He loved Alice, could no longer hide the truth from himself and pretend it was mere want or desire. And there was the crux of the matter. Because he loved her, he couldn’t leave Swaffham, leave her to think she had failed the King. There was no resolution for him. But he would set things right—or as much as he could without breaking his promise to Robert.
He knew only one way. It was time to tell.
* * *
Hugh was here...in her home. Where he hadn’t been for far too long, where she had imagined him a thousand times even though she’d denied it a thousand more.
And he was so unbearably striking that that was how she felt. Struck down. By his height, the hardened but fluid way he held himself. At ease and yet ready.
For what? She didn’t know him any more. He had rejected her with no misunderstandings between them. It made no sense that he was here, and yet his gaze caught hers just as it always did.
But his eyes were different now. Because she didn’t feel merely caught, she felt ensnared. She thought the thread between them broken. Now she felt like wool too tightly wound around the spindle.
He stepped further in the room. Eldric walked right along with him.
Alice forced her eyes away—only to meet Elizabeth’s knowing look.
‘It’s not over, is it?’
Alice tried to relax her shoulders, but Elizabeth raised a brow at her obvious discomfort. She hadn’t told her sister of their conversation that storm-filled night. She probably didn’t need to.
‘It’s merely surprising to see him here.’
‘He’s been here for months and attended all the celebrations since then. How could you possibly be surprised?’
Because every time she saw him, it hit her.
‘Weren’tyousurprised when he arrived for St Martin’s Day dinner?’
‘You could have knocked me over with a quill!’
Her as well. Alice felt the gentle relief inside her. This conversation with her sister would be easier than she imagined. ‘But only Father’s good graces kept your manners intact?’
‘No, it was the paleness of your cheeks. I thought you would faint. For you it was like seeing a ghost, and I thought, “Here we go again...” But then you did spend time with Mitchell and Lyman.’ Elizabeth gave a tenuous smile. ‘Did you ever mean it? About finding suitors?’
She could never tell her sister why she’d done it, but she couldn’t lie. ‘There was no way we’d ever suit.’
‘What happened when you found William? What happened when you stayed in his home? He didn’t...?’
‘He didn’t touch me—not that anyone would ever believe that.’
‘I do, because you’re still so sad. I feel that perhaps...did we make you miserable? Was it something I—?’
Alice squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘No, it was life, circumstances. Something else.’
‘Did you and Hugh talk of it?’
She couldn’t keep lying—not about this. Her heart hadn’t simply broken that night of the storm, it had shattered. She didn’t even know where to start to pick up the pieces.
‘We did. Some things were repaired between us. Or so I thought.’
‘And other matters were...insurmountable?’ Elizabeth said kindly, but in her usual dogged way.
There were times Hugh unwillingly acknowledged their connection; more often, he denied it. But he had never said the reason. When he dismissed her so thoroughly, she’d given up on understanding why, and yet—
‘He’s here tonight,’ Elizabeth interrupted.
‘It means nothing.’
