Page 17 of To Honor

“Aye.”

“That you are nothing like your mother does not seem to me a disadvantage, Evie. There are many women who are highly valued for their knowledge, my own mother included. If your father does not see as much, he is a fool indeed.”

To hear him state this so bluntly surprised her. But it pleased Evelina too.

“Will you tell me about your mother?” he nudged.

Again, it was not a topic she discussed often. Oddly, she trusted this man even though she knew him little. “She disappeared when I was a babe. One day, she held me in her arms, rocked me to sleep according to her maid, who has since passed. The next morning, she was gone. My father searched for her for many years. There has been no hint of her since that night.”

“I am so sorry, Evie.”

“Thank you,” she said, as she’d done many times over the years. “I’ve reconciled it long ago.”

He was quiet for a moment. They both took a sip of ale.

“I do not believe one could ever truly reconcile such a thing,” he said finally.

She might agree, but Evelina preferred not to think of it that way. What’s done was done. She had long ago decided thinking of her mother, imagining what could have happened to her, accomplished little.

“Tell me of your mother. Your family,” she said, somewhat distracted by the way Gareth watched her so intently.

“My mother is an intelligent woman. And kind too. I’ve two older brothers, the eldest married with one child and a second coming soon. The other is a child himself, though older than me, but the most beloved by our father.”

“Surely your father does not love one more than the others.”

“He does.” Gareth did not seem bothered by the fact. “But I accepted that long ago. My brother makes all who are around him feel as if they’ve known him for a lifetime. He makes people laugh, as well.”

“Yet there is just one champion tourney player among you, is there not?”

She loved the way his eyes crinkled at the corners ever so slightly when he smiled. “I will admit neither of my brothers is very proficient at the joust.”

“Your father must be proud of your achievements?”

“Aye, he is. He knows my success is for our family, not for myself. I would win back the favor of the Claymore name, if not our lands and title.”

“If you and your men are successful, I would say such a thing will be very possible.”

“What do you know of the Guardians?”

Evelina told him of how her father suggested the abandoned Castle Blackwood for Knight School after the order was formed. How she played host to recruits, like him, and how little she knew of the missions the Guardians ran despite her father’s involvement.

“I will tell you all that I can,” he said.

“You will?”

“Aye. We are on the same side, are we not?”

“We are, but . . .” Evelina let her words hang. Until realizing one important fact. “How will you have the opportunity to do so? Tell me all that you can?”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “We will discover a meeting spot that does not put the alewife in jeopardy.”

She’d first asked the question, and would not take it back, but the idea of it—meeting again, perhaps more than once—was a dangerous undertaking, and likely he knew it as well as she.

“I know a spot,” she said. “One I’d considered for today but had no way to share it with you.”

“Tell me of it.”

“Behind the village chapel, there is a path leading toward a small lake. Before you reach the water’s edge, there is a garden. ’Tis now overgrown, its path moss-covered, mostly hidden and overgrown with flowers. I discovered the spot as a child and spent much time there when I wished to get away from the confinement of Ashford Manor.”