Knave Of Hearts. Shari Anton

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      Chapter Four

      Edwin carried the torch, leaving Stephen to walk alongside with no more to do than avoid the ruts in the road and ponder his growing puzzlement over Marian.

      Dare he question Edwin?

      Upon Edwin and Carolyn’s return to Branwick, William had presented the two rivals for his daughter’s hand to each other, then chastised Carolyn for not doing so earlier. From then on Carolyn had been the model of a proper, if sullen, chatelaine of her father’s keep.

      Edwin hadn’t said a word to Stephen since, not that Stephen attempted to further their acquaintance either. He didn’t particularly want to know Edwin any better than necessary to assess his rival’s strengths and weaknesses where Carolyn was concerned.

      ’Twas obvious from their easy ways at supper to see William favored Edwin. Stephen had already decided the battle must be won through Carolyn, to so thoroughly capture the lady that her older suitor would despair of hope. He’d made progress to that end with the gift of the chest at supper. She liked the gift, had even made a point to show it to Edwin.

      Unfortunately, Edwin didn’t seem the sort to despair easily.

      ’Twould probably be best to prod Edwin into a conversation about their mutual quest to win Carolyn, but his curiosity over Marian wouldn’t leave Stephen alone.

      “Adorable girls,” Stephen commented.

      Edwin didn’t even glance sideways. “They are.”

      “A shame about Lyssa’s headache.”

      “She suffers them often, I hear.”

      Stephen digested the news with a pang of sympathy for both daughter and mother. A wee one should not suffer so, and it must be hard on Marian to see her daughter pained.

      Marian’s daughters.

      His suspicion that the twins might be William’s had come to an end at evening meal. Those little faces matched Marian’s too well to be other than her own offspring, but not until seeing them sitting together did he notice the resemblance. Too, Carolyn had made a remark about the twins being her nieces.

      Why did the family live in the hamlet? Marian’s kinship to William certainly warranted residence in the keep, unless he thoroughly disapproved of Marian’s husband.

      Where was the girls’ father, who should have been at evening meal with his family? Obviously off somewhere.

      Stephen kicked at a rock, sending it far down the road, beyond the light of the torch. “Has no cure for the girl’s headaches been found?”

      “Not for want of trying. Marian took Lyssa into London to see a physician. ’Twould seem his potions cannot prevent or ease the headaches.”

      Then Lyssa had been the blanket-wrapped bundle on Marian’s bed in the palace bedchamber. Audra must have remained behind at Branwick while Marian visited a physician with Lyssa.

      “You have known Marian for some time, then?”

      Edwin finally graced him with a glance. “For some years. Why so curious?”

      “I knew Marian as a girl, but have not seen her in recent years. My concern—” Stephen stopped and looked back toward the hut, now out of sight, and put to words what bothered him ever since closing Marian’s door. “I do not like leaving Marian and her children alone like this. ’Tis not wise. What if some knave decides to take advantage of her husband’s absence? She and the girls should have remained at the keep for the night.”

      “Marian is a widow. She and the girls have lived alone in that hut for several years.”

      A widow? No husband. No protector for the girls.

      “All the more reason she should live in the keep.”

      “I hear she prefers living in the hamlet. ’Tis odd William allows it, but then the whole tale of how she came to Branwick is odd.”

      “How so?”

      “Carolyn brought her to Branwick after her husband died. The girls were born here, and a few months later William allowed her to live in the hut.” Edwin paused before adding. “I often wondered why she did not return to Murwaithe. Must have been some bad feelings with her family, I suppose.”

      He remembered Hugo de Lacy as a proud, rather pompous man, and his wife as pleasant enough. He’d not sensed any animosity between parents and daughter.

      “Something must have happened to cause a rift between Marian and her parents around the time of her marriage, then. I remember them as being fond of one another.”

      “An old friend is she?”

      Something in the way Edwin asked brought the swirling questions in Stephen’s head to a halt. Stephen doubted Marian wanted anyone at Branwick to know how friendly they’d been—nor did he. Certainly not Carolyn. Especially not his rival.

      “Marian’s father bought horses from mine.”

      ’Twas all the explanation Stephen intended to give. He resumed the walk, anxious now to return to the keep and find out what tidbits Armand might have gathered.

      When Edwin didn’t follow, Stephen halted. “Something amiss?”

      “You cannot win, you know. You might as well pack up your belongings and take them back to wherever you brought them from.”

      Stephen had fought in enough battles, on English soil and Norman, to recognize the strategy—dispirit the enemy by breeding doubt of success.

      “Beg СКАЧАТЬ