“I’ll be careful,” he said and walked to the door. “Old Stacy’s cottage might have what we require. If he’s gone, perhaps he’s left something of use behind.”
“Stacy begged for employ at Thurston Hold after the fire,” she said. “Most of the villagers did, and my father provided for them. Many have left now, though.”
He looked up at her, the question clear in his eyes.
“Felsteppe sent them away. He said they were a burden on the estate.” She paused. “Are you searching for food?”
“Herbs. Medicines.” He opened the door and paused to look back at her. “You’re still quite weak. You’ll need to regain your strength before attempting the journey to Thurston. I can’t have you being caught or overpowered.”Or dying, he thought suddenly, unsure why he would remotely care whether the strange young Theodora Rosemont lived or died.
“I do believe this weak woman put up enough of a fight for you, Lord Gerard,” she challenged, but the faint shadow of a smile told Constantine that although she had succeeded in maintaining her life thus far, she was beginning to fade and knew it. “I do hope you didn’t have too much trouble stitching yourself up,” she said, glancing at the ruddy stain on the flank of his tunic.
“But a scratch,” he said with a careless wrinkle of his nose. And then he quit the room for the black stink of the corridor, where the gloomy and miserable reality of Benningsgate wrapped around him with its suffocating embrace, obliterating even the hint of levity that had tried to seep between the ruined stones.
* * *
Theodora closed her eyes with a shuddering sigh and leaned her head back against the stones after Lord Gerard had departed the oratory. Her throat constricted, but she commanded herself not to cry. She had already wept enough for a hundred lifetimes and it was a waste of her energy. She took several deep breaths.
He was going to help her.
Probably.
Dori didn’t try to fool herself into believing Constantine Gerard’s motives were even remotely charitable. By agreeing to wait to kill Glayer Felsteppe, he would secure the entirety of the resources Dori had secreted away while she’d carried her child.
But if it meant she could hold her baby, knowing Glayer Felsteppe was dead, Dori would have gladly given up all of Thurston Hold to the earl of Chase were it in her power to do so. After all, Dori would have her son ever after then, but Constantine Gerard never would have his. The keep meant nothing to her now that her father was dead. Now that . . .
Even the leaning of her mind toward him caused Dori to force herself to her feet to begin pointlessly straightening the few items within the oratory. If she was to share the space with Constantine Gerard, it needed to have the appearance of a common chamber rather than the private quarters Dori had been using it as. She was adding more wood to the small fire when he returned, his arms laden, the hood and shoulders of his cape dark with rain. He brought the sweet smell of spring with him in the breeze of his passing as he walked to the table to deposit the items. He disappeared through the door again without comment, although she’d been certain to leave the little eating knife with its tip broken off andCAGengraved on the handle in the center of the table.
Dori rose and walked to the table, curious about the pile of goods he’d brought. A wooden trencher, perhaps, although Dori thought it large enough to be a dough bowl; a spool of twine, nearly spent; several rags, stained but clean, and stiff with the cold spring wind that had dried them on someone’s line; a fresh bough wrapped around several fragrant, dried fish.
He was back through the door then, a short, three-legged stool in one hand and a thick, rolled bundle beneath his other arm, which also carried a bucket slightly more than half full of water. He set the stool on its legs near the hearth as well as the bucket and then made room on the table to place the dusty, moth-eaten blanket. He unfurled the ancient thing to reveal a handful of crumbly, dried bundles of herbs, a wooden tankard with a crack along the side; a long handled two-pronged fork; and a rough bag that, although tied tightly with twine, appeared by its deflated shape to be completely empty.
Lord Gerard then swung his satchel from his shoulder and lifted the flap to remove a small covered crock, a forged cup, several metal utensils of various sharpness, and a leather kit that perhaps at one time had contained a gentleman’s toilette essentials, being quite finely tooled, but which now Dori suspected held other things.
She looked up at him as he arranged things. “Where did you get all this?”
“The things in my satchel are my own,” he said absently, as though she didn’t deserve his attention. “The others I scavenged from the village. There wasn’t much left in the abandoned houses. I’m certain whoever stayed behind took whatever remained that suited their needs. But I’d wager we’ll have enough to get by.”
Dori was impressed; the things he’d brought, broken and worn as they were, seemed like treasures to her after living so long in the oratory without little comforts. He shrugged out of his wet cloak and hung it on a peg likely meant for the priest’s stole and added even more wood to the crackling fire before returning to the table.
She watched him as he began to break off pieces of the dried herbs and sprinkle them in the metal cup, where they slid to the rounded bottom with little shivers of sound. Then he unwrapped one of the fish and, taking hold of one of the slender bladed knives, deftly severed the head and peeled the spine from the flesh before folding it into the cup atop the herbs. He loosened the cover from the crock to reveal jagged rocks of cloudy salt, of which he chose a piece and added it to the cup.
Then he picked up the wooden tankard and walked to the hearth, where he dipped it into the water bucket to below the crack. He returned to the table and poured the water over the ingredients in the metal cup and mixed the contents with the blade of his knife. The utensil made a sharp ringing sound when Lord Gerard tapped it on the cup and Dori startled a bit, realizing that the growing heat of the room and the graceful surety with which the man moved had enchanted her for a time.
He picked up a square, handleless blade and placed it atop the cup before returning to the hearth with it. He dragged the stool before the warming blaze and sat down, reaching out to snuggle the cup into the graying coals on the edge of the fire. Then he rested his elbows on his knees, held his palms toward the fire, and seemed to forget she was in the room.
Dori stood at the table staring at his darkened outline for several moments, feeling the heat of the fire seeping into her bones and making her flesh feel heavy. Even her toes were beginning to warm. Constantine Gerard obviously had no use for her at this time, now that he’d made his soup and was waiting for it to cook. She glanced behind her at the bench, the embroidered cloth beckoning to her.
A moment later, she had curled up on her side as soundlessly as she could, pulling the cloth around her and using her bent arm for a pillow. The comfort of the coverlet in the warm chamber nearly made her moan with pleasure. She stared at Lord Gerard’s back as her eyelids grew heavy, realizing that, for the first time since coming to Benningsgate, she needn’t fear anyone finding her, intruding upon her secret shelter. He wasn’t her friend; he wasn’t her savior; he wasn’t even her ally really. But she somehow knew she was safer now than she had been for several months. He might not go out of his way to protect her from an intruder, but he would certainly defend what little was left of his home from any further trespass.
She finally let her eyes close and sank into the pitch black of sleep, so much brighter than the despair and fear that had been her constant companions.
* * *
Constantine watched the flames leaping and waving in the shallow square of the hearth, letting the warmth seep into his clothes and dry them, relax his tightened muscles. Steam began to curl from beneath the small metal plate he’d set upon the cup to keep ashes from the brew, and rose and stepped to the table to retrieve one of the rags to protect his hand. He saw the little broken eating knife laying perfectly perpendicular to the edge of the tabletop, as if it had been placed there with great care, and then glanced at once to the bench where Theodora Rosemont was fast asleep. He didn’t know how long she had been that way, but her face seemed more serene than at any time since he’d come upon her on the wall walk. He glanced back at the gilded eating utensil, its shiny coating mostly worn away, the creases in the braid of the handle packed with black.
Soot? Dirt?
Constantine picked it up carefully, reverently, with the rag and let it lay across the palm of his other hand. He turned back to the stool soundlessly and sat down. The firelight flashed on the little blade, the shadows of the shallow engraving of initials seeming to deepen in the light, and Constantine ran his thumb across them.
