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“You could have told me.”

Engulfing her in his arms, Haydn didn’t deny it. “Aye, I could have.”

She felt silly laying her head on the chest of a man who’d just admitted he had planned to abandon her. But it felt so good to be held by him, to breathe in a scent uniquely his. To pretend, for just a moment, they were not one step away from being enemies.

“Where is your primary residence?” she asked without looking up, knowing if she looked at his face, Phillipa would never keep the thin threads of composure she held onto even now. And then she remembered what Lady Kristine had said. “Rymerden Castle,” she guessed.

He pulled her closer. “Aye. Just south of Kenshire. The king bequeathed it to my mother as recompense for her father’s service, and she passed the title to me.”

“And Hillstone Manor?”

“Farther south even. Also a part of my grandfather’s holdings which passed to my mother. It is a lovely residence which sits along the North Sea, like Kenshire.”

A lovely residence. “You never intended this marriage to be anything but one in name only?”

“I never intended to marry at all.” She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. “Phillipa, I wanted to speak to you last eve. This is what I wished to discuss. Much has changed between us these past few days. I still must get to Brockburg, but after that. . .” He trailed off.

“Has it changed? We’ve simply consummated our marriage.”

“And that is all? You believe last eve was nothing more than duty? To assure that we are well and truly married?”

“And to produce an heir, of course.” She said it only to shield herself from further pain. Of course she thought what they shared was more than that, but Phillipa wasn’t fool enough to admit as much.

“If I’d simply wanted to produce an heir, I’d not have asked that we share a chamber, Phillipa. Conceiving a child does not require this.”

She’d not been expecting his kiss. But after what she learned, Phillipa wanted to welcome it. Indeed, when his lips touched hers, she gave herself over completely. In an instant, the kiss turned almost desperate. She wanted to believe him. Even if she knew the decision he’d made, to keep them apart, had actually been for the best.

This was where she should tell him everything. What her father had bade her do. Of the king’s paranoia and the fact that Haydn’s family was, indeed, in danger. She should ask him how they could remain together, in truth, but still protect her sister.

But she did none of that, because Phillipa was certain it wouldn’t matter. He said he wanted to talk. But Haydn never denied the fact that he planned for them to live separately or that those plans had changed. Just when she’d found her voice, Phillipa didn’t want to use it.

Kissing her husband, being held by him, just felt too good for the dose of reality that would surely lay waste to even an inkling of hope for them as a married couple.

You believe last eve was nothing more than duty?

How could she know with what little experience she had? But that he’d asked the question meant maybe, just maybe, Haydn didn’t believe it to be true. That last eve was something more. For now, she would enjoy the time they had, that small inkling of hope enough to cling to for this morning, at least, until the sun rose and shined its clarifying light on the truth of their marriage.

A marriage that balanced as precariously as the very conflict that set the two of them at odds. That declared them enemies when, in truth, no idea could be more false. Unless it was possible to fall in love with your adversary. In which case, Phillipa was well and truly damned.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Once,” Holt told Haydn’s wife as Haydn’s mount navigated around the thick mud that had plagued them all morning, “he challenged a man who’d long earned his spurs to a duel. He was, maybe, ten and two.”

“I can hear you easily enough,” he called back, riding just in front of them.

Phillipa chuckled. All morning his brother had been telling stories, none of them shedding him in a particularly good light.

“Our brother, Hugh, had to step in. Haydn really wanted to fight the man with his new steel sword.”

“What did he do to earn such animosity from a young boy?”

Haydn watched as travellers approached, and now only half listened to his brother’s tale. After the attack, he’d been more vigilant than usual. It was not the first skirmish he’d encountered on his travels, nor would it be the last. But he just wished to get them to their destination with no further cause for Phillipa to distress.

She’d had too much of that already. The men, sensing he himself had begun to speak more freely around his wife, did the same. And though his wife also shared stories, some of which were happy, mostly including early memories of her mother or tales of court, nearly all of them were laced with a hesitancy that should not be present when speaking of your family. With each passing moment, he felt more inclined to protect her. More inclined to figure a way out of this mess.

One thing was for certain.

He could not abandon her. Doing so was not in his nature. But neither did he have a clear plan yet. Would he speak freely with her, as one should with their wife? Could he really take her to Bristol Manor?