24. The Star Stitch #3
“You are most kind, Lady Seren.”
Her fingers finally fell from his cloak’s brooch, and she took a step backward. Her shadow from the hearth light fell on him. She dipped her chin, voice gone.
She left with a heart beating fast in her chest and didn’t look back. She couldn’t.
Margot asked Isolde to return the supplies to the cellar and followed Seren’s quickened steps. Erik’s blood was still on her hands. She hid them so Lord Henry’s guards and Godric wouldn’t know. She didn’t fully trust them yet, though they’d let one or two things slip by unnoticed, Godric more so.
Once inside her room, Margot grabbed the basin and cloth and scrubbed Seren’s hand.
“Milady,” Margot said with a soft breath as she worked. “I have another secret. The commander asked me to keep it.”
“Then keep it,” Seren said, hiding the plea in her voice.
“I shall disobey this one time,” Margot said and locked eyes with Seren.
Whatever Margot said would hurt.
“Lord Henry stripped the keep’s store of Shepherd’s Purse and Yarrow when Lord David was born. He didn’t want you to survive, but Commander de Montfort gave me all his Comfrey and begged me not to tell a soul. To say I found it in the cellar, which I did.”
Seren’s soul cried out—perhaps he’d loved her since then. She forced herself to keep the truth at bay, but, curse Margot, she spoke it.
“I tell you this because I know he cares for you, milady.”
Seren’s face contorted. “I know, Margot,” she whimpered, unable to hold herself together. “But I cannot care for him as he cares for me.” Tears came, and her shoulders shook at the truth. “I can’t.”
Margot held Seren, pulling her head into her chest.
“Milady, I do not envy your circumstance,” Margot said through sniffles of her own.
“I saw the way you looked at him and lingered at his side—the way you let him wipe your tears. I will keep whatever secrets you have or . . . want to have. I will give my life to ensure they are kept. I’ll send Isolde away so she doesn’t have to know and cannot tell Lord Henry. ”
“Margot,” Seren said, acknowledging the implication of Margot’s offer, but she had to be firm. “I made a marriage vow.”
“And Lord Henry has not kept it,” Margot said in a hush, pulling Seren back to look her in the face.
“And so I am to be like my philandering husband while carrying our child in my womb?” Seren shook her head. “My vow was to God, and I shall keep it, no matter what my heart wants. And so, I shall not want it because then my life will be easier to bear.”
Margot’s lips pursed in a frown. After a few moments, Margot finally whispered, “May the Lord bless you for as long as you live, milady.”
Isolde entered, and Seren and Margot straightened. She came and kneeled by Seren, took a cloth, and scrubbed Seren’s other hand.
“Commander de Montfort went to see his son,” Isolde said after silence had filled the chamber for a while.
Seren watched Isolde work. She’d already asked Erik the questions that had plagued her and received answers she didn’t know she wanted. Why not ask Isolde one more?
“Did you tell Lord Henry of the garden?” Seren asked her handmaid.
Isolde closed her eyes. Her hands stopped scrubbing. She swallowed hard.
“I did.”
Her voice shook.
“Forgive me, milady. He forced it from my tongue. I only told him about the flowers because the watchmen on the keep’s roof saw you and the commander holding them.
I did not tell him of the commander’s warning at the grave either.
I heard him say your name, but I only reported back what you had said, your loyal words to your husband. Nothing else.”
“You were the one at the grave? Not Father Osbert?” Seren asked. Perhaps it was both—two sources to confirm the truth.
“Forgive me, milady.” Isolde kissed Seren’s fingers.
“Please do not send me away. I fear what he will do to me if I were not your handmaid.”
Isolde put her forehead atop Seren’s hand.
“Please. Please do not send me away,” Isolde said.
She was begging for her life, Seren realized, and yet anger never rushed to her heart.
They were all trapped in the keep, it seemed. Every soul was a prisoner.
She stroked Isolde’s fair hair. “Stay loyal to me and tell me what you tell Lord Henry, and I will not send you away.”
Isolde wiped her tears and her nose. “I promise. I vow on my life. You are milady, forevermore.”
Seren grabbed both Margot and Isolde’s hands. “I am indebted to you both. I will never send you away, either of you.”
Night came. Isolde and Margot were asleep in their alcove. Seren lit a small candle and ensured they both slept before sneaking down to the nursery through the forgotten staircase.
She peered through the tapestry. The nurses were asleep.
She stepped into the room. David curled against his stuffed badger, and Aveline’s ebony hair fanned out across her pillow like a crown.
She kissed each child on the forehead, saying a prayer over them, and when she opened her eyes, she saw a single kingcup by Vala’s bedside.
There was no note, just the bloom, but neither the children nor the nurses had been outside that day.
She picked it up and held it to the moonlight. It was dried and pressed, meaning it was from Erik. She’d missed his tokens.
Her fingers curled around the petals. She returned to her chambers and tucked it behind her candle on the nightstand, among the others, as a reminder that even in silence and absence, something could still bloom.
In the quiet that followed, she closed her eyes and remembered the warmth of Erik’s skin beneath her hand and on her cheek and the way his eyes had barely left the fire when she stitched him—like it hurt to look at her. It likely did, just as it hurt her to touch his skin.
But there was nothing she could do about it except pray, so she prayed.
“Lord over all, be with my heart and with Erik’s. Keep them in your hold; let them learn to want nothing until wanting no longer hurts,” she whispered and blew out the candle.
With it went any hope of a future with Erik, as if there had ever been any.