean to startle you. I believed you ready to be kissed.”

Then he had thought it an invitation.

The servant of Bairnwood wishing he would remove his person from her, the never-before-kissed woman hoping he would not, she said, “I know it sounded that, but they were only angry, thoughtless words.”

“Then you do not wish to be kissed?”

“Not by one who does not truly wish to kiss me.” More words she regretted.

“What of one who more than wishes to kiss you?”

The shake of her head was nearer a shudder. “I would be a fool to believe you so inclined.”

“And I would be a fool not to kiss you, Honore.”