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Gwent laughed. “I wonder if she would do that. It would bring any man low.”
Lady Moraine said some time later to Alice as she polished the laver, “We will all become well used to my dearest son and Hastings disappearing in the middle of the day.”
“Aye,” Alice said, staring over at Beamis, who was wiping the back of his hand across his mouth after drinking his ale. “I wonder if Beamis has ever disappeared in the middle of the day in his bloody life?”
At the evening meal Severin did not ask anyone to taste Hastings’s food. No one marveled at that. There was a lightness in the air, an ease in all the talk now that the Sedgewick people were gone. Now that Marjorie was no longer here to attack the mistress and seduce the master. And the child who had accused Hastings of pretending to poison herself to gain Lord Severin’s pity. Eloise wasn’t missed either.
The talk that night was about the place called Rosehaven. What would they find? It was a mystery that teased every brain.
The following Monday morning they left for Rosehaven.
29
“WILL YOU SEE MARJORIE AGAIN, SEVERIN?”
He turned to face her in their nest of blankets. It was a cool night, the air heavy with an approaching storm. It was their second night away from Oxborough. By tomorrow night, given no accidents or outlaws or rain—which was too much to ask of the gods—they would reach Canterbury. “No,” he said, reaching out to touch her belly. She was wearing her gown since she, Severin, and twelve of the men were all lying about the dying camp fire, each wrapped in blankets. She felt his hand on her bare thigh, moving up, then resting on her leg, waiting. He eased his hand onto her belly. “Lie on your back so I can rest my hand on my child.”
She turned to her back. His hand was warm, his fingers callused.
“I did not mean to ask, it just came out of my mouth.” She sighed. “I have never known such jealousy, such helplessness. It is not a nice thing. I hated the feelings, sometimes even more than I wanted to kick Marjorie.”
“I know,” he said. His hand began to rub lightly over her stomach. “It was difficult for me, Hastings. She is so beautiful, perhaps even more so now than when she was a girl. I saw her through my boy’s memories, all of them radiant with worship for her. When I left her all those years ago, I was bowed with grief. Then, suddenly, she was with me again. I was overwhelmed.
“Nay, do not pull away from me, Hastings. It is difficult for me to speak of, but I owe it to you. Because of who she was, because of who I had been, I mucked up my miracle.”
“You what? What is this? What miracle?”
He laughed quietly. “Never mind. Even in my besotted state I came to realize she was dangerous to you. Finally, I came to realize also that she had changed over the years. I swear to you that when she was young, there was no meanness in her.”
Hastings didn’t disagree. On the other hand, she would never have laid a wager on the absence of meanness in Marjorie, at any age.
“The child, Eloise. I am not certain, but I wonder if Marjorie has stoked a black fire in that child’s heart. She did lie about you.”
Hastings wanted to howl yes, Marjorie was ruining Eloise, but she kept her mouth shut. Now was not the moment. For the first time, he was speaking frankly to her. She was also very aware of Severin’s hand lying quietly in the hollow of her belly. She heard several of the men snoring. One grunted in his sleep. There was some quiet conversation on the other side of the fire, an occasional chuckle.
“What will happen, Severin?”
“What do you mean? To us, Hastings?”
“Aye, to us.”
“Why, you will bear my sons and daughters and we will build a great dynasty. Our name will pass through the centuries, known and respected.”
“That is not quite the magnificence I wished to hear about.”
He leaned down and kissed her. “No? Then I will take you to that forest and we will lie on every patch of ground where the sunlight forks through the oak trees. Nay, not now, when we are home again, home at Oxborough.”
She fell asleep with his hand resting lightly on her belly.
• • •
“That small jewel of a keep is Rosehaven,” Gwent said, pointing to the golden-stoned castle that stood at the end of a promontory that reached like a long bony finger well into the River Glin.
“Lord Brenfavern said it was owned by the Earl of Oxborough,” Severin said. “He had not yet heard of the old earl’s death. It is guarded by men-at-arms hired from all around these parts. They take turns. There has never been any trouble since all the men-at-arms perform duties here at one time or another during the year. An interesting strategy.”
“But who lives there?”
“We will find out in a very little while,” Severin said. “Lord Brenfavern didn’t know.” He kicked his warhorse in his sides.
