“You are awake. Is your head hurting? We overindulged, did we not?” She started toward him. “I can get you something for it—”
“Where were you?”
“Oh. I was…” She swallowed. “I…” Why could she not lie to this man?
Her voice trailed off as he rested his bent elbow on the table and lifted his forearm. Pinched between two fingers was a folded letter, sealed with cobalt-blue wax.
Her wax. Her letter.
Fear slid down her back. “How…?”
“That does not matter.”
Walter.
“Oh, St. Jude,” she whispered.
“Even he cannot help you now.” Aodh pushed to his feet.
She bolted. Fumbled for what seemed like forever to unlatch the door, then flung it open, Aodh a step behind. She hurtled for the stairs, but he caught her before she made it two steps, wrapped a steely arm around her waist, and hauled her back inside.
The moment he released her, she raced to the far side of the room, around the edge of the bed. She gripped the bedstead as he locked the door and turned to her. His eyes were darker than she’d ever seen, reflecting little glints of firelight. He looked cold and calm and…furious.
“Aodh, please…”
“Please what? What could you possibly plead for right now that I should give you?” He started toward her.
She circled the bed. “Aodh, do you not see? I cannot betray her.”
“I see. Only me.”
She blew out a breath. “I took a vow. An oath. And she has given me so much—”
“Aye, a father imprisoned for loving a woman who must have made starshine seem dull, until he had his head cut off for not renouncing her. Your mam ripped from her home, her heart broken in two on account of the queen’s petty jealousies, so terrified, she chose to die over protecting you. Then she gave you a castle at the end of the world, understaffed and unprotected, which you were somehow to make a go of, and Jesus God, always send the money back to England. Oh, aye, she’s given you much.”
Katarina stared, dumbfounded, at this rendering of her relationship with the queen. Worded this way, it sounded pitiful. But that was not the way of it. And even if it was… Her father had been executed.
As would she, if she turned traitor.
As would Aodh, too, if that missive she had just sent out was not delivered to the queen. That, and that alone, might save him. But only if Katarina remained loyal.
Traitors did not make good advocates for other traitors.
“I know you are angry, Aodh—”
A short gust of laughter met this. He began circling the bed.
She scooted up on the mattress, over to the far side. “—but did you read my letter?”
“Why would I do that?”
Oh, coldness emanated from him like steam. He had no patience for the reasons why, nor the good that might have been done. He cared only for the deed.
“But, Aodh, you must read it,” she insisted, skirting the table as he stalked her. “I told her everything.”
“Excellent.”
“No, my meaning is…I told her everything about you.”