“It doesn’t matter—”

“It matters to me. I matter: in this, I matter.”

“We will have other children.”

“We would not,” she contradicted him. “No child would come to my womb if I had poisoned his brother.”

He tried to laugh. “This is superstition and nonsense! This is folly!”

His barking laughter died away when she did not reply, and they sat in silence, waiting for the other to speak.

Then, he used the worst threat against her that he could do: “You know what you’re saying? You will not come to me, and be my love and be my wife? You chose this—this nothing—over me? Over the life we would live, and what we could do for Rob and for Alys? You will let them be spoken of as children of a missing father, or worse. When they could be stepchildren to a baronet? You favor this nothing over them? As well as over me?”

He thought she would faint, she had gone so white, but he thought he must be cruel to her, to save them both.

He underestimated her. When she spoke, her voice was steady, she was far from fainting: “Yes, if I have to.”

They were both silent at the enormity of what she had said. He thought that not even when the king had died had he felt this disbelieving misery. “Alinor, I cannot take a child that goes by your husband’s name into my honorable home. Even if I wanted to do so. I could not own you as my wife.”

She nodded. He saw her reach for the cup of ale and realized that she was blinded with tears, but she kept her head down so he could not see. Her grief only made him harder.

“I will regain my home, and go and live there without you, and I will never see you again. You condemn me to being alone, where I had thought we would be happy together. Where you should be my wife.”

Her hand found the cup and she held it. Even her scarred fingers were white.

“I have loved you more than anything in the world and I will spend the rest of my life without you,” he said.

Speechlessly, she nodded.

“And I will marry someone so that my name continues, so that I have a son. But I will never love her as I have loved you, and I will spend the rest of my life missing you.”

Her hand was shaking so hard that the warm ale spilled onto the skirt of her gown.

“Is this your wish?” he asked incredulously. “Is this what you want for me? This misery?”

The maid of the inn came up to them. “Everything all right here?” she asked very loudly, breaking into the spell he was weaving around her. “Want another jug of ale?”

“Nothing, nothing,” James said, waving her away.

“Tell me that you will marry me,” he whispered. “Tell me that you love me as I love you—more than anything else in the world.”