Page 5

“No, I did not.”

Neither man said anything more. Tomorrow would be soon enough for that discussion. Instead, Tristan simply murmured, “Hmmm,” and turned his attention back to Reggie as the first course of beef stew was placed before them.

Throughout the meal he alternated between conversation with his father, scanning the hall and pretending not to notice every single one of Reggie’s movements, and at times, catching her eye. They communicated despite the hundreds of people between them. A raised eyebrow. Reggie’s nodding toward the lutist in approval. It was her favorite sort of music.

It was time to communicate something more to her. They hardly had an opportunity to speak earlier. With fruit custard being served, the meal was essentially over. Singing, and dancing, would begin in earnest. It was time he and Reggie had a talk.

He caught her eye and, with one hand motion, told her where to meet him.

“Dancing, son?”

Tristan pulled his gaze from Regina and turned to find his father, as well as his mother, eyeing him closely.

“Of course,” Tristan said. He enjoyed dancing, courtesy of his mother, and his father knew it. “But first I must speak to someone.”

As he stepped down and left the dais, his parents went back to their discussion. Tristan made his way through the hall, the greetings after his long absence taking much longer than he’d anticipated. But finally, after what seemed like days, he wrested himself free.

And made his way toward his bedchamber.

Chapter Five

Regina pushed open the door to the smallest of the great chambers above the hall. Having come from a dark secret passageway she and Tristan used many times growing up, Regina had taken a candle with her. She placed it on a small, wooden table, turning toward the center of the room and confirming she was, indeed, alone. Adjoined to Tristan’s bedchamber, the room was styled after the lord’s solar but on a much smaller scale. Just one trestle table, two larger chairs and a corner hearth, surprisingly lit, furnished the sparse space. Even when in residence, Tristan hardly used this chamber, which was why Regina couldn’t understand why the fire seemed to have been recently tended.

In years past, whether Tristan was hiding from his tutor or Regina from her father after she’d burnt an entire batch of bread meant for a visiting noble, they’d made use of this chamber many times. The most recent time was over three years earlier, when Tristan bade her meet him here as he attempted to avoid one of the first women he’d nearly been betrothed to. The contract was never signed, and there had been more than one close call since, but Regina could still remember the beauty of that particular woman.

She’d been so afraid they would wed. Perhaps that was when she’d first realized her feelings for him had, for a long time, not been of the sisterly sort.

“Apologies for the delay.”

Spinning at the sound, she looked toward the door. “I did not hear you coming.”

“It has been oiled, apparently,” Tristan said of the door whose hinges always squeaked. He placed his own candle next to hers.

Dressed in his finest tunic, the Kenshire crest bold on his chest, Tristan’s hair as always flopping onto his forehead, he was the quintessential baron’s son. Regina once told him the king himself surely was not as confident with himself as Tristan. And she’d meant it as a compliment too.

“The fire,” she remarked, moving to the velvet-lined chair in front of it. Tristan sat across from her as Regina rearranged her gown.

“I asked for it to be stoked.”

“Ahh.” She paused and then asked the obvious question. “Why?”

“Because I’d hoped to find a moment alone with you this eve. We hardly spoke at all and have much to discuss.”

Aye, they did. Shoving aside the urge to be closer to him, the memory of Tristan’s arms wrapped around her, ever so briefly, in the village, she told him all that had happened since their last correspondence. In return, Tristan did the same, his stories of the English and French courts more colorful and less guarded than in his missives.

But he was holding something back, she could sense it. Regina knew Tristan as well as, or better than, she knew even herself.

“Something is amiss?” she guessed.

He began to shake his head, but Regina dismissed his reluctance. “Tell me.”

“This is a night for festivities, not for politics.”

“We live within a stone’s throw of a country our king has, for all intents and purposes, declared war on. It is always the time for politics. We could be attacked and all killed tomorrow, as you well know.”

The threat here at Camburg, though well west of Kenshire, was the same as it was for their overlord and for many of the border barons. Misguided loyalties, trusting the wrong person . . . the smallest of provocations could see their festivities turn to ash. But, ’twas their home.

Tristan frowned. “The king sent me back with a message for Father.”