“Get dressed,” he told her. “Come downstairs when you are presentable.”
She gazed up at him, hesitant. “Are you certain?”
He nodded. “Aye,” he went to the door. “I want the priest to meet you. Letting him see what I am fighting for will only strengthen our case.”
She nodded reluctantly, blowing him a kiss as he quit the chamber and quietly shut the door behind him.
Tossing off the coverlets, Emberley leapt out of bed and went in search of the shift Gart had pulled off of her and the surcoats that Lady Emilie had left behind. She tried not to let fear grip her heart, but it was difficult.
If Gart was concerned for the priest’s odd-hour visit, she was positively scared to death.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Bastards!” Julian screamed.“There is no doubt in my mind that de Lohr took my wife. There could be no other explanation!”
The Sheriff of Ealing, Lord Bardwell, stood just inside the door of Julian’s lavish apartments at the Tower of London. He had come to deliver the news that several of Baron Buckland’s men had been massacred out on Ealing Road, the main drive from Oxford to London. They had found eight men in total, all with their throats slit, men bearing the insignia of Baron Buckland.
So they had come to London to seek Buckland because one of the sheriff’s men had heard that Buckland was staying at the tower. The man was a fixture around London and a known companion of the queen, so the sheriff and his men had proceeded to the Tower to let the baron know of his misfortune. The baron, a wily man with a bad smell about him, had exploded.
“My lord, I saw nothing that would indicate the de Lohrs had anything to do with the murder of your men,” the sheriff explained. “Your men were set upon by bandits. Their money and anything else of value was missing and the horses gone.”
Julian went mad. He began kicking over chairs and trying to wrest legs off tables. The sheriff stood back, well out of the way, as Julian began hurling things towards the hearth. Things were shattering everywhere.
“Where is my wife?” Julian howled.
“We found no trace of a woman, my lord.”
Julian roared. “But she was with them,” he screamed, staggering to a table near the door and pulling a small piece of vellum off the surface. “This is the missive they sent to me telling me that they had found my wife and were bringing her to London.”
The sheriff remained stoic in the face of the vellum being shaken under his nose. “As I said, my lord, there was no trace of any woman. If she was with them, the bandits must have carried her off.”
Julian didn’t agree with that assessment. He waved the vellum in the man’s face a few more times before letting it fall to the ground. “One of my men arrived earlier today with this missive. It clearly says that my wife was at Trelystan and that my men are bringing her to London. And now you tell me that the entire escort has been murdered and there is no sign of my wife?”
“Nay, my lord.”
Julian exploded again, kicking over a table that held a lit taper on it. As it fell to the floor and ignited the rushes that were nearby, the sheriff watched the fire gain steam with some concern as Julian continued to rant. Finally, the sheriff moved to the rushes and stamped out the fire, thinking perhaps that it was time for him to leave. He had delivered his message, apparently to a madman, and was eager to be gone.
“He has taken her,” Julian seethed. “There is a conspiracy with de Lohr and de Lara to keep my wife from me. I will not have it, do you hear? I will not have it!”
The sheriff was inching back towards the door, silently motioning for his men to quit the chamber. He was very near the door as he spoke.
“Perhaps you should ask the Earl of Hereford personally,” he suggested. “The man came through Ealing earlier tonight and brought an entire army with him. Perhaps he took her.”
Julian froze mid-rant. “He is here with an army?”
The sheriff nodded. “I saw him myself, my lord.”
Julian stared at the man a moment before resuming his madness full-bore. He screamed and fell to his knees, shaking his fists at the sky.
“That ismyarmy,” he howled. “It is the army for Isabella, for her lands in France. Now he will not give me the manpower I requested because of his stupid brother and…arrrrrrrggggggggg!”
He was off on a serious tangent, tearing into the fine cushions that lined an oak bench and ripping them apart with his bare hands. The sheriff watched him for a few moments before quitting the room. The man was quite mad and he did not want to fall victim to his violence.
Unaware the sheriff had left until he had ripped all of the pillows to shreds, Julian eventually noticed he was alone in the sumptuous chamber. Panting, exhausted, he began to think of all of the things that had gone wrong for him, starting when he had met with Baron Thornden at Dunster those months ago. The day that Gart Forbes had arrived, everything had gone awry.
It was still going awry. Isabella no longer favored him and he knew it was only a matter of time before he was kicked out of his Tower apartments and out of favor completely. His alliance with the de Lohr brothers had collapsed thanks to Gart Forbes’ interference. Although he could not link Gart to his wife’s presence at Trelystan Castle, he was sure that Forbes had something to do with it as well. The man had invaded his life and stolen his wife, picking away at the very fabric of his existence piece by piece. Julian had to do something before it was gonecompletely. He had to do something before Forbes destroyed him.
Going to Bellham had not accomplished anything. In fact, it had only made things worse. Now the Earl of Hereford was here, no doubt, being fed lies by his brother and Forbes. Julian knew he could no longer count on the earl’s support. But the fact that Julian had promised Isabella manpower for her war in France was nil. If he was out of favor, there were others to provide armies and money to her. She didn’t need him any longer.
