Page 20 of Suddenly a Bride
With a sigh, she suddenly turned her head, and if he hadn’t let go, she would have felt the tug on her scalp. He backed away from her bed and left the chamber before he could touch anything else. At the base of the tower he stumbled, and his foot hitting the wall made a soft echo. He hurried on.
~oOo~
Gwyneth opened her eyes and sat upright, startled awake. Dawn had not yet touched the sky, and beneath her the castle was still a silent presence.
That was what had awakened her—she’d thought something disturbed the stillness. She was so far removed from the rest of the castle up here in her tower that for a sound to reach her meant someone was within the tower itself. Had Sir Edmund come to her then changed his mind?
She flung off the blankets and lit a candle at the hearth. Holding it over her head, she leaned out the door and looked down the staircase, which circled around into the dark. Cautiously she went down. In the corridor, she paused at Lucy’s door but heard nothing. No fires burned in the great hall itself, and it seemed a black, cavernous void spread out around her, with no ceiling and no end.
But she could have sworn she’d heard the soft rustle of the rushes just before she entered the room. It had been towards the back, where the two suits of armor stood guard at a corridor.
She felt a draft of cool air, and her skin prickled with gooseflesh. What was she doing here in the dark with no protection? The only soldiers were out in the barracks; the servants lived in the village. Somewhere in this entire castle, only Lucy, Geoffrey and Sir Edmund had chambers.
Trusting that the rumors of her husband’s supposed crime gave his home protection of sorts, she decided to follow the sound she’d heard. She remembered that the corridor she was following led to the servants’ wing, but only one door, the last one, showed a flicker of firelight beneath it. Holding her breath, she pressed her ear to the wood and listened. Who slept here?
Certainly not Geoffrey. Mrs. Haskell had mentioned that he’d chosen one of the barren chambers up on Lucy’s corridor. The housekeeper had had to have pieces of furniture moved there quickly.
So did one of the servants actually stay in the castle unbeknownst to Edmund? And why would one of them be roaming the corridors at night?
Making up her mind, Gwyneth lifted the latch and slowly pushed the door open. She couldn’t see much of the room, except that it was dark with a low ceiling. When her gaze fell on the bed, she smothered a gasp.
Sir Edmund lay there on his side, blankets pooled about his waist. She couldn’t see his face, just the broad width of his bare back. For one moment, she had the insane urge to climb up beside him, to touch him. Would he continue to ignore her then?
Her face burned with embarrassment as she quickly yet quietly shut the door. What was her husband doing in the servants’ quarters, when he could have had any chamber, including hers? Had he and Elizabeth kept separate chambers, as she’d begun to suspect? Was it him she had heard roaming the castle or only her imagination?
She picked up her pace as she moved through the great hall, suddenly worried about what he would think if he found her creeping about at night.
But as she returned to her tower room and closed the door behind her, she couldn’t stop wondering what it would mean if Sir Edmund had actually come to her chamber.
~oOo~
At dawn, Edmund was dressed and striding down the corridor to the winter parlor, where Mrs. Haskell usually had his bread and ale waiting. He opened the door, the castle accounts awkwardly balanced under his arm, and came to an abrupt halt.
Gwyneth sat at the table in the chair next to his, wearing a plain gray, high-necked gown with a white kerchief about her shoulders and small ruffles at her throat and wrists. She gave him a smile of greeting, but he saw the faint smudges beneath her eyes that bore testimony to how little she had slept the previous night. He remembered barely making it back to his room before she did and feigning sleep. He’d felt her stare for endless moments, as though someone had branded him. After she’d gone, he’d lain awake and thought begrudgingly that she was brave, traipsing through a dark and nearly empty castle. And of course he tortured himself imagining her in the sheer night rail, because she wouldn’t have had time to don anything else.
“A good morning to you, my lord,” Gwyneth said in a bright voice.
He nodded, waiting for her to mention the night’s escapade, but she didn’t.
“I hope you don’t mind that I am joining you without asking your permission. I don’t normally sleep in as late as yesterday,” she said, blushing, although her gaze remained locked with his.
“You may eat anywhere you wish,” he answered, reluctantly sitting down at the head of the table, with Gwyneth to his left.
She poured him a tankard of ale from a pitcher, then another for herself. When he reached for the loaf of bread, she murmured, “Allow me,” then used a knife to cut him a slice instead of pulling it apart with her hands.
She pushed a small crock toward him. “Butter?”
“My thanks.”
For a few moments they ate in silence.
“I would have had porridge made for you, but Mrs. Haskell told me you preferred a simple meal to break your fast.”
“Aye.” He looked longingly at the account book. He was desperate to think about numbers instead of her nearness.
“If you do not mind, my lord, I have a small favor to ask you.”
Although her voice was soft and pleasant to his ears, his tension increased. He met her gaze and felt himself redden beneath her steady regard, as if she knew everything he was thinking about her.
