“No … I just pity Osana, that’s all. Hagona of Jedworth has a tongue that could cut stone.”
Silence fell between them then. Lora glanced across at the fur. Indeed, she had given it a good thrashing. She should take it back inside and get another.
“Lora.” The way he said her name made her tense. She glanced up to find that Cerdic had stepped closer. “I didn’t have the chance to talk to you before I left … are you well?”
She held his gaze and deliberated whether she should lie to him—tell him she was as happy as a newborn lamb on this fine spring day. Yet she could not bring herself to say the words.
Cerdic looked at her in such a way, she felt only the truth would do.
“I miss her,” she said quietly. “And I wonder what my place here is now.”
“The same as it was. You know you’re welcome in the king’s hall.”
Lora huffed. “Am I?”
“Do you still have your alcove?”
She shook her head. “A servant doesn’t get to have such a space to herself. One of the king’s thegns and his wife took it.”
She looked into his rugged face and saw a softness settle in his eyes. It was unexpected, and it made a strange warmth rise within her. It was not pity she saw, but something deeper, stronger.
He was the only one here who really noticed Lora. Ever since Osana’s departure, the other women hardly bothered with her
“I feel so alone,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “I was wed once, but when my husband died, I lost my purpose. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
He stepped closer to her still, their bodies so near they were almost touching.
“I lost my wife a few years back,” he rumbled. She stared up at him, feeling the tension that now emanated from his big body. “Since then I’ve served my king and done my duty … only it doesn’t fill the emptiness.”
Lora’s eyes pricked with tears at this news. “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I didn’t know.”
Cerdic raised a hand then, cupping her cheek gently, his thumb tracing the swell of her lower lip.
Desire arched up within Lora, a sensation she had never thought to feel again. She inhaled sharply.
“You brought sunshine into this tower the moment you stepped into it,” he said softly, uncaring that they stood on the edge of a busy yard, surrounded by curious eyes and sharp ears. “Before meeting you, I’d forgotten what it was like to smile.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Impossible
Two months later …
OSANA SAT MILKING the goat. Snowdrop was its name, a creature that Hagona doted on like a child. Osana could understand why: Snowdrop had a sweet, inquisitive temperament and was undemanding company. The rhythmic squirts of milk in the pail, and the first rays of morning sun on her back, relaxed Osana as she worked.
With the pail full of frothy milk, Osana carefully lifted it from under the goat, patted Snowdrop on the flank, and straightened up.
Her vision dimmed as she did so, a wave of dizziness sweeping over her. Osana swayed and reached out with her free hand, catching the edge of the pen where Snowdrop spent her nights.
She had been feeling out of sorts the past couple of days, with the odd dizzy spell and mild bouts of nausea.
She hoped she was not sickening from something.
Osana made her way up the path, in-between growths of rosemary, thyme, and sage, to the front door of Hagona’s home. Knocking gently, she then went inside. She did not sleep under the same roof as her aunt; Hagona had given her the old fowl house, an annex that joined the back of this building. Initially, Osana had despaired, but once she had cleaned the space thoroughly and made it into a comfortable, albeit cramped home, she was glad she lived apart from her aunt.
Hagona was not easy company.
“There you are.” A sharp voice greeted her as she entered the dwelling. Hagona stood next to the hearth that dominated her home, cooking a wheel of bread over a griddle. “I swear you get slower at milking that goat with each passing day.”
