She sighed.Perhaps not.
But her prayers could have.If God had deigned to listen.
Of course, He had not.Why would He listen to the supplications of a fallen nun?
“Perhaps the child was too good for this world,” Adam said by way of comfort.
She nodded.It was kind of him to say so.
“At least he is with God now,” he added.“’Twas thoughtful o’ ye to baptize him.”
She stiffened.She’d halfway hoped he hadn’t noticed.She’d done it out of habit.It sometimes fell to a nun to bless an infant.And a midwife might baptize a newborn they feared was going to die.But it must seem strange to him for an Irish noblewoman to go to the trouble.
She shrugged.“’Twas the least I could do.”Then, in a hurry to change the subject, she said, “Do ye know of an inn in Strivelin?”
She’d stayed in Strivelin before at an inn called The Swan.But for what she planned, she needed to find a place where they didn’t know her.Where she could slip in unnoticed and escape without a trace.
“The Red Lion?”he suggested.“They have a chamber with a goose-down pallet.”
Eve’s heart sank.He was so full of hope.So full of affection for her.
But soon she was going to have to deny him.Deny herself.
She couldn’t reveal her sorrow now.So she pasted on a fake smile and urged her horse forward before he could glimpse the pain in her face.Pain that stung and filled her eyes to overflowing with tears of regret.
Dear God, how could she leave him?
How could she live without him?
How could she ever be happy again?
By the time they arrived at The Red Lion and let a lad lead their horses to the stable, Eve was only half-feigning the headache she claimed to have.
“Would ye see to the room?”she asked Adam, rubbing her temples.“My head is achin’ somethin’ fierce.”
“O’ course.Go on upstairs to the first chamber.I’ll pay the innkeeper and bring up the satchels.”
She drew her cloak around her and pulled her cowl up over her head.Entering the main room, she crossed directly to the stairs, passing invisibly through the benches of travelers hunched over their pottage.She rushed up the steps and closed herself behind the door.
Glancing at the generous bed draped in blue cotton, she felt a twinge of melancholy.The mattress probablywasgoose-down.But she’d never know, for she meant to sleep where all penitents belonged, on the floor.
Adam considered it a travesty for Aillenn to sleep on the ground when there was a perfectly good pallet—a goose-down pallet—a few yards away.
She’d claimed that being near the warm fire helped her headache.He wasn’t sure he believed that.
Perhaps her grief over the bairn was still too sharp for her to be consoled by the comfort of a warm bed.
He offered to sacrifice his comfort for her, to sleep beside her on the floor.But she shook her head.
Something else was wrong.Something was troubling her.Ever since the infant’s death, she’d distanced herself from Adam, hardly speaking, and then only in frosty tones.
Almost as if she thought it was his fault.
Trying to understand the workings of her complicated mind kept him awake, staring up at the brass medallion in the middle of the canopy, while he listened to her drawing in the calm breath of slumber.
When he finally surrendered and dozed off, it was into a heavy sleep.
So heavy he didn’t wake until dawn.
