Never Love a Lord

by Heather Grothaus

  “Which girl?” Sybilla asked.

  Hobie shrugged. “I forget her name.” Then he glanced at Julian. “’Tis the one takin’ care of their rooms.”

  Sybilla set her mug down on the large center worktable and then looked to Julian. “Forgive me, Lord Griffin, but I’m sure you understand that this requires my immediate attention.”

  “Of course,” Julian said. “Can I help you in any way?”

  Sybilla seemed as though she’d been about to say something else, but closed her mouth and looked at him oddly for a moment.

  “No,” she said. “Thank you.” Then she turned to address the kitchen at large. “If Lord Griffin asks anything of any of you, I expect your full cooperation. Answer his questions honestly, with no fear of reprisal from me or the king. You are not being tried or charged with anything. You are innocent. But if you perjure yourself to an envoy of the Crown, you will be held accountable. I wish no harm to come to any of you, so please accommodate his requests. Do you understand?”

  The crowd mumbled their assent.

  Sybilla turned to Julian. “Excuse me, Lord Griffin.”

  Julian bowed along with the rest of the staff while Sybilla Foxe swept from the room. He wanted to follow her.

  Instead he turned back to the glowering mass of red, sweat-dampened faces regarding him with obvious hostility.

  “All right, then, let’s get on with it.”

  Sybilla hesitated at the bottom of the long, spiral staircase. She looked down at her gown; she was a wrinkled, dusty mess. Her head pounded, her muscles ached. The supper meal had passed more than an hour ago, and she had only just now come from seeing that the last of the eight servants showing signs of sickness had been ferreted out and were well tucked away from the castle and cared for.

  Sybilla longed for Cecily, who, up until a few weeks ago, had been Fallstowe’s resident angel and healer, and Sybilla made a mental note to draft a letter right away, seeking the middle Foxe sister’s advice.

  She was in no way presentable enough to address Julian Griffin, but she felt it her responsibility to inform him of the goings-on of the day, considering that he had foolishly brought his infant with him. And she didn’t care one whit what he thought of her appearance, any matter.

  She stood at the bottom of the stairs a moment longer, and then turned on her heel and knocked upon the narrow door of the guest chamber at the bottom of the stairs instead.

  Informing the nurse would suffice.

  The door opened straightaway, and Murrin’s pale face appeared in the seam of the door and jamb. The young woman’s eyes widened a bit before she gave a quick curtsy.

  “Lady Foxe, good evening,” she said, surprise making her quiet words bright. “Is there something you require of me?”

  “Yes,” Sybilla said, wondering for an instant at the silence of the room and the absence of the babe from the nurse’s arms. The child must be already abed. “Please inform Lord Griffin that sickness has indeed been found at Fallstowe. The maid who was taking care of your rooms has been touched. She has been removed, however, and a healthy girl will take her place in the morn.”

  “Oh, mercy,” Murrin gasped, looking up and over her shoulder as the door opened wider. “Did you hear, milord?”

  Julian Griffin’s imposing physique soon filled the doorway, the yellow candlelight from the room spilling out around him and the lumpy bundle he held high on his chest. Julian frowned down at Sybilla, one large hand easily supporting Lucy’s backside, the other resting on the door. His topaz eyes swept her from head to toe. Murrin disappeared behind him into the chamber.

  Inside, Sybilla grimaced. So much for avoiding him.

  “I heard,” he said in a low voice. Then his eyes met Sybilla’s. “Did it keep you engaged all the day, Lady Foxe?”

  Sybilla nodded. “We can only hope for the best now.”

  “How many?” Julian pressed.

  “Eight.” She fought the urge to fidget.

  “I’d see one or two of them tomorrow, with your permission, of course, to ascertain if the symptoms match what I saw in London.”

  “Of course. Do as you will.” Sybilla paused. “Goodnight, Lord Griffin.” She turned to go.

  “Wait,” he called out, louder than he should have, apparently, for the bundle on his shoulder began to squirm as Sybilla turned quickly back to him. He held up a finger toward her, patting the child’s rounded back and making shushing noises.

  He turned back to the room and Sybilla could see him carefully hand the baby to the nurse. He murmured something and then turned back to the doorway. As he stepped into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind him, Sybilla saw Murrin’s perplexed expression.

  “Sorry to keep you,” he said in a slightly louder voice. “I’m sure you must be fatigued. But I have something for you.”

  Sybilla felt her eyebrows rise. “Something for me?”

  Julian nodded and gestured toward the stairs. “Would it trouble you very much to come up? It’s in my portfolio.” When Sybilla hesitated, Julian spoke again. “You’re tired, I understand. I’ll bring it to you in the morn.”

  “No,” Sybilla heard a voice say, and then in surprise realized that it was her own mouth forming the words. “I’m fine. Lead the way, Lord Griffin.”

  Julian smiled as he held his hand toward her, and Sybilla placed her fingertips in his palm. He led her lightly to the stairs.

  “After you, my lady.”

  Chapter 12

  She did look tired, and Julian felt a pang of guilt as she preceded him up the long flight of stone steps. Perhaps at first glance one would not be able to tell—her posture was still regal, relaxed; her steps light and agile. But Julian had seen it in her face—the worry, the intensity of her gaze mirroring the thoughts in her mind. Her gown was pressed into creases behind her legs, as if she had spent much time squatting, and little tendrils of black hair had escaped from her coif, coiling against her neck where they had dried like discarded snippets of silken thread.

  They didn’t speak as they made their way to Julian’s tower room, the shush and scrape of their shoes taking them farther away from the business and worry of Fallstowe proper—far below now, it seemed—with a rhythm that was not unlike the opening beats of a song.

  Julian felt a ripple in his stomach. A quickening of his heartbeat, as her scent rolled back on him with each swish of her skirts. He felt his desire for her grow. And he cursed himself for a fool, both in the feeling of want and the idiocy of inviting her to his chamber alone.

  He was to deliver her to the king.

  He wanted to protect her.

  She had ignored lawful summonses and held property not belonging to her.

  Fallstowe was her home.

  She didn’t care for babies.

  Julian wanted to hold her in his arms.

  At last they reached the landing, and Julian stepped around Sybilla and opened the door to his room. He told himself it was only his wild imaginings that saw her hesitate once more before stepping over the threshold.

  “I’ve not been up here in years,” she mused quietly, looking around the room as Julian started to push the door shut. He thought better of it, and pulled it flush with the wall instead.

  Her eyes flicked to the conspicuously open door, but she did not comment on it. “Does it suit you?”

  He shrugged and gave her a smile as he crossed straight to his trunk, fishing his ring of keys from inside his tunic. “It’s rather unique that the chamber so well reflects the weather beyond the walls.” He went to one knee before the trunk, moving the candelabra to the floor before handling the lock.

  She chuckled softly and walked to the far window, ducking her head to peer through the slats of the shutter. “A kind way of saying that it’s cold, I understand. It’s why my fa—” She broke off. “Morys often spent many hours up here alone, going over his accounts. He said it was because no one dared climb all those steps to disturb him, and he could feel the air while still being removed
from the constant demands of the castle.”

  Julian pulled the hasp of the lock free and laid the keys and forged piece aside on the wooden floor with a soft clatter. He glanced at her while he raised the lid.

  “Did he know he wasn’t your father by birth?”

  Sybilla was quiet for several moments, so that Julian did not think she was going to answer. He turned his attention back to the depths of his trunk and reached for the thick leather packet resting inside.

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “He certainly behaved as though I was his daughter.”

  Julian paused, his portfolio resting on his bent knee, and looked at Sybilla. She seemed absorbed by the narrow view through the window.

  “She told him nothing of her past, did she?”

  Sybilla shook her head, her coif barely moving. “She said he hadn’t cared. She let him believe what he thought was true about her birth and her family. He asked her once if she fancied visiting her home, and she told him that there was no place on earth she would rather be than Fallstowe. Perhaps it was the one time in her life that she could be completely honest. He never asked her again.”

  Julian scooped up his ring of keys from the floor and then took the packet in his hands and gained his feet. He walked to the side of the bed and placed the portfolio on the coverlet, working at the closure. He tried to keep his tone light.

  “It’s one instance in which you are very much like your mother, isn’t it?” he asked. “There is no other place on earth that you would rather be, either.”

  She turned her head to look at him then, Julian catching the slight movement from the corner of his eye.

  “I would forsake heaven itself for it,” she said quietly. “Although perhaps for different reasons.”

  He made no further comment while he opened the leather flaps and searched through the pockets inside for the small item he sought, while he thought that Amicia Foxe surely did forsake heaven for the mess she had left behind her. Surely she would rot in hell for how and whom she had deceived.

  His fingers touched ornate carving, but Julian let the piece rest now that he had located it. He stood aright and let his eyes linger on Sybilla’s face. She didn’t look away in false meekness, nor take offence at his appraisal. She only looked back at him with her startlingly blue eyes.

  “You’re in a lot of trouble, Sybilla,” he said evenly.

  She nodded, no exasperation or sarcasm on her face. “I know.”

  “I want to help you.”

  “Unless you are prepared to lie for me, you can’t help me.” She tilted her head slightly, and Julian felt the floor undulate under his feet, as if she was some sorceress and he was caught in the sights of her spellwork. “Would you lie for me, Julian?”

  “No,” he said. He blinked, and the floor was once more still beneath his boots. “Still, you can’t say with surety that I could not be of some help to you. But you don’t trust me yet, I know.”

  “Why would I trust you?” Sybilla said reasonably. “Before you came to Fallstowe with your army, I knew you not. Not the first thing about you.”

  Julian decided the time had come. He reached back into his portfolio and withdrew his gift to Sybilla Foxe. Holding it down by his thigh, he began to traverse the room, stopping halfway across the floor before the hearth. She would need the light to see what he’d brought her.

  “That’s not entirely true,” he said. “You knew of the aid I gave to your brother-in-law while he was at court battling for his own home. By association, I aided your sister Alys.”

  Sybilla cocked her head, conceding the point. “So you are filled with charity. Is that what you are offering me? Am I your next pathetic mission of mercy?”

  “There is nothing pathetic about you,” Julian said, feeling his frustration take form on his face. “But you will never know what could be if we don’t take the truth to the king together. Not to boast, but he does regard my opinions.”

  “Really?” Sybilla gave him a smile, more than a little crafty and so full of effortless sensuality that Julian felt it stiffen his very spine. “And what exactly is your opinion at this moment, Lord Griffin?”

  “That you have been badly played and left alone to suffer the consequences of actions you are not responsible for.”

  Her smile faded slowly and was replaced by a look of faraway sadness, as if no one could ever reach the place where she was so alone.

  “Then I am sorry to inform you that your opinion is erroneous.”

  He shrugged, then raised his hand, holding out his gift. “Here.”

  She hesitated, looking at the small oval in his hand from a distance for a moment before coming across the floor to meet him in front of the fire. Her fine brow creased as she raised her hands to take the item. She looked at it, blinking, then raised her face.

  “It is a portrait of two children,” she said quizzically. “Cecily and I? But I’ve never seen it before.”

  Julian shook his head. “It’s not you and your sister. It’s your mother and Lady Sybil de Lairne.”

  Sybilla’s gaze dropped back to the small oil rendering in her hand, her chest tightening, her vision going damnably blurred as she tried to focus once more on the two aged and peeling faces in her hands. The frame was thin but ornately carved, and blackened around one side as though it had only just been rescued from a fire. A loud buzzing filled her head, a scraping like a blade across a sharpening stone, and Sybilla had to squeeze her eyes shut very tightly to lessen it.

  “Sybil was my mother’s middle name,” she said faintly, hearing the confusion in her own voice.

  “No,” Julian said. “It was yet another thing she assumed.”

  Sybilla looked up at Julian. She saw that he was regarding her intently, studying her face, his gaze almost palpable in the way it brushed her cheeks, her lashes, her hairline.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “From Sybil de Lairne.”

  Maman, what does my name mean?

  Sybilla? Why, it means little Sybil, of course.

  Just like you?

  Who else, my sweet?

  “Sybilla?”

  Julian Griffin’s voice startled her out of the memory, which had once been so welcome. Now, like custard that had been left out, the edges were crusty, curdled. The consistency off, runny, quietly and slowly decomposing.

  “Sybilla, are you all right?”

  “Why did she give this to you?” Sybilla asked, ignoring his inquiry as to her state. She wasn’t at all certain how much longer her legs would support her, and she had to know. “And why do you now give it to me?”

  “The answer to both questions is to show you the truer nature of the woman you are killing yourself to protect.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sybilla said, frowning around the jumble of thoughts, memories, suppositions shoving at each other to form a queue in her mind.

  “Lady de Lairne loved your mother very much,” Julian said. “They were raised together and Sybil considered Amicia her sister, no matter that your mother was given a servile position in the family.”

  She was not my sister!

  Sybilla winced. “That makes no sense.”

  “Why? Because of what Amicia did to the family?” Julian took a casual step closer and glanced down at the portrait Sybilla clutched in her hands. Her fingers ached with it. He pointed to the darkened edge of the frame. “See that soot there? Lady de Lairne’s mother—the very woman who saved Amicia from certain poverty and orphanhood-sought to burn the portrait after Amicia’s betrayal was learned. But Sybil rescued it, refusing to believe such a horrid thing of her sister. Her mother thought better, though.”

  She was not my sister!

  Maman, what does my name mean?

  Sybilla? Why, it means little Sybil, of course.

  “But . . .” Sybilla’s voice trailed off. She was in no state to try to decipher this terrible riddle, and especially not in front of Julian Griffin. She swallowed. Took a deep, hard breath, and stif
fened her mouth before looking up at the imposing man still watching her closely. “Thank you, Lord Griffin.”

  His eyebrows quirked. “Thank you?”

  Sybilla sighed shortly. “Thank you very much,” she said pointedly. She drew the portrait to her chest and then made to step around Julian. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I find that I am very tired after the day’s events. Good night.”

  He stopped her with a firm hand about her upper arm. “Sybilla, wait—”

  Sybilla threw her arm up with a short, primal scream, startling her own ears, and Julian Griffin was tossed against the stone wall surrounding the fireplace, his boots leaving the floor for an instant.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said in a low, cold voice.

  He stared at her, not with shock or fear or loathing for what she had just done, but with alarmed concern.

  “You’re not alone, Sybilla,” he said quietly. “I’m right here. You can tell me.”

  Sybilla walked straight through the open doorway, and her feet seemed to skim the stairs as she descended, the door’s slam echoing round and round the spiral corridor as the voice screeched in her ears.

  You stupid girl! You stupid, stupid, stupid girl. What have you done?

  Chapter 13

  It was a new moon, the sky overcast with thick clouds and the layers of blanketing smoke from the campfires, blocking out even the meager light the stars could have offered. She slithered quickly through the blackness between the tents and glowing red coals sheltered by awnings, wrinkling her nose against the smell of smoke, horse, and unclean men. Every score of steps she would stop, ducking between oilcloth shelters as soldiers quickly passed by her, talking in low, troubled voices. Each time, she would squeeze her eyes shut and hold her breath until they were gone, praying that she could control the sobs whirling in her chest, praying that no one would discover her, capture her.

  If you are caught, I don’t know what they will do to you. Terrible things.

  Sybilla was frightened.

  But she was a patriot, like her father; and like her mother’s friends the de Montforts, although her father had never had much of a kind word to say about the family at Odiham and Kenilworth Castles, and Sybilla didn’t know why. It seemed Lord de Montfort and Sybilla’s father both wanted the same things for England. United. Lawful. At peace.