Fanny.”
“I thought they looked alike,” Una observed. “So, she and her sister run a business together. Does it seem unlikely to you then, that she would be concerned about the fate of another female?”
He appeared to consider this. “Perhaps not,” he admitted after a moment. “Do you always tip when someone gives you a piece of advice?”
Una thought about it. “I’m not sure anyone has given me a piece of well-intentioned advice in a long, long time,” she admitted. “Usually—” She stopped abruptly.
He turned his head. “Usually?” he prompted.
Usually, it will be a veiled threat was what she had been going to say, but she found she did not want to start her new life with dire reflections on her past one. “Usually, people do not imagine I stand in need of it,” she improvised lightly. “It made a nice change. I’m sorry if you thought me profligate.”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “Not at all,” he answered. “And how you spend your money is your own affair.”
Una bit her lip at this. Did Sir Armand think she had money of her own? She had better set him straight on that score. “I have only the contents of the purse at my belt,” she admitted. “The King did not see fit to provide me with a dowry, I’m afraid.” To her relief, he did not seem visibly bothered by this piece of potentially shattering news. She had suspected all along that he had paid scant attention to the terms when he entered the May Day competition.
“We’re turning down here,” he said, gesturing to another side street that had a series of horseshoes hammered to a post.
“Blacksmiths?” Una ventured.
“Aye, and stabling. We’ll leave the horses here a while, until I run Fulcher to earth.” He glanced up at the sky. “I think we’ll need to remain one night in the city. There’s some honest hostelry to be found here and respectable inns in the next two streets.”
Una nodded and followed him into a stable yard where a groom immediately ran out to greet them. Una dismounted as Armand went over their needs with the groom. He then approached Una’s laden horse and started unbuckling the bags, which he slung over his broad shoulders. Having been assured their needs would be met, he paid his coin up front and gestured for Una to follow him as he made his way back out into the street on foot.
Una lowered her voice as she fell in step beside him. “Would it not be wise for me to take an assumed name whilst we are here?” she asked, conspiratorially.
Armand appeared to consider this. “How so?”
“I was thinking of Una being a Northern name,” she explained painstakingly. “I doubt somehow it is popular in these parts.”
“That would doubtless be more remarked upon in the country,” he said with a shrug. “You forget Caer-Lyoness is a port and a capital city at that.”
“So, my accent would not then draw remark, here in the city?”
“Your accent is very faint,” he reassured her. “And none would ever recognize you from any public appearance you may have made.” He cast her a quick look. “You’re scarcely recognizable in truth.”
She smiled slightly at that. “Yes, so you demonstrated in the early hours of this morn.”
His step slowed. “Did I actually do that?” He groaned. “Search for you under the bed? I was hoping that part was just a dream.”
She shook her head. “It’s not to be wondered at, I was dressed in full regalia when you married me in the chapel.”
He looked at her uncertainly. “Did you pack that headdress with the horns?”
“No.” She almost laughed again at his look of relief. “In truth, it used to give me a headache. I left it behind, along with the jeweled collars, which were more like breastplates. I doubt very much Queen Armenal will ever wear them, for though valuable, they were both cumbersome and very weighty.” She hesitated. “It felt right to leave them at the palace. That is where my ancestors wore them, many centuries ago.”
He nodded. “They belong in a case on display. No living, breathing woman should have to cart them round like an armored destrier.”
She was so relieved that he did not think she should have bought them to be melted down for their gold and precious jewels, that for once she did not mind the comparison between herself and a warhorse. “I am certainly not sorry to lose them,” she admitted.
They had reached the next street now,