“You can leave now,” she said, opening it.
“Prudence, I’m on your side.”
“Are you on the side of someone you don’t understand?”
“I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”
“Go,” she insisted, too angry to care. Not only was her fool of a brother in love with that woman, but the man Prudence loved most defended her!
“Prudence,” Simon said in a sterner tone. “This is my room.”
“I don’t care. Get out!”
“If you keep this up you’re going to lose him. We all might.”
“What? What does that mean? How might we all lose him?”
He didn’t answer but moved toward the door. She stepped in front of him, blocking the way. He could have easily moved her out of his way, but he didn’t.
“My love…”
“Yes?”
“He can’t go on much longer with so much darkness in him without fighting.”
“But he can’t fight–”
“He practices every day without fail,” Simon pointed out.
Just as he practiced when he was a boy and became good enough to fight for the queen. Her eyes opened wider as the horrifying truth dawned on her. “He intends to return to the king.”
Loyal to who he was, he neither denied nor affirmed it. “I think she can stop him.”
The urchin could stop it? “How? By falling in love with her? Tell me, is she that special?”
“Yes. I believe for Ben, she is. His happiness is important to you, isn’t it?”
“He can be happy with the king’s niece,” she insisted.
“No. He has no interest in her, in any of them. You know that.”
“You’re asking me to stand by and let him wed a beggar.”
“If he returns to the king,” he countered, “whatever more he can do for your father’s name might end for good.”
She paled. Returns to the king. Yes, Benjamin would do that, and he could die. Even if he brought shame to their father’s name, she didn’t want to lose him to some Jacobite blade. She’d lost enough to them already.
“Is he able to fight again, Simon? The truth, please.”
“You know how determined he is, Prudence. He can fight. I don’t know for how long, but long enough to convince the king that he’s ready.”
She held her hands to her mouth and swayed for a moment.
Simon was there immediately to hold her up.
These were her choices? Lose her brother to a pauper, or lose him to death. Either way… She wanted to weep, to yank out her hair and wail. How could he even consider returning to the battlefield? Was fighting and killing truly all he cared about?
“I need to think about all of this,” she told Simon, sounding defeated.
