Page 42 of The Thornwyck Rose

He gave a slow nod, his half-smile more ache than amusement.

“I must remain nothing to you,” he said quietly, the words a leash for his heart.

The air between them tightened, straining beneath all that could not be spoken.

She slid her hand into his, and he closed his gloved fingers around hers, as if they had done the same a thousand times before.

Her eyes told a story he could not afford to read—yet one he’d dreamed of for far too long.

“I wish you didn’t have to be,” she whispered.

His gaze faltered, slipping to her busted lip. His heart beat hard and fast. He shouldn’t want her—not like this. Not another man’s wife.

But he did.

He wanted to kiss her. To keep her safe in his arms, not just tonight, but forever.

And still—Ragnar, David, this new child—a thread secured their futures. His desire was a fire he could not feed. There was more at stake than the longings of his heart.

He should have walked to his room without aword. He should have left her in the hall. Should have let the moment die in silence.

But still he stayed.

Still, he looked her in the eyes andwanted.

The stairs echoed.

Instinct took over.

He grabbed her by the elbow and ran with swift, quiet feet toward her chamber. He left her by her door and stepped into the corridor leading to the garderobe, into the shadow.

She entered her room but caught his gaze before she shut the door without a sound.

Lord Henry’s voice echoed through the hall. “Guard, pick up my wife’s clothes and throw them in her room. The indecent woman walks these halls without a care in the world.”

“Yes, my lord.” The reply came.

After Godric opened the door, threw the gown and veil in the room, and took his position, Erik stepped from the corridor and hoped Henry was already inside his chambers. He nodded to Godric as if he were just leaving the toilet, walked past Henry’s guards, and down the corridor to his room without looking back.

With the door closed, he almost prayed then—not to her God, nor to his—but to whatever power might keep him from longing for what he could never have.

XVII

THE NEW LADY

THORNWYCK KEEP, NOVEMBER 1087

The second child was a daughter.

Henry did not care to name her. He’d grunted outside the door when the midwife announced it and left for the great hall before the cord was even cut.

So Seren named her Aveline.

It was a proper Norman name, elegant and unoffending. She would have preferred a Welsh name—one threaded with memory, one that belonged to her mother’s mother or the hills named after her father, Madoc—but Henry would never have allowed it. A name, he believed, should serve the father’s lineage.

He hadn’t held a feast for Aveline, hadn’t paraded her through all of visiting nobles, or rang any bells. His indifference was not unexpected, but it still twisted Seren’s heart.

Only one month separated Aveline’s birth from the present gathering. The courts had come for Henry, at his command, as a show of loyalty, thinly veiled as a celebration. Another type of parade, one of alliances and favors stitched together with flatteries and goblets of weak wine.