“Because you left the feast. Because you did not join in.” She let the door close behind her. “Because men who carry shadows often mistake chapels for hiding places.”
That struck too near. He looked away.
She crossed the floor slowly, not timidly, but with the care of a woman stepping toward a blade she did not yet know was drawn.
“You knew who I was when you came here,” she said. “Men do not travel blind into arrangements like this. Someone told you.”
“I was expected,” he said. “I understand that much.”
“You understand it, but you do not claim it. In town, you guarded me as if I were duty and nothing more. Tonight you sat at my right hand as if the chair were borrowed.” Her voice sharpened. “Why?”
Because it is borrowed, he thought. Aloud, he said, “Marriage is a serious thing.”
“Do you doubt me?”
The question landed harder than he expected. “No,” he said quietly. “I do not doubt you.”
Relief flickered across her face before she mastered it. “Then why this distance?”
He breathed once, slowly. “Because I have done things I cannot unmake.”
She went still.
The truth had escaped him. Not all of it. But enough to alter the air between them.
“We all do difficult things,” she said carefully. “You are not the only one who has had to choose.”
“No.” A humorless sound left him. “But we do not all wear the same darkness.”
Anger moved through her, quick and bright. “If you mean to hide behind darkness while my people pay the price of your silence, then leave. I want a man who stands in light.”
He flinched because he deserved the blow. “You deserve a man without shadow,” he admitted.
“I deserve a man who stands where he says he stands.” Her voice lowered. “I do not need a mystery for a husband. I do not need a husband at all.”
He should have bowed then. Left her there. Taken horse and road before dawn. Instead, he stepped closer. Not enough to touch. “I will be where I am needed,” he said. “That is the only promise I can give.”
“That is not enough.”
“No.” The word cost him. “It is not.”
For one breath, the truth stood naked between them: she knew he concealed something; he knew she would not stop until she knew what it was.
Aingeal’s gaze moved to the altar, then back to him. “If you do not leave and choose to bind yourself to this house,” she said, “you will stand before God and men and speak plainly. Name. Blood. Loyalty. Deeds.”
His body went cold. There it was. The shape of the snare. “A public oath,” he said.
“A publictruth.”
He almost laughed. “Those are not always the same thing.”
“No,” she said. “But tomorrow I will learn which one you choose.”
She turned and left him before he could answer. The door closed softly behind her.
Reginald remained in the chapel, the altar linen creased beneath his hand, the saints watching with their painted eyes.
He had come seeking a place to hide.
