Page 50 of To Love

“And where, pray tell,” he whispered back, “shall we go if someone does come this way? Across there?” He pointed to the exposed galley. “Where all below can see?”

“Nay,” she said, resigned. “You will kiss me. Better to be caught in an embrace than to raise other suspicions.”

It had been their plan from the start. Disgraced was better than dead—a very real possibility for many she loved, perhaps including herself, if the traitor were to reveal them.

“That,” he said, moving into position, “I am glad to do.”

Leaning against the wall, Alden looked less like a spy and more like a casual observer to both the meal below them to his right and stairwell to his left.

Although she hated to admit as much, she reminded him. “The knightly code of chivalric conduct would not go well with our plan.”

His smile vanished. Alden looked at her, though Elara could not discern his expression.

“Being the son of a blacksmith does not go well with it either.” He shrugged, as if he did not care, but she knew otherwise.

Elara wished to offer words of encouragement, but she did not wish to offer false hope. Being here made it possible, in some ways, but becoming a knight, elevating the station that Alden was born into, would be difficult indeed.

Instead, she gave her attention to the hall below.

Lila had not made an appearance yet, and naught else seemed to be amiss.

“We found nothing,” she whispered to Alden, “that would implicate the maid in such a scheme. Ada reported nothing that would indicate she has been doing anything other than performing her duties.”

In response, Alden reached out his hand. He cupped it, as if asking Elara to take it.

She did.

He squeezed, smiling. And then let go.

“I simply wished to touch you,” he said, turning back toward the hall.

Again, like the kiss earlier, the simple gesture spoke of something more between them. More than desire. That was present, in abundance, but there was . . . simply, more.

“Tell me of your childhood,” she replied, still watching.

In hushed voices, they quietly spoke of Alden’s siblings. His mother, whom he revered, and a father who had obviously made an impression on him, but who was tough too. He had a temper, Alden claimed, and so they’d learned when to push, and when to retreat.

“Not unlike my own father’s teachings,” she said, watching Lila, who’d come out from the kitchens with two pitchers in her hands. “Knowing when to retreat is a necessary skill.”

“You speak of him often, but never of your mother. I know only she died giving birth to you, but surely your father spoke of her?”

Lila refilled mugs of ale, speaking to the recruits and other servants.

“He said she was the kindest person he had ever met. The daughter of a minor baron, she had been arranged to marry another man but fell in love with my father. Her parents, my grandparents, had both succumbed to the coughing illness years before, and so she was a ward of the crown. If not for my father’s connections at court, they’d never have been allowed to marry.”

“A love match.”

She turned from the hall to Alden. “Aye.”

The look that passed between them was not one Elara wished to dwell on. Neither was the constriction in her chest as they spoke or the memory of his sweet kiss on the tip of her nose.

Elara watched Lila once again.

She disappeared back toward the kitchens.

“Do you wish to marry for love, Elara?”

It was so quietly asked, she shifted her gaze back to Alden once again.