Her head was bowed over her lap, and he found himself walking toward her rather than away. Bending down, he lifted her chin. Tears escaped from under her closed eyelids.
It seemed he’d get his wish. Alex sat beside her and covered them both. He held her to him, comforting her as best he could. She cried openly against him, her shoulders shaking.
“Shhhh. . .”
She sniffled and wiped her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. He moved away for long enough to reach into his satchel and retrieve a dry cloth, but as soon as he handed it to her, he pulled her against him once more.
“He. . . he. . .”
She continued to cry while attempting to speak. The pain in her voice pierced Alex through.
“He did it on purpose,” she managed. “For me to see.”
Alex remained quiet as her sobs subsided.
“I could not see his face. The men. . . they came prepared for battle. I should have listened to my father. I should not have come back.”
So, this was what she watched each night; she was forced to relive her father’s death.
“How could I leave him? He was all I had. If only I had been trained. If I’d been armed. . .”
“You’d likely be dead too.”
Her head was cradled against his chest, and her tears continued to make quick work of wetting his tunic.
“I ran back from the secret passageway. They were everywhere by then. They’d breached the walls, and as soon as I pushed open the door in the floor and climbed up through it, I knew I’d made a mistake. But I was never afraid.”
Alex lifted her shirt over her bare shoulder and rubbed it, listening.
“I would have been,” she amended. “But there was no time. The man who walked up behind my father saw me. His face was helmed, but I always imagined his sneer behind it. He lifted the knife and plunged it into my father’s neck beneath his helm before I could even call out. He slumped to the ground.”
She turned, her face streaked with tears, and looked at him.
“’Twas the last I ever saw of him.”
She blinked and returned to her previous position on his chest. Which was just as well. The pain in her eyes was something no words, no gesture of comfort, could ever take away. He felt helpless and inadequate in the face of it.
“How did you get out?”
Clara’s father had been killed in the hall of the castle where she’d lived. Her description of the secret passageway confirmed something he’d suspected. She was an English noblewoman. One who was lucky to be alive.
“I could hear his voice, yelling at me to get to safety. Then the man. . . he saw me. Sometimes, in the dream, my father is still alive—lying on the ground, telling me to get out.” She swallowed. “That night. . . whether the man who saw me was killed or simply never bothered to chase me, I do not know.”
She’d stopped crying. Taking a deep breath, she finished her story. “He was so angry that I’d gone back. I remember him emerging from the trees and pulling on my hand. . . Much of the rest is a blur.”
“And then started your life as a lad.”
She moved away from him as if she’d only then realized the intimacy of their position.
“Nay. The idea came to Gilbert later, when he realized that while peasant’s clothes could hide my identity, they did not keep me from another kind of danger.”
“Another kind of danger?” The words had hardly left his mouth before he already understood.
“Men are not quite as discreet in their attentions to a woman in my new station.”
He could imagine as much. Anger at the unknown, faceless men welled inside him.
“Gilbert joked that ’twas as much for his safety as mine.”
“When I asked you to remain as a woman, you feared being recognized.”
Clara jumped up so fast, Alex didn’t have time to grab her. She fled from the tent, and he did not attempt to stop her.
She’d clearly not expected to reveal so much. But though he knew part of her story, he still had so many questions. Why had they been attacked? Why did she still hide her identity? Could she not attempt to reclaim her rightful inheritance? Who was Clara, the most enticing, innocently fierce lass he’d ever met?
Clara’s scream pierced his soul. In one fluid movement, Alex grabbed his