Warrior's Last Gift(18)
She tore strips from the bottom of her spare shift and handed them over to him, watching with interest as he nudged a hot rock from the fire pit and set his pan on it.
“Would it no be faster to hold it over the fire?”
He shook his head, continuing to stir. “That would be a very bad idea. This mixture is too likely to burst into flame. Slow and steady is the only way to prepare it.”
All through their meal, Eric fussed with his concoction, absently picking at the meat she placed beside him, while letting his porridge grow cold. At long last, the contents of the pot met his approval and he spread the goo over the broken edges of the little boat. He then bound the cloth strips around his work to fasten the pieces tightly together.
“Do you think that will hold?” Jeanne stared at the mass of bandages. “Do you think it will float?”
Though his meal had grown cold, Eric ate it now like a starving man.
“It will float as well as it would have before the accident,” he answered confidently. “What the seas will do to it, I can only guess.”
Unexpected tears prickled in her eyes and she turned her head, feeling foolish at her unchecked emotion. The day’s events had apparently caught up with her.
With a sigh that caught in her throat, she rose to her feet and rolled out her blankets for the night. She climbed into her bedding, wishing she could sleep without worry for just this one night, though she knew it was not to be.
Her body hurt too much for her to find a comfortable position on the hard ground, and her emotions were so raw she felt too vulnerable to sit and talk with Eric without the risk of embarrassing herself with tears. The fall, the broken boat, her unreasonable fear that Eric would not return, even Eric’s gentle kindness—it was all too much for one day.
Perhaps if she could just lie here in the silence, refusing to let herself drift through the memories that always haunted her, she would have a chance to recover herself before morning.
“Jeanne? I’m sorry.” Eric’s voice drifted softly across the space between them.
“You’ve no reason to apologize,” she called from inside her cocoon of blankets. “You saved my life. And without the work you did this night, I’d no be able to keep my oath to Eymer. If anything, it’s me that should be apologizing for causing you so much trouble.”
“That’s not what I meant.” His voice was closer now, as if he’d moved to her side of the fire. “You made it clear to me from the beginning that you wanted a home and a family. I’m sorry Eymer’s death robbed you of what you wanted most. I’m sorry about what happened to Eymer. And I’m sorry that I’ve not been able to say this to you before now. I couldna say these things to you because I . . . I couldna accept the idea of you married to another man. I thought of you as mine, and yer love for a man other than me was something I could not bear to think upon. It was selfish of me, but there it is.”
Jeanne untangled her blankets and sat up, forcing herself to meet Eric’s gaze. Raw emotion filled his eyes, and his honesty forced hers.
“I dinna love Eymer.”
“Then why did you marry him?” he demanded, rising to pace away from her. “After all yer talk of the importance of love, why would you agree to wed? If you dinna love him, why do you risk yer own safety on this foolhardy mission to fulfill his last request?”
“It is the right thing to do,” she answered, pulling the blanket back up over her shoulders and lying back down.
She refused to answer any more of his questions, suspecting she had already said more than she should have. That last admission had cost her all she had to give tonight. Anything more and the flood of memories would leave her a weeping mess. Either that, or she would break down and confess everything.