8

Jayems stood before Lady Nilla’s door. He bowed his head and placed one hand on the stout wood, wishing there was some way he could soften this blow.

Nilla was his lover of two month’s standing, but their relationship had started long before. They’d been friends of a sort before the attraction had unexpectedly boiled over into something more. He’d begun to look at her in a considering light for some weeks now, and she had not missed the cues. Even so, she hadn’t clung, just loved him sweetly, silently offering her heart.

He’d been close to speaking to her father. Her mother had worn a look of expectation for the last little while. And why not? His betrothed had been accepted as dead for nearly twenty years. He’d felt it was foo