deep breath. “Without Nora.”
“Amen,” Grant intoned soberly.
“Nora herself urged me to give this a fair chance.” He stopped at the edge of the knot garden, where gardeners were clipping the boxwood hedges. “And now that I’ve been here for weeks, my doubts grow. But I do not see how I could turn my back on the duke. He is, after all, my true father.”
“Is he?”
Lennox met the boy’s level gaze. “Ye know he is. Can ye not see it clearly, every time we are together?”
“I see that you two look just the same, and he is a fine man, but there is more to being a father than that. Magnus MacLeod was by your side from birth.”
“I suspect Fiona told ye to say these things.”
“I may have heard them from her mouth,” Grant conceded, smiling. “I have spent a lot of time with her, after all. Fi is like an aunt to me, and Bayard is like a father. Your sister-in-law, Violette, has been there to guide me when my own ma was too selfish to be bothered.” He paused. “True family is more than blood.”
Emotion rose up in Lennox, stinging his eyes. “The duke has suffered so much loss. My appearance in his life has brought him hope and happiness. He wants to petition the king to make me his rightful heir. How can I turn away from him now?”
“’Tis surely a dilemma,” the lad agreed. “But I thought ye set out on this quest to find your own destiny, Lennox. What do ye want?”
Grant’s words were like a dirk in Lennox’s heart. When he spoke, his voice was choked. “God save me, I want to make a life with the woman I love. Nora.” Leaning against a tree, he raked a sun-darkened hand through his hair. “I do not want to interfere if she is happy in her new life, as you have said she is. Yet, before I make a decision about this life with the duke, I must know if there is a chance for Nora and me. Will ye go to her, Grant? Ask if she will see me.”
His young friend seemed to suppress a smile. “What about her babe? Could you love her when she is heavy with another man’s child?”
Lennox gave an impatient nod of his golden head. “I already do.”
Chapter 29
On the first day of September, Nora was surveying a newly restored tapestry when Master Mostinck approached her.
“I have been impressed by your work,” he said without preamble.
She lifted her chin so that she was perhaps an inch taller than the stout Fleming. “Thank you, sir. I am pleased to know it.”
“I want you to oversee a group of weavers who are about to begin work on a new tapestry, the one we are calling The King’s Joust. It will be a test for you, Mistress Lovejoy. Even though you are a woman, I think you may be up to the challenge.”
Her heart sped up. She had seen the large cartoon for the new tapestry when it arrived in sections from France. Nora had wondered if Mostinck would choose her to be one of the weavers, but this news was beyond her hopes—though not, of course, beyond her dreams.
“I would be honored to accept such a position, sir,” she said, smiling. Soon enough, he would know that she was with child, but by then the new tapestry project would be well underway. She would prove to him that she could do the work, no matter what.
“Good, good!” Mostinck nodded several times. “Tomorrow we will meet with the weavers.”
When he had gone, Nora sat at her loom and tried to absorb the news. Slowly, her future was unfolding as she had envisioned. The baby would complicate matters, but if Nora kept her focus clearly on what was in front of her, she knew she could successfully navigate each challenge.
“Mistress Lovely?” A boy’s voice broke into her reverie.
“Lovejoy,” Nora corrected as she looked up. There stood a liveried page, gazing at her as if she were an angel.
“From my mistress, Lady Fairhaven,” he said, holding out a sealed message, and Nora realized the page was wearing Lord Fairhaven’s livery. “I’m to wait for your reply.”
The brief note informed Nora that Cicely had returned from the country and was staying at Weston House. Could Nora meet her there today to address a matter of some urgency?
“You may tell your mistress that I will come as soon as my work here is finished,” Nora told the