“True, especially if one is planning a journey. I have heard talk that you think of making one. Put that idea aside. You will be staying here.”

She paused her delicate strokes. Straightening, she cleaned the little brush, set it down, and covered the ink. Finally she rose and faced him.

Nesta the adversary had returned.

“I had assumed that you would see the rightness of my leaving, but it appears that you are not nearly as clever as I had thought.”

“Clever enough to know that I need to keep an eye on you.”

“I think that it is not just an eye that you want to keep on me.”

“Nay, it is my hands and my mouth and my whole body, but you will not be staying because of that. You have been determined to thwart the crown’s plan for making peace with your father’s men. I intend to make the peace without your interference.”

She frowned with frustration. Her fretful expression touched him. He moved to embrace her, but she shrugged him away and his hands only came to rest on her shoulders. Since she seemed to accept that, he let them stay there.

“I know something about duty to a father’s will, Nesta, and much about responsibility to a father’s memory. In this you and I are the same. Whatever burden Llygad’s life and death placed on you, however, I cannot allow you to encourage his men in their rebellion. Not just because of my duty to my king and not only because it will mean their deaths at my command. In the doing of it, you place yourself in danger. I will not allow you to engage in anything that might be seen as treason. Already Stratford is suspicious of you.”

A belligerent glint entered her eyes. “Let Stratford be suspicious. I do not fear him.”

“If he finds evidence to support those suspicions, at the least he will have cause to put you away.”

“He has already done so once. I will survive it again.”

Her reckless attitude both angered and worried him. He gripped her shoulders tighter. “Tell me what you are up to, Nesta. If it is truly treasonous, we can end it cleanly and no one will be the wiser. If we do not, even the King’s favor may not protect you.”

She looked in his eyes so long that he thought she would confide in him. A sadness passed over her expression, however, and her gaze slid past him.

Gently, she stepped out of his hold and limped to the window. “If it were truly treasonous, it would be your duty to hand me over to the King’s judgment. If you did not, you would be as guilty as I, and would risk everything with your silence.”

“What I risk is my concern alone.”