He smiled as he looked down at Anna in his embrace. Her pride in her notion shone in her eyes. “It is a devious scheme.”
“And one that no one would expect from a man of your ilk,” she agreed. “But you might be able to use Marie for your ends, just as she would use you for hers. I think that would be fitting.”
He grimaced. “And what shall we do, you and I, when I am baron and wedded to Marie and you yet live in the village?”
Anna swallowed and her eyes shone with unshed tears. “We shall wish each other well and conduct ourselves with honor,” she replied, her words husky. “You can have no future with the smith’s daughter, and I know it as well as you do.”
Bartholomew kissed her again, more lingeringly, for he feared it would be the last time. He would not sully any marriage he made with infidelity, even if it was to a woman like Marie. He wished it might be otherwise. When he broke their kiss, he filled his gaze with the sight of Anna, his heart pounding fit to burst. “Be well,” he murmured, and brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek. “I shall never forget you, Anna, and my heart will always be yours.”
“And mine yours, to be sure,” she replied, then bowed as if he were a fine lord already. “Godspeed to you, my lord,” she added, and he saw her blink back her tears. “May every good fortune come to your hand.”
Bartholomew heard the quiver in Anna’s voice and wanted to reassure her, but he knew that if he touched her, his resolve would be lost.
“Keep the dog with you,” he said quietly. When she nodded, he turned and strode out of the cavern, bracing himself for whatever the day might bring.
He would endeavor to follow her plan and hoped it might succeed, for it offered the best possibility for their future.
As much as he might have wished otherwise.
Though the barony might be close to his grasp, Bartholomew was surprised to realize that he would surrender it all to be with the smith’s daughter forever.
His personal desire did not matter. He had to keep his word.
This was the price of being his father’s son, a knight and a man aspiring to hold the seal of Haynesdale in his own hand. Bartholomew had never before considered that the cost might be too high.
*
Anna knew Bartholomew could not have chosen differently. He was a man of merit, which was why she feared for his fate in the company of those who showed no regard for honor, justice or the welfare of others. It was not that he failed to realize there was wickedness, but that he could not participate in it. He would not become like them, and the fact of it made her heart ache.
If he died, she would mourn him all her days.
If he did not die, she would yearn for him all her days.
It was a poor reward, and Anna was saddened that love’s result was so meager.
She sat and watched Esme’s chickens, more despondent than ever she had been. If there was no son destined to return and no Bartholomew to challenge her, Anna could not imagine a good reason to awaken each day. If he succeeded and wedded Marie and she had to see him every day in that woman’s company, that too was reason to linger abed.
Anna much preferred the reason she had had to linger abed during the storm.
Cenric leaned on her leg and she rubbed his ears, smiling despite herself at his interest in the chickens. They ignored the hound, already confident that he would not touch them.
“So, he is gone,” Esme murmured, then came to sat beside Anna. “I doubted he would linger at Haynesdale once the snow ceased to fall.”
“He does linger at Haynesdale,” Anna replied. “For he keeps a pledge to Lady Marie.”
“That one!” Esme shook her head. “Lady Marie is not the measure of Sir Royce’s first wife, to be certain.”
“His first wife?” Anna was happy to seize on any topic that made her forget her woes—or Bartholomew’s quest.
“Aye, the one he brought first to Haynesdale, after Lady Gabriella’s death. She was a beauty, though she thought little of her husband’s abode.”
Anna had little recollection of that woman, though she knew that Royce had been wed before. “Was that why he had no son by her either? Did she refuse his attentions?”
Esme cackled. “There were tales, of course.”
“What manner of tales?”
The old woman smiled at Anna. “Did you never wonder that your father, the smith, was in possession of such a fine crossbow?”
