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than it should, and it made her want to do nasty things to Catarina for even hinting she was interested in
Ewan.
Catarina smiled. "Tell me, Nora, have you ever heard of the works of Rowena de Vitry?"
Nora was thrilled to find another person who knew and loved bardic tales. "Aye! The Lady of Love is
one of my favorite troubadours."
"Then you are familiar with the 'Romance de Silence'?"
"Nay, is it new?"
"Fairly." Catarina added the vegetables she had been cutting, then took the ladle from Nora and stirred
them into the pot.
Catarina tapped the ladle twice against the pot, then set it aside. "It's the story of a woman in love with a
man she sees every year at a fair. She watches him as he grows to love another, and as the years pass,
she sees him with his wife, his children and such until he is an old man. On his deathbed, she goes to him
and tells him of her love. That she has been dreaming of him since he was ten and eight and she just a
bright-eyed maiden. That because of him she never married and never knew any happiness except in her
dreams, where she could pretend he was hers."
Nora's throat tightened in sympathetic pain. It was a tribute to Rowena's wonderful imagination that she
had written such a tragic tale. "How sad."
Catarina wiped her hands on her skirt. "Aye, but the saddest part of all is that right before he dies, he
confesses to her that he always loved her as well. That he would go to the fair every year just so that he
could watch her from afar, but since she refused to even meet his gaze, he assumed she felt nothing for
him. So the two of them spent the whole of their lives aching for what they could have had, had they just
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talked to one another."
"How tragic."
"Aye, and you're not following where I'm going at all, are you?"
"What do you mean?"
Catarina nodded at Ewan. "Don't you think it odd that you feel jealous when I speak of wooing him?"
Nora stiffened at what she was implying.
"Nay," she lied.
Catarina laughed. "You like him, admit it."
"I do not," she said primly, picking up the ladle and returning to stir the stew. She didn't dare admit her
feelings aloud to anyone. She could barely acknowledge them to herself. "He is entirely not the type of
man who interests me."
Catarina looked aghast. "My lady, you set your sights too high. What more could you ask for in a man?"
"Refinement. A man who is decorous and mannerly. One who is "
"Boring."
Nora gave her a peeved look. "How so?"
"Have you ever been around such men? They're mewling. Fussing over their hair, their clothes. They're
more woman than man."
Catarina indicated Ewan with her head. "Give me a man who isn't afraid to get a little dirt on his hands
any day. Think you your gentleman would have gone after you because you tarried in the forest? He
would have feared for his own life and given no thought to yours.
"Do you think such a fanciful, prim man would have laughed off what we did to him? Or would he have
demanded our lives for daring to muss his hair and clothes? Ewan has been a very good sport, all things
considered. Any other man would have Viktor's head for what we've done. Instead Lord Ewan travels
with us as a friend and equal."
"He is a bit odd, which confirms what I'm saying."
Catarina shook her head. "Sometimes, my lady, a person needs to look at someone only with her heart
and not with her eyes."
Nora glanced over to where Ewan sat. The other men were joking and laughing. He sat with his face
stern, his eyes troubled.
How she wished she could make him laugh. "He's always so sad."
Catarina concurred. "You know, my mother has a saying. A jovial man can be happy with anyone, but
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when a sad one laughs, he treasures the one who brings him the sunshine."
Nora thought about her words. There was truth to that. No one should live with the guilt Ewan did,
especially when he hadn't been at fault.
Kieran had made the choice to end his life. Ewan had done nothing more than make the mistake of
believing a lying tongue.
Nora had no real designs on Ewan romantically.
No matter how appealing he was or how well he kissed. At the end of the day, he wasn't what she
wanted for a husband. But she wouldn't mind i helping him if she could.
No one deserved to be relegated to a cave without family or friend.
She had a few days with him. Mayhap a little reprieve would help him see that life was better when one
participated in it.
Chapter 6
"What are you doing?" Ewan asked as Nora came up to him with a peculiar impish look on her face.
The look was so out of character that it made the hair on the back of his neck rise.
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