“Yes,” I admitted softly.
He was quiet a moment. Then, without drawing attention to it, he shifted his hand beneath the table until his fingers brushed lightly against mine.
Warm.
Steady.
My heart did something deeply unhelpful inside my chest.
Across the hall several servants had begun singing while children chased one another around the hearth with evergreen branches like tiny festive barbarians.
Aldwin lost an argument with a seven-year-old over a honey cake. The Baron pretended not to notice and quietly slid the child a second one.
I stared at the scene before me. At the candles glowing against stone walls, and at Geoffrey beside me. At the sound of laughter echoing through Thames Castle despite war, winter, and uncertainty.
And for the first time since arriving in 1215, I realized something terrifying.
If the psalter decided to call me home tomorrow…
Leaving would break my heart.
* * *
Later that night snow fell harder beyond the battlements.
Most of the hall had drifted toward sleep, musicians half-dozing near the fire while servants cleared trenchers and empty cups.
I stood alone near the great hearth warming my hands when Geoffrey appeared beside me carrying two cups of mulled wine.
“You disappeared,” he said.
“I was helping Agnes rescue an overcooked pie from becoming a tragedy.”
“A noble service.”
“I like her,” I admitted. “Even though she still thinks my old clothes are cursed.”
Geoffrey smiled.
The firelight caught the gold in his dark hair while snow moved softly beyond the narrow windows.
“You belong here now,” he said quietly.
The words landed somewhere dangerously deep inside me.
I looked up at him slowly. “Do I?”
“Yes.”
The hall behind us glowed warm as midsummer despite the snow outside. Evergreen garlands hung from the beams. Beeswax candles flickered against ancient stone. Somewhere in the kitchens someone laughed loudly enough to scandalize half the saints painted in the chapel.
And standing there beside Geoffrey, wrapped in warmth and candlelight and the impossible ache of belonging, I realized the most dangerous thing of all.
A part of me had already chosen.
Eighteen
GEOFFREY