The Black Knight of Ashfern

Chapter 16

"Is it not Nan Harris?" he asked, hoping to hide his astonishment behind a look of teasing interest. Wanting to see if she truly knew what she spoke of or if she was merely trying to learn what little he already knew of her.

"You are not a stupid man, William. Please do not start acting so." She replied swiftly, clearly not caring for his game and showing so in the cool glare she regarded him with.

"Then, by all means, tell me your name, woman," he said, replacing interest with annoyance.

"Nan Harris."

"Nan Harris is dead." He stated his tone as even and as unchanging as his expression.

"So is the woman you seek." She declared, brokering no argument, "So please, stop digging up what should remain buried." She pleaded her eyes, her voice, her very being, all begging him to stop. Stop looking for the woman she had once been.

"You told me once that you had nothing to hide. What is using a dead girl's name but hiding?" he questioned, needing far more of a reason to stop looking than just her asking him to. As willingly as he would give her his heart, he was not so far gone as to ignore the possibility of what she could be and the consequences that might be brought down on him if he was caught unaware.

"As Nan Harris, I have nothing to hide. As for this other woman." She paused, dropping her eyes and drawing in a deep, determined breath before returning them to William's. "Her life was not a secret. But it was painful. And it did kill her." she stated, keeping her eyes locked with William's, only to pull them away haltingly, a distant look encompassing her features. "She was not as strong as you." She added her words spoken so softly William had to strain to hear them.

"You think me strong?" He scoffed.

"You loved your wife? Provided for her? Kept her safe?" she asked, receiving a short, uncertain nod from William in reply. "And when you needed her most, she left. It is a painful thing to be left behind. In any manner." She shook her head, her eyes never once wavering from his, and the touch of sadness he usually saw dancing in the shadow of her gaze shone through to the surface. "And you were wounded." She added dropping her eyes to his arm as her fingertips gently skimmed the surface of his scarred arm. "She did not even have that to add to her pain. Yet you did," she brought her eyes back to his, a weak but tender smile tugging at her lips. "And still you are Sir William Horton, battered, bruised, and angry, but still Sir William Horton."

"Your statement is not wholly true," he shook his head as she stared at him, her expression baffled. "William Horton became the Black Knight. And while my change was not as drastic as yours—"

"The Black Knight has done things which Sir William would not." She said for him, stating his point and at the same time making her own.

"Yes," he confirmed with a slow nod, though with his confirmation, he realized it had done little to help him obtain her true name. When in fact, it only aided in her case to keep it from him. There were many things he had done, things that, as a younger man, he would not have been proud of or admitted to willingly, but he had done these things nonetheless. And when he did them, no one said they were Sir William's doing, they said they were the work of the Black Knight as if they were two separate people and not one and the same.

"As I said, she was not as strong as you." Nan smiled weakly, her eyes lowering to the floor and then swiftly returning to his without a trace of the sadness that had been there only seconds ago. "If you must look, then look, but you'll get no help from me." She concluded and started dabbing at his cuts once more, astounding him for a second time as he sat quietly under her ministrations.

Was that to be it? One request for him to stop looking. No excessive begging or pleading, no tears or wailing. Just one simple request that he stop. He understood that she was no longer the person she had been, just as he was no longer simply William Horton. Silently, he wondered if he would ever truly come to know the woman before him or if he was forever to be guessing. He debated on his want-to-know. It was the woman Tom Banger had defended that had caught his eye. The woman who had smashed an empty bottle into her attacker's face that had piqued his interest, and the woman who looked him square in the face without the slightest hint of fear or disgust that had stolen his heart. Whoever she had been before, if what she said was true and he had no reason to think it wasn't, that woman was not this one. And he truly liked this one best.