“Or not.”
“Where is the optimism of your own youth?”
“Destroyed at the hands of the d’Ambrays.”
“Then nurture it back to life, my lamb, for you have an opportunity here to secure your own future—and heal a man who has lived too long with demons from his past. A worthy endeavor do you ask me.”
“I did not ask you,” Rowena said with growing annoyance. “You can feel sorry for him, but you are not the recipient of his current enmity. Do you askme, he and his demons deserve each other.”
“Will you let your own tragedies turn you as hard and unforgiving as he?”
“Now you contradict yourself to badger me, by admitting heishard and unforgiving. Leave go, Mildred. I said I would think about it.”
“Very well.” Mildred sighed, but added tenaciously, “You do not feel just a little sorry for him now?”
“Not even a little,” Rowena said stubbornly—and wished it were not a lie.
Chapter 26
“Welcome, Sheldon!” Warrick exclaimed and clasped his old friend in a bear hug. “It has been too long since you came for a visit.”
“Likely because you crack my ribs each time I do,” Sheldon grunted.
“Liar,” Warrick shot back, but with a laugh, for Sheldon was not as wide as he was, but was as tall—and in full armor.
Sheldon de Vere had been the eldest son of the household where Warrick had been fostered, and Warrick had been his squire for four years. That there was only some five years difference in their ages had made them friends as well. Sheldon was merely thirty-seven now, but his beard and straggly, long brown hair were prematurely salted with gray, a trait common to the men of his family. It did not detract from his handsomeness, but it did cause strange stares from folk seeing him for the first time.
“Come, seat yourself and let your squire remove some of that heavy mail,” Warrick continued as he led the way to the hearth. Then he called to a passing servant. “Emma, order refreshment for my guest.” The girl turned to do as told, but after a moment Warrick called again. “And fetch the new wench to serve it.”
Sheldon watched the lithesome girl delegate the first order to another, then move toward the stairs to the women’s quarters. “You still treat her like a servant?” he remarked after she had gone from sight.
“She is a servant.”
“She is also your daughter.”
Warrick frowned at that bald statement. “That cannot be proven. God’s blood, I bedded her mother but once in my fifteenth year, when you had given me leave to come home for a short visit. ’Tis unlikely—”
“Why do you make excuses for it not to be so,” Sheldon interrupted, “when you have only to look at her to know she is your get? She is the only one of your girls who actually does look like you.”
Warrick slumped down in his chair by the hearth, his frown darkening. “I had no knowledge of the girl until she was nigh full-grown. Her mother was so afeared of me, she kept her hidden in the village during my infrequent stays here, and my servants are so circumspect, none would mention her existence to me. Even you have never mentioned her to me ere now.”
Sheldon flushed, for that was true enough. “Did you acknowledge her as yours when you did finally notice her?”
Warrick snorted. “When I first noticed her, my friend, all I saw was a comely wench I might like to sample in a few years and I told her so, whereby she promptly explained, with a good deal of affronted heat, that I could not because she was my daughter. Verily, I have never felt like such a fool, because I did not see it, because I did not know it.”
Sheldon laughed. “Embarrassment like that is not easy to forget.”
“Indeed, nor have I. I would as soon she continued to hide herself when I am home, but now she does not.”
“But did you acknowledge her?”
“Nay. I told you it cannot be proven she is mine, or do you forget that my father yet lived when she was conceived? She could as easily be his get.”
“You believe that no more than I. Your father was much too devoted to your mother to find any interest at all in the castle wenches.”
Warrick could not deny that, and his frown turned into a scowl. “Mayhap I welcomed you too hastily, old friend. Why do you badger me about the girl?”
Sheldon sighed. “I should have said so to begin with. My second son, Richard, would like to have her to wife.”
