That little bitch was his target.
After an evening like the one last night, he wasn’t entirely sure he was going to see her at all today. Surely she would be off licking her wounds. Therefore, he simply went about the chores he’d been asked to do by a kitchen maid who had too much to handle herself. He’d tossed out the rubbish in the kitchen,throwing it to the pigs in their sheltered pen in the yard, and hauled water for the kitchen servants. He’d swept the entry and pieced together another broom that someone had broken, all the while wondering how long he could remain unnoticed by Miasma if she spent as much time in the kitchens as he’d seen last night. She was the one he’d seen the most of. At some point, she could very well notice him even through the hair and dirt. If that happened, she was a dead woman. He needed to keep his presence secret until he did what he’d come to do.
But he truly had no idea when that would be.
The morning began to head toward the nooning hour, and he had finished repairing two brooms. There was an area next to the well where women did laundry, and he’d hauled water up from the well to pour it into a small pool where they did their scrubbing. Ash was added to the water to give it some substance to clean away the stains. An older maid had come out to do some washing, leaving newly clean linens out to dry, but she was called into service by the cook, a woman Amaro recognized from Lioncross.
Yet another woman to hide his identity from.
Closer to the nooning meal, all of the focus seemed to be on the kitchens as they began to prepare for the evening meal, the largest meal of the day, which meant the kitchen yard was vacant for the most part—except for Amaro. He grabbed a shovel he had repaired earlier and sat on a stool, pretending to mend the shovel when he was really looking around for anyone he recognized. He could see the stable yard from where he was, and he could see the west side of the great hall.
At one point, he saw Myles and Hugo, which sent him into a panic because he was certain Hugo would recognize him, but he was too far away and Hugo was focused on Myles. When those two passed out of his range, he breathed a sigh of relief. He was coming to think that he needed to wander the bailey a bit to see ifhe could spy Curtis or his wife, or both, because he was too out of the way, hidden back in the kitchen yard, to see much at all. With the shovel still in hand, he stood up with the intention of walking out into the bailey and looking as if he was busy with a task. He hadn’t taken two steps when, coming through the kitchen door, the very object of his search appeared.
Lady Leominster was directly in front of him.
And she was alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
He hadn’t comeback.
Elle had wept intermittently most of the night, finally falling into fitful sleep right before dawn, which only lasted an hour or two. She awoke to a bed devoid of her husband while Melusine snored over on the lounge. Knowing that Curtis had spent the night elsewhere left her feeling sick and alone. Perhaps he’d even spent the night with his old love Larue, though she quickly discounted that idea. It was a cruel one, coming from a confused and hurt woman. It wasn’t fair to him. Unable to sleep any longer, Elle rose and prepared for the day.
She didn’t know if any of the allies were still there. Not that it mattered. She didn’t plan on dressing in lovely garments and parading around for them. Quite the opposite. She planned on going about her day as she usually did and ignoring the bastards who thought so poorly of her. She didn’t plan on ignoring Curtis’ parents, however, but perhaps they had left also. It wasn’t as if there was any reason to stay now.
The feast had been a disaster.
As she moved about with her morning routine, Melusine awoke, yawning and scratching her head as she sat up on the lounge.
“What time is it?” she asked, yawning again.
Elle was over at the water basin. “Early,” she said. “This sun is just rising.”
Melusine’s eyes were closed as she scratched her head with two hands now. “Did you sleep?” she asked.
“A little. Did you?”
“A lot.”
That was the truth. Elle snorted. “You could sleep through the return of Christ and his angels,” she said. “You have always been that way.”
Melusine grinned, yawning yet again as she stood up and stretched. “I know,” she said, but she stopped yawning long enough to look at the bed. “Did Curtis return?”
“Nay.”
That seemed to wake Melusine up a little more when she realized how sad that must have made Elle. She went over to her as the woman washed her face.
“I would not worry,” she said softly. “I am certain he went to be with his family. He has not seen them in a while. He will be back this morning, I’m sure of it.”
Elle dried her face off. “As am I,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “Everything will be just as it was.”
Melusine thought her cousin sounded a little too cheery, but she didn’t push. For once in her life, she didn’t push. That young woman who often spoke before thinking was becoming more controlled these days. Being with Asa, and watching his temper, had helped her grow up a little.
She had some maturity these days.
“I’m sure it will,” she said. “But… are you well after last night?”
Elle nodded. “I am over the situation,” she said. “It happened, but it is finished. We move on.”
