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Hilla puts down her knife and washes down her meal with a sip of ale.

“Not truly. I could not steal innocent kisses like other ladies at court were able to do.”

“Interesting.”

She shrugs, as if it does not matter. But tis easy enough to see it matters to her a great deal. The Hilla Affair, as it became known, has scarred her deeply.

“Tis so,” she admits.

“If you did not do it, how is it you were blamed?”

She hesitates.

“Hilla.” I force her to look at me with the force of my tone. “I would never betray you.”

But of course, she does not believe that. Nor should she, even if tis true.

“I cannot,” she says finally.

I think back to all I know of the incident. So few details. I know only what most others do, that she’d been accused of cuckolding her husband with Lord Bowes, a minor noble. The man was later beheaded, Hilla stripped of her inheritance, and she and Whitley tossed from court.

“Was an innocent man put to death?”

No,” she says flatly.

So Bowes did have an affair, but not with Hilla. Interesting.

Just as interesting is the look Nathan gives me from across the room. Tis a look of warning. One I know well.

“Hilla.”

She smiles at me. A smile I did not earn.

“We cannot travel east. The borders are teeming with men from Craighcebor.” I hesitate, rubbing the back of my neck. “When I told you before our pursuers were men from Craighcebor, I was not actually so certain then that they were. But I am certain now. And they are hunting you, watching and waiting along the borders.”

Her carefree smile flees. “But Cettina’s men are looking for me—you said so yourself. They are traveling along the border in search of me too. If we could just find them . . .”

“I cannot guarantee we will do so before you are taken into custody by those who would blame you for the attack. I am but one man.”

She considers my words.

“I am due at the Merian court. If you accompany me there, I can guarantee safe passage to Breywood Castle.”

Edingham’s capital sits along the coast, and it will be easy enough to get her there once at d’Almerita, traveling by sea.

“I am not well loved at Castle d’Almerita.”

“Nay,” I agree, “but King Galfrid will welcome you just the same. I know him to be an honorable man.” I cannot tell her how I know this. “You will be safer in the southwest than you are here, or along the border.”

“Will he not simply apprehend me for the attack?”

“He will not,” I assure her. “I can promise you that.”

If she is confused, there is no hope for it. I cannot say any more.

“I’d not put you in danger.”

“And yet you’ve done so. I was mere moments away from my sister’s men.”