Ita tilted her head, face filling with pity. ‘Seven days it took that man to fall in love with you. You were barely fifteen. Marriage was the last thing on your mind, and he knew that.’ She smiled. ‘I was the love of your life at that age. I was the person who made you laugh, who walked with you arm in arm. We used to laugh at how ridiculous he was, do you remember?’

Isabel nodded. ‘I remember.’

‘I was in the way,’ Ita said. ‘And the fact that you already had a home, one you and your mother wished to remain in, was problematic. Gwenore wasn’t scared off by the rebel groups moving through Carmarthenshire at the time.’

‘My husband died defending this home,’ her mother had told Lord Tompkin the first time he asked for her hand.

He had been respectful of that because he was a good person. When the house was gone, she had been left with no choice but to accept his hand.

‘Hodge knew exactly what he was doing,’ Ita finished.

Pressing her palms to her eyes, Isabel drew a shaky breath. The air felt stifling suddenly, despite being quite far from the fire. ‘I need a minute.’ She rose and walked twenty yards or so, leaning against a tree for balance.

‘You can’t just wander off’ came Blackmane’s voice in the dark.

She startled and spun around.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

She hugged herself against the cold. ‘I cannot breathe that close to flames.’

He stopped a few feet from her. ‘You all right?’

‘I cannot marry that man. I did not want to marry him to begin with, but now…’ She shook her head. ‘I pray this new information will finally convince my mother that he is bad news for the whole family.’

He watched her in the dark. ‘You’re going to have to be smart about this. Hodge has the power to raise you up like a queen and tear you down just as fast.’

‘I do not care about that. If it were not for my family, I would have scaled the walls of Hampstead Keep long ago. Or jumped from them,’ she added quietly.

He dropped his gaze.

‘This is so much bigger than me and my family. You saw the people in that camp.’

‘I did.’

‘We can help them.’

‘We?’ he asked, looking up.

‘All of us. We can work together to get them out.’

‘You going to join forces with your new St Clare friends? Whose numbers have dwindled so low they’ve resorted to hiding?’

She stepped up to him, reaching for his weapon, but he caught her hand. His grip was firm enough to hold her in place without hurting her. She did not have the same urge to pull away that she had with Hodge.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘I want to feel how heavy your sword is.’

‘You going to learn how to fight too?’

‘That depends on the weight.’

His gaze fell to her mouth. ‘That’s not a good idea.’