Honore.”

Once more, Elias’s voice inserted itself in Otto’s prayers, but it did not sound hoarse or fevered. It was so calm and softly spoken, it was as if she were here and he but acknowledged how pleased he was to see her.

Otto lifted his brow from atop his son’s hand. Elias’s eyes were closed, face unlined and lacking the flush of fever that had set upon him shortly after the physician gave the Lord of Château des Trois Doigts less hope of seeing his son hale again. Was he passing out of this world?

“Non,” Otto groaned and thrust upright. He gripped Elias’s coarsely-bearded face between his hands, and as he had done time and again since his wife bid him, said, “Come back to us, and with my blessing you will wed the one you love.”

Elias’s lids rose slightly. “Methinks I have…” He swallowed hard. “…gone to heaven. But what do you here?”

“You are very much alive, Elias.” Otto retrieved the cup and put it to his son’s lips. Unlike the last time Elias had consciously taken drink, he gulped down the contents.

Otto set a hand on his son’s brow. It was not cool, but neither did it burn.

“I would see Honore.”

Otto hated he lied again, but he would have nothing trouble his son. “As she is so concerned for you she does not eat or sleep well, I sent her and the children with my lady wife to Château Faire for a few days of rest.”

Elias’s lids narrowed. Did he see the falsity on his sire’s face, hear it in his voice? Or did he know the woman too well to believe she would leave him as he lay dying?

“Where is she, Father?”

As Otto searched for an answer that would satisfy without alarming, his son began to struggle onto his elbows.

“Your stitches, Elias—”

“Where is she?”

“Soon she will be here.”

He dropped onto the pillow, said, “She is gone.”

Otto nearly denied it, but there was too much certainty in his son’s voice.

“Did she go of her own will? Or did you send her away?”

Otto eased back onto the chair. “It being mutually agreed she depart as planned, I provided her and the children an escort all the way to Bairnwood. If a channel crossing was possible, she is home.”

Elias released a long breath, closed his eyes.

Otto did not wish him to return to sleep, but as the physician told rest was the best curative, he let his son be.

A quarter hour later, Elias awoke again.

Otto squeezed his arm. “Once you are recovered, I will send for Honore.”

“Why?”

“I gave my word.”

“Your word?”

Did he not recall his sire’s vow that if he pulled himself up out of death he would have the woman he loved? Certes, he had heard nearly every time it was spoken, having eased and several times smiled. If he did not recall—

Non. The word given he would keep. “Time and again I assured you that if you returned to us you could have Honore for your own.”

Surprise lit Elias’s eyes, then anger. “I will not take her to mistress, nor would she so ruin herself.”

“I speak of marriage, Son. If she will have you as I believe she wishes, you will have her as I believe you wish.”

Still his expression remained far from pleased.

“No lie, Elias. When you are recovered, I will bring her back across the narrow sea. You will wed and, I pray, give me grandchildren as quickly as possible. She is, after all, no girl.”

“As I would not have her be.”

“Most evident.” Otto turned to another matter. “I have decided to pass the demesne to you ere my death so I might witness how much more worthy is my heir.”

It seemed Elias might smile. “I require no more incentive beyond Honore to rise from this bed.”

“Still, you will be lord, Elias.”

“It sounds as though…you have a great care for me.”

“More than ever I can say.”

One of Elias’s eyebrows rose, though nowhere near the height to which it surely aspired. “Even now you cannot say it?”

Did it need to be said when it was well enough shown? Otto silently scorned, then acquiesced. “Ever I have loved you, Son. Ever I shall.”

The tears moistening the eyes of a warrior with the heart of a troubadour made Otto uncomfortable, and more so when the sting and blurring of his own eyes told they shone as bright.

“I love you, Father.” It was not the first time Elias had gifted his sire those words, but the mutual profession gave them greater depth.

“Now tell,” Elias said, “why must you bring Honore to me when it is more fitting I go to her?”

The righting of another lie. “You recall I told Neville was dead, our family safe?”

Elias tensed.

“It may not be a lie, but I fear he lives.” Otto blew a breath up his face. “My men were unable to overtake him. Though I pray he does not go to Duke Henry empty-handed, I think it likely. Thus, to sooner relate your version of events that caused you to aid Becket, I sent ahead a missive detailing what transpired.”

Anger again. “You forced it from Honore?”

“I did not. She told me all, and ere departing gave me the missive and instructed me to do with it as I thought best. That I did.”

After a long silence, Elias said, “You say it was mutually agreed she leave, and yet I struggle to believe she would do so until certain of my recovery.”

“She blamed herself for what befell you and feared you would not forgive her. And I blamed her and did not wish you to forgive her. For that, I gained her word she would stay out of your life.” As his son tried to rise again, he closed a hand over his shoulder. “I will send word to her abbess and—”

“I shall go myself. She needs to hear from me I do not hold her responsible, that all the ill was worth the lives of those children, that I would have her to wife, that you will embrace her as Lady of Château des Trois Doigts.” Elias collapsed onto the pillow, shuddered breath out on the words, “I will bring her home.”

“But if Henry—”

“He can as easily punish me here in Normandy as in England. That I will also deal with when I am out of this accursed bed.”

“Will the Wulfriths stand your side?”

“I will not endanger their relationship with Henry. Once I am assured Honore is safe from her king’s wrath, I will go to her.” He closed his eyes. “Now I must sleep.”

Shortly, he breathed deep, and for the next hour Otto counted every rise and fall of his chest. When the physician confirmed the worst was past, Otto dropped to his knees and continued the longest conversation he had ever had with God.

Much gratitude.

Much praise.

Much beseeching that even if Elias and Honore gave him no grandchildren, he would be the father so worthy a son deserved.