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“The Tournament of the North. I’d gone with my father and our overlord many times before. That’s where I met Guy three years earlier.”

“You had”—she tried to imagine it—“nothing?”

“Nothing,” he repeated. “But the hope that I had saved my mother from my father. I begged her to come with me, but she refused. Before I left, I told my father I would be back, and that if he ever touched my mother again, I would kill him.”

Her eyes widened. He was serious. “You would have killed your own father?”

“Aye.”

Idalia shivered.

“What happened next?” she asked quickly, filling the awkward silence that followed his admission. One she could never hold against him given the circumstances.

“That story, my lady, is for another time. I did manage to secure my position with Lord Bohun at the tournament.”

Her heart in her throat, she asked, “Did you ever see your mother again?”

“Only twice after that. Both times I went home, prepared to make good on my promise. But mother insisted he never touched her after that. The third time I found my way back to the home of my birth, she was already dead.”

Idalia blinked.

“A fever took her and never left. She died within a fortnight. The other villagers confirmed my father’s story.”

Idalia cupped his face in her hands.

“You are a good man,” she said, meaning every word. “The bravest man I know.”

She could tell he did not believe her.

But neither did he dismiss her words. Instead, Lance simply stood there looking at her, his eyes searching for something. Redemption, perhaps?

“There’s more.” She could sense he’d not told her everything. But Idalia also knew it was all she’d get from him this night.

He ground his jaw, contemplating, but in the end, he did not utter another word.

She wouldn’t press him for more. Not yet. Idalia did not have to ask to know he’d told her a story he did not share with many people. Instead of speaking, or releasing the tears that filled her eyes, she stood on her tiptoes and placed her lips on his, attempting to soothe away the pain she saw in his eyes. She’d only wanted to help heal him, but the kiss quickly turned from innocent to something more.

When he claimed her mouth, she answered by pulling him closer.

Which was when she realized her mother was even more prescient than she’d thought.

Idalia was falling in love with the blacksmith.

Chapter 16

“You’ve improved.”

Lance sheathed his sword, pleased to hear it. The two of them left the clearing for Lance’s private chambers.

“You have not,” he said to Guy without smiling, though his friend knew he did not mean it. In fact, Guy Lavallis was an expert swordsman. He’d been raised by mercenaries, knighted by the French king, and was notorious for never losing a match. In every tournament he entered, he came away the victor of the sword, disarming his opponents at will.

It was Guy who’d taught Lance to use a sword upon their first meeting at the Tournament of the North. It was also Guy who’d helped him secure a position with Lord Bohun, one that had ensured he need not return to his father.

Unfortunately, that had also meant leaving behind the one person who’d loved him above all others, the kindest woman who’d ever lived. To this day, Lance was unsure if his mother had told him the truth when she’d claimed his father had stopped the abuse. At the time, he’d taken her at her word.

He’d wanted to believe it.

“For a man in love, your disposition is far from pleasant.”