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Chapter 5

“How could you live here with him?”

Earlier, after the initial disaster at the gate, Roysa had been escorted into the keep, thrilled she’d not missed her sister. But their reunion had been interrupted by well-meaning servants and a brief visit with Idalia’s husband. Now, finally, they were alone together, sitting side by side on the bed in the guest room Roysa had been shown to earlier.

Legs crossed, Roysa pulled the coverlet over her ankles. The bedchamber was warm, courtesy of not one but two fires in each corner of the room. Even so, the chill that had taken hold of her since leaving Stokesay would not abate.

Idalia pulled her robe more tightly around her waist.

“I like him.”

Of course she did. Idalia liked everyone.

“I do not.”

But she did. In the same way she had liked her husband. Both were very handsome men. The first time, she mistook desire for love. She’d not make the same mistake again.

Idalia’s hands reached out, and Roysa instinctively took them.

“Do you remember when we last sat this way?” she asked, her memory of it as clear as if it had happened just yesterday.

“Aye. You were excited to begin a new life.” Idalia squeezed her hands. “Tell me what happened.”

Part of her wanted to tell Idalia everything. Every sordid detail. But as always, she held something back. There was no point in making her younger sister worry now, when Walter was no longer alive to torment her. “It was as I wrote. All was”—she tried not to choke on the words—“well. But I do believe I mistook desire for love.”

Idalia let go of her hands, shifting her weight on the bed.

“All was . . . well?”

She shrugged. “Well enough. Until Walter left to visit his brother. I could not understand why he would make the trip in such poor weather. But I didn’t question him.”

“You didn’t . . .” Idalia cocked her head to the side. “Question him?”

“Nay.”

She could understand why her sister seemed confused—the girl she’d been had not hesitated to question everyone and everything.

Avoiding any deeper discussion of her marriage, she continued, “Langham arrived and told me his brother had died in a hunting accident. He did not offer any other explanation, although he did claim he would honor the terms of the marriage agreement.”

“Holton Manor?”

“Aye. And its rents. But . . .”

She stopped. Although she hadn’t told Idalia anything beyond the essential details of Walter’s death, her sister had already guessed something was amiss. She could see it in her eyes. Perhaps from the tone of her letters. Or from the details she’d omitted this night.

Roysa still wished to protect her sister from the worst of the story, but she had to tell her why she’d come to Dromsley unannounced.

“But there were rumors.”

“Of?”

“That Walter had cuckolded his brother. And that his death was no hunting accident.”

“’Tis a jest.”

“Nay,” she said, watching her sister’s face.

“He . . . murdered his brother?”