What of his defense of her? The baron lifted her cloak away from her shoulders and she lost the protection of the hood. Leila accepted its weight from him, then bent closer to adjust Anna’s veil. She felt exposed before the baron’s keen gaze and bowed her head, averting her face slightly.
Royce laughed. “Surely your lord husband has banished your shy nature by now.”
“I am not accustomed to the company of men, sir,” she said, pretending to be very modest. “I do apologize if my modesty gives offense.”
“On the contrary, I find it most refreshing.”
Anna gritted her teeth and stared at her hands, as Royce lifted his chalice and drank to her health.
She would murder Bartholomew with her bare hands when he returned.
If he returned.
If she survived.
To her relief, Fergus leaned forward and asked about the keep and its construction. He professed a need to improve the defenses of the keep he would inherit and admired Haynesdale with such fulsomeness that Anna felt Royce thaw. In a matter of moments, their host was explaining choices made in construction, likely to show his own cleverness and the weight of his purse. Fergus and Duncan encouraged him with their curiosity and expressions of envy, so that Anna could look down at her hands in silence.
And seethe that Bartholomew was evidently so taken with the charms of Marie. Was it not just like a man—or a knight—to forget all but his own pleasure? What of Percy? What of the entire reason they had entered this cursed place? Anna bit down on her disappointment, telling herself that she was the fool, for she had begun to hope that Bartholomew might be different.
She had been right about him from the first and it was not a realization that gave her pleasure.
*
Bartholomew did not know why Lady Marie was so determined to be alone with him, but he was not one to cast aside an opportunity. If they were to save Percy and recover the reliquary, he needed to know the location of both. When Marie hovered at his side like a butterfly, he dared to ask to see the marvels of the keep.
He did not have to feign that he was impressed by its size and construction.
He did ignore the press of her breast against his side, and the dance of her fingertips over his arm. He professed a fascination with the keep’s defenses, and she granted him a tour in excess of what her lord husband might have found fitting. He was shown the chapel, the kitchens, the staircase to the tower. He was shown the curtain wall, the defenses and the stores of weaponry for the guards.
He counted the Captain of the Guard, four knights, and either seven or eight men-at-arms, all employed in the guarding of the keep. It seemed that Sir Royce believed in stout defense. There had to be a dozen squires, but they hastened this way and that, and were of so similar a size and age that he was not confident of their exact number.
It seemed long odds to escape this keep without detection or pursuit.
It would be longer odds to claim it by force.
The castellan was a tall, thin man with a grim countenance, and it was more grim as he warned the lady that there was only sufficient flour for bread for another month. It was evident to Bartholomew that the castellan would have preferred not to have had to share that bread with guests.
“We shall eat venison,” the lady declared, dismissing the concern, and Bartholomew watched the seneschal frown.
Aye, he had never known a castellan who liked to see his counsel disregarded.
In the kitchens, there was a cook and a saucemaker, neither of whom were plump, and a number of serving maids. A stocky woman appeared to be in charge of the cleaning and bullied the younger maids to do her will. He did not have an impression of a happy household.
Two elegant maids trailed behind Marie in silence, until she dismissed them to await her at the board.
Bartholomew was told the location of Marie’s chamber, as well as that of her lord husband, and she made a jest as to how readily he might find her chamber from his own.
Indeed, she had commanded that he and his lady wife should have the chamber directly beside her own in the tower, while her lord husband’s solar was at the summit. Bartholomew saw Timothy taking the bags and Anna’s crossbow to that room and nodded approval at the boy. The others were to be quartered in the chambers over the stables. The kitchens were in the space between the stable and tower, the chapel on the far side of the bailey, the well in the middle and the high wall around all.
The dungeons were below the tower, and Bartholomew took note of the location of the stairs. The keys, he had to assume, were either near the dungeon entrance or in Royce’s possession.
They did not enter the chapel, and he was not shown the treasury. Was the treasury at the summit of the tower? The reliquary had to be secured in one or the other. He could not think of how to ask without arousing suspicion.
It was Saturday. Perhaps they would stay to mass the next morning.
Bartholomew was so consumed with creating a plan that he did not pay much attention to the lady’s chatter. She ushered him through a doorway, and he realized only once he had crossed the threshold that it was a storage chamber. He turned to depart, thinking she had erred, but the lady closed the door behind them. They were plunged into darkness, and the click of the key in the lock seemed overloud.
Had she guessed his intent?
