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Chapter 1
Robin
“Her fever has broken. Finally.”
I let out a ragged sigh of relief and lifted the damp cloth from Mama’s brow. Across from the bed, the sun’s dying light shone through an aperture in the wall, basking my mother in a sickly glow. Every drop of perspiration dripping from her face was illuminated.
Father grunted a response behind me. He stood in the corner of the room, stiff-backed against the wall. Making sure not to get too close, lest the sickness seep into his pores and infect him.
Really? I thought. No “That’s good,” or praise be to God for leaving her with us for another night? Just a grunt.
Though the Almighty might call her up to Heaven soon, I would fight with everything I had to prolong her journey. I couldn’t imagine giving up, whereas my father apparently couldn’t imagine giving a shit.
It was the same as it ever was. He couldn’t be bothered—lost in his thoughts, staring at the polished wooden floorboards at his feet. However, he didn’t seem to mind if his daughter risked infection from his wife’s mysterious illness.
I was the fodder.
He folded his arms around his body, hugging himself tightly, chewing the inside of his cheek.
My brow furrowed. Is that a rare showing of vulnerability and worry I see? It can’t be.
Feeling my eyes on him, his gaze shot up to me, eyebrows raised. “Well? What are you looking at me for, girl? Keep at it.” His pointy chin tilted past me.
When I turned back to my mother, where Father couldn’t see, I rolled my eyes. It was hard to believe a veteran knight in the king’s service could be so rattled and frightened by something invisible and untouchable.
Perhaps that was why Father stared at the floor with a sense of defeat: Because this was not something he could kill with a sword.
I wanted to believe Father cared about Mama’s wellbeing. Truly, I did. But the sheer distance he maintained from her, and his absence of affection, belied the truth of his love for Baroness Joan of Wilford.
Deep inside, I knew my father’s love for his wife had always been hidden behind a thin veil of jealousy and resentment.
While I repeated the process with the cloth, dipping it into cold water, wringing it out, sliding it across my mother’s sweaty brow, I tried to ignore his lack of decency and dignity when it came to Mama.
She deserved better treatment than this.
Her eyes jerked wildly under wrinkled eyelids; hands gripped the sheets around her like a vise. And all Father could muster was a halfhearted grunt when he learned his wife’s fever had broken and she might recover.
As I grew angrier at the years of weighty baggage that comes with family, steps pounded on the floorboards in the hallway behind me. Lots of loud boots.
I looked over my shoulder as a bevy of people entered the room, crowding it in an instant. Three men, with one woman in a nun’s habit.
My heart lurched and sank to the pit of my stomach at the sight of the nun, who made the sign of the cross before entering.
“Sh-She’s not ready.” Stammering, I gripped Mama’s hand tight and shielded my body over hers.
The man at the front stared down his long beaked nose at me. “Beg pardon?”
I shook my head violently, whipping my neck back and forth. “She’s not ready for Heaven yet.”
The man quirked a small smile. “Ah. Don’t fear, ma’am.” He raised a leather bag at his side, as if that explained everything.
Father pushed himself off the wall, arms unfolding, and gave me a disgusted look like I was a nuisance for being so ignorant. “He’s a physician, girl, not the angel of death.” He stuck his hand out, and the doctor shook it while chuckling. “Best in Nottingham, so I hear.” Father gave his first smile of the evening to this stranger and his gaggle of minions. “Is that right, Doctor Ashby?”
The doctor bowed his head. “My reputation precedes me, Sir Thomas of Loxley. I will do everything in my power to help your wife, sir.”
“See that you do.”
“I’ll make sure the Queen of the Lace Market is ready for her showing this month,” Ashby added with a smile.
