“Hmph!” Hugh snorted. “Agnes and loyalty, indeed. Why would anyone believe your servant, dear Lady Eleanor? You, no doubt, asked poor Agnes to lie for you—to protect your dead lover!”
Eleanor gasped. How could he insinuate such a thing again! Lovers—she and Osbert? She wanted to slap Hugh! Instead, she clenched her fists so tightly she could feel her nails cutting into her palms. “You do me a great disservice, Lord Hugh,” she said, biting the words out distinctly. “Now, my honor and my family’s honor have been besmirched! Never do I wish to speak with you again!” Fighting back tears, face white, and jaw set, she clutched her gown in both hands and hurried up the rest of the steps, ahead of Hugh.
Arrested in mid-step, Hugh gazed after her, stunned into silence. Her reaction had been so genuine, so…so…real? Was she speaking truly?
“Sire,” Anne’s voice called him back to the present moment. He turned to see Eleanor’s lady-in-waiting, hands clasped in front of her.
“What?” Hugh asked in annoyance. He had had quite enough of these women and all their emotions.
Anne twisted her hands together. “I could not help but hear your exchange with my lady Eleanor,” she began hesitantly. “I—I—”
“Spit it out, woman!” Hugh snapped. “Our meal awaits. I have business to attend to.”
“By your leave, sire, the Lady Eleanor—I have never served a truer soul,” Anne said, her eyes brimming with tears. “She is loyal and steadfast, and it does break my heart to see her treated so, when she has been so good to all of us who serve her. Agnes spoke thus only because she has seen how loyalty has been lived out here at Strathcombe, because of Lady Eleanor.” Anne looked down at the steps, as if afraid to meet his eyes.
“Hmph!” Hugh snorted. “I thank you for your words. I am certain you are right,” he added sarcastically. He turned to continue up the steps, when Anne touched his arm. He halted, turning in annoyance at the interruption.
“But, Lord Hugh, Lady Eleanor is most true!” Anne protested. “She was ill-used by Edgar, her late husband, but she was loyal even to him and never broke her marriage vows, though it was hardly a marriage,” Anne said.
Hugh stared at Anne. “What do you mean, hardly a marriage?” he asked.
Anne reddened and caught her lip for a moment. “They—they never lived as man and wife, as regards the bedchamber, and Edgar tried to find his amusements elsewhere,” she admitted.
Hugh knitted his eyebrows into a frown. Eleanor was a virgin? That could not be! “Say you he never bedded her?” Hugh asked.
Anne turned an even deeper shade of red. “Nay, sire. She knew not what a marriage could truly be, but she never broke her vows.”
So, when he had kissed Eleanor, that warmth, passion, and desire with which he had felt her respond was new to her? The way she molded her body to his for just that instant was unstudied? The way her hand had stroked his back was unpracticed? Hugh shook his head in amazement. Another surprise from Eleanor?
“Shake not your head, sire, I speak the truth!” Anne asserted.
“I thank you,” Hugh said, inclining his head as a form of dismissal. He watched as Anne curtseyed hastily and stepped aside to walk with Agnes.
Loyal! Steadfast! Even to Edgar! God’s bones! Hugh swore silently, finishing his climb up the staircase to the Great Hall. It was hard to imagine that possibility, but, he mused, nothing Eleanor had said or done contradicted Anne’s defense of her loyalty—if—if he were to put stock in actually trusting someone. Perhaps he had been too hasty to judge poor Agnes, as well? He sighed heavily and entered the Great Hall, finding his place at the high table, and reaching swiftly for a goblet of wine.
Naturally, Eleanor was seated a few places away, and he noted she kept her head turned away from him, deep in conversation with Mary. Ah, Mary. Her golden hair shone in the firelight, and her sweet expression bore no one ill, but—she languished over William’s nephew, Henry. ‘Twas plain for all to see that she would prefer him over Hugh. Hugh swallowed a draught of wine and attacked the roast lamb on his trencher. Forget this mess of the betrothal.
First, he would call William out directly after the meal and take him to task over his snide suggestions to Eleanor about the poachings being his own doing. ‘Twas all he could do to sit through this meal without taking the cur by his throat and throwing him against the wall for his insinuations and slurs against his honor.
Then, he had to take care of the poachings—and the murder—when the assize reconvened, and the first task was to question John de Bretton. There was something he did not like about the way the man had answered Eleanor. John’s reaction to Eleanor’s question had seemed evasive and duplicitous. Was it because he was being questioned by a woman—or was it because he truly had something to hide? If John had been disloyal to him, Hugh of Wykeham, he would rue the day! And then there was Agnes’s testimony, testimony which cleared Osbert—and could point the finger of blame at someone outside the Strathcombe forest, someone like John, who had opportunity and perhaps even more motive than silver coins.
Mary bent her head close to Eleanor’s. “Marry, but you look as if you had seen a ghost!” Mary said in a low voice.
Eleanor felt tears threatening again and dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. “Aye, ‘twas Osbert’s ghost! Hugh thinks I forced Agnes to lie to protect Osbert, because Osbert and I were lovers! He has cast slime on my honor—and on our family’s honor!”
“What?” Mary gasped. She reached out and grasped Eleanor’s hand in her own. “Nay, but Hugh is a
