Chapter 21
He was alone again when he awoke, but neither surprised nor alarmed by it. He was beginning to become familiar with some of her ways, and it gave him a bit of peace in the midst of what they were to undertake.
There would come a day, he was certain, when they could lie about at their leisure, together. But today was not that day, and they would likely not realize that fantasy for many weeks. Time, now, was of the essence.
Julian found Sybilla and Lucy in the hall, his daughter perched on the lady’s hip as she bent her head over a ledger and traced the page with one finger, turning her face slightly to inquire this or that of the clerk at her side.
As if she sensed his arrival in the hall, she turned to him. “Good morrow, Lord Griffin,” she said coolly. “I’ve located the accounts you asked after.”
“Good morrow, my lady,” he said, and joined her on the dais, catching on and playing to her charade instantly. “Very well. May I?” At her nod, he pulled the thick book toward him.
“Thank you. That will be all for now,” Sybilla told the clerk. “You may come and fetch your work in an hour.”
Then the clerk left them. Lucy was reaching for him, so Julian straightened and greeted his daughter with a noisy kiss and a toss into the air. Then, not bothering to glance about, he snaked an arm around Sybilla’s waist and pulled her to him, pressing his mouth to hers firmly.
“Good morning,” he whispered.
She glanced away from him, a small smile threatening her mouth, as if she had gone suddenly modest. “Julian, please.” She disentangled herself and turned her attention back to the ledger.
“This page is what we have on hand at the present,” she explained, running her finger down an impossibly tiny line of scratch marks.
Her fingertip stopped near the bottom. “The total sum.”
Julian leaned forward, bracing Lucy’s back with his hand. He squinted and blinked at the tiny numerals and then drew his head back to look at Sybilla.
“That’s what you have on hand?” he asked incredulously. “Are you certain?”
“My clerks are thorough,” Sybilla said with a slight frown. “Is it not enough?”
Julian huffed a laugh. “It’s ten times more than what we require.”
Sybilla lifted her chin as if he had offended her. “Perhaps it is ten times what you require; however, I have no intention or desire to live in poverty.”
“I don’t think that will be a concern,” Julian said. “However, I don’t know how we will transport it all.”
Her brow creased. “I don’t know, either. Perhaps we can take what would fulfill our immediate needs, then have Oliver secure the remainder for us.”
“That is a possibility,” Julian said, pleased at the easy way they seemed to be flowing through the details. “I would be ready to away in the morn. Can you send directions to him by then, with assurance that he will do as you ask?”
“Without doubt,” Sybilla said, and the tone of her voice put to rest any concerns Julian might have had. “I’ll need to inform Graves this afternoon. I’ve not seen him since I returned, and he will need time to pack what he wishes to bring.”
Julian paused. “I beg your pardon?”
“What?” She closed the ledger and looked at him expectantly.
“Graves is coming with us?”
“Of course,” Sybilla said simply and set about locking the thick leather straps about the accounting book. “It would seem quite strange for a family to be traveling to the Continent without any servant at all, would it not?”
“Yes,” Julian admitted. “But, Sybilla, he’s 110!”
She frowned at him. “He is not. We may need his . . . unique skills, and I would not leave him behind to deal with the aftermath of our departure after he has so faithfully served this family.”
Julian had to admit she was right. It was no secret what Graves meant to the family, and he would be interrogated without mercy as to the goings-on of the last month at Fallstowe.
“Fine,” he said easily. “Come to think of it, I’ve not seen him myself since yesterday. Do you think he can be ready by this evening?”
“Yes,” she said. “He’s quite efficient. I will employ the brawnier of the stable hands to load our things once night has fallen. They have little interest in what goes on outside the stable walls, and their curiosity will not be engaged. We shall meet in your chamber at midnight.”
“Mmm,” Julian said with a smile and drew her near once more. “That sounds promising.” Lucy obviously took the lady’s proximity to mean that she was being transferred, and threw herself happily at Sybilla, who laughed and awkwardly caught the baby before drawing her head against her cheek.
Then she did give Julian a smile. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by one of the gate guards entering the hall and striding toward them. Sybilla slid from his embrace and stepped a respectable distance away.
“Milady,” the man said, stopping before the dais with a bow. “Lord Griffin’s men have returned.”
Sybilla’s head turned swiftly toward him, and Julian did not bother with trying to hide his shock.
“Erik, you mean?”
“Sir Erik, yes, but also the soldiers. All of them,” the man clarified stiffly, glancing at Sybilla. “They said you were expecting them.”
Julian could feel Sybilla’s wariness from where she stood.
“No, I told him I would send word in a month, not to come before then.” He looked to Sybilla.
“I wasn’t expecting them,” he said in a low voice, knowing how this must look to her.
“I can’t deny them, though—it would greatly arouse suspicion, and we aren’t ready. ”
Sybilla regarded the soldier with tense resignation. “Open the gates, give the soldiers entry. Bring Lord Griffin’s general to him.”
“At once, milady.” The soldier bowed and then was away again.
Julian turned to her, ready to receive the storm of her accusations, but she was grim, determined, even as she rubbed Lucy’s back in comforting circles.
“If all the men are inside the walls, perhaps there will be fewer to see us leave.” She jiggled the baby on her hip and looked into her face.
“Isn’t that right, Lady Lucy? They shall never see us. ”
“Nah-nah-nah!”
Julian stared at Sybilla for a moment, speechless. “Thank you for believing me.”
She stared back, then shrugged as if it were nothing. “I keep my promises. They were coming in, any matter. Better at my request than not.”
The men must have been waiting just beyond the doors, or else they came running at being granted entrance, for in the next moment, Erik and one other man Julian was only vaguely familiar with entered the hall, a pair of Sybilla’s guards following them closely.
Erik did not look happy, and so Julian called out to him. “Ho, Erik, what brings you here without my summons? And who is this in your company?”
Erik’s jaw was set, his words spoken between clenched teeth. “This is not my doing, Julian.”
The stranger stepped forward. “Lord Julian Griffin and Lady Sybilla Foxe?” he demanded.
“Yes,” Julian said, his patience wearing thin. “And just who the bloody hell are you?”
The man pulled a rolled parchment from his vest and unfurled it, clearing his throat before reading aloud.
“It is hereby proclaimed that Lord Julian Griffin is wanted by the Crown, Our Sovereign Lord, King Edward, under charges of aiding and abetting a traitor to the Crown, and conspiring to commit treason.”
“I beg your pardon?” Julian shouted.
The man turned to Sybilla, who was now holding Lucy close to her face, breathing in the simple scent of the child while her heart pounded in her chest.
“Lady Sybilla Foxe, upon grounds of treason, espionage, and insubordination to the Crown, you are both hereby placed under arrest. It is my duty to accompany you to the king for your immediate trial.” The man rolled up the parchment and looked at them both. “How do you answer?”
“How do I answer?” Julian demanded. “Fuck off, is how I answer! Erik, what is the meaning of this?”
“ ’Twas Murrin,” Erik answered stiffly, his eyes only flicking to Sybilla. “She was only pretending at being ill, Julian. She thought she was protecting you and Lucy. Perhaps she is.”
“Murrin?” Julian repeated incredulously, and then his brows lowered further as he caught Erik’s insinuation. “You don’t know anything about it, Erik.”
Then the nagging sensation that something was missing, which Sybilla had felt since last night in Julian’s bed, found its answer.
The miniature portrait of Amicia and Sybil de Lairne.
She’d had it in her hand the first night she’d come to Julian’s bed, but she’d never seen it again and thought she had simply misplaced it.
But the next day had been when Murrin came upon Sybilla and Julian and Lucy in the solar, when Julian had suggested marriage to her.
The solar with the door that had been open at the time.
Murrin had left Fallstowe that day.
“How do you answer, Lady Foxe?” the man demanded of her.
“I’ll answer you naught, you lowly hoof-scraping,” she said, pleased when the man’s frown turned threatening.
He began to reach for his side. “If you take one step toward me whilst I hold this child, I will cut you from your tiny little cock to your Adam’s apple, wherefore shortly thereafter you will have the unique experience of holding your own guts in your hands.
I will give my answer to Edward and to him alone.
If he wants me so badly, then he shall have me. ”
“You’d better watch your tongue, lady,” the man growled, although his face had paled.
“And you’d better watch your back,” she informed him coolly.
It must have been at that moment that the man felt the sword point between his shoulder blades, for his eyebrows rose and he held his hands out to his sides in a gesture of surrender. Erik stepped away, drawing his weapon.
Graves leaned to the side slightly so as to address Sybilla from around the king’s man. “Spot of trouble, Madam?”
“Unexpected guests, Graves,” Sybilla said, jostling Lucy, who had begun to cry.