Almost could he feel her go cold beneath his hand. Such a stillness came over her that she might be made of marble, a carved angel in a cathedral. All the words that had sprung to his lips – about how it was a political alliance, how it meant nothing, how it need not be an impediment – they all dried up.

Her eyes met his, a look that cut through him and spoke plainly the words she had said so long ago. I am no whore. Nor do I wish to become one.

Now he understood the enormity of his misjudgment, the carelessness of his presumption. It did not matter that he would give her an honored place in his household, and the only place in his heart. Her children would be bastards. She would be seen as naught but a servant to his lust. And he would never be her simple Welshman.

Her gaze was steady, even as he let his hand drop from her. Men began spilling from the hall into the yard, loud voices and music, horses being brought forth in preparation for the journey.

“Nan,” he said, despair closing like a fist over him. He wanted to go on his knees and beg her to come with him, even knowing it would not move her. “You must understand.”

But she did understand. She knew what it meant to have a lord’s duties, why he went and what her place would be if she followed. She understood it all, and she quietly rejected it. No words were necessary, and so she did not speak them.

He looked at the knife on her belt where her hand rested. Her Aunt Mary seemed to whisper in his ear, telling him Nan used to be the most chattering girl. He waited for her to draw the knife, to plunge it into him. Then he prayed for it, because anything was better than this silence.

Of course she would not give him words. Not curses, or platitudes, or even farewell. Of course not. He did not deserve them, arrogant fool that he was. He would lose her, and it would be silent, because nothing could be more devastating.

But then she proved him wrong, and finally uttered words that cut him deeper than any blade.

“I believed you.”

No anguish or recrimination. Just simple truth, and it felt like a fatal wound.

She remained a statue, never moving, a perfect and untouchable beauty. He waited for her to turn and leave him, dreading the sight of her walking away. It would feel like death. Already it felt like death.

When one of the servants brought him a horse with his small bag of possessions hung from the saddle, he could not bring himself to mount. Even when Will called to him and said they must start out before the light began to fail, he could not move.