Chapter 10
Her blue eyes sparkled with cool surprise as she looked up at him.
It was true. He did want her. He had wanted her since the first time he had laid eyes on her in Fallstowe’s great hall, sitting in her throne-like chair and receiving him as if she were royalty presiding over a court.
He wanted her because of her beauty, of course, but for so much more as well. Her bravery. Her determination. Her intelligence. Her deliberate defiance of everyone and everything that would try to defeat her, including Julian himself.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked, cocking her head to the side and looking at him in an interesting manner.
“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head slightly but seemingly unable to tear his gaze from hers. “Not until you trust me. I won’t take anything that is not offered to me completely, and in good faith.”
One of her slender eyebrows rose. “You think me to trust you when it is you who will tattle on me to the king?”
He made certain her eyes were trained on his. “Yes.”
After a moment, Sybilla Foxe gave a huff of disbelieving laughter. She then turned her face away.
“We need to trust each other,” he reiterated. “Edward doesn’t expect me back straightaway. Think upon your options. If you decide that I am your best hope, you will tell me what you know, and then we will formulate our plan to present to Edward.”
She looked back to him and her eyes narrowed. “What are we to do in the meantime?”
Julian shrugged, then looked about the ring as if considering it. “We enjoy our time at Fallstowe. You may go about your daily responsibilities as before—”
“Why, you’re too kind,” Sybilla snipped.
“And in your spare moments, you can better get to know me. And Lucy. A baby should be a novelty to you.”
“I don’t care for babies, actually,” she said airily. “Noisy, smelly things. Always needing tending.”
“You said yourself that you once very seriously considered marriage, so I fail to see how the prospect of an infant could be that very different from caring for a grown man.”
“Indeed.” She at last gave him a wry smile. Frosty around the edges, yes, but it was genuine. Genuinely Sybilla, and it was perhaps the first time that night that Julian had truly seen her.
But now he needed to move away from her lest he go back on his word and kiss her as he wanted to.
He stepped back and let her go, moving to the great fallen down stone in the center of the ring to begin gathering up the remnants of their supper. But in a moment, he felt her hand upon his arm, turning him to face her.
He was quite taken by surprise when she framed his face in her palms and stood up on her toes, pressing her lips to his softly, lingeringly.
She sank back down on her heels after a long moment and her eyes fluttered open. Julian could not draw a proper breath.
“You intrigue me, Lord Griffin,” she said musingly. “And you frustrate me. I feel I shall enjoy your company at Fallstowe.”
“My lady,” he said in a raspy voice.
She gave him a small smile and then stepped away, turning to blow out the candle.
He followed in her wake back to Fallstowe, enjoying watching her astride her great beast, Octavian.
The moonlight lit them both, like a charcoal drawing on the landscape, sometimes blending horse and woman together with the very land of Fallstowe.
Julian’s conscience shouted and stomped in impotent rage.
That damned Foxe Ring. Was it a magical place?
For surely he could not be now working out in his mind how he could keep Sybilla Foxe.
They didn’t know each other. They had been at odds from the first by their very natures, let alone because of what Julian had been sent to Fallstowe to do, and what Sybilla was sworn to protect.
He should simply tell her straightaway that Edward meant to reward Julian’s successful investigation by giving him the title to Fallstowe. It was the honorable thing to do.
But then if he took her to bed, he would never know if she wanted him or wanted to keep some part of her demesne. He would never know her true feelings, of that he was certain. She had been trained well to do what was necessary, without regard for emotion.
Wasn’t that the very gist of his and Cateline’s limited friendliness?
Edward had made the match by touting Julian’s exploits in battle, making him the famous warrior who had saved the king’s life.
It had made for quite the entrance into London’s elite, and had given Cateline the prestige she’d always craved.
But she had never loved him. The only times they’d made love were after feasts where Julian had been the toast of the gathering, women throwing themselves at him, men seeking his counsel, and Cateline well into her cups.
They’d had nothing in common. She’d never wanted his conversation, his companionship.
Cateline had not been an evil woman; only a woman not in love with her husband.
Julian watched Sybilla Foxe sway in the moonlight.
Was she an evil woman? He didn’t think so.
Quite the opposite, actually. She seemed to be a woman full of deep passion but with no outlet for it save Fallstowe.
Her mother gone, her sisters off with families of their own.
Who would be left to love Sybilla Foxe, and to be the recipient of all that passion when her only love, the grand castle, was taken from her?
I’m not innocent, Julian.
She wasn’t stupid, either. So whatever it was she thought herself guilty of, it could not be more dire than what her mother had done.
Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps he could not save her. But perhaps he could.
The Foxe Ring had not worked its magic with Sybilla and Julian Griffin.
Sybilla had not had high hopes of the legend being any more than fantastical nonsense, but she was in the very fist of desperation.
If he was such an admirer of history as he appeared to be, she had hoped that the romance of the place might sway him to do her bidding, or at least encourage him to retreat a bit from his position.
But it had failed her. To the very end, he had seemed steadfast in his intention to report his findings to Edward, and to insist that she come to her senses and lay her soul—and her family’s misdeeds—bare to him.
She sighed and threw the coverlet back. It was pointless to lie in bed when sleep was as far away from her as her dead mother. Although perhaps Amicia was closer than Sybilla cared to admit, which was why she found the choking tangle of sheets so unbearable.
Any matter, she rose from the bed and sought her quilted wrapper in the black room, the red coals of the banked fire and the white-lit panes of the window her only points of reference. White light, red light. Good, evil. Which one had Amicia been?
Which applied to Julian Griffin? To Sybilla?
She slipped her feet into her dyed leather slippers and left her room, uncertain of her destination.
Sybilla was not at all startled to encounter Graves in the private corridor leading to the secret door in the wall behind her table in the great hall. The man was a wraith, all knowing, and it didn’t surprise her that Graves had sensed an unsettled soul roaming about his domain.
“Trouble sleeping, Madam?” he asked solicitously.
“A bit, Graves, yes,” she answered. Graves was the only person under heaven that she felt she could be completely honest with at all times. After all, he already knew all of her secrets, and probably a few more that Sybilla herself could only guess at.
“Might I prepare you a toddy?” he offered as she drew near him.
“Only if you’ll join me,” she said, passing him and pulling at the silent and seamless door that would lead to her table.
She halted before the door was even a quarter of the way open, easily hearing the echo of quiet voices in the cavernous room beyond. She held up her left hand, signaling Graves to silence, and then slowly pulled the door open a bit more, searching the shadows for the midnight speakers.
Julian Griffin was pacing slowly in the aisle created by the rows of planked tables, his daughter perched upon his chest, her chubby forearms laid on his shoulder.
The nursemaid, Murrin, sat at one of the benches, but her head was laid atop her arms on the table, a piece of sewing forgotten in her lap.
“Lord Griffin, Madam?” Graves asked in a whisper behind her.
Sybilla nodded.
“Is he stealing the fixtures?”
Sybilla felt herself smile and she shook her head absently. She turned her face slightly to direct her whisper over her shoulder. “He’s walking the child. The nurse is asleep.”
“Didn’t we give them a room?” he muttered crossly.
Sybilla understood Graves’s frustration. She didn’t like strangers in her home either, even one as handsome as Julian Griffin.
Especially one as enigmatic and unnerving as Julian Griffin.
She couldn’t take her eyes from him as he moved slowly through the shadows of the hall, speaking in a deep, soothing voice to the infant, who was happily chewing on one fist then the other. He seemed quite happy and at peace for such a late hour. They both did.
Would it have been so terrible had the Foxe Ring legend proved true for them?
Sybilla thought no. Perhaps he was not overly wealthy, with lands and title to boast of.
But he was closely connected to the king, and since he admitted to making London his home, he was likely well received and respected.
He was of such repute as to have commanded a royal match, after all.
If the Foxe Ring had worked, and Julian took his information to the king, if Sybilla begged for mercy, would Edward allow a match between them?
Sybilla didn’t know how deep Julian Griffin’s feelings for her could run without the magical workings of a legend.
It meant little to her that he had admitted a desire for her body—even a prostitute could claim to be desired.
Soon she would be without her title, without her money, her power—disgraced.
Fodder for gossip. Doors closed, invitations ceased. Nothing to recommend her.
Her eyes followed him closely, marveling at him, up and about in the dead of night, his infant in his arms, while the dumb nurse slept through her duties.
Sybilla wondered what it would feel like to be comforted in those arms. Possibly heavenly.
She blinked and frowned.
“Are we to stand in the corridor all night, Madam?” Graves asked.
Julian Griffin turned on his heel and presented his back to the slice of room Sybilla could see through the doorway. He began walking slowly once more toward the stairs at the head of the long room, and Sybilla backed into the corridor, pushing the door shut before her.
She turned to Graves. “I think I shall beg off a drink, Graves. I feel I might be better able to sleep now.”
The old man stared down his nose at her with narrowed eyes.
“What?” Sybilla demanded, moving past him.
“What?” Graves echoed.
She ignored him, making her way back to her rooms alone, the image of Julian Griffin still pacing running through her mind.