He didn’t know for how long he sat like that, but it was some time later that Constantine sensed movement on his left and he glanced down at the rubble to see Harmon’s sturdy, well-cared-for boots. The man set a long, floppy-sided basket near Constantine’s hip. A blink sent some of the haze from Constantine’s vision, and he saw the fine embroidered linen cloth on the bottom of the basket, pressed to a formal crispness that drew attention to the birds and swirls flying in a static circuit around the perimeter.
“It was a gift from Lady Patrice to Isley the Christmastide before. . . before,” Harmon said. “I thought it fitting it should be returned to her. She should be wrapped in something belonging to her. Something fine.”
Constantine’s chest tightened again, and it was a moment more before he could bring himself to speak.
“Are you certain Isley won’t want it as a memento of her time with Lady Patrice?” He looked up at the bulky, bearded man.
“Isley’n the girls perished in the fire as well, milord,” Harmon said gruffly.
And then Constantine understood why the man had remained behind in the deserted village at Benningsgate, with the rest of the cripples and outcasts. Harmon’s beautiful, golden-haired daughters . . .
“Your loss pains me as much as my own, friend,” Constantine said, his voice thick with emotion. “How did you know where to look?”
“When we found the others—the servants who’d been locked inside the keep when the fire was laid—they had died pressed against the doors that were barricaded against them. In the upper corridor.” Harmon paused, and Constantine let the man be, marveling at his willingness to aid him after already providing this same act of love for his own family and friends. “If Lady Patrice had any consciousness in her, she would have tried to escape the hall by any means she could.” Harmon glanced up at the window above them, prompting Constantine to do the same. “You were already searching closer to the door, milord.”
“Thank you,” Constantine said. He ran his palm along the smooth surface of the skull, then laid it gently in the basket atop the beautiful linen. He let his thumbs caress the high cheekbones as he released her, wishing that he had used the motion to wipe the tears from her face when last he’d seen her. Wishing he had set aside his pride—damn his pride!—and stayed, stayed,stayed.
Harmon gave a sigh and then knelt across the depression from Constantine. When Stan looked up the man’s gaze was steady, without pity, without embarrassment, and Constantine understood at once that he and Harmon had been through the same war together, although their battles had taken place in different locations, years apart.
“Let’s find Master Christian now, shall we, milord?” Harmon suggested.
Constantine nodded and once more began removing the rubble, with each stone laid aside, each small fragment of charred and broken bone placed reverently atop the linen, his guilt was exposed to the air and breathed life in macabre contradiction to the woman whose remains would not fill a small woven basket.
* * *
“I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you earlier,” Dori said as she stood in the doorway of the cottage’s only other chamber, causing the round Nell to turn from her work at the bench in the center of the room and regard her with wide eyes. “I know I’ve done nothing to belie my repute. Thank you for what you’ve done for me, and what you’re doing for Lord Gerard.”
The woman blinked, a knife in one hand, a bunch of radish greens in the other. The small hearth in the cottage crackled, and although it was no royal chamber, Dori knew the remaining villagers at Benningsgate had given up the best of their own possessions to see that Constantine was well-furnished.
“You’re welcome, milady. Wasn’t no one going to wear those things again any matter. Certainly not me,” she said gruffly, and then she turned her eyes back to the bench, where she tossed the greens into a small pot.
Dori glanced down at the slim gray kirtle and short brown apron she wore. The sleeves and length of the skirts were too short for her by at least three inches, but otherwise they fit her thin frame well. After bathing in a bowl of warmed water in the back room of the cottage and donning the clothes, Dori felt as though she were dressed in the finest garments ever to be tailored, even with the moth holes and unraveling hems.
“They belonged to my daughter,” Nell continued, trimming another handful of the white roots. “Fever took her and my man more than ten years ago. That there was her everyday dress. I couldn’t bear to part with ’em. Kept ’em folded with my own things. Think of her every day as I dress.” She paused, and her cheeks flushed, as if embarrassed by the unmistakable emotion behind her curt words. “I hope the shoes aren’t too small.”
Dori held forth one foot to show Nell the short leather boot, still serviceable although stiff and brittle with age and disuse. “You’ve cared for them well. There is enough give in the leather to accommodate my feet. I’ll see they are returned to you.”
“I’ll thank you for it.”
Jeremy appeared in the open cottage doorway just then, rousing Erasmus from his slumber before the hearth. The rotund swineherd was panting, his cheeks flushed.
“His lordship and Harmon’s coming down from the ruin. Carryin’ a basket.”
“Mercy,” Nell whispered and made the sign of the cross. She turned to Dori. “You must see to finishing the meal, milady. I’m the only woman to help prepare for the burial—Edie is too old.”
Dori glanced at the food strewn about the bench, the pot not yet even hung on the swinging arm. The panic must have been evident on her face, for Nell gave a grimace.
“Never you mind; I’ll throw this on as is and tend to it as well as I can when I return. I’ve said for the longest time I wished some task to set my hands to. God has answered my prayers most generously.”
“I will assist Lord Gerard,” Dori volunteered before she had thought better about it. Jeremy and Nell and even shaggy, gray Erasmus turned their heads to look at her, and she felt her face heat. Partly in humiliation for her intimidation at preparing a simple stew, but also by their suspicious expressions. They likely didn’t think her capable of doing anything. It made her eyebrows draw together and her chin lift.
“How many nobles haveyouburied?” she snipped with a raised eyebrow.
Nell and Jeremy exchanged guilty, if doubtful, glances.
“Very well,” Dori said curtly and then started toward the door. “Excuse me.” She stood, looking pointedly at Jeremy, who was still filling the doorway.
“Milady, I—”
