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“It is. I will see if we cannot find you some to sample while we are here.”

Brighton thought that was an astonishingly good idea. The food vendor was looming close now and there were people coming in and out of it. Brighton got a good look at the steaming food in their hands– roasted meat with carrots and peas all packaged up in neat little trenchers. People were eating it with gusto, which only made her more hungry. Just as Patrick ducked his head down to enter the door of the shop, a shout stopped him.

“De Wolfe! I thought that was you!”

Patrick calmly turned towards the shouting and Brighton watched as the man’s face suddenly split into a smile. When she looked to see what had him smiling, all she could see was a very big knight in well-used armor and a dirty tunic crossing the road towards them.

“Bloody Christ,” the knight said as he approached. “The Nighthawk himself. There is no man in all of England as enormous as you are. Has anyone tried to put a saddle on you and ride you yet, you big stallion?”

Patrick laughed softly as he reached out to take the man’s offered hand. “Le Sander,” he muttered with satisfaction. “Has anyone tried to cut that glib tongue from your mouth yet?”

The knight laughed. “I am too fast and too powerful,” he said. “Mayhap they have a dirk with my name on it, but it would do no good. They cannot catch me or kill me.”

Patrick slapped him affectionately on the cheek. “That is true,” he said. “You have survived battle when it should not have been survivable, my friend. And it has been a long time since I have seen you.”

“It has,” the knight agreed, his expression suggesting he was quite fond of Patrick. But his gaze inevitably trailed to Brighton, standing next to Patrick with her hand still on his arm. “But it looks as if life has been very good to you. Lady de Wolfe, I presume?”

Brighton’s cheeks flushed a bright red and as she shook her head, Patrick answered. “Nay,” he said. “She is not my wife. My lady, this is an old friend, Sir Kerk le Sander. The last I heard, he served Sir Henry Grey of Chillingham Castle. Is that still true, Kerk?”

Kerk nodded. “It ’tis. I am his captain, in fact. I am in town on an errand for my lord.”

Patrick nodded before finishing the introduction. “I see,” he said. “Kerk, this lovely creature is Lady Brighton de Favereux.”

Kerk, a devilishly handsome man with eyes the color of the sea and hair so blonde that it was nearly white, displayed his best alluring smile. He took Brighton’s free hand, bringing to his lips for a chaste kiss.

“My lady,” he greeted in a deep, sweet voice. “It is an honor to meet you. May I ask if there is a chance that I may steal you away from my enormous friend?”

Brighton was so red in the face that she thought she might ignite into flames at any moment. “I-I do not know,” she said, gazing up at Patrick as he smiled down at her. “D-do you mean to have me for a servant?”

Patrick laughed loudly as Kerk shook his head. “Nay, lady,” he said patiently. “Not as a servant. I should like a beautiful woman on my arm today.”

“Why today?” Patrick asked, not entirely sure he liked Kerk’s attention towards Brighton. “What are you doing in town, anyway?”

Kerk threw a thumb back over his shoulder, in a westerly direction. “Did you not see the banners for the games?” he said. “Lord Horsden of Highburn House is sponsoring contests today. Tugging rope, archery, that kind of thing. I have no lovely lady to cheer me on so I thought you might sell me yours.”

Patrick was interested in the games. “I will not,” he said flatly. “She stays with me. But these games– are you competing?”

“I am.”

“Have you already entered?”

“I have.”

Patrick looked at Brighton a moment, perhaps to see her reaction to the mention of entertainment, before replying. It occurred to him that having her watch him compete in a game of skill might make her proud of him, if only just a little. He’d never had a woman’s attention like that, at least not attention that he really wanted.

And he very much wanted hers.

“It has been a long time since I have competed in any games,” he said to Kerk. “Where are the marshals so that I might see the areas of contest?”

Kerk’s gaze lingered on Brighton, too, realizing that Patrick had no intention of parting with the woman. His betrothed , he thought to himself. Certainly, from the way Patrick looked at the woman, it was an easy deduction.

Lucky bastard!

“They are up by the competition field,” he said. “Come along; I will show you.”

Patrick was eager to see where the games would be held. But the moment he took a step to follow Kerk, he remembered the food he’d promised Brighton. He quickly turned for the shop again.

“A moment, please,” he said to Kerk. “I promised my lady some food. I will be just a moment.”

Kerk dipped his head politely in Brighton’s direction. “By all means, feed the lady,” he said. “In fact, I will join you.”

Patrick was more than happy to have his old friend attend them but he found himself having to fend Kerk off of Brighton. He wanted to talk to her but Patrick would not permit it. He actually put himself between Kerk and Brighton at one point, a very large guard dog protecting a flower of a lady. Kerk had no choice but to take the hint.

Oddly enough, Patrick knew he had nothing to worry over, because Kerk was a noble knight and a man of good character, so his reaction to his friend underscored just how protective he felt over Brighton. It also showed how attached he was becoming to her. The past nine days at Questing had only sealed those feelings.

Your wife? Kerk had asked. Patrick realized he had wanted to tell him that she was. God, he’d been afraid of such thoughts before. Terrified of her and thoughts of her. That first night at Berwick, he’d literally run from her when he realized he was attracted to her. He’d put off his mother’s questions, or any questions about his feelings for Brighton, because he was afraid. But looking at her now, he wasn’t afraid of those feelings anymore. Intentions of assuming his post with Henry as a married man were fading further and further away.

God help him, they were.

It was a stunning realization and one he was finally ready to accept. It had taken Kerk’s unwanted attention towards Brighton to force him to make a decision. He couldn’t, and wouldn’t, stand for Brighton being with another man. He couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her behind when he went to London. But with that decision came peace he’d never experienced in his life. Something settling and warm. Something that seemed to soothe his soul.

He’d never felt such confidence in something that was right.

She belonged to him.

He was distracted from his thoughts once they entered the food shop, a rather large space within the stone building that smelled heavily of fresh bread and roasted meat. Straw was scattered over the hard-packed earthen floor, something to keep the dust from getting into the food. There was an open door at the rear of the building and beyond, a yard that had two great fires going. Over those fires were a pig and half a cow on a spit. Glendale beef, the vendor was telling everyone. People, lured by the smell of the roasting meat, were standing around waiting to pay for their food just as Brighton and Patrick were.

But Patrick had the advantage– being very big and armed, he was able to procure food for himself and Brighton because people naturally moved to get out of his way. Kerk came in behind him and demanded food as well, so the three of them were sent away with stale bread bowls of beef, carrots and peas in gravy. It was delicious and filling, and the gravy soaked the bread so that they ate that up at the very end. By the time they were finished, Brighton was miserably full but she didn’t complain in the least. Many times at Coldingham, she had gone to bed hungry. So to have a full belly was the best feeling she could imagine.

Another thing about the outside world that was far better than what she’d known.

It was a day of days after that. Drunk on beef and bread, Brighton and Patrick and Kerk headed up to the contest field where, already, some of the contests were underway. The contest field was literally that– a meadow that had some hastily-constructed lists on the south side for spectators– and there were several contests going on at once.

On one side of the field, they had started the hammer throw. On the other side, they were playing a game that had men with sticks batting a ball all over the grass. Patrick explained to Brighton that there were two teams and the object was for one team to hit the ball through the other team to the opposite side of the field. The problem was that some of the men had grown frustrated and ended up hitting each other over the head with the sticks, resulting in some bloodied scalps. Brighton thought it very strange that the men were laughing with blood running down their faces, thinking it was all great fun.

As the games went on, she followed Patrick and Kerk as they wandered along the edge of the field, watching the activity, until Kerk pointed out the marshals and Patrick went to speak to them about competing. He was too late for the hammer throw but just in time for the quarter-staff, archery, and wrestling games. He entered them with relish and Brighton, who’d never seen such games before, soon found out why.

He dominated them.

Between Kerk and Patrick, they easily wiped through a field of men in the quarter-staff competition, including some of the drunken soldiers they’d first seen when they’d come into town. Patrick plowed through them as easily as if he were fighting with children. After the first couple of bouts, Brighton began to feel a very odd pride in the man. Watching him knock over his enemies was very exciting and, soon enough, she was cheering loudly for him as he shamed man after man. But then she began to hear whispers in the crowd, people murmuring of the enormous knight and pointing.

De Wolfe, they said.

Nighthawk.

The realization that the son of the great border Wolfe was in their midst seemed to have two influences on people– either it greatly excited the men and they demanded to compete in all of the games that Patrick was entered in, or some men actually withdrew when they found out who Patrick really was. Brighton simply sat in the corner of the lists, cheering Patrick and, on occasion, cheering Kerk. But she paid no attention to those who were whispering about Patrick. She couldn’t have been prouder of the man.

When the quarter-staff competition finally came down to Patrick and Kerk, it turned into a great battle of both skill and strength. Kerk, as it turned out, was an excellent knight and quite talented with the staff, but Patrick had him on two accounts– size and strength. The battle went on for quite some time, each man refusing to give in to the other, until Kerk took a bad step and went down on his back. Once a man was down he wasn’t allowed to rise again and Patrick was declared the winner.

Brighton cheered for him, delighted, but what she wasn’t prepared for was the awarding of the prize for the winner of the contest. Lord Horsden’s daughter, a young woman resplendent with her red hair and yellow silks, presented Patrick with a small golden staff as a prize. She fawned all over Patrick, hanging on his arm and laughing.

Brighton watched the spectacle, increasingly dismayed by the woman’s behavior. Lord Horsden came out to meet Patrick because it seemed as if the daughter had no intention of leaving him. More laughing and more conversation went on, and Brighton was feeling increasingly insecure.

Of course, Patrick was an eligible and handsome man. Brighton didn’t blame the girl in the least for being enchanted by him. But Patrick didn’t seem to be doing anything to discourage her… and why should he? He wasn’t married. He didn’t have a special woman, a betrothed, who held his loyalties. He was free to accept any woman’s attention, including a lord’s daughter who was clearly quite wealthy. Surely that was the kind of lady Patrick would consider marrying. A lady with everything to offer.

Not a former postulate with only borrowed clothing to her name.

Depression swept Brighton. She hadn’t truly realized how inadequate she was to Patrick’s greatness until now. There had never been any competition for her to be marked against. Now that she realized just how lacking she was, she felt sick to her stomach. Sweet Mary, how horrible it was to be in love with a man who was as attainable to her as the moon.

He was utterly out of her reach.

As she watched the lord’s daughter loop her hands through Patrick’s big left arm, her thoughts went back to the night she had kissed Patrick in the kitchen yard. It had been such a gleeful, wonderful night and she had been fairly certain at that time that he was as interested in her as she was in him. The nine days following that encounter only cemented her belief. She’d been even more sure that the man was interested in her as more than just a ward, a damsel in distress. Brighton had foolishly allowed herself to believe there could be more between them, a hope that was fragile but difficult to kill. It lingered, this hope, but as she watched Patrick standing in the middle of the field, tall and strong, the more she realized it had been a stupid hope. She’d been stupid to believe it.

The man was destined for greater things than her.

Deeply grieved, Brighton simply couldn’t watch anymore. She would go back to the livery and wait for him to finish his games and then he would take her back to Questing. But, oh, the pain of going back to that place. She loved it so. But she could not stay there, nor could she go back to Berwick and become a tutor for Katheryn and Evelyn’s children as she’d once suggested. It would keep her too close to Patrick, too close to something that was a part of him. She didn’t know what she wanted to do or where she wanted to go– all she knew was that she had been a fool to believe there was hope between her and Patrick.

Her grief was of her own doing.

Tears threatened and she made her way from the lists, almost in a panic, not wanting to see Patrick interact with the wealthy lord’s daughter anymore. She simply couldn’t watch. She climbed down from the lists and lost herself in the crowd of spectators, groups of women and children and men who had come to be entertained. There was a small, dusty road that led back down to the town center, the same road that she and Patrick and Kerk had used to come up to the contest field, and she quickly made her way down it. She was nearly to the main street that went through the town center when someone grabbed her arm.

“Bridey,” Patrick said, breathing heavily from having run after her. “Where are you going? Why did you leave?”

Brighton looked up into that handsome, worried face and it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears and running away. Completely unused to speaking on her feelings or experiencing feelings towards the opposite sex, she tried to pull away from him.

“B-back to the livery,” she said, averting her gaze even as she tried to yank her arm from his grip. “I will go back to the livery and wait.”

Patrick frowned. “Why would you do that?” he asked, genuinely confused. “What is the matter?”

Brighton shook her head. “I-I do not wish to watch the contests any longer,” she lied. “I will go wait for you at the livery.”

Patrick was coming to sense that something was very wrong but he couldn’t figure out what it could be. She had been happy and cheering minutes before and now… now, she was running from him and she wouldn’t tell him why. Had he not been keeping an eye on her in the lists from the field, even in the midst of speaking to Lord Horsden, she would have run off and he wouldn’t have even been aware. He had no idea what had happened.

“Nay, you will not,” he said, his voice low and calm. “You will tell me why you are upset, Bridey. What has happened? Has someone frightened you?”

Brighton shook her head but she was still trying to pull her arm from his grip. “N-nay,” she said. “I… I simply do not want to watch any longer. Please let me go.”

He didn’t like that she was being evasive with him. It made him feel rather desperate because if something was wrong, he wanted to make it right.

“Stop pulling,” he commanded softly. “Bridey, if something has happened, please tell me. I only wish to help.”

She stopped trying to dislodge his grip but she wouldn’t look at him. “Y-you cannot help,” she said, her voice trembling. “You have already been too kind to me. Please… please let me go back to the livery.”

There were people walking around them up and down the road, either heading to the field or away from it. There were too many ears hearing what was going on between them. Grasping Brighton by both arms, Patrick pulled her over to the side of the road, into an alley that led down between small homes clinging to the side of the hill. There wasn’t anyone around that he could see so he gently pushed her up against the wall, keeping his grip on her for fear she would try to run off. He was both greatly puzzled by her behavior and greatly concerned.

“Now,” he said quietly. “I am not going to release you until you tell me what is wrong. Not a few moments ago, you were cheering happily from the lists. I could hear you. Why do you think I won? Your support fortified me. And now you are near tears, wanting to go back to the livery. Tell me what has happened.”

Brighton was miserable. She hung her head, looking at her feet. How can I tell him what I am thinking? How can I confide in him? I will only sound foolish!

“P-please,” she whispered. “There… there is nothing wrong. I….”

He shook her, gently. “No lies,” he snapped softly. “Tell me now or we shall spend the rest of our lives here because I will not let you leave until you tell me. We will become quite hungry and our feet might actually grow into the ground like tree roots, but it does not matter. I am not leaving until you tell me why you are distressed. Do you not trust me enough to tell me?”

Her head came up, then, drawn to him by his attempted humor. “O-of course I trust you,” she insisted softly. “It has nothing to do with trust.”

“Aye, it does, because you will not tell me what has distressed you. I can only assume you do not trust me.”

Brighton shook her head. “I-I do, I swear it,” she said, but it occurred to her that he meant what he said; they weren’t leaving until she told him… something. But what to say? Her stomach was in knots and her breathing was coming in labored gasps. She was going to sound foolish but she had little choice. “I-I… I was thinking that you and Lord Horsden’s daughter made a handsome couple. When you do marry, your wife should be a woman of culture and wealth, for that is what you deserve. I…I suppose I was upset because of my circumstances. I never had the opportunity for culture and wealth but it wasn’t anything I thought of until I came to know something of the world outside of Coldingham. Does that make any sense? It probably sounds foolish. Sister Acha said that my real father is a king, but I do not feel that is true. I will live like a pauper my entire life and seeing you with that wealthy lord’s daughter, it made me realize how different you and I are. And I was simply being foolish in thinking such things; forgive me for running off.”

Patrick let her go. “Is that the truth?”

She nodded, embarrassed, and hung her head again. “Aye.”

Patrick sighed heavily and leaned back against the wall, his gaze fixed on Brighton’s lowered head even though she couldn’t see it. Had she looked up, she would have seen a glimmer of warmth in his eyes that was a glimpse of what he was feeling in his heart. Aye, she made sense to him. More than she realized. Since she was being brave and speaking what was in her heart, he thought that, perhaps, he should, too.

It was time.

“It is strange you should say that, for I was thinking nearly the same thing,” he said softly. “You see, I happen to believe you are the daughter of a king, for only a princess would be so beautiful and so bright as you are. Here I am, the son of a mere war lord, and I was thinking that I was quite beneath you. It is a fear I have had.”

Brighton’s head snapped up, her eyes wide on him. “ Y-you ? Beneath me ?”

He nodded. Then, he folded his enormous arms across his chest, cocking his head as he spoke. “Imagine how men would look up to me with a wife who was a Norse princess,” he said. “Lord Horsden’s daughter doesn’t have a splinter of your beauty or sweetness. I would sooner throw myself on my sword than marry someone like her. But you… I cannot imagine anything finer in this life than being able to tell men that you are my wife. It would make me greatly envied.”

Brighton couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was looking at him with such shock that she almost had a horrified expression. “D-do you mean that?”

“Of course.”

“Are you mad ?”

He laughed softly, nodding his head. “I am,” he said, sobering. His features suddenly took on an intensity that was difficult to describe. “Exceedingly mad for you. Marry me, Bridey. Marry me and make me the envy of every man.”

Her jaw fell open. “B-but… but you cannot mean that!”

“Of course I do.”

“B-but… your parents…what would your father and mother say?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “My mother adores you,” he said. “My father… well, he will approve. I believe he likes you a great deal.”

Brighton just stood there, staring at him with her mouth open. “H-he does?”

“He does.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

Brighton exhaled sharply, coming out like something of a choke. But the expression on her face now was nothing short of wondrous. A hand flew to her mouth as if to hold back the burst of emotion that was sure to come.

“O-oh… Patrick….”

The tone of her voice speared him, ripping into him and embedding itself deep into his heart. One moment he was standing across the alley from her and in the next, he was sweeping her into his arms, lifting her off of the ground as his mouth slanted over hers. Brighton wrapped her arms around his neck, blocking out the world around them as he suckled on her lips. But it wasn’t enough and Patrick licked her lips, her teeth, snaking his tongue into her mouth and tasting her deliciousness as she gasped and whimpered in his arms. The kiss in the garden had been nothing like this.

This was heaven. The realization of dreams neither one of them ever realized they’d had.

“Patrick… my sweet Patrick,” Brighton breathed as he tore his mouth away from hers and devoured her cheeks, her jaw, her neck. “Never did I believe… Sweet Mary, how I hoped for this moment!”

That sweet, breathy gasp filled his veins with fire and he set her on her feet, backing her up against the wall and cupping her face between his two enormous hands. He kissed her soft mouth again, lingering over her tender lips, feeling such elation in his soul that he was giddy with it. He’d never felt like this in his entire life.

“I do not know if I hoped for it,” he whispered against her. “To be truthful, you terrified me. But your allure… it was impossible to resist. I cannot tell you when I realized I loved you, only that I did. I do. I am leaving for London next week and you are coming with me. It would destroy me to leave you behind.”

Brighton was weeping quiet and happy tears. “Atty,” she murmured as he kissed her wet cheeks. “My sweet, Atty. I love you, too. I have never known love before but I cannot imagine this joy is anything else. It embraces me and fills me until I cannot feel or think of anything but you. And I will love you until I die, I swear it.”

Atty . The nickname given to him as a child never sounded so wonderful, so endearing coming from her lips. He continued to hold her face in his hands, his lips on her forehead reverently.

“And I, you,” he whispered. “You and no other.”

Brighton sighed faintly, with great satisfaction. Her eyes closed as his lips moved over her face and down her temple. His hands left her face at that moment and he wrapped her up in his big arms, holding her tightly. He squeezed her until she grunted, but he didn’t stop squeezing and she didn’t seem to care. She was finally his and he would never, ever let her go.

Ever!

“I shall marry you before I depart for London,” he said quietly. “In fact, I shall marry you this very day so there will be no delays or complications. I will not wait to call you my wife.”

Brighton thought it all sounded too good to be true. But somewhere in her haze of delirium, images of Jordan and William came to mind. She pulled her face out of his chest to look up at him.

“But what of your mother and father?” she asked. “Will they not be angry if we marry without them?”

He shrugged. “It is not as if I need their permission,” he said. “And you… you became mine when I promised Sister Acha that I would protect you, always. No priory is going to dictate to me whether or not I can or cannot marry you. Once we are married, they cannot do anything about it.”

Brighton was showing signs of hesitation. “Are you certain?”

He nodded. “Are you of age?”

“I am.”

“Do you wish to marry me?”

She softened. “More than anything.”

“Then you have given your consent. That is all I need.”

He sounded so confident, a man with the world at his feet who would give control of his life to no man save his father or the king. Because he was confident, Brighton was confident. She would have let him take her to hell and back if he wished it. She was more than willing to abide by his wishes.

“Then where shall we be married?” she asked. “Is there a church in town?”

Patrick kissed her one last time, sweetly, before taking her by the hand and leading her from the alley and onto the busy road again. There were more games going on now and, from what he could see, the wrestling had started. He knew Kerk was somewhere in the middle of it but he couldn’t take the time to seek the man out. He had a mission to accomplish this day and would waste no more time in accomplishing it. Marriage, that very thing he had shied from all of these years, had come astonishingly easy when it pertained to Brighton.

Perhaps he was being impetuous or perhaps he was simply a man who knew what he wanted, finally, and would wait no more. He really didn’t know which best described him. But in any case, he and Brighton headed back toward the town center to purchase the thread his mother wanted before collecting his steed and heading to the edge of town where St. Mary’s Church was situated.

The old church was grand with a tall spire and moss-covered stone walls, the interior smelling of dirt and fatted tapers. With a few coins to the priests, generous enough so that there weren’t any questions, Patrick and Brighton were married at the entrance to the church with two priests, four acolytes, and a few of the townsfolk as witnesses. It was a bit surreal for him and for Brighton, too. She had a rather dazed look about her, but nothing in the world had ever felt so right.

When the priest said the wedding mass and wrapped their joined hands with holy silk borrowed from the second priest, Patrick knew that marrying Brighton was the most certain thing he’d ever done in his life. That beautiful postulate, that divine and sweet guest of the de Wolfe family, was now his wife and when the priest gave the final blessing, it wasn’t Brighton who shed a tear. It was Patrick.

It was done.