“No, not just now,” she clarified. “All this time. The years you were away from Benningsgate; where were you?”
He withdrew a long, narrow blade and then used it to flip a broken chunk of fish from the stake onto one of the dried, fragrant boughs. He handed it to Dori, who took hold of it with both hands, blinking rapidly at the smoke and the tears of anticipation.
“Syria, in the beginning,” he said gruffly, returning his attention to the fish and portioning out his own meal. “Then Damascus. Then . . . the countryside near Vienna.”
She lifted the bough to her face and bit into the fish hesitantly with the tips of her front teeth. She drew back quickly, blowing little breaths, and then attempted again. The flesh flaked off into her mouth, seared her tongue. She rolled it around in her mouth, drawing in cool air. Her mouth was scalded, but she couldn’t care. She chewed bit by bit, breaking up the piece until it had cooled enough to swallow, and then she started the whole process over again.
She could feel Lord Gerard watching her, and a part of her felt a sting of humiliation at her behavior. She was no better than an animal right now. She swallowed again and let her eyes catch his gaze for a moment.
“It’s very good. Thank you.”
He took a chunk of fish between his thumb and fingers and held it before his mouth, blowing on it. “Did Felsteppe cut your hair? Or was it the beastly nurse you spoke of?”
Dori chewed and cleared her mouth. “I did it.”
He looked at her then, his eyebrows raised, as he popped the fish into his mouth and chewed slowly, seeming to consider her answer. “I remember your hair as a child; all the ladies were wild about it.”
Dori nodded, ducked her head as a prickle came into her eyes. “My father was very proud of it as well. My mother died shortly after I was born and he always feared I would lack a certain womanliness. My childhood nurses took great pains with my hair. I remember many a tearful hour beneath their brushes.”
“Why did you cut it?”
Dori swallowed again, picked at the tiny bits of fish—all that were left now—that had fallen between the densely packed clusters of greenery. “You don’t really care.”
“No, I don’t,” he admitted. “But I am curious as to why.”
She held forth her empty server. “Might I have some more?”
Lord Gerard only glanced pointedly at her hair.
Dori felt her cheeks heat. “I had to cut it. It was caked with dirt. And probably blood. I had no utensil to address it. Even when I attempted to wash it, it only matted further once it was dry. I found the eating knife in the rubble one day not long after I’d arrived and used it to cut my hair.” She gestured with the bough once more.
Lord Gerard was very still for a heartbeat and then he reached out abruptly, dislodging a large portion of fish and placing it carefully on her bough.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly, thinking him embarrassed at pressing her for such intimate details.
“You found the eating knife here, you say?” he inquired mildly.
Dori stilled; even her chewing ceased as she instantly recalled the faint engraving on the battered and scratched hilt of that particular knife:CAG.
“It belonged to your son,” she realized aloud. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“I should have looked at it more closely when it was in my possession,” he interrupted and returned his portion of fish back to the pit. “I thought when I first saw you with it that it looked the sort a child would use.”
“I shall return it to you at once of course,” she said.
“Have you found any other personal items of my family, Lady Theodora?”
Dori shook her head, bewildered at the idea that she could have so soon lost her appetite. She, too, placed her uneaten fish on the smoldering fire and watched as Lord Gerard covered it with the boughs. “No. I’ve explored as much as I can safely reach. The hall and the apartments are destroyed; the kitchen is buried. I’ve found nothing else.”
“Do you know how the fire progressed?” he asked quietly, sitting back on his hip with his back partly toward her now.
Dori felt an anxious tremble in her stomach at his question as it jostled her warm meal. “No, my lord.”
“You’re lying.”
She frowned and the tremble turned to a lurch. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you called me ‘my lord’; are you trying to spare me the details?”
