Étaín said nothing.
But he saw her think it through. Aingeal’s authority always balanced on harsher terms than any man’s would be.
“And so you stay,” she said at last.
“For now.”
“Under a stranger’s name.”
His mouth hardened. “Yes.”
Her gaze sharpened again. “Do not mistake me. Understanding the danger of your leaving does not make me trust you.”
“I did not imagine it would.”
“Good.” She stepped nearer then, not with softness but with intent. “Because whatever bargain you made with Aingeal no longer belongs only to the two of you. You may have meant to leave. You may still mean to. But now there is more at stake than a broken promise and a wounded heart.”
The words found their mark too easily. Wounded heart. If Étaín could see even that much, then he had been more transparent than he knew.
“When you first came,” she said, “I thought perhaps you were dangerous in the ordinary way. Proud. Secretive. Soldier-hard.” Her voice lowered. “I was wrong. You are dangerous in the way buried things are dangerous. Quiet until they split the ground.”
He almost smiled. “That is a poet’s answer.”
“No. It is a woman’s answer. Women are often the first to feel the ground moving.”
The candlelight trembled between them.
She folded her arms then, gathering herself again. “Listen to me. I have loved Aingeal all my life. I will not be careless with her. I will not throw suspicion at her feet because I enjoy scandal. But neither will I stand smiling while some old blood-soaked falsehood takes root under her roof.”
“I never meant her harm.”
“I believe that.” She said it reluctantly. “What I do not know is whether men who do not mean harm are any less capable of causing it. So hear me clearly. I am watching. And what you do next will decide whether I remain silent.”
The chapel seemed suddenly colder.
She did not threaten guards. Did not invoke priests or public disgrace. She offered something worse than immediate ruin.
Time. Time in which he might choose rightly or prove her a fool for granting him any at all. “And if I fail your measure?” he asked.
“Then I speak.” Étaín lowered her arms and stepped back, reclaiming the distance between them. “For what it is worth, I think Aingeal already feels too much for this to break cleanly.”
His heart twisted in his chest, but he kept his face still.
She moved toward the door, then stopped at the threshold without turning. “Do not make me regret this.”
Then she was gone, the door shutting softly behind her.
Reginald stood alone in the chapel with the candles wavering and the saints looking on with their patient, useless calm.
Étaín had not exposed him. She had done something harder. She had left the next move in his hands.
He left the chapel with her warning lodged beneath his ribs like the broken end of a blade.
The corridor beyond was colder than the chapel had been. Torches burned low in their brackets, throwing long uncertain shadows across the stone. Somewhere deeper in the castle, a servant laughed and then lowered her voice at once. A door opened. Another shut.
It felt almost offensive that the world had not altered to reflect what had just passed between him and Étaín.
She knew. Not everything. Perhaps not even most of it. And now, she was watching him.
