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Eventually, Tuck shook the children off — carefully — and made his goodbyes. “I’d love to stay, but duty calls. Besides, your knights terrify me.”
Everyone mourned at our departure, and when we looked back from a rise half a mile down the road, they were still waving. Tuck waved back, and whatever part of me hadn’t yet melted gave up resisting.
“You’re good at that,” I murmured.
He chuckled. “Playing with kids? My mother says it’s because I still haven’t grown up.”
I pinned him with a sharp look. “You do more than that. You treat people with respect. You give them a sense of dignity.”
He stared at me, taken aback. His lips parted, and I sensed a self-deprecating joke coming, but then they closed again. A moment later, he shrugged. “I try.”
“You succeed,” I assured him.
His manners, speech, and the fact that he could read suggested he came from a noble family. But he really had a heart for people — all people, no matter their age, class, or circumstances.
“I think you were born for this job,” I declared as the mules plodded faithfully toward our next stop.
He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Here I was, thinking I was born to be a knight.”
I shook my head. “You were born for greater things.”
He eyed me skeptically, as if to say, There’s something greater than knighthood?
Yes, there was. He might not know it yet, but maybe someday, he would come to that realization.
“You’re already leaving your mark on the world — in a good way. How many knights can say the same?”
He looked at me, uncharacteristically quiet for a while.
“What about you?” he finally asked.
I tilted my head. “What about me?”
“What were you born for?”
I snorted. “Don’t you know? To marry well and bear many babies.”
Lord, save me, I nearly added.
He shook his head. “That’s what you’re expected to do. But what were you born for?”
A man after my own heart.
“As a child, I planned to be a knight,” I admitted. “Suffice to say, that job wasn’t open to me.”
Tuck laughed. “Now, there’s something I can relate to.”
Perhaps, but I was the only daughter of a widowed nobleman, and duty was an invisible corset that restricted my movements. Not to mention the greatest duty of all — keeping my family’s deepest secret.
There’d been many times I’d nearly shared it with Willa, my best friend and confidante. Now, I was just as tempted to confide in Tuck. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.
Tuck leaned in close enough to bump my shoulder. “Well, I think you’re born for great things. Whatever they are.”
I sighed. “Like getting married and doing needlepoint for the rest of my life?”
He nodded solemnly. “Greater even than needlepoint.”
We laughed, and when our eyes met, so much passed between us, I forgot where I was. I forgot who I was and why I was even there. All I registered was the glow of his eyes and the crackling energy that filled the air around us.
