Only one day more. And on this, the eve of their wedding, Lothaire made of it the same as he had every day past—riding out early to do the work of wool.

Watching him and a handful of men-at-arms grow distant, Laura did not yield to resentment. Too much she admired the man with whom she would spend the remainder of her life. Though many a nobleman would seek to improve his circumstances by tourneying or selling his sword arm to the highest bidder, she suspected few would debase their nobility by laboring alongside commoners. As seen nearly every eve Lothaire returned to the castle disheveled and damp from his attempt to wash away the filth, and as told by Clarice who had accompanied him several times, he did not merely oversee the work. He cast himself into it.

When the sun made to mount the sky in earnest—gripping its pommel, fitting its stirrup, swinging itself atop the horizon—Lothaire and his men went from sight, the only evidence of the path they had taken the disturbance of the morning mist and slow descent of dust kicked up by hooves.

Lingering atop the gatehouse she had ascended unbeknownst to her betrothed, Laura felt the regard of the garrison and castle folk beginning their day’s work in the smithy, stables, and laundry. They were curious, and doubtless more so knowing though she was their lord’s first betrothed, only now she was to be his wife. She nearly cringed, certain the reason their betrothal had taken ten years to come to fruition was also known. Not that Lothaire would have revealed it, but others would have since Clarice’s birth had not been hidden. And certainly Lady Raisa would not wish it believed her son was at fault.

It would not be easy for Laura to earn the respect of these people, but she would—and in doing so honor her husband.

Breathing the scent and warmth of the new summer day, she looked to her hands. They were not entirely healed, but on the morrow it would not be necessary to don gloves. Only if one looked near upon them would they find proof of the discomfort borne these past days, which would have been less tolerable lacking the physician’s salve. At least in that Martin was competent. And Laura was further grateful for his near absence, whether of his own will he avoided her or Lothaire had warned him away.

Regardless, there was much to do in preparation for the morrow’s wedding and feast. And Clarice, who had made an effort to hide her disappointment over assisting her mother rather than riding out with Lothaire, would learn more duties of a lady.

Minutes later, Laura thanked the porter by name and stepped into the hall in advance of its emptying with the physician’s departure by way of the stairs.

“Come see what we have done, Mother!”

Not empty after all, Laura corrected as she followed her daughter’s voice to the left corner opposite the high table where the girl stood with two others around one of four many-branched candlesticks. The smithy had returned them to the hall on the day past, having straightened out their bends and mended their breaks. They were elegant again, and more so fit with tallow candles as tall as Laura’s forearm and so white they appeared lit in the absence of flame.

“Lovely,” she said when she stood with the others peering upward. “The feast shall be all the more special. I thank you, Clarice and Tina—and you, Sir Angus, not only for arranging the repairs, but your height which I am certain is responsible for seeing the candles properly fit.”

He dipped his head. “I am glad to be of service, my lady.”

“As am I,” a voice called, and they looked around at Sebille who moved toward them from the dais.

Doubtless, she had been breaking her fast at the high table, rendered mostly invisible garbed as she was in a gown of nondescript color and by how quiet and still she could be.

The lady halted before Laura, looked to the knight. “Shall we fit the rest of the candles, Sir Angus?”

His smile was taut. “I thank you, but as you see, Lady Clarice and the superb Tina have all in hand.” He nodded at the two who held baskets of candles, winked at the latter.

Even had Laura not seen the hurt flash across the lady’s face, she would have felt it. “I could use your help, Lady Sebille,” she said. “I must finalize the menu with Cook and would be grateful for your…” She trailed off as Lothaire’s sister turned on a toe.

“Is she angry?” Clarice asked when Sebille disappeared up the stairs.

“No more than usual,” Angus muttered and grimaced when Laura shot her gaze to his.

“She is not friendly,” Clarice said. “Nor the physician. Do you not think it too, Tina?”

“Methinks it best I keep my opinion to meself whilst we set the rest of these candles.” The maid bustled toward the candlestick to the right of the high table, and Clarice ran to catch up with her.

“I know,” Sir Angus said. “I should not have winked at your maid.”

Laura sighed. “I think not.”

“Fire!” Sebille’s cry spun Laura around and caused Sir Angus to lunge toward the stairs.

“Stay with Tina, Clarice!” Laura called as she followed the knight.

Before she reached the stairs she smelled smoke, halfway up she saw its haze, and upon reaching the landing she glimpsed Sir Angus darting into the chamber Laura shared with Clarice and Tina.

“Out, Sebille!” he shouted.

A moment later, the lady exited with the force of one flung. She slapped hands to the wall opposite the door from which smoke puffed, pushed off, and stumbled down the corridor.

“Do not go in,” she rasped and caught hold of Laura’s arm.

“Sir Angus—”

“’Tis mostly smoke, Lady Laura. Methinks something was set too near the brazier.”

“I have put it out!” the knight called and gave a hacking cough.

Laura ceased resisting Sebille’s effort to hold her back, and as she waited for the knight to emerge, wondered what had caught fire. There was a chair near the brazier, but not too near, and Tina swept the rushes well back from the source of heat lest a spark set all afire. So what had fallen victim to coals that had little to recommend them after holding back the night’s chill?

Shortly, Sir Angus appeared amid the smoke. “Come away,” he said and gripped the women’s arms. “I used the basin of water to douse the offender and threw open the shutters, but it will be some time ere the chamber is fit to enter.”

“My wedding gown is in there,” Laura said as he drew them down the corridor.

“If ’twas the same placed near the brazier, my lady, it is too late.” He coughed, cleared his throat. “That is what I doused. I am sorry, but it is ruined.”

Laura gasped. How was it the gown fashioned of Eleanor’s generosity and Tina’s hard work was lost? “’Twas draped over the chair’s back,” she protested as he assisted them down the stairs up which servants bounded. “How could it catch fire?”

“The chair was toppled, my lady.” He paused to instruct the servants in remedying the damage, and when he and the ladies resumed their descent said, “’Tis possible a dog overturned it, mayhap the one with whom your daughter likes to keep company.”

Had it been Tomas? He was so large and smelled so foul Laura discouraged Clarice from allowing the animal in their chamber. Had the beast ventured abovestairs in search of the girl? That made little sense as Clarice had been in the hall where Tomas dwelt when he was not out of doors.

“Mayhap it was…” Sebille’s suggestion died amidst a cough so terrible the knight halted on the stairs to allow her to bend and clear her lungs.

When she straightened, tears streamed her cheeks.

“What do you think it was, my lady?” Laura asked.

Sebille averted her gaze. “Silly me. I thought it might be the wind come through the windows, but Sir Angus told he opened the shutters to let out the smoke.”

Absurd, even had the shutters been wide open on a morn cooled by a breeze of so little force one had to close their eyes to confirm its presence. Nay, Sebille had nearly said something else, perhaps of detriment, though not to herself. To her mother who was not as bedridden as she wished Lothaire to believe and who was opposed to her son wedding a harlot? Had Lady Raisa once more descended to the second floor? Tipped the chair into the brazier? Made ruin of a wedding gown befitting a relation of the queen but not a licentious bride?

Laura was barely aware of stepping into the hall until her daughter and Tina rushed upon her.

“What happened, Mother?”

For the first time since Laura had seen Lothaire away, her gaze fell upon the scraggly Tomas who loped alongside Clarice. Was he only recently returned to the hall? She hoped the accident could be blamed on him, for how else could it be unintentional?

“An accident,” she said as Lothaire’s knight moved past and summoned more servants. “My gown was too near the brazier in our chamber. It caught fire.”

Tina gasped. “How, my lady? The chair was—”

“’Tis most fortunate Lady Sebille went abovestairs when she did,” Laura talked over her and received a knowing look from the maid. “And Sir Angus so quickly put it out.”

“A fine man he is,” Tina said.

Sebille stiffened, snapped, “That is not for a servant to say.”

Tina cast her gaze down. “Forgive me, my lady. I forget meself.”

“Certes, you do.” Lothaire’s sister glanced at the knight who had paused in directing the servants in what was required of them to set Laura’s chamber aright. “I must ensure the Lady of Lexeter is unaffected,” she said and turned back to the stairs.

Laura squeezed Tina’s arm. “You did naught wrong. She is simply prickly.”

“I like her even less,” Clarice declared. “Mayhap not at all.”

Laura sighed. “Methinks her life has been difficult.”

“Once more you sound like Lady Maude, Mother. Why does a difficult life grant one permission to make the lives of others difficult?”

Laura was first struck by the obvious—that in such a way Lady Maude had likely excused the minimal presence of Clarice’s mother by telling her life had been difficult. Next, she was struck by how wise the girl’s reasoning.

“You are correct, Clarice. No matter our circumstances, we have no right to wield them as weapons that reduce others to our state of sorrow.”

Clarice’s brow smoothed, and she shrugged. “What will you wear for your wedding?”

“I have many a gown. I am sure one will suit just as well.”

Nay, better, she silently amended. She would have been uncomfortable so splendidly garbed that she looked like royalty. Too, Lothaire preferred her in simpler gowns as she also preferred. And then there were the rest of the pearls and beads she would have had to pick free.

* * *

“I had near given up hope of seeing you ere the wedding,” the priest said as Lothaire swung out of the saddle.

“I pray you will forgive me for not coming sooner.” Lothaire looped the reins over the top rail of the fence enclosing the churchyard.

“Ever the work of wool,” Father Atticus said.

“Until Lexeter is restored.” Lothaire adjusted his sword belt as he followed the priest toward the church. “I will not enter,” he said, knowing the man would insist and, as usual, lose the argument. Though Father Atticus was adamant the Lord was not offended to receive within His house one who evidenced hard, honest labor, Lothaire could not cross the threshold even though he had washed in the stream before leaving the bulk of the day’s shearing to the workers.

“Then let us sit on the bench.” The priest gestured to the left of the church doors.

“That was easier than usual,” Lothaire said.

The man chuckled. “Two boys are on their faces before the altar repenting for stealing every last berry from widow Magda’s bushes. I would not have the rascals listen in on us.”

Lothaire lowered to the bench beside the priest and could not contain his sigh over how good it felt to be still, something he was usually too fatigued to savor when he dropped into bed.

The all-knowing Atticus left him to it until Lothaire’s own impatience made him lift his head. “Let us be done with it, Father.”

“So you may sooner work through the remainder of daylight?”

“It shall sound prideful, but I am amongst my best workers.”

The gently aging man snorted. “Were you not of the nobility, methinks we would have to pray hard for your soul.”

Lothaire glanced down his worn, stained tunic and chausses. “My mother would argue that because I am of the nobility we ought to pray hard for my soul.”

“So she would. And be wrong, bless her.” He did not like Lady Raisa any more than she liked him, but any word he spoke against her was ever with apology and oft followed by a blessing as if to absolve her of wrongdoing. Setting his forearms on his thighs, he clasped his hands. “Lady Laura Middleton.”

Lothaire inclined his head. “Twice my betrothed.”

“You must know I am remembering the day you spurred past my church as if the devil had hold of your hair, then reined around so violently you were nearly unseated.”

“I do know.” In this moment, it seemed almost the day past he had cursed and shouted and cried every league between Owen and Lexeter. Until Laura’s betrayal, he had thought it fanciful that the thing beating in his chest could break over love lost, but so much pain had radiated from it that all he could think was he must get to High Castle and give himself into the physician’s care. But as he urged his horse past Thistle Cross, he had glimpsed Father Atticus.

“You are no longer that young man, Lothaire, and I am proud of who and what you have become. Sometimes you act out of anger and speak words you ought not, but mostly you recognize your errors soon enough that you hardly need my counsel.”

Lothaire raised an eyebrow. “I shall always need your counsel. If you are considering leaving Lexeter, pray think again.”

The priest tapped the younger man’s knee, jutted his chin toward the churchyard. “I shall be buried there, though not for many years yet, God willing.”

“I am glad to hear it. Now forgive me, but the sun does not rise any higher and I—”

“Wool,” the man drawled. “Very well, I will get to the bone of the matter. Can you forgive Lady Laura her indiscretion? If not, how can I help you make a better marriage than that of your parents?”

Lothaire linked his hands between his knees. “I want to forgive her, and I think I could, but that requires trust. And I cannot give it as long as the one with whom she betrayed me stands between us.”

“You speak of her daughter.”

“I do and do not. Though when I look upon Clarice she moves my mind to the man who fathered her, more I see her mother. It makes me want my Laura back, for her to long for me as she did ere she longed for another. And still longs for another.”

“Still?”

“She denies it, but…” Lothaire shook his head. “It matters not if I reveal what I saw at Castle Soaring. She had the chance to explain it and did not.”

“But it does matter, my son, especially if you are wrong about what you saw, which will only raise the wall higher between you.”

Lothaire looked to his hands. Should he demand an explanation of what he had witnessed? “Her lies will only anger me.”

“If she lies. She cannot defend herself or ask for forgiveness unless you show the sword behind your back.”

Lothaire pushed a hand through his hair, loosing a hank from the thong—the same Durand Marshal had shortened a year past whilst proving his superior sword skill. “I know you are right, but regardless of whether she longs for her lover, better I could trust her if she told me of her own will.”

“If she trusted you.”

“I am the betrayed, Father.”

“Lothaire, do you recall what I said the day you were so broken you vowed not to love again?”

He did, the priest’s understanding and discretion having prevented Lothaire from being overwhelmed by shame for the tears he shed and the cracking of a voice he had thought himself long past. “You said I would find earthly love again if I aspired to love the Lord and His ways first and above all.”

“Do you?”

Lothaire drew a deep breath. “I do, then I run afoul as I did with Lady Beata. In that the Lord was not first. He appeared only in the vows we spoke that we should not have.”

“You found your way back.”

“I should not have had to find my way back.”

“You think yourself more godly than me, Lothaire Soames?”

“Of course not!”

Father Atticus chuckled. “Could I wager, I would bet a goodly sum when I was the years you are now that a week did not pass I had not to find my way back to the Lord.”

Lothaire did not know the man’s age, and he claimed not to know himself, but he would not be surprised if much of the priest’s struggle was a result of clashes with Lady Raisa.

“Blessedly, the Lord provides a map.” Father Atticus tapped his chest. “But—oh!—the times I have tried to excuse my behavior by making as if I misplaced it. If you use your heart and think, speak, and act first out of love for Him, your marriage may prove one that seems of too short duration. Thus, when one of you loses the other, the pain will be bearable knowing your destination is the same, your own journey but delayed.”

Lothaire thought that too much to hope for, but he did not gainsay this man who had filled the hole left by the disappearance of Ricard Soames whilst schooling the boy in his faith—until Lady Raisa and the priest clashed one too many times.

“As ever, I am owing to you, Father. I thank you for your wisdom.”

A pat to the hand. “Either give your lady the chance to defend herself or let the past go and accept her as she is and will become. ’Tis the only way to move forward.”

Thinking his audience with the priest was at an end, Lothaire started to stand, but Father Atticus said, “You shall see your mother situated upon her dower property?”

“As soon as she is well enough to make the journey.”

“Her health continues to deteriorate?”

“Aye. She accepts my marriage is necessary, but I think it has been hard on her heart. Though I keep her isolated from Lady Laura and her daughter, she has rarely arisen from bed since my betrothed’s arrival—as you know, not even to attend her husband’s service and burial.”

“She has not forgiven him.”

Lothaire shook his head. “And never will, methinks. But I believe she would have been at the service had she been able to arise.”

“Her end may be near, my son. At long last, peace for a hurting and angry soul if she will but seek the Lord. I pray when the time is nigh, she will summon a priest.”

“Would you come, Father?”

“If she asked for me.” He sighed. “What of your sister? She remains determined to accompany your mother and the physician to the dower property?”

“Aye. Though I shall regret Martin’s departure only for the need to buy the services of another physician, Sebille…” Lothaire drew breath. “Even if my mother’s days are reaching their close, already my sister has given too much of herself. It may be too late for Sir Angus and her, but I would see her remain at High Castle and be cared for as ever she has cared for our mother.”

“I understand your feelings, my lord. ’Tis unfortunate she will not be dissuaded from being at your mother’s side when she passes.”

“Aye. As ill as Lady Raisa is, she could linger a long while. It might be years ere Sebille returns home, and more damaged she may be.”

After a long silence, the priest said, “It may be best she not return to High Castle.”

Lothaire sat straighter. “What say you?”

“Methinks Lady Sebille will more likely gain her deserved peace and rest within the walls of a convent, whether you are able to persuade her not to accompany Lady Raisa to her dower property or after your mother passes. Of course, such will cost a goodly sum.”

“I would pay it if ’tis what she wishes, but I would not refuse her if she prefers to live at High Castle.”

“I am not saying to refuse her, but if she is not amenable to entering a convent, you must be prepared to persuade her it is of greater benefit.”

“I do not know it would be. High Castle is her home.”

“Aye, and there is the man whose affections she has lost, and there is the woman who has taken her mother’s place, and God willing there will be the children you make with Lady Laura, reminding her of those she will never make with one she loves.”

There was sense in what he said, but little heart. Lothaire raised a hand. “I will not reject Sebille who has greatly lightened my burden by giving herself to our mother’s care.”

Father Atticus inclined his head. “At least offer the convent as a sanctuary when the time comes. I know you do not see it now, but the family you make with your wife is of greater import, just as you will profess before God on the morrow.”

Lothaire did not like being irritated with the priest, but he was, and it surely showed, for the man said, “I pray you will forgive me for speaking thus, but know I do it out of love for you and your sister and concern for your marriage that has enough to overcome without adding to the strife.”

“I thank you for your counsel, Father.” Lothaire stood. “Now I must see how many sheep I can shear ere nightfall.”

The priest rose with a creak of bones that better revealed his age than his face and body. “Ought I remind you ’tis the eve of your wedding?”

Lothaire smiled. “As you have now done so, I will defend myself by saying my betrothed has enough to do in ordering the household without finding me underfoot. Better I increase Lexeter’s revenues.”

“She might disagree.”

Lothaire started to wave away his concern, hesitated. “I know you exchanged few words with the lady the day of my father’s burial, but how did you find her?”

“What I saw and heard I liked—and her daughter. If you allow none to come between you, I think she will make a very good wife.”

“That is more in her hands than mine.” Lothaire bent and kissed the priest’s cheek. “’Til the morrow, Father.”

“You are a good son, brother, and lord,” Father Atticus called as Lothaire strode opposite. “You will be a good husband and father.”

Lothaire freed his horse’s reins and swung into the saddle. “That is as I intend.” He turned his mount in the direction of the shearing. Since soon there would be fewer excuses to distance himself from Laura, he hoped the priest was right about their marriage. But as for sending Sebille to a convent…

Father Atticus was mistaken.