She patted the cushioned seat under her, smiling smugly because it was so much nicer than Warrick’s hard benches in his window alcoves. Of course, he had two windows, while she had only the one, and his had costly glass, whereas hers had been broken during one of the recent sieges. It now had just a thin oilcloth covering that she could barely see through ordinarily, but it had come loose and was flapping in the April wind, giving her clear glimpses of the road that snaked around to the gatehouse. ’Twas still empty, that road, except for a traveling merchant and his baggage wain that could not hold her interest.
’Twas not the first time the window had been broken. She had broken it herself when she was nine, an accident, but it had not been replaced for nearly two years. The window overlooked the forebuilding, which was one story lower than the tower. Its top floor housed the chapel, and ’twas the roof of this that she looked down on just six feet below her window, though a little to the left of it, for the front wall of the forebuilding was actually directly below it.
Rowena had jumped out that window once before it was repaired, landing right on the footwide battlements, then hopping down the other three feet to the chapel roof. She had done it on a dare to frighten another maid.
She had frightened the other girl, all right, who had run straight to Anne screaming that Rowena was dead, fallen out the window straight down to the forebuilding stairs, whichdidhappen to be under the left half of her window, and two stories down. Rowena had wished sheweredead after the tongue-lashing she had received, as well as confinement in her room for…she could not remember how long now.
She smiled with the memory as she patted the huge girth of her belly. Her own daughter would never do anything so foolish, not with the iron bars Rowena would have installed over her windows. But she could now understand her mother’s frightened rage. Shecouldhave killed herself. One slight misstep and she would have tumbled…
“Daydreaming, my lady?”
Rowena went deathly still. It could not be. But she turned, and it was Gilbert inside her door, closing her door, walking toward her.
“How did you get through the gates?”
He laughed. “That was the easy part. Today is merchants’ day, when they come up from the town to tempt your ladies to part with a few coins. So today I am a merchant. ’Tis getting an army inside that is difficult, not one man.”
“Do you still have an army to speak of?”
That got rid of his good-humored boasting. “Nay, but—Mary be praised!” he exclaimed when he was close enough to see her rounded form. “So it worked.”
That calculating look came over him, where she could almost hear the exact bent of his greedy thoughts. “You willnotclaim this is Lyons’ child. I will deny it—and Warrick de Chaville knows better.”
“That is right,” he snarled. “Hehad you!”
“Yougave me to him!” she shouted back. “Or do you forget that it was your idea,yourgreed—?”
“Be quiet!” he hissed, looking back nervously at the door. “It matters not whom the child belongs to, as long as I can make use of it.”
She stared at him wide-eyed. “Youdostill think to claim Kirkburough? How can you?”
“I have to. I have naught else. Even now that bastard has besieged my last keep. I cannot go there. I have nowhere to go, Rowena.”
She realized he wanted her to understand and mayhap feel sympathy for him. She wondered if Warrick had driven him a little crazy in his relentless hounding of him. Or was this what desperation did to a man?
Her brows narrowed suspiciously. “That cannot be why you came here, for you knew naught about the child. What did you come here for, Gilbert?”
“To marry you.”
“Youaremad!”
“Nay, you have back all of your properties, all in your control,” he said, explaining his reasoning. “’Tis profitable to wed you now, for as your husband—”
“I swore fealty to Warrick,” she lied. “He will not let you have me.”
“He cannot stop me. Let him try. He will have to retake those castles he gave back to you, as well as your others. He will deplete his own resources this time, and then I will have him at last.”
“Gilbert,whycan you not give this up? You have lost. Why do you not leave the country while you still can? Go to Louis’s court, or Henry’s. Start anew.”
“I have not lost, now that I have you.”
“But you do not have me,” she told him calmly. “If I would not marry Warrick, whom I love, God knows I would not marry you, whom I detest. I would as soon jump out this window. Shall I prove it?”
“Do not speak foolishness!” he snapped, furious at her threatandher revelation of her love for his enemy. But at the moment, he was more concerned with the threat, for she sat too close to that window. “If—if you do not want me to bed you, then I will not, but I have to marry you, Rowena. I have no choice now.”
“Nay, you do have a choice,” Warrick said from the doorway. “Draw your sword and I will show you.”
Rowena was so startled by his appearance, she did not have a chance to react when Gilbert leaped toward her and placed a dagger at her throat.
