Constantine huffed a mirthless laugh. “I’m still failing Christian. He’s somewhere buried in that ruin and I can’t so much as find hisbody.”
Dori paused again after retrieving the basket of oils, unsure of what to say or do. Should she suggest that, because of the boy’s young age and small stature, his body could have been burned to nothing? Or crushed to oblivion in the rubble? It didn’t sound comforting to her own mind, thinking how she would feel if the same consideration were made to her about her own son. But Theodora Rosemont had never been in the situation of comforter before and so she continued to lay out her supplies carefully and silently on the tabletop.
After what seemed a long while, he asked, “Why are you doing this?”
Dori at last looked up at him, startled to see the dark hollows beneath his eyes, the creases that seemed to have pressed into his forehead since that morning.
“Because I don’t know how to make a stew,” she blurted out and then felt her face heat. She dropped her gaze to the tabletop as she took the bottles out of the basket. “I have experience burying my father at least.”
There was nothing else for her to prepare or procrastinate over and so she looked up at him again and found him watching her.
“You’re very kind, aren’t you?” he asked suddenly, as if making an unexpected discovery.
She shook her head slightly. “No.”
* * *
It was only an hour later that Patrice Gerard, Countess of Chase, was laid in her grave. The linen kerchief she’d so lovingly gifted her favored maid was the shroud for her bones, a flower wreath to cover her bare skull woven by a young lady in peasant’s garb who was presently rumored to be dead. The basket was wrapped with the embroidered altar cloth from the oratory before being placed gently in the dirt.
Constantine presided over the ceremony, lacking any priest, and his words were low and gruff as he recited long prayers obviously from memory. Besides the two in attendance still dubiously of the nobility, the burial was attended by eight villagers and a dog.
When Harmon began returning the earth to the depression he’d recently excavated, Dori saw Constantine’s reddened eyes, his flaring nostrils. She looked away courteously but raised her right hand, slipping it into Constantine’s. He squeezed her fingers.
Dori held on.
Chapter 19
Theodora pulled her hand free from Constantine’s as the villagers approached them, and he felt the absence of the warmth of her slight hand like a physical hole in his flesh. She turned away and headed down the slope toward the village.
Alone, except for the rangy gray beast who loped after and caught up to her in moments. Constantine watched as she took a halfhearted swipe at Erasmus’s rump, which only sent him into ecstatic circuits around her.
Constantine began following her, flanked by Nell and Harmon, and it was the latter who spoke. “I’ve left a jug of mead at the cottage for you, milord.”
“And supper is on the fire,” Nell added. “I don’t think evenshecould endanger it this far along.”
Constantine looked down at Nell. “Lady Theodora has done me—done all of us—a great service today in seeing that Lady Patrice was laid to rest with as much dignity as any of us are capable of.”
The woman’s eyes grew round. “Beggin’ your pardon, milord. I didn’t—”
Harmon interrupted the woman’s awkward apology. “I’ll be ready at your call in the morn, Lord Gerard.”
“My thanks, Harmon,” Constantine said, pausing to grip the man’s shoulder as they stood at the edge of the village, and then the carpenter turned away to his own abode.
Constantine continued on to the borrowed cottage alone and pushed through the partially open door. Dori was already at the bench, hacking a round of bread through the middle, and Erasmus was already lying before the hearth, his wooly eyes squeezed shut as if in deep slumber.
Constantine could have sworn the animal peeked at him with one eye.
He walked over to the dog all the same. “Go on, now—back to your master,” he said, shooing the dog through the door and ignoring his doleful look. He shut the door and then turned back to the room, where Theodora seemed to be doing an excellent job of ignoring him.
But that idea only proved to Stan how far off his perception was, for in the next moment, Dori spoke.
“When did you last see your family?” she asked calmly, at last succeeding in parting the bread into halves.
He was surprised by the question, and even more surprised that he was not averse to answering her. “Six years ago.” He sat down in a wooden chair with a low back. “Christian had only just turned four.” She didn’t pose any further questions, and so he grew curious himself. “Why do you ask?”
Dori shrugged and then picked up one of the halves she had scooped out and turned to the hearth so that her back was to him when she answered. “I couldn’t remember when you left Benningsgate, is all. My father had mentioned you were gone on Crusade, but I rather didn’t care.”
She turned back and set the bread trencher before him without comment and then retrieved the other half.
