Page 23 of The Thornwyck Rose

She asked the question she’d held since he gave her the hidden warnings on her wedding night.

“Because you . . . ” He struggled for words. “You knew what this life was . . . and you came anyway to protect peace. To save your homeland. You care for children, not even your own. They are no one to you, yet you risked your life for them. Endure your husband’s mockery for them.”

The poison that hung around her neck felt heavy in those words. “And I won’t risk your son’s life for fresh air,” she said. “Please forgive me.”

“You have done nothing wrong, Lady Seren,” he said.

Twice now, her name had fallen from his lips, and she didn’t mind it. She wanted to hear it again, hear her name spoken by someone other than Henry.

He plucked the bloom and gently placed it in her palm, stroking the petals.

In that moment, she saw him in a different light. He was a man, perhaps not brutal, but compelled to follow the orders of his master, his owner, who held his son hostage for obedience. He was just as much a prisoner as she was. Seren burned his striking image into her memory the longer he remained silent—strong jawline with a trimmed beard, highcheekbones, dark blonde, tousled waves covering his brow, a sharp nose, and eyes, a deep, clouded blue.

“My wife, Astrid, loved this bloom because it was hardy, bloomed even in cold frost, and was a bright yellow like the sun, the guiding light.” Commander de Montfort said, low.

He said her name like a prayer.Astrid.

Seren hadn’t expected the sting—jealousy of the love real enough to mourn. She wondered what it would feel like to be loved like that, even years after death separated them. She’d likely never know what it felt like.

“Called them sunbursts,” he continued. His thumb stroked the side of her hand as he remembered his late wife. “It’s been years since I’ve been in the garden . . . I miss her so much.”

Seren swallowed the lump in her throat at the slight break in his voice. She envisioned how Henry must have killed Astrid, and the years-long toll on the Commander to witness his life’s love be tortured and slain. Seren’s fingers tightened around the bloom. Astrid. The name clung to the petals, light and fragile, like all things Henry tried to crush.

“She was a lot like you,” he said, his gaze finally meeting hers again. His eyes misted, and it nearly broke her heart. “She was a fighter, a survivor until . . .”

Seren shivered from the truth beneath his words. Was he mourning Astrid still, or warning Seren that love saved no one?

“He is an awful man,” she said.

“Don’t say that too loudly.” He stepped closer as if to shield her and glanced back at Isolde, who stood with eyes closed and head drooping.

She took in his closeness and his cedar scent, now all the more intoxicating. She had told herself not to wish for a life not hers, but was it too much to ask for a life kinder? He had likely asked the same question.

She realized he was helping her because he respected her and saw her as a fellow warrior, but, at the same time, her hand was in his. He’d stroked her fingers. Perhaps she was just a memory of Astrid. That was all she could ever beanyway, but still her eyes trailed up his chest and neck, landing on his rugged profile.

This life was the only life she’d ever known. She didn’t want to dream of something more. It would make her long for something that would never be hers. But the man before her intrigued her with his care, kindness, and hurt.

Was she simply the next woman he could not save? Or had he chosen her, somehow, for something more? She didn’t want to believe in kindness that had no cost—but she wanted to believe in his.

So she told him the truth, whispered in their closeness.

“I try to pretend I love him and I want this life with him,” she said.

His gaze drifted back to her.

“Sometimes it’s the only way I make it through the night,” she whispered, holding back her tears. “He is truly awful. I’ll not apologize for saying it.” She realized his fingers were on her elbow, so she pulled her arm closer to her belly to nudge him off her for both their sakes.

“If anyone can survive Lord Henry, it is you,” Commander de Montfort whispered, before taking a step back to a respectable distance.

Seren stroked the bloom’s petal. She didn’t want to talk about her husband, not in the precious few moments of privacy with the Commander, her only friend in the keep. She wondered if Astrid had bloomed in frost, too. If love had made her brighter, not broken. Seren vowed not to be another sunburst crushed by winter’s weight.

“Astrid is not a Norman name, and you do not look like the others.”

“We are Norsemen.”

She brought her hand closer to her eyes to examine the golden bloom. “Payen de Montfort is not your real name, then, is it?”

“It is now. I am only a shadow of the man I once was,” he said.