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He looked up.

“Gilbert was our armorer. I was forced to leave, and he saved my life.”

“He must have been very special to your family.”

If she kept talking, Clara would tell him everything. He already knew too much, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d put him in danger too.

“Aye, he served my family loyally for many years.”

The finality in her voice quieted them both. The playful mood forgotten, she retreated to more somber thoughts.

“I do hope you find her,” she said quietly.

Alex shrugged, but the seemingly flippant gesture was undermined by the thickness in his voice. “Sometimes,” he said, picking up his cup, “I pray that I do not. What will I do next? Continue to live with the knowledge that I am a man whose mother does not love him. What else could I do?”

Clara wished she knew. She wished she had answers for them both.

15

Alex rode down the path from the castle entrance before the household began to awaken. He’d made a hasty retreat from Clara’s chamber the night before, soon after their discussion of his mother. When he’d told her he would be leaving for a few days, she’d hardly flinched. Because she didn’t plan on staying? He’d nearly changed his mind in the morning—he’d nearly gone to her. How could he leave not knowing if she’d be there when he returned?

But as she’d asked him twice now, what did it matter?

“You’re a fool.”

He glared at his companion, Sir Geoffrey Waryn, who rode beside him. His unwanted companion. But when the reformed reiver had learned Alex planned on visiting the small village of Elkview, just outside Kenshire’s vast border to the south, Sir Geoffrey had insisted on accompanying him. In fact, Gerald, the castle constable, had actually argued for him to bring additional men.

“I travel alone,” he’d told them both.

“The hell you do,” Geoffrey had countered, the constable nodding in agreement. “Troubles in the middle marches have spread here to the east. The English Warden may have been absolved of guilt, but the effects of that scandal continue to destabilize the tenuous peace here. That your brother allowed you to travel here with only a squire, and a female one at that, is remarkable.”

So he knew. Of course Lady Sara had told him the truth. “Toren is very much aware of the ‘troubles’ and does not presume to tell me where to go or with whom.”

They came to a well-worn path, the sun just beginning to rise, and Geoffrey took the lead.

“Alex,” he started again, this time in a lower, more serious voice. “I’m here to help. Your brother has made peace with mine, and our families are inextricably entwined. We can continue to rue the sins of the past or move beyond them as allies.”

“We’ve already made our peace,” Alex said, referring to his last visit to Kenshire, when Geoffrey's brother had apologized for his role in Catrina’s capture. “Indeed, your family has lost more than most.” If a man whose inheritance, home, and parents had been taken from him on the same day could forgive those responsible, the least he could do was accept the gesture graciously. Though the Scottish king had demanded that Toren take Bristol Manor, they certainly bore their measure of guilt. He smiled. “But if I’m forced to do so every time we meet, I fear this will be the last time I travel to Kenshire.”

Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed. He pointed to a heavily wooded path, and Alex followed. They rode in silence for some time, Alex surveying their surroundings with interest. Though he’d been to Kenshire before, he had never travelled this far south toward its borders and the eastern coastline. At one point along a rare patch of flat terrain, he spied the North Sea.

“How far south are Kenshire’s borders?” he asked.

“Far enough that we’ll need to move faster to be there by nightfall.”

Later, when the sun rose high into the sky, he and Geoffrey finally stopped. They allowed their horses a rest and ate a quick repast Kenshire’s cook had prepared. Though he hadn’t met the woman, he’d heard enough about her to know she commanded the kitchen as competently as Lady Sara presided over Kenshire.

“So how do you come to travel with a woman disguised as a squire?”

Alex nearly spat out the ale he’d just drunk. “How does a reiver come to marry a countess?”

Geoffrey’s brows raised. “Fair enough. On his deathbed, her father requested my uncle’s protection from a distant relative, Sir Randolf Fitzwarren. As it turned out, the request was with good cause. The bastard attempted to slice Sara’s throat.”

“So you sent him to his maker for his efforts?” Alex had heard most of this tale, albeit not from Geoffrey’s lips.

“Aye.” He grinned. “But I nearly lost her in my thirst for revenge—”

“Against my brother.”