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With each response he did not take offense to, she felt more and more emboldened. “Says a man who’s likely had much experience with. . .” She really should have thought out her words more carefully. “Relations,” she finished.

“Relations.” He gave Lady’s reins to Holt, who’d approached them.

“Will you be staying here for the eve or coming inside?” his brother teased them.

They looked so much alike but, she began to realize, the two men were very different. Haydn’s smile came easier today than the day before, but Holt’s never seemed to disappear. Her husband didn’t answer his brother, so Holt rolled his eyes and led the horse around the inn’s entrance to, she assumed, a stable.

“I am sorry if you worried about this,” Haydn said when his brother walked away.

The apology was so unexpected, she was unsure how to respond at first. “I was told,” she began, and then clamped her mouth shut. His easier-than-expected manner was doing things to her. Imagine, what she’d been about to blurt! ’Twas not something she would say aloud to anyone, save Amice.

“What were you told?” he prompted.

She shook her head. Nay, she would not repeat it.

Haydn frowned, his eyes boring into hers as he waited.

She shook her head again.

“Phillipa. Did we not discuss this very thing last eve? If you have something you wish to say, do so.”

“I have nothing to say,” she assured him. Still, he didn’t move. “’Tis not the same at all. This matter is delicate. Last eve we discussed my fear of angering you.”

“Which I’ve dissuaded you from, I hope.”

She thought about how to phrase this. “I do not believe you will be angered if I speak my mind on this. But ’tis not a topic that should be spoken of aloud.”

He was definitely not pleased with her answer. “I am your husband.”

“But a stranger to me.”

“Then we shall rectify the matter. Come.” He nodded toward the inn. “Ask your questions, but know this. Before the end of this night, you will tell me what you’ve been told about making love.”

Phillipa’s hand flew to her chest.

Haydn chuckled. “I would apologize for my bluntness, but it seems that is precisely what you need, my dear wife.” He crooked his arm such that Phillipa immediately took it, as if they were walking not into a timber-framed two-story building but the great hall of an English noble. It was the first time since they exchanged vows that she actually felt as if she were married.

Well, Phillipa would feel well and truly married this eve, and if she were being honest with herself, she was in equal parts worried and curious.

Her wedding night, for better or worse, had finally arrived.

Chapter Eleven

By the time they’d finished their meals—meat pies and freshly baked bread—Haydn could not stop staring at his wife. Was she truly the same woman who had stood in front of that chapel and said not a word?

They sat at a table tucked into the corner. Their host, the innkeeper of the Cony Inn, kept their mugs filled all eve. The first time Haydn had come here with his father on the way to London, the innkeeper had already been elderly.

Haydn’s attention turned to his wife, who sat across from him, next to Holt. Every moment that passed, she seemed more and more comfortable offering her opinion. At first she’d glanced at him each time someone asked her a question. A fact that made him seriously consider heading back to London to throttle that father of hers.

They all knew not to breathe a word of anything relating to the Waryns or Kerrs. Instead, they spoke of politics. Of travel. He learned of Phillipa’s sister, of whom she seemed quite protective. And of her time at court serving the queen.

When Hamon asked her how a woman such as she was not already married, she said, “A broken betrothal. A queen who forbade her ladies to marry while they served her.” Phillipa turned more serious. “A father so beholden to the king that he’d not make a decision without his approval.” As if realizing she’d said too much, or had been too candid, his wife had lifted a mug of ale to her lips, drinking more deeply than she’d done since they arrived.

Even now, as he watched her interact with Holt and his men, Haydn wondered if the tone of her response had meant what he thought it had. The comment was certainly not one of reverence for her father, or the king. He’d assumed her full loyalty would be to both, but now Haydn wondered if perhaps that assumption was misplaced. Between what she’d told him of her father, and now this. . .

“How far north have you been, my lady?” Hamon asked her.

Hamon, the son of a baron and neighbor to Kenshire, had only earned his spurs the year before. Though his sword was well-honed, Hamon had much to learn still. Though the question was a good one.