“For letting me have a lazy day and not telling anyone about it, which is going to prove me innocent of Beatrix’s charge.”
“I do not see how, but I am right glad to hear it, for the guards are still looking for ye, girl. It be a wonder ye made it down here without being stopped.”
“Mayhap with Warrick at my side, they felt he would handle the matter now.”
“He be back?”
“Aye.” Rowena grinned. “And he has ordered me to eat, so I had best get to it. God’s mercy, I think I have my appetite back. I also need to order a bath and a bottle of Tures wine.”
“Go eat, then. I will see to the bath and get the wine for ye.”
“Thank you, Mistress—”
“Mary,” the older woman said, grinning herself. “Aye, I thinkyecan call me Mary now.”
When Rowena entered the hall not long after, she cradled the bottle of wine in her arms like a babe. Her step was not the least hesitant, and she was grinning at Warrick by the time she reached him.
He did not look very pleased himself. He had heard the accusations. Verily, Beatrix had not even waited for him to come to the table, but had followed him into his solar to give him a full rendering of the facts whilst he changed his wet tunic and dried his hair.
Now his flaxen-haired wench looked as if she had a very pleasant secret to tell. He hoped so, for the case against her was damning.
He had moved to the hearth, the lord’s table already being cleared of the meal. Beatrix sat in one of the chairs, Melisant beside her on a stool. Warrick nodded Rowena into the other chair.
Beatrix gasped at this, though she said naught a word. Her father had been frowning at her ever since she had charged his leman with theft. That delighted her. She hoped he was furious. She would have preferred he come back to find the wench scarred and no longer desirable, but mayhap he would scar her himself when he passed judgment. At any rate, he would not take her back to his bed after he adjudged her guilty. Beatrix had at least accomplished that.
“Mydaughter,” Warrick began in disgust, addressing Rowena, “has made a serious charge against you, wench. How do you answer to the theft of a pearl necklace?”
“Did she say when it was taken?”
“When, Beatrix?”
“Just before the dinner hour,” Beatrix supplied.
“Ask her, my lord, how she is certain of this,” Rowena suggested.
“How, Beatrix?”
Beatrix just barely managed to keep a frown from her brow. She could not see what difference it made. The necklace was taken, then found in Warrick’s solar. Surely the wench was not going to suggesthetook it.
“’Twas late afternoon when I last saw it and decided I would wear it to dinner. Not an hour later ’twas missing, andshe”—she stabbed a finger toward Rowena—“was seen outside my chamber during that time. ’Twas Melisant who saw her.”
Rowena grinned at Warrick. “Did I tell you, my lord,” she asked casually, “what time I escaped yesterday?”
“Escaped?!” Beatrix exclaimed. “Do you mean to say you were not hiding in the castle since yestereve?”
“Nay, my lady. I could not trust a mere hiding place for whatyouhad planned for me.”
Hot color stole into Beatrix’s cheeks before her eyes glittered with malice. “You admit you ran away? Do you know what the punishment is for a runaway serf?”
“Aye, Lady Beatrix. I have my own lands, my own serfs, and attended my father’s court quite often ere he died. I should know—”
“Liar!” Beatrix hissed. “Are you going to stand there and let her lie like that, Father?”
“I doubt she lies,” he replied. “’Twas I who made her a serf, not her birth. But we digress. What time did you leave here, Rowena?”
“’Twas noontide.”
“Again she lies!” Beatrix fairly shrieked this time. “How can you listen—?”
