Page 22 of One Knight in the Forest

Chapter Eight

Reluctance still shone in Magdalen’s eyes, and Cyn stifled a groan. The morning was swiftly passing, and today, William would likely arrive with his men-at-arms to take her back to Glemstow. Cyn had to find out her secret, and soon.

He squeezed her fingers. Her eyelids fluttered, but her expression remained wary.

“Magdalen,” he urged. He’d never felt so torn up inside, not since the day he’d returned to his family’s castle to see Francine standing hand-in-hand with his brother.

Magdalen gnawed her bottom lip; she clearly struggled with her conscience. “I…”

He swore under his breath. There must be some way to earn her trust. Sharing the book of old tales hadn’t worked, but he couldn’t give up trying… What, though, would persuade her?

Cyn glanced away, and his gaze found her bag tied to the rope. Remembering what he’d found inside the bag, he rose and went to the shelf near the fireplace. Light glinted off the silver stag ornament as he retrieved it from its special spot near the book. After untying her bag, he brought it to her and set it in her blanket-covered lap, along with the stag.

Her eyes widened. Drawing in a sharp breath, she picked up the ornament.

“I am certain ’twas made by the same silversmith who designed your doe. The style is identical.”

She studied the stag, and then her fingers tightened around it, as though to draw strength from it—just as he’d done many times through the years. “I vaguely recall that there was once a mate for my doe. How did you come by it?”

In as much detail as he could remember, he told Magdalen of that afternoon when he’d been gifted with the stag. “To this day, I remember her as the most beautiful lady I had ever seen. Her words helped me through some very dark days. “’Twill be all right,’ she told me—”

“‘You will see,’” Magdalen finished. Tears welled along her lower lashes.

“Aye. How did you know?”

“I believe…that lady was my mother.”

Magdalen’s mother. ’Twould explain the resemblance between the two women.

A sad smile curved Magdalen’s mouth. “She was indeed beautiful, not just in her appearance, but the way she treated others.”

“Was,” he echoed.

“She died in childbirth when I was ten. The babe, a boy, perished too, moments after he was born. I…was with my mother when she passed on.”

“I am sorry.” Cyn couldn’t imagine watching a parent and sibling die; the anguish would be unbearable. He’d been spared that kind of pain by being away in the East when his parents had perished. Bitterness, rage, and gut-twisting anguish stirred within him at the memory of his brother informing him of their deaths, but Cyn mentally shoved the recollections aside. Magdalen was most important now, not just for what she could reveal about the stag, but for what she’d tell him about William.

“My mother gave me the doe when I was a child,” she was saying, “but just before she died, she gifted me with the ruby. She told me to always keep it close to me, and that ’twould bring me good fortune. For a while, I thought ’twas true, until I found…”

“Found?” he coaxed.

She averted her gaze, and the silence lagged. He forced himself to remain still and quiet, to leave the burden of ending the silence upon her. “My mother… At what keep were you serving as a page when you met her?”

How neatly Magdalen had avoided answering his question. He could be patient, however, for a little while longer. “I served at Drandwick Keep, in Nottinghamshire.”

Magdalen’s eyes widened. “Lord Falderston’s castle?”

“Aye.” Cyn well remembered the broad-shouldered, dark-haired lord whose booming laugh could carry across a bailey.

“When I turned fourteen,” she said, “I moved to Drandwick to become a ward of Lord and Lady Falderston. My mother had been best friends with her ladyship, and the Falderstons were very kind to me. I also met my friend Aislinn there.”

“The lady whose letters are in your bag,” Cyn recalled.

Magdalen nodded. “She married Lord Hugh Brigonne and now lives in Lincolnshire.”

While Cyn had never met Hugh Brigonne, he’d heard the story of what had befallen him last year. Found naked and left for dead in a forest, Brigonne had survived a foul plot by a rival lord to claim his estate and intended bride. Brigonne was known to be one of the wealthiest lords in England.

“My parents were also friends with the Falderstons,” Cyn said. “’Tis how I ended up being sent to their fortress to train as a page. Your mother must have been visiting Drandwick Keep the day I met her.”