Chapter 14
Julian knew he was smiling before his eyes even opened. And he also knew that Sybilla Foxe would not be next to him.
He turned his head on the pillow and opened his eyes. He was alone in his bed, but he could still smell the scent of her on the linens where she’d lain. Where she’d loved him, and let him love her until nearly dawn. He sighed and looked back to the beamed ceiling.
This was a dangerous game, for both of them.
He’d never wanted a woman more in his life, and now that he’d had Sybilla Foxe, he felt that his hunger had grown rather than been satisfied.
He wanted her at his disposal, wanted access to her thoughts, her feelings, the innermost sanctum of her soul where the true woman dwelt, forgetting the tales and the rumors and the vivid portrait painted by gossip and history.
But he was here on a mission for his king, his friend, and upon the successful dispatch of his duties, Julian would be rewarded with the one thing that Sybilla Foxe held most dear—what she was willing to sacrifice heaven for: Fallstowe.
And what would Edward think, should he discover that Julian had become intimate with the accused?
Julian knew one of the main reasons Edward had selected him for the mission was the assumption that Julian would not be swayed by the Foxe matriarch’s legendary wiles.
He’d just lost Cateline four months ago; he had an infant daughter to think of.
He would not risk returning a failure and jeopardizing his and Lucy’s future.
Would he?
No. No, if he returned a failure, they all lost: Edward would withdraw his offer of Fallstowe and likely turn Julian out, and Sybilla would lose her home any matter. The monarch was out for blood now, and he would not be denied any longer. But . . .
Could there be a future at Fallstowe for Julian, Lucy, and Sybilla?
Could Sybilla trust him enough to let him be her witness to the king, to lay bare all the information the king sought, and then counter the king for the castle and the lady?
Perhaps if he told her that Fallstowe would fall to him.
Perhaps she would see that there was a chance to retain her home.
But then Julian would never know. He would never know if she had stayed only for Fallstowe.
Does it matter? he asked himself angrily. You cannot keep it from her any longer, especially now. If she chooses Fallstowe, she also chooses you. Sybilla is not Cateline. You no longer need a woman to legitimize you. Instead of marriage saving you, you would be saving Sybilla Foxe.
But there was Lucy to think of. Sybilla Foxe would become his daughter’s mother, and Sybilla had been very forthright in her feelings toward offspring.
Julian would not have his daughter subjected to the disinterest of an ambivalent maternal figure.
Lucy needed love. She deserved to be loved, thoroughly, madly, completely, for who she was.
So did Sybilla Foxe.
Julian sighed again and then threw the covers off his body, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed with a groan.
He felt muscles he hadn’t remembered he possessed.
One half of the louvered shutter on the window across the room stood open, and Julian saw the bright countryside beyond.
It was a new day. A new life, perhaps.
He got up and washed and dressed quickly, making his way down the long spiral stairs and through the corridors to the great hall.
Murrin was sitting at one of the common tables with Lucy, and they seemed to be in easy conversation with one of the maids, a woman standing between the tables with a bucket in her hand, her hair wrapped in a banded coif.
When the servant saw Julian approaching, she bobbed a curtsy and quickly took her leave.
“Good morning, darling,” Julian said, and Lucy’s little capped head immediately swiveled to the sound of his voice, a happy squeal coming from her.
She pushed at the table top with her heels as if trying to stand, her little fists pumping the air.
Julian took her from the table, swooping her up in the air before bringing her back to sit high on his arm.
Then Julian looked at the nursemaid, who had stood when he took charge of his daughter. “Good morning, Murrin. How did she do last night?” he asked, noting the woman’s pale face and shadowed eyes.
“Good morn, milord. About the same as before, I’m afraid,” the woman answered, trying to stifle a yawn. “I almost expected you again last night. ’Tis well that you weren’t awakened by her cries.”
Julian felt a pang of guilt. He couldn’t very well confess that he’d actually gotten very little sleep because he had been entertaining Lady Foxe in his bedchamber.
“It’s most likely that she’s getting used to the strange surroundings,” Julian said mildly, smiling into Lucy’s face as she smacked at his cheek.
“I’m certain she will become accustomed to it right away.
” He looked back to Murrin and noticed the woman’s pinched brow and flushed cheeks. “Are you feeling unwell, Murrin?”
“I’m fine, milord,” the woman said, her eyes darting to the side. “Only weary. I’ll have me a good rest when Lady Lucy takes her morning lie-down.”
“Very good,” Julian said, but he continued to look at the nurse closely. “You will tell me, though, if you begin to feel ill. A sickness is making the rounds through Fallstowe’s staff, and we can’t have Lucy catching it. I’d have to send you back to London.”
“Oh!” Murrin gasped, her face slack. “Lord Griffin!”
“It would only be a precaution,” Julian assured her.
“The king’s doctors would have you well within a fortnight.
I don’t know what resources Lady Foxe has at her disposal here, and I would not tax her already burdened hospitality.
You would return, of course, as soon as you were recovered.
I don’t know what Lucy and I would do without you. ”
“I understand, milord,” Murrin said stiffly, lifting her chin as if already willing herself against illness.
“And now, Lady Lucy, will you do me the honor of accompanying me through Fallstowe in search of the lady of the keep?” He looked from the baby to the nurse.
“She said yes,” he said in a mock whisper.
At Murrin’s smile, Julian turned toward the main aisle.
“I’ll have her returned when she is hungry. Seek your own rest, Murrin.”
“Yes, milord.”
He was nearly to the short flight of steps leading to the main doors when old Graves seemed to materialize out of the shadows.
“Can I be of assistance, Lord Griffin?”
“Good morning, Graves,” Julian said. “I still need to speak with you privately about the matter I’ve brought in trust from the king, old chap, but it can wait until later. Actually, now I’m looking for Lady Sybilla. Do you know where she can be found?”
Graves cocked one sparse eyebrow. “Isn’t that my job, my lord?”
“Yes.” Julian waited, and the man simply stood there, staring at him like a dusty old statue. “Graves?”
He blinked solicitously. “Yes, Lord Griffin?”
“I want you to tell me where Lady Sybilla is.”
The old man’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t hear my knock this morning, did you, my lord?”
Julian frowned and, against his will, swallowed. “No, I must not have.” Had the corpse come to his chamber this morning? Had he encountered his mistress there?
“Did you also not hear me inform Madam that there has been more sickness discovered in the castle and that she was needed right away?”
Hell. Bloody hell. “No. I didn’t.”
“Perhaps a lack of trousers affects my lord’s hearing?”
Lucy obviously took offense. “Bah!” she said loudly at Graves, and then ducked her face against Julian’s shoulder.
“Is that so, Lady Lucy?” Graves asked with interest.
Julian had had enough of the servant’s evasiveness. “I’ll return Lucy to her nurse and go to her at quarantine.”
Graves frowned. “Are you feeling ill, my lord?”
“No, Graves, I’m quite fine. I only wish to see if I might aid Lady Sybilla.”
“Then my lordship would be better off to seek Madam’s solar.”
“Is that where she is?” Julian nearly shouted.
Graves sniffed. “Where else would she be this time of the morning?”
Julian growled at the steward and turned on his heel to head back through the hall. Murrin was already gone from the table, and so he and Lucy had no audience save Graves when they ducked through the hidden door behind Sybilla’s table.
“Let this be a lesson to you, my darling,” Julian murmured as he stepped into the corridor. “That dusty old man? The perfect example of loyalty gone very awry.”
Sybilla was tired.
She sat in one corner of an upholstered couch, her fist against her temple as she perused the open ledger on her lap that chronicled the roster of Fallstowe’s staff, food stores that had been consumed, and deliveries of goods, trying to make sense of the sickness that was rapidly eating its way through the castle.
Four more this morn. It could be nothing.
It could be the plague that Julian had mentioned seeing in London.
Sybilla had instituted the precaution of ordering the soldiers to sequester themselves, though.
They could not very well defend themselves if all of Fallstowe’s fighting men were abed with disease.
She sighed and closed her dusty-feeling eyes. Was it in her mind to defend herself still? Against whom—the king or Julian Griffin?
He had saved her last night, from her own bed, her own horrible thoughts, and for a few short hours, from her own life.
Her body, fatigued though it was, still felt the electrifying charge of his lovemaking.
It was as if she had been touched by lightning and her skin still crawled with rolling white light.