“Ever the work of wool,” Father Atticus said.
“Until Lexeter is restored.” Lothaire adjusted his sword belt as he followed the priest toward the church. “I will not enter,” he said, knowing the man would insist and, as usual, lose the argument. Though Father Atticus was adamant the Lord was not offended to receive within His house one who evidenced hard, honest labor, Lothaire could not cross the threshold even though he had washed in the stream before leaving the bulk of the day’s shearing to the workers.
“Then let us sit on the bench.” The priest gestured to the left of the church doors.
“That was easier than usual,” Lothaire said.
The man chuckled. “Two boys are on their faces before the altar repenting for stealing every last berry from widow Magda’s bushes. I would not have the rascals listen in on us.”
Lothaire lowered to the bench beside the priest and could not contain his sigh over how good it felt to be still, something he was usually too fatigued to savor when he dropped into bed.
The all-knowing Atticus left him to it until Lothaire’s own impatience made him lift his head. “Let us be done with it, Father.”
“So you may sooner work through the remainder of daylight?”
“It shall sound prideful, but I am amongst my best workers.”
The gently aging man snorted. “Were you not of the nobility, methinks we would have to pray hard for your soul.”
Lothaire glanced down his worn, stained tunic and chausses. “My mother would argue that because I am of the nobility we ought to pray hard for my soul.”
“So she would. And be wrong, bless her.” He did not like Lady Raisa any more than she liked him, but any word he spoke against her was ever with apology and oft followed by a blessing as if to absolve her of wrongdoing. Setting his forearms on his thighs, he clasped his hands. “Lady Laura Middleton.”
Lothaire inclined his head. “Twice my betrothed.”
“You must know I am remembering the day you spurred past my church as if the devil had hold of your hair, then reined around so violently you were nearly unseated.”
“I do know.” In this moment, it seemed almost the day past he had cursed and shouted and cried every league between Owen and Lexeter. Until Laura’s betrayal, he had thought it fanciful that the thing beating in his chest could break over love lost, but so much pain had radiated from it that all he could think was he must get to High Castle and give himself into the physician’s care. But as he urged his horse past Thistle Cross, he had glimpsed Father Atticus.
“You are no longer that young man, Lothaire, and I am proud of who and what you have become. Sometimes you act out of anger and speak words you ought not, but mostly you recognize your errors soon enough that you hardly need my counsel.”
Lothaire raised an eyebrow. “I shall always need your counsel. If you are considering leaving Lexeter, pray think again.”
The priest tapped the younger man’s knee, jutted his chin toward the churchyard. “I shall be buried there, though not for many years yet, God willing.”
“I am glad to hear it. Now forgive me, but the sun does not rise any higher and I—”
“Wool,” the man drawled. “Very well, I will get to the bone of the matter. Can you forgive Lady Laura her indiscretion? If not, how can I help you make a better marriage than that of your parents?”
Lothaire linked his hands between his knees. “I want to forgive her, and I think I could, but that requires trust. And I cannot give it as long as the one with whom she betrayed me stands between us.”
“You speak of her daughter.”
“I do and do not. Though when I look upon Clarice she moves my mind to the man who fathered her, more I see her mother. It makes me want my Laura back, for her to long for me as she did ere she longed for another. And still longs for another.”
“Still?”
“She denies it, but…” Lothaire shook his head. “It matters not if I reveal what I saw at Castle Soaring. She had the chance to explain it and did not.”
“But it does matter, my son, especially if you are wrong about what you saw, which will only raise the wall higher between you.”
Lothaire looked to his hands. Should he demand an explanation of what he had witnessed? “Her lies will only anger me.”
“If she lies. She cannot defend herself or ask for forgiveness unless you show the sword behind your back.”
Lothaire pushed a hand through his hair, loosing a hank from the thong—the same Durand Marshal had shortened a year past whilst proving his superior sword skill. “I know you are right, but regardless of whether she longs for her lover, better I could trust her if she told me of her own will.”
“If she trusted you.”
“I am the betrayed, Father.”
“Lothaire, do you recall what I said the day you were so broken you vowed not to love again?”
He did, the priest’s understanding and discretion having prevented Lothaire from being overwhelmed by shame for the tears he shed and the cracking of a voice he had thought himself long past. “You said I would find earthly love again if I aspired to love the Lord and His ways first and above all.”
“Do you?”
Lothaire drew a deep breath. “I do, then I run afoul as I did with Lady Beata. In that the Lord was not first. He appeared only in the vows we spoke that we should not have.”
“You found your way back.”
“I should not have had to find my way back.”
“You think yourself more godly than me, Lothaire Soames?”
“Of course not!”
Father Atticus chuckled. “Could I wager, I would bet a goodly sum when I was the years you are now that a week did not pass I had not to find my way back to the Lord.”
Lothaire did not know the man’s age, and he claimed not to know himself, but he would not be surprised if much of the priest’s struggle was a result of clashes with Lady Raisa.
“Blessedly, the Lord provides a map.” Father Atticus tapped his chest. “But—oh!—the times I have tried to excuse my behavior by making as if I misplaced it. If you use your heart and think, speak, and act first out of love for Him, your marriage may prove one that seems of too short duration. Thus, when one of you loses the other, the pain will be bearable knowing your destination is the same, your own journey but delayed.”
Lothaire thought that too much to hope for, but he did not gainsay this man who had filled the hole left by the disappearance of Ricard Soames whilst schooling the boy in his faith—until Lady Raisa and the priest clashed one too many times.
“As ever, I am owing to you, Father. I thank you for your wisdom.”
A pat to the hand. “Either give your lady the chance to defend herself or let the past go and accept her as she is and will become. ’Tis the only way to move forward.”
Thinking his audience with the priest was at an end, Lothaire started to stand, but Father Atticus said, “You shall see your mother situated upon her dower property?”
“As soon as she is well enough to make the journey.”