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“Of giving you power over me, you mean?”

She bit her lip.

“I want this, Elizabeth. I want it more than anything else I have in my life. I am willing to give up the things that I once thought were all I needed to feel happy. I don’t care about the life I had before, the travel, the combat. If you could not be with me, what would such things matter to me?”

“I cannot believe that something so important to you would cease to matter.”

“I did not say that. ’Tis just that you matter more. I think I used my love of adventure as a replacement for real love. I never thought I could hope for it, being the third son and with little to offer a bride.”

She stared up at him with wide eyes swimming in tears.

“So if I travel again, I would want you with me,” he continued. “You mean so much to me.”

She closed her eyes, and two tears fell down her cheeks. “I usually know the right things to say,” she said. “But now, with you, I don’t.”

“It is you demanding perfection of yourself, Elizabeth, not I. You have a castle full of people depending on you, and I am one more, I know.”

“I do not think of you as I think of my servants and my friends.”

He gave her a gentle smile. “That’s all I can ask for right now. Be patient with yourself.”

“It is you who have all the patience,” she said. “You returned and I practically attacked you⁠—”

“It was wondrous, and I enjoyed the display of your feelings for me. I don’t need the words, at least not at this moment.”

She bowed her head. “You should go. Hide yourself. If he finds you here⁠—”

“He will think you aid the enemy.”

She grabbed his hand. “Nay, I care not for myself! It is you who will suffer in my place, and I could not bear it.”

She kissed the back of his hand. He felt her tears, knew her torment, and softly cupped her head.

“Then I will go, sweetling,” he murmured, stooping to kiss the top of her head. “I will see you again tomorrow night. Know that you are not alone.”

“I know,” she whispered.

John left her and returned to the undercroft, where there were so many places to hide. He made himself as comfortable as possible on sacks of grain and tried to sleep, but he kept seeing her sad eyes in his mind.

Twenty-Three

The next morning, Elizabeth waited in the kitchen as Adalia prepared food for Anne. Elizabeth felt rather dazed, and she told herself it was lack of sleep. Adalia gave her several worried looks, but did not pry beyond an initial, hesitant good morning.

It wasn’t just lack of sleep overwhelming Elizabeth. She did not know what to think about John, his gentleness, his understanding. She felt unworthy of his attentions, when she herself did not know yet what to offer him in return.

It seemed like it would have been a simple thing to offer her own hesitant confession. Hadn’t she already wondered if she loved him? Shouldn’t lovemaking have convinced her of that?

Instead it made her pull back, and John didn’t deserve that, not after everything he had sacrificed for her.

She was a coward, and she was startled and disappointed by that fact.

Yet was it cowardly to want to spare him, should her feelings prove less than his? Plenty of people had good marriages without true love.

But not her parents, she thought with sadness. They’d shared everything together, even death.

How foolish she was to think that she had loved William. There had been none of this whirlwind of emotion—this fear, this ecstasy, this despair.

This terror. How would she bear it if something happened to John?