can be ours.”
I fall against the kitchen wall and let it hold me up.
“William’s already claimed you.” Nest smiles halfway, sheepish. “Do you know he slept with the bladder ball you gave him tucked under his arm every night? I suspect he still does. I don’t even want to think what’ll become of David should Alice never come back. You always knew what to say to them, even when things were . . . bad.” She swipes at tears, then flutters an awkward smile. “You’ll live in our house. You’ll be their nurse. When they’re grown, you will be my companion. Unless you choose to marry. Even then you won’t be rid of me. I will expect spiced wine when I visit.”
A cozy chamber. Playthings scattered around. Not Miv’s tiny fingers winding through my hair. William bouncing his ball to David, who catches it with both hands because his comfort rag is stowed somewhere for safekeeping. A place where Margred can visit all the time because it won’t matter whose sister she is.
“. . . before the se’ennight is out,” Nest is saying. “Will you come?”
“I . . .” I look over my shoulder at the hall, then down at my lovely, well-stitched shoes. “I like it here.”
Nest sighs. “Oh, child, of course you do, but you being a wife is a playact, same as me wasting away in the maidens’ quarters. It’s not real.”
“My gown is real. My shoes are real. It’s all real. It’s ordinary.”
“You’re playing house. Owain ap Cadwgan is not. He hasn’t played for a moment while he’s been here, and he definitely won’t play once you’re back in Wales.”
“Let’s not forget which of us told Sadb I was Owain’s wife in the first place,” I reply through my teeth, “and which of us sold him that not-real made-up story before he could think it through so he wouldn’t get us run out of Rathmore in disgrace.”
“Believe me, I haven’t forgotten,” Nest says, quiet and sharp. “This is my fault. I should have told Sadb the truth right away, but you . . . lit up, putting on that gown. You moved differently. Spoke more easily. Smiled like you meant it. Like all at once you were in command of the room. In command of yourself.” She shakes her head and sighs. “I thought for sure that’s what you’d walk away with. How it feels to belong. That this is who you are, and how you got here doesn’t matter. I meant to do you a kindness. Not give you a shovel and stand by as you dug a deep hole.”
I look down at my dress. My shoes. I blink hard.
Nest puts her arm around my shoulders like she did on the sea crossing. “Come with me. By the time he realizes we’re gone, we’ll have put foot on shipboard, and there’s nothing on Heaven or earth that’ll let him catch us. I’ll be back with my husband, you will be nurse to my children, and I will actually pity Owain ap Cadwgan if he happens within a stone’s throw of Gerald of Windsor for the rest of his natural life.”
“You’ve forgotten what I am to Owain,” I reply quietly, “and how he repays betrayal, be it real or in his mind.”
“I thought you’d be pleased. That you’d want to be their nurse.”
“I want a lot of things I can’t have, but there’s one thing I want that I can have. William and David and . . . and the baby, I want them to be safe. If I go with you, none of us will ever be safe.”
Nest takes my hand. “Gerald will protect you. I know he will. In fact, Gerald will welcome you if by sheltering you he can tweak Owain ap Cadwgan’s nose. Or lure him close.”
“No.” I pull away from her. “No, I’ll not be part of anything that puts Owain in harm’s way.”
She groans faintly. “He’s done nothing to earn your loyalty. He does less to keep it.”
“It has nothing to do with loyalty.”
“Not loyalty,” Nest says slowly, puzzling, “and not love, either. Then . . . what?”
The patter rises to save me, but it’s hard to make it hold water when there is Nest and her silver-hungry warbander and the promise of the little ones at the end of the voyage, and before, there was only Owain ap Cadwgan holding out his hand.
“Will you at least think on it?” Nest whispers. “I don’t think I can face them if