Page 87 of An Earl for the Archeress

Though John looked sympathetic and Will, confused, for it was no secret he had taken a liking to Charlotte, John nodded his compliance.

Except Will stepped forward. “I’ll deliver her,” he said, giving Robert a steely glare. “Eh, Lady Charlotte, I do apologize. Come with me and I will see to your comfort whilst Robert gets to the bottom of this grand misunderstanding.”

“Robert…I have no idea what you mean…” she begged, ashen-faced. “I would never betray our friendship…”

But Robert had already turned around. “Bridget, where is Lady Anna?”

Bridget curtsied low, still trembling from his accusations moments ago.

“She left, m’lord. She returned to York the same day Sheriff Crawford came back. One of your guardsmen acted as escort to see her safely there.”

“Who?” Robert demanded.

Bridget imparted the name and the guard was summoned forth, though it quickly became apparent that Anna had left that day after Robert’s dismissal and had gone straight home, never crossing Crawford or Nottingham’s path.

Robert sighed, his anger making his blood throb at his temples, bestowing the king of all headaches upon him.

“Then tell Alice I need my personal effects packed,” he ordered Bridget, who curtsied low again. “I make haste to Scotland, to Castle Ayr, to retrieve my wife.”

“I’m sorry, sire,” she said, her head still bowed. “But Alice disappeared a month ago, the same night that Harold Crawford and William de Wendenal came in search of the Scottish girl.”

Robert glanced up to his gallery wrapping around the great hall and noted Charlotte almost out of sight at Will’s hand.

“Why?”

“I’ve no idea. But she had been grumbling for days that she couldn’t abide by ‘it’ anymore.”

“Abide by what?”

Bridget shrugged. “She didn’t say.”

But Robert knew, and dammit, a prickle of anxiousness began to twist in his gut. He had told Alice that day to deliver Mariel her gown and accessories in the defunct guard tower. He had tasked Alice since Bridget could not be found. Crawford’s words rang through his mind. He had indeed trusted those closest to him. Alice had been with his family since well before he was born and had been loyal to him and his father before him. Had Alice betrayed him? He thought harder. Just because he asked Alice to deliver a gown to Mariel didn’t mean Alice knew he had planned to elope with Mariel. Someone had to have told her.

“Lady Charlotte!” Robert called. His voice rang through the hall and into the gallery.

Moments later, Will returned down the corridor to peer over into the great hall with Charlotte in hand, a glare on his face.

“Did you happen to mention my intention to marry to anyone else?”

Charlotte, still white as a sheet, bowed her head. “Only Alice, your head servant, when she grumbled about having to prepare a bath for the Scottish woman. She came to me out of anger, complaining that you threw away someone like me for her. I tried to defend you, Robert, telling her that you wished to marry the woman, and that I was at peace with it and would she not also see fit to find peace with it, too.”

Robert chewed upon her response and looked at Will. Will looked back at him. He raked his hand through his messy hair then smoothed the young formation of a beard taking root.

“Did I say something, my lord?” Charlotte asked.

“Alice didn’t like Mariel?” he prompted.

Charlotte looked around, then down, not wishing to incite Robert’s anger further.

“Charlotte?” he said again, walking to stand beneath her so he might look up into her face.

Charlotte kept her eyes averted. “No, sire. Alice disliked her from the moment she heard, eh, Mariel, attack you from her sick bed when she was first brought here. She saw Lady Mariel as a wildling, uncouth and undeserving of such a wealthy English earl. As Alice and I helped your lady bathe and prepare a gown, she whispered to me that…Lord, must I say it?” she looked up helplessly.

“You must,” Robert replied, his neck still craned.

Charlotte continued in barely more than a whisper. “She said, ‘you can wash a piece of rubbish, but it’s still a piece of rubbish,’ and she wished not to waste the hot water. But I was quick to come to your woman’s defense and tell Alice that she served the Lord of Huntington, and that if you saw something fine in the woman, then she must accept the Scottish girl warmly or else do dishonor to you.” Charlotte looked away, at Will, then at the floor. “Your request of me, to help her, was a hard request to fulfill. But I value our friendship, I swear it, and did as you bade. For I knew that there was no hope for a future betwixt us.”

Robert sensed truth in her beseeching words. She had let slip his plans, but had not done so out of malice. He raked his hand through his hair once more, feeling guilt for snapping at Charlotte so, and turned back to Bridget.