Now he was willing to deceive the king’s coroner to protect a beautiful girl.
If he hadn’t forced her into the position as a lowly servant, she wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to the bailiff’s lecherous attentions. She would have been safe at home. Now, she was tormented with fear and guilt and worry, wondering if the bailiff would die, compelled to protect the person who had protected her.
It was his duty to look out for Annabel’s safety and wellbeing, as he would for any servant. His emotions, frustrating as they were, would not and should not be a factor.
He realized he had not been listening to Sir Clement. He blinked at the coroner, who sat staring at him, his tankard of ale halfway to his lips.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“So I see. Your mind is on something — or someone — else.” He grinned and took a large swill from his tankard. “Who is she? The beautiful daughter of a knight? A lady in His Majesty’s court? Or a comely lass from the village?”
Ranulf grunted and tried to keep the gruffness out of his voice. “You know that I of all people have no such pleasant thoughts.”
Sir Clement raised his eyebrows then frowned. “Nonsense. You’re a man of flesh and blood, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
Mistress Eustacia brought a trencher with a large piece of pheasant, as she had promised.
Annabel sat on the edge of her bed and ate, forcing the small bites down her tight throat, while her mistress revived the dying fire in the fireplace at the back wall.
“The coroner is Sir Clement. He seems a kind sort, he does. Knew Lord Ranulf since they were lads together. I’d say we couldn’t ask for a better man for the job. He’ll soon find out what happened to Bailiff Tom, and then this whole nasty business will be over and done, more’s the better.”
“Do people think it wasn’t an accident, then? That someone was trying to hurt the bailiff?” She glanced up to see Mistress Eustacia’s expression.
“Aye, they do — that is, Maud thinks so. She was quite distraught, poor girl.” Mistress Eustacia shook her head, her hands on her plump hips.
“Perhaps it was only an accident.” Annabel stared down at the piece of pheasant. The last bite seemed to be stuck in her throat.
“’Twill be up to Sir Clement to decide. Come now, finish your morsel of supper and go tend to Lord Ranulf’s bandage. He should be nearly finished and waiting for you.”
She had forgotten about his bandage. She changed it every night. Why should tonight be any different? She must behave as though everything was normal.
But everything wasn’t normal. Besides the fact that Lord le Wyse was behaving strangely, how could she bear the presence of the coroner when the very thought of him made her hands tremble?
She couldn’t eat another bite. “Let me go to the well. I must wash my hands and get a drink.”
“Of course, child.”
As Annabel washed, she took several deep breaths and said a prayer. She tried to think of more words, but all her muddled brain could think to say was “God, help me. Help me.”
She willed one foot in front of the other all the way back to the upper hall, then opened the door and stepped inside. Most of the people were beginning to depart, the mood much more quiet and somber than usual. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lord le Wyse’s gaze lock onto her.
I forgot to get clean bandages and honey from the kitchen storeroom. She clenched her teeth to keep from groaning. As she turned to go back out, Mistress Eustacia halted her.
“Where are you going? Lord le Wyse is waiting for you. I have the clean water ready.”
“I forgot the bandages and honey.”
“Oh, I have those all ready for you. Come.”
Annabel obeyed and followed. Her heart seemed to weigh as much as a horse and to take up almost as much room in her chest, forcing her to breathe harder with less intake of air. Please let me not get dizzy again. With God’s favor, perhaps Lord le Wyse and the coroner would ignore her, as they would a candle or a table or a stick of firewood, and let her work on the burns without engaging her in their conversation. Any other lord would treat her that way all the time. But Lord le Wyse wasn’t any other lord. Usually he was kind to her and treated her as if she had intelligence, as if she was more than just a servant.
She had to bring her thoughts back to the here and now, to think only about getting through the next hour, the next minute.
Lord le Wyse and Sir Clement were engaged in conversation alone at the table.
“Anyone could have set the fire, but the evidence appears to have been burned up and destroyed.” The coroner rubbed his jaw then took another drink of ale, setting his tankard down with a thud. “I can question the men who were asleep in the barn if you want, but unless someone comes forward saying they saw something, you’ll probably never know what happened.”
Ranulf nodded.
Not wishing to intrude, Annabel lingered behind Mistress Eustacia as the woman pulled up a stool for Annabel beside Lord le Wyse’s chair.
“My lord?” Mistress Eustacia clasped her hands, bending toward him.
He looked up.
“Annabel is here to see to your bandages.”
He turned his eye on her. She couldn’t help searching his face for signs of his mood, but his features were unreadable. She cast her gaze to the floor before he or Sir Clement thought her insolent.
Lord le Wyse turned to his companion and held up his bandaged arm.
Sir Clement shook his head and waved his hand. “Pray, do not let me hinder you from what you need to do. Pretend I’m not here.”
Lord le Wyse turned his chair to face Annabel’s stool. She took the bandages from Mistress Eustacia, breathing easier when she saw that her hand did not shake. Surprisingly, a measure of calm descended over her as she drew near to her lord.
She unwrapped the bandage from his arm. Dipping a cloth in the cold water Mistress Eustacia had brought her and holding him by the wrist, she washed the sticky honey from his arm. As ever, Lord le Wyse sat perfectly still.
She held his arm up to the candlelight to get a better look at the burns. Sir Clement said nothing, but Annabel felt his eyes on her. His gaze flitted from Lord le Wyse’s face to hers and back again.
She concentrated on her lord’s arm as he and Sir Clement began discussing the weather. The burns on his arm still looked far from healed.
Lord le Wyse’s left hand was much different from the right — she couldn’t help but compare the two. The fingers of his maimed hand seemed smaller, and they were drawn inward. Long, pale scars cut through the dark hair on the back of his hand and halted above his wrist. He had once called himself beastly. But the scars only reminded her of his selfless act, of how he had saved a human being, someone who was beneath his social station.
As she always did, she supported his arm with her left hand while she carefully used her cloth to clean around the edges of the burn, to remove the sticky residue of the honey from the healthy skin. For the first time, she was very aware of his skin on hers. Her palm tingled against the warmth of his arm.
“How does it look?” Sir Clement asked, leaning forward. “Do you think it’s healing?”
“It seems to be improving.”
She realized she’d begun bandaging his arm and had forgotten to put the honey on first. “Oh.” She began unwrapping. Her face grew hotter and her hands shook.
“Honey?” Mistress Eustacia asked.
“Yes.” The honey would help keep gangrene from setting in while keeping the scab from becoming hard, making the scarring less severe.
Lord le Wyse didn’t deserve any more scars. He’d already been hurt enough.
She clumsily poured the honey over his arm, and a glob dripped off the side and plopped onto the floor.
“I’ll clean it.” Mistress Eustacia bent and wiped at the mess.
So much for being ignored and treated like a stick of firewood. She was the center of everyone’s attention.
&
nbsp; Annabel concentrated on wrapping the wound quickly without making any more mistakes. Her lord assisted her by holding his arm higher or lower, as the need arose. But Sir Clement’s stares made her wish someone would speak and break the awful silence.
She tied the bandage in place. Her task was finished.
Lord le Wyse turned to Sir Clement. “It is my custom to have my servant read to me every evening.”
“By all means, go about your usual activities.”
They all migrated toward the fireplace, and Mistress Eustacia pulled up a chair for Annabel. When Lord le Wyse placed the large Bible in Annabel’s hands, she opened it to the page where they had stopped the last evening.
Mistress Eustacia quietly backed out of the room.
Annabel began to read, forming the words deliberately and dispassionately, concentrating on reading well for her lord and his guest. Soon, she found herself so immersed in what she was reading she forgot she wasn’t alone, until she paused to ponder what she had just read.
She glanced up, catching Lord le Wyse watching her, and Sir Clement watching him. The coroner’s expression reminded her of a dog who had cornered a rabbit in its hole.
Peculiar that she should have such a thought.
She read on, stumbling over the first few words before getting into a rhythm again.
Sooner than usual, Lord le Wyse interrupted her. “That will be enough for tonight.”
She sent him a questioning look, but he turned away from her.
Trying to fit into her servant role, she waited until Lord le Wyse lifted the book, keeping her head bowed, and curtsied before leaving the room.
Ranulf waited. Would Clement say what he was thinking or keep it to himself?
“Who is the young maiden?”
“A servant, Annabel Chapman, from Glynval.”
“How did she come to be in your service?”
“An unpaid debt her family owed.” Ranulf eyed the coroner.
“Very comely lass, isn’t she?”
The hair on the back of Ranulf’s neck prickled. “She is my servant.” He hoped to infuse his voice with just enough warning.
“Is she, perhaps, more than a servant to you?”
“Nay. Why would you ask such a question?” Ranulf kept his voice low.
“No reason.”
“She grew up not as a servant but as a merchant’s daughter.”
“I knew some such thing must be the case, since she is able to read.”
“And as her lord, I have a duty to protect her —”
“You need have no fear on that score, not from me.” Sir Clement smiled in amusement, his hands motionless in his lap. Only his sharp eyes moved. “As your duty is to provide for and protect your servants, my duty is to ask questions.”
“Of course.”
Ranulf tried to focus his thoughts and keep alert. Had he already revealed more to the coroner than he’d intended? He should not have allowed Annabel to read to him tonight. The coroner had taken the opportunity to read his thoughts. He should have stared at the floor, anywhere but her winsome face as she read the Scriptures.
“Tell me, what was Annabel’s relationship to the bailiff?”
“Relationship? There was no relationship.”
“Had either of them spoken to you about the other?”
How could the man know to ask the very question that he couldn’t evade without an outright lie, and that would sink Annabel deep into suspicion?
Ranulf had no choice but to answer. “Yes. The bailiff had asked to wed Annabel, but she didn’t wish to marry him.”
“And this was when?”
“Not more than two weeks ago.”
“Did the lass give any reason for her disinterest in the bailiff’s request?”
“She did not like the bailiff.”
“She said as much?”
“Yes.”
“And you said?”
“That she didn’t have to marry anyone she didn’t wish to.”
“And how did the bailiff take the news?”
“He said very little.”
“But your impression of his reaction was … angry, perhaps?”
“Perhaps, although he didn’t say as much.”
Sir Clement sighed and pushed himself up from his chair. He took a long swig of ale from his cup before placing it on the table. “Tomorrow I shall wish to speak with the bailiff’s family members — I believe you told me he has two daughters in addition to his sister living in Glynval — to ask some questions. And the servant girl, Annabel.”
Ranulf’s heart skipped a few beats. “Certainly, Sir Clement.”
Chapter
13
Ranulf lay motionless as a woman leaned over him. Her face swam in and out of view, her features watery, as though he were looking at her through a fog. She drew nearer and her face gradually came into focus.
“Guinevere.”
She smiled her languid smile. As she reached out to touch his chest, her diaphanous sleeve fell away to reveal her bare arm.
“I thought you were —”
“Hush, now.” Her smile grew wider as she touched his face, and then she laughed, her head falling back. When she straightened again her smile had turned sinister. She clenched her teeth and her face began to turn ashen. With a cackle she lifted something in her hand. A knife. Raising it above her shoulder, she laughed louder.
Ranulf tried to raise his arm to block her blow, but his limbs seemed made of iron. He could barely lift them off the bed.
She brought the knife down, toward his chest, toward his heart, still cackling. She was killing him.
Ranulf woke with a gasp then sat up and looked around. He gulped air as though he’d been running, unable to take in a full breath. The only light came from the barely flickering fire in the fireplace.
It was only another dream, another nightmare. She’d been gone these three years now. Dead.
Her face had been so real, so clear and plain. The memory of her treachery was fresh again, piercing.
Nay, not so piercing as it had once been, when her betrayal had been new, or even a few weeks ago. Certainly not so piercing as when he watched them lower her lifeless body into the ground. Though even then he’d felt a peace, almost a sense of relief that he no longer had to face her disgust. He finally took a deep breath and sighed.
Yes, she was gone, truly gone. Except in his dreams.
He swung his legs off the side of the bed, his feet touching the cool stone. He let his head rest in his hands. True, his wife had hurt him as deeply as if she had driven a knife into his heart. But he no longer felt the pain as keenly. In fact, at this moment, he felt it not at all. When had such a transformation taken place? The memory of her had tormented him, had led him to break down in anguish in the woods only two or three weeks earlier. So why did he feel such peace now, even immediately after dreaming of her?
His mind conjured up a new face. Annabel Chapman. So kind and gentle, with so much warmth and goodness in her mind and soul. A new pain had taken the place of the old one — and like the old, this new feeling was one he did not wish to linger over. Annabel had helped him see the injustice of his own bitterness toward women, but he had failed her — because of him the coroner would ask her question after question, the very thing she had been terrified would happen.
A log crumbled softly in the fireplace, sending up sparks. Another sound caught his attention, coming from the opposite direction. He lifted his head. He could hear Mistress Eustacia snoring softly on the other side of the room, but this brief sound, a scuffling as of bare feet on the stone floor, was much nearer.
A bed had been added to the upper hall for Sir Clement so he didn’t have to sleep with the workers. Perhaps Sir Clement was awake.
He called softly, “Who’s there? Sir Clement?”
“It is only I.” The voice was barely audible. He didn’t recognize it.
“Who?”
“Maud atte Water, my lord,” she whispered back.
“What are you doing here?” The bailiff’s daughter. What could she need at this hour?
“I … I couldn’t sleep, and it seems neither can you. We could comfort each other.” Her voice broke at the last word, as if she was holding back tears.
Ranulf swallowed past the lump in his throat. If she knew how unwelcome this offer was, she’d certainly never have made it. He tried to wrestle his tone into something akin to compassion, remembering that she was mourning her father.
“I’m sorry, but that would not be my wish. You must go before someone discovers you here.”
“Must I?” She sniffed dramatically. “But I could —”
“You must go.” He made his words loud and firm, well aware that he was helpless to prevent the girl from putting him in an embarrassing situation.
He had no choice but to awaken Mistress Eustacia. He grabbed his chausses and jerked them on as he came out from behind the screen. The servant girl stood two feet away, hugging herself, her head bent. At least she had on clothing, though it looked like only a thin nightdress.
“Mistress Eustacia will take you down to the undercroft.” He stepped toward Eustacia’s sleeping area, but the girl caught his arm.
“Nay,” she whispered. “Don’t wake the mistress.” She grabbed his other arm and pulled toward his bed.
Ranulf twisted out of her grasp, clenching his fists. “Mistress Eustacia!” Must he, in his own home, be forced to put up with this nonsense, this disobedience, this impropriety?
A shadowy form rose from Sir Clement’s bed against the wall.
“Lord Ranulf?” Eustacia’s sleepy voice croaked. Her bed rustled as she moved to sit up.
“I need your help.” Help me, woman, and hurry.
Eustacia came shuffling over. “Who is it? I can’t see a thing in this dim light. Lord Ranulf, is everything well?”
“Please walk Maud back down to the undercroft.”
Maud began to cry short, shuddering sobs, with her hands over her face.
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