Page 6

“Come in, Eda.” Clarissa rushed to the doorway and ushered the maid into the chamber.

Pulling a stool away from the whitewashed walls of the bedchamber she had hoped to never see again, Clarissa gestured for Eda to sit, but the maid waved it away.

“My lord would not take kindly to ol’ Eda sittin’.”

She hated to think it, but the years they’d been apart had not been kind to Eda. More lines ran from the corners of her mouth downward. Eda’s features seemed to her more prominent, her wide nose flaring in anger. The fire in her eyes was still there though, the one that had ensured she would never be allowed to follow Clarissa to her new life with Lord Stanley.

“I do not know why you stay.”

“And I do not know why you’ve returned.”

Two years apart, and they’d already fallen back into the same argument they’d spent a lifetime debating. It was the first opportunity they’d had to be alone together since Clarissa’s arrival the previous afternoon. She’d remained in her chamber until Eda could come to her, knowing the maid would do so as soon as she was able. Cowardly, perhaps, but she had no wish to see her father.

“I thought to tell you last eve—”

“Your father forbade me to come to you.”

Clarissa clenched her hands into fists, squeezing with all of her might. The small mutiny did not improve her mood, but she relished the thought of how unseemly her father would think the gesture. “He is a monster.”

“Why?” Eda repeated, looking down at Clarissa’s hands.

She allowed them to relax and spoke quickly. “Lord Stanley appealed to the ecclesiastical court for a dissolution of our marriage and bade me leave.”

Eda looked as if she’d just choked on a fig. “Dissolution? I’ve never—”

“Nay,” she said. “I never did either. Until he broached the topic more than a year ago.”

Clarissa thought back to that first conversation. ‘“Broached’ may not be the correct term. More like demanded,” she clarified. “Eda,” she grabbed the maid’s hand, “’twas awful. The physician poked and prodded me—”

When Eda squeezed her hand, Clarissa felt her throat swell with emotion. She did not wish to go into detail about that particular incident. It still haunted her sleep. “But it matters not. When word arrived a sennight past that the dissolution would be allowed, the annulment proceedings could be begun . . .” She shrugged. “Lord Stanley said, ‘’Tis over. Go home.’ And so I did.”

There was, of course, much more to tell, but no time to do so. “I will tell you more when we can find another time to speak. Go. And, if you please, send word to Albert that I will be needing his services.”

Albert. Her only chance at reaching Sutworth safely. “I do not plan to remain here until Father discovers what has truly happened. And he will, eventually. If I could have convinced Stanley’s men to escort me to Sutworth, I’d have done so. But they refused. And so here I—”

She stopped talking, finally seeing the sorrow in Eda’s deep brown eyes. The maid’s eyes were dark, almost black, and always expressive.

“What is it?”

“I am so sorry, my love.”

Nay, not Albert! Please God, no.

“He’d begun to cough—”

Clarissa did not hear the rest. She crumpled onto the stool, head in her hands, and allowed the swelling in her chest to burst. Clarissa had not cried when her father slapped her across the face so hard it had left a red mark for her wedding day. She had not cried after being married to a man nearly as old—and as cruel—as her father.

At least Lord Stanley did not remind her regularly that she killed her own mother. Indeed, the man had hardly spoken to her at all. He’d bought her like cattle and treated her as such. The possibility of an heir was the only reason he’d parted with the land her father had coveted his whole life. She’d been naught but a transaction to them both, and Clarissa had done her duty and married the old man, with nary a tear.

She had not even cried when the king’s physician had stuck his fingers inside the most private part of her, verifying she was, indeed, still a virgin. But now, to learn she had lost the one man who had treated her like a daughter, who had risked her father’s ire to visit her at Lord Stanley’s, and who would have delivered her safely to Sutworth Manor, whence she could flee to Dunburg Abbey . . .

“Nay,” she said as Eda gently lowered a hand to her shoulder. Her cheeks and fingers tingled with sorrow as tears continued to flow, the steady stream becoming an aching throb in her chest. “Not Albert, please . . .”

The man had never married, never begat any children. She’d often imagined what life would be like if she were his daughter in truth.

“We will find someone to help,” Eda said.

Clarissa wanted to deny those words, but she could not speak. In this moment, she did not care about Sutworth, or Dunburg, or what became of her. Albert was gone, and she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. The only man who’d ever loved her . . . well, not the only man. But Clarissa had ruined that as well. Aidan de Sowlis hated her now, and she did not blame him.