"The roof needed fixing?" "Yes." "Then you made no mistake. It was no deliberate act of negligence on your part. Don't be hard on yourself, lady. Don't eat yourself up with guilt. It'll eat you up inside." He sounded as if he were talking from experience. She found herself wanting to find out just what sins were causing haunted shadows in the depths of his eyes, but she didn't know him, and it wasn't her place to pry. He didn't look like the sort to exchange intimate confidences with womenfolk, anyway. "What are you doing here?" she asked instead. "The outlaws?" "They're nowhere nearby. Probably feasting on the king's deer in the forest as we speak," he said. "In truth, I came to convey greetings to the new lady of Passfair." The look she gave him must have con-tained more skepticism than she intended. He gave her a crooked, and totally cynical, smile. "Perhaps you did not know the lady's a kinswoman of the king. Her father's a by-blow of one of King Henry's lemans. Being the king's man, it does me no harm to speak soft and fair to his family, no matter how loose the connection." It occurred to her that the Welshman was a land-less knight, his only support coming from the favor of King John.
