The Kindling by Tamara Leigh

Author:Tamara Leigh [Leigh, Tamara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Inspirational Medieval Romance
Publisher: Tamara Leigh
Published: 2013-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

“Helene?”

The voice squeezed into the narrow space between sobs, causing her to startle where she sat hunched on the garden bench, her face in her skirts as she tried to quiet the sounds of her heartache.

Was it Durand who tore away her solitude? His voice in her stuffed ears?

His hand touched her shoulder and, a moment later, he lowered beside her. “What is it, Helene?”

She raised her head slightly and wiped the wet from her eyes and face. “I wish you had not come,” she whispered out of a throat that felt as if nails had been dragged over it.

“I did not intend to. Indeed, I nearly talked myself out of it when I saw you go to the kitchen, but when you returned from the wood, you appeared shaken. And I do not think it was only due to your son’s arrival, especially since Sir Abel appeared equally distressed when he entered after you.”

At her silence, he said, “I know I should not be alone with you—”

She sat upright and turned her face to him that she had not meant for him to see, tear-swollen as it surely was. “My wager with Sir Abel is void,” she said, anger vying with the break in her voice.

Durand’s brow creased more deeply. “Why? What has he done?”

She let out a shuddering breath that took with it enough of her anger that she was able to speak further. “’Tis more what I did. Rather, what I did not do.” If only she had listened to Sister Clare—better yet, had listened to herself. If only…if only…

To her surprise, Durand laid a hand over her right hand, gently eased the skirts from it, and gripped her fingers in his. “Tell me.”

She wanted to, but this was the man who had determinedly sought her brother’s death and dealt the killing blow. He might react to the truth as poorly as Abel had done. Perhaps worse. Of course, what had she to lose?

She swallowed hard, but a sob slipped free.

“Helene, whatever you did not do cannot be so bad as you—or Sir Abel—believe it to be.” He squeezed her hand. “Trust me.”

She dragged the back of her free hand across her eyes and met his gaze. “My wager with Sir Abel was made under false pretenses. He believed he was protecting a woman with whom he might make a life, not…” She looked closer upon the man before her. “…a woman who had both a father and mother in common with Robert Lavonne.”

His face went momentarily lax, then his eyes widened and he stiffened. “It cannot be.”

“’Tis.”

He shifted his gaze to her hair as Abel had done, then released her hand and rose from the bench. The distance he put between them was yet another cut to her heart and she clasped her hands to keep from pressing them to her chest. When he returned to stand over her, he said, “Tell me how it is so.”

Though the thought of speaking it all again made her grateful her stomach was too empty to toss up anything other than bile, he had a right to know.

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