Outside, the air was colder and cleaner.
Aingeal waited at the foot of the steps.
“You swore,” she said.
“I did.” There was no triumph in him. No pride. He had lied. He had stayed. Both truths lived together now.
She inclined her head once. “Very well.” Then she turned away.
Reginald followed before he had decided to move. “Aingeal.”
She stopped in the corridor beyond the council chamber, beneath a faded tapestry whose colors had nearly surrendered to age.
“You wanted a test,” he said.
She faced him. “I wanted a man I could trust.”
“You tried by law. Oath. Priest. Witness. You turned the whole house into a device meant to force me naked into my past or send me away.”
Her mouth tightened. “Do you think I meant to humiliate you?”
“I think you wanted control.”
“That is not the same as malice.”
“It felt damned close.”
Hurt flashed across her face before she hid it. “Do not mistake my caution for spite,” she said.
He stepped nearer. Not enough to crowd her. “You have been trying to make me leave.”
For one moment she only looked at him. Then her shoulders lowered a fraction. “Yes.”
The answer took some of the anger from him because it was honest.
“Leave with dignity,” she advised. “I will announce us incompatible before the people. I will not dress your departure as disgrace. You may ride south and keep your honor. A public release. No scandal.”
Mercy. The word moved through him before he could stop it. She was offering him the road. If he accepted, he could keep his face and perhaps what remained of his conscience. If he stayed, he would bind himself tighter to a dead man’s life and a lie spoken beneath God. “You would make that announcement yourself?”
“I would.” Her voice had gone smaller. “If you leave.”
He let the silence hold them. At last, he said, “You have given me a choice.”
“You always had one.”
A strange calm settled in him. He had expected exposure or exile. He had not expected mercy.
“If you want me gone,” he said, “I will go. I will remove myself rather than make you bride to a falsehood.”
She went very still.
“But I will not vanish like a thief,” he continued. “If I leave, I leave after I have done what I can for this castle. I will help secure your borders. I will root out what threats I can. I will go with duty done.”
Aingeal stared at him. Shock first. Then relief so sharp it almost looked like pain. “You would do that?”
“I owe the castle that much.” He held her gaze. “And you owe your people better than a man who disappears and leaves scandal for you to answer.”
She swallowed.
