“We have a message from Lord Warrick, Mistress. You are to abide in the dungeon henceforth.”
She had known they would say exactly that; still she turned ashen to have it confirmed. “Did he—say for how long?”
“Henceforth,” was repeated.
That, of course, was indefinitely—or forever. “Did he say why?”
Stupid question. Why was she torturing herself?
She had known this would happen if Warrick found out Gilbert d’Ambray was her stepbrother. She should have taken her courage in hand and told him herself when she’d had the opportunity. She would have faced his anger, true, but she would have been there to try and soothe it, at least to tell him why she had kept silent. Alone, he had concluded the worst, and now wanted naught more to do with her, wanted revenge—nay, this was not that. This was pure fury, and final.
The guards had merely shaken their heads to her question, then directed her to come with them. She did. What choice did she have? At least she had been alone in the hall when they had come for her. Emma had not been there to protest, nor Mildred, which would likely have brought Rowena to tears. It was all she could do now to hold them back in front of the two guards.
Aye, she had known Warrick would do this to her—but deep down she had not thought he really would.
When the jailer she dreaded showed up with his leering grin to gloat that she was to be in his care again, Rowena turned her back on him ere she was sick. ’Twas not the babe making her feel so. ’Twas the tightness in her chest that was turning hollow. Now she wished the tears would come, but they would not.
When John Giffard arrived not an hour later to tell her he had had to clout the other one this time to get him to leave, she had only one question for him. “Are you here at Warrick’s behest?”
“Nay, my lady. The word has spread fast that you were brought here again. I came as soon as I heard.”
At that point she cried. Why John had been given to her the last time she did not know. She had never asked. But that he was not this time was self-explanatory. Warrick did not care what happened to her now, as long as she was locked away where he would never have to lay eyes on her again.
A while later she heard an argument out in the guardroom. She recognized Mildred’s voice. She and John had become very friendly of late. Just now they were not. When silence returned, Rowena knew John had won, knew also what the argument had likely been about. Mildred was not to be allowed to see her, nor would John go against his lord to let Rowena out.
Two more hours passed, then John came again to open her door. “He has changed his mind, my lady. I knew he would, but—You are to be locked in his solar instead of here, with a guard at the door.”
“What if I prefer it here?” she wanted to know.
“You do not mean that.”
“Aye, I do.”
John sighed. “The guard has his orders. He will drag you from here do you not go on your own.”
“Then by all means, I shall walk.”
“Take heart—”
“Nay, John,” she cut him off curtly. “Mine is dead now, for it hurts no longer.”
God’s mercy, why could that not be true? She prayed for blessed numbness, yet it would not come with this much pain. But no one was going to know that, not John, and especially not Warrick.
No hope came to her from the change in prisons. Warrick must have merely recalled that she was carrying his child. Obviously he had forgotten that in his first rage, and it must have enraged him more when he remembered and thus had to make allowances for her just to protect the child. She did not think for a moment that he had any other reason for moving her to a more comfortable prison.
She was allowed to see no one except the guard, who handed her food to her each day. Every time she had tried to speak to him, she had gotten grunts or mutters in answer, so she did not try anymore. Verily, shewouldhave preferred to stay in the dungeon with John.
She sat often in the window embrasure, from where she could look out on the side yard. Not much activity ever happened down there, but ’twas a better view than none at all. She sewed a lot, too, for the child that was nigh three months along, soft chemises for Emma—naught at all for Warrick. What she had made for Warrick ere he left for Ambray she now ripped apart to make tiny tunics for the babe.
No one had told her aught about the siege at Ambray. For Warrick to have learned the truth of who she was, he had to have taken the castle. Had Gilbert been there? Was he captured or dead? Was her mother all right? Free? In a new prison as a result of Warrick’s fury?
She counted the days. For each one that passed, she stabbed a hole as deeply as she could with her small eating knife in one of the carved bedposts. They had been fine bedposts, richly detailed. Now there were twenty-five unsightly holes that she took to admiring. Before the twenty-sixth could be added, Warrick returned.
Rowena had had no warning. He was just there, walking into the room, stopping before the window embrasure, where she sat with her feet propped up on the opposite seat, her hands on her belly, which was thickened, but not yet rounded. She had been trying to determine if the fluttering she had felt was the child or indigestion. Her first look at Warrick, and she decided ’twasgoingto be indigestion.
“So the mighty warlord returns,” she said, not caring whether he liked her sneering tone or not. “Did you kill Gilbert?”
“I have not found him yet, though not for lack of hunting him these weeks past.”
