Her face softened. “Because you care for Patrik deeply, and he is my husband’s brother.”
Emma’s throat tightened. “You know naught of me.”
“Then it would seem we are even. Come. I will show you to a chamber, have a bath drawn, hot food delivered as well as a cup of wine to quench your thirst.”
Emma fell into step beside the noble, feeling a fraud.
“I understand what it is like to be the outsider,” the countess said.
“Because you are English?”
A smile touched her mouth. “One of many reasons. Mayhap in time I will explain. And please, call me Lady Linet.”
“My lady—”
“In time,” the countess interrupted, “I believe we will become friends.”
Sadness weighed upon Emma. Time? However much she wished it, time here was not something she would ever have, nor the friendship offered.
Inside the keep, they passed through the great hall. Cooking meat and herbs simmered in pots hanging above the fires. At odds with that domestic setting, people hurried to tend the injured. A dais lay at the far end, topped by a huge table.
“This way.” Lady Linet entered a turret and started up the spiral stairs. “The chamber you will stay in is on the second floor.”
Torchlight illuminated the hewn stone. The pale gold light illuminated the tapestries hung along the walls.
Emma slowed. “These are beautiful.”
“Gifts from my husband after we wed.”
Within the flicker of light, she studied the intricate weave, the rich colors. “Fairies within a forest. Very unusual.”
“They are. Or would be elsewhere.” A smile edged Lady Linet’s mouth as she pressed her fingers upon the halved stone around her neck.
A similar gemstone that Patrik wore came to mind. Were the pendants a family tradition?
“Come.” The countess started up the steps, the rumble of men’s voices below fading.
By the expression on Lady Linet’s face as she’d stared at the tapestries, she loved Lord Grey. How had an English noble met and fallen for a high-ranking Scottish rebel?
She recalled Patrik’s explanation of how the noblewoman Sir Alexander had abducted for ransom had become his wife. Did Lord Grey’s relationship have a similar beginning? No, none would send a powerful lord upon a knight’s mission. Still, something odd had occurred to allow such a union.
The love she felt for Patrik could never have such a chance.
Somberness settled over her, smothering her questions of how the powerful earl had met his wife. In silence, she followed the regal woman up the steps.
At the second floor, Lady Linet started down the hallway.
Emma paused, glancing to where the stairs wound up to another floor. Naught but an extension of the turret, yet an odd warmth beckoned her. Had they taken Patrik there? Did she somehow sense that was where he lay?
“Mistress Cristina?”
Heat streaked her cheeks. “Forgive me.” Unsettled to have been caught staring, she followed the countess down the hall. En route, they passed a servant carrying water and lads bearing handfuls of wood.
Lady Linet halted a passing lad, gave him instructions to bring a tub and water, and then entered a nearby room. “This will be your chamber.”
A bed was centered against the back chamber wall, a carved stand to one side with an unlit taper, and the wood in the hearth ablaze.
Fatigue washed over Emma. However simply adorned, the chamber looked like a piece of heaven. “Thank you, my lady.”
