A corner of her mouth lifted. “It may not be as dire as feared—yet—but your sister observed something disturbing.”
The muscles of Lothaire’s legs twitched with the longing to leave. Chances were Raisa would exaggerate what her daughter had seen, but on the chance she did not, he said, “Tell, Mother.”
“Your betrothed is too familiar with Sir Angus. Though she denied it when Sebille confronted her, she worked her flirtations upon him.”
Jealousy rose through Lothaire, but he pushed it down. There was naught over which to be concerned. Not only was he confident of the knight’s loyalty, but Sebille viewed women who received the most innocent attention from Angus as being flirtatious. However, that of which he could not be confident was Laura. She had betrayed him once—
He sliced the thought in two, consigned one half to darkness.
“Worry not,” he said. “I will not be cuckolded again.”
“As much as you are absent from High Castle, you cannot keep close watch on her, my son. Did Sebille and I remain—”
“Nay.” He sat back and thrust his feet out before him. “We will speak no more of this. Now rest. The morrow will be long.”
She continued to grumble and snap. But when she finally quieted, the long day had settled into his bones, and the sleep he feigned became truth.
Chapter 17
Still Lothaire was with his mother. As in his younger years when he prayed in the chapel ere gaining his night’s rest, several times this past fortnight Laura had heard him enter and exit the sanctuary beyond the chamber she shared with Clarice. With all he must face on the morrow, he would surely come again this eve.
Lest she sleep through his prayers, she eschewed the comfort of a bench and leaned against the cool stone wall at the rear of the chapel. Each time her lids lowered and knees softened, the sensation of falling returned her to her senses.
Lothaire entered at what she guessed was middle night—and immediately broke stride, gripped his dagger’s hilt, and pivoted toward her with an expression so fierce she could not move. But he could.
“’Tis Laura!” she gasped.
That snapped him to a halt and kept the point of his blade from exiting its sheath.
As he peered into her darkness, the flickering candles on the altar revealed one she hardly recognized. He wore the skin of a warrior never before seen. Though the sight made her tremble, she ached for all she had missed of the man he had become in the years since their parting.
Upper lip lowering over bared teeth, he thrust the dagger back into its scabbard. “What do you here, Laura?”
As she approached, she guessed from the deep wrinkles about his tunic’s waist he had sat long with his mother, might even have slept. “I must speak with you.”
“About?”
She stepped into his light and stared into a face framed by hair that had mostly come free of the thong at his nape. “About the morrow, this day, and what came before.”
His lids narrowed. “Before?”
“I did not know I am to be your third wife.”
His lids flickered. “Sebille told you?”
“She did.”
“Does it matter?”
She might have taken offense were his words not weighted with more fatigue than derision. “Only so I know what I shall face when I stand before Baron Marshal and the woman who was your wife ere she was his.”
The breath Lothaire drew adding to his height, he said, “I do not think this the place to discuss it.”
“Would it so offend the Lord?” she said and, at his hesitation, added, “The hall is taken with those at rest. Until we wed, ’twould be unseemly for me to enter your bedchamber.”
“And you are no longer unseemly, hmm?”
His sarcasm stilled her, but before she could force a response, he said, “Forgive me. I am raw from the audience with my mother.”
She swallowed hard. “May we speak here?”
He looked to the altar, the hair brushing his jaw so tempting her fingers she pressed them into her palms to keep them from betraying her. “We may, but first prayer,” he said.
She should have expected that, but she was not prepared to kneel alongside him as she had done upon the barony of Owen. Never had she been as eager to pray as during his visits. Hand in hand, they had traversed the aisle. Reluctantly, they had released each other’s fingers. On separate kneelers, they had lingered over their conversations with God. Silently she had bemoaned that soon they would part and the night between them and the morn would be long.
“First prayer,” she acceded and, as she followed him, recalled that ten years past the walk had been filled with lovely imaginings of when she would traverse a chapel beside her new husband and a priest would speak the nuptial mass over them.
To her surprise, one that so pained she thought her heart might bleed, Lothaire caught up her hand when they reached the altar. Broad calloused fingers a breathtaking contrast to her slender soft ones, he handed her onto a kneeler. Then as if as surprised by the gesture as she, he immediately released her.
When he lowered to the other kneeler and bowed his head, Laura raised her palm. It had not forgotten his. And never would it.
Clasping her hands hard, she closed her eyes. Over the next quarter hour, she asked the Lord to be with them this night, on the morrow when Lothaire’s departed father returned to his family, and a sennight hence when their lives were joined to secure both Clarice’s and Lexeter’s future.
Ever Lothaire’s prayers had surpassed her own, and that had not changed. Her beseeching done, she sank back on her heels and watched him as she had done the young man. Years ago, he had grinned when, upon opening his eyes, she swept back his hair and slid her fingers over his scalp. His reminder such behavior was not appropriate in the house of the Lord had been more teasing than correction. Were she to give in to that impulse when he finished these prayers, would there be any teasing about him?
Not this Lothaire. But God willing, eventually some lightness might be found between them.
He raised his head and looked sidelong at her. “I thought never again to be at prayer with you.”
“I thought the same.”
He inclined his head. “It grows late. Let us speak and be done with it.”
She was also fatigued, but it hurt he was so eager to be rid of her. She glanced at where he knelt. “Here?”
He stood and raised her to her feet.
They were too near, and though she tried to give volume to her voice, it was breathy. “I thank you.”
He released her. She thought they might sit, but he remained unmoving, and she guessed it was because even the benches near the altar were in shadow. Whereas she had most often imagined being intimate with Lothaire in daylight, whether the sun cast halos against a wall or sparkled on water, the dark seemed the preferred medium in which lovers became better known to each other. Did the shadows present too much temptation?
She gripped her hands at her waist. “You told your mother and sister the old baron is to be buried on the morrow?”