“You should not remain out here too long, dearling,” Thayer murmured as he stepped up beside her, slipping his arm about her shoulders.
“Humph.” Edna shook her head. “There is no talking sense to her.”
Ignoring her maid, Gytha managed a smile for Thayer. “We are well swaddled against the cold. Your son and I wish to bid you God’s protection and a good journey. Especially,” she added with some force, “a quick and safe return.”
“Something I want too, sweet Gytha.” He gave her a gentle kiss. “We shall send these Scots scurrying like frightened rabbits and return ere you can miss us.”
“I doubt that. You shall not even reach Berwick ere that starts,” she muttered, then frowned when he grinned at her. “I shall have to resort to putting heated rocks in the bed for warmth.”
“As long as that is all you put in the bed,” he teased, then kissed his wide-eyed child’s forehead.
“And they would have to be very large rocks so that I could get the right sense of bulk,” she continued.
“Bulk?” He tried to look offended and lightly poked his hard, flat stomach.
“Aye, bulk.” She rested her cheek against his chest, slipping her arm around his waist, and edged closer to him. “You will take care, will you not?” It sounded weak, but she swore to herself it would be her only show of doubt or reluctance.
Careful not to press the baby too tightly between them, he briefly held her closer. It was pleasing to see that she was not as calm about his leaving as she had acted. For a moment he had thought she accepted his riding off to battle a little too well. While he did not want copious tears and wailing, teasing and smiles were a little unsettling as well.
When she glanced up at him, he studied her for a moment. As ever, looking at her brought an odd tightness in his chest. She was more beautiful than he knew how to describe, a few curls of her sun-kissed hair escaping her headdress, and her huge, lovely blue eyes soft with worry for him. Only a fool would leave her, he mused, and silently promised that he would do so as little as possible after this. He touched a soft kiss to her mouth, then stepped away.
“I will be as careful as any man can be, Gytha. You take care as well.” He winked. “I expect you to be hale and well rested when I return.”
She managed a smile, then stood quietly as she watched him leave. She kept her gaze fixed upon him until the heavy gates of Riverfall shut behind him. As she turned to go back inside, Margaret brushed by, hurrying up to her chambers. Gytha called to her cousin but was ignored. She sighed, realizing that Margaret was clearly as upset as she felt. As she returned to her own chambers, Gytha hoped Margaret shook her sorrow before too long. They would need to help each other keep up their spirits as they waited for their men to return.
“Where is Margaret?” Gytha demanded of Edna when the maid arrived in her chambers to take over the care of Everard.
“She has gone up on the walls again.”
“This has gone on long enough. Where is my cloak?”
Hurrying to help Gytha wrap up against the chill night air, Edna murmured, “She is a new bride.”
“I am hardly an old one. Edna, I do not mean to scold her. Well, not badly. But she wed a knight. She has to learn to accept these absences. She risks not only making herself ill but shaming Roger with her weakness.”
“Aye, you are right. Just do not stay out in that cold, damp air too long.”
Gytha nodded as she left the chambers, but her thoughts were concentrated on Margaret. Thayer and Roger had been gone over a week now. She began to wonder if Roger’s going off to battle was the only thing troubling her cousin. In the last day or two, she had begun to think Margaret was angry with her, was purposely avoiding her. No matter how often she told herself she was being foolish and that there was no reason for such a thing, Gytha could not shake the feeling.
She found Margaret on the wall staring off in the direction Roger had ridden. It was something she had done a time or two herself and would likely do again until Thayer came home. Margaret did it an unsettling number of times. She put her hand on Margaret’s arm in a gesture of sympathetic understanding, only to have Margaret glance at her and edge away.
“Margaret, I know how you must miss Roger. I miss Thayer.”
“Do you?”
Frowning not only at the question but at the angry tone of Margaret’s voice, Gytha replied, “Of course I do. How can you ask such a thing?”
“It seems strange to me that you would claim to miss Thayer when you sent him off to battle.”
“I sent him?” Gytha wondered if she had played the part of the brave wife a little too well.
“Aye. I would never have thought it of you, Gytha. I did not think you one to care about such things as titles and lands. After all, you have Riverfall and you appeared content. Neither did I think you one to care if your husband was a mere knight instead of a lord. Mayhap when one has always had such things, ’tis more sorely felt when they are taken away.
“But did you give no thought to me when you asked this of Thayer? You had to know Roger would ride at Thayer’s side as he always does. ’Tis one thing to send your own husband into danger to gain you a title and demesne. But to send the man I love as well?” Margaret shook her head. “I never would have thought you so cruel, Gytha. So thoughtless.”
Turning to look squarely at Gytha, Margaret frowned. Even in the dim light of a waning moon and the scattered torches, she could see the utter shock on Gytha’s face. Margaret began to think she might have misunderstood something or misjudged her cousin badly. It was the possibility of the latter that truly troubled her.
It was a moment before Gytha could speak, then she whispered in a hoarse voice, “What are you saying?”
