Page 51 of Never Love a Lord
Could she love him? Did she already?
He was committed to do the job the king had sent him to do, and although it made Sybilla’s future uncertain, she respected his honor. He kept his word. So did Sybilla, and so she understood. He was still willing to vouch for her before the king. Perhaps Julian Griffin’s opinion was held so dear by their monarch that he could be swayed, should Sybilla also stand before him, contrite and ready to surrender the only home she had ever known. The place and the people she had literally risked her life for, time and again.
Were Julian and Lucy Griffin worth Fallstowe?
She went deep into her mind, trying to speed up time so that she could see the baby at five years, ten, a score. See Julian, his tawny hair growing wheat colored, lines at his eyes forming like the spines of a fan when he grinned. To see them both every day, to have them both be hers—belong to her, in name and in truth. Honestly.
Yes. Yes, she thought that perhaps they were worth it.
No man had ever taken such passionate liberties with her before, shown such unyielding anger in the face of what was simply her life up to the point when he had sent flaming arrows over Fallstowe’s battlements. Perhaps he was strong enough to be her man, forever.
Her chest swelled with the very idea of it; her eyes blurred for a moment.
She nudged Octavian back to the road toward Bellemont. Regardless, Sybilla needed to inform her sister of the dire state of things within the family, so to speak. If the worst happened, at least Cee and Alys would know most of the truth.
Most of it was all Sybilla was willing to tell.
Julian had expected Graves to lead him to Sybilla’s solar, or the great hall, or even Fallstowe’s small chapel, so he was somewhat surprised when the old man’s unforeseen swift if stiff gait brought them to the chamber in which Julian had so recently vented his jealous rage.
Nothing had been tidied, the aftermath of his fury still lying raw about the floor, like some forgotten battlefield claimed and then marched over by a conquering army. Julian saw the destruction with new eyes, and he was ashamed. A weaker woman than Sybilla Foxe would have been terrified by what he’d done, seeing what he was capable of. Instead it had been she who had felt the need to defend herself. The sight of jagged splinters of varnished wood rising haphazardly and threateningly, the dusty quilting exploded, chastised Julian.
This is the dangerous path you have made, he told himself.Tread carefully.
Julian stopped just inside the ruined door, while the ancient steward stepped matter-of-factly over the chaos to stand before Sybilla’s wide table, staring out the bank of windows over the glowing mist veiling the rising sun.
“Will you betray Madam to the king?” Graves asked musingly.
Julian bent down to pick up a burst embroidered pillow. He held it between his hands and then tossed it in the general vicinity of the bed. “I will take the evidence I have found to Edward. It is the duty I swore to undertake.”
“So that is a yes?”
“I am hoping that Lady Sybilla will place her trust in me to protect her.”
Graves looked over his shoulder, glancing at the floor. “As you demonstrated to her here?”
“No.” Julian sighed. “No, this was an exercise in very poor and rash judgment on my part. Uncharacteristically so, although I’m certain you don’t believe that.”
The ancient manservant neither denied nor confirmed. “What do you wish to know, Lord Griffin?” he asked in a resigned tone.
Julian regarded Graves’s slim, erect posture, his skeletal hands now clasped behind his back, the hair on his head like cobwebs. Perhaps even more so than Sybilla, Fallstowe’s steward was an enigma.
“Why is it that you only speak in questions, Graves?”
He sniffed. “How else is one ever to learn anything, my lord?”
Julian smiled and then, although he felt it was a further desecration to avail himself of Sybilla’s furnishings, he was fatigued of a sudden, so he dropped into an upholstered chair near the door. He should have journeyed to his tower room to fetch his portfolio, but decided that it would have likely been a wasted trip. He would get no revelatory answers from the fiercely loyal man—especially when the interview would need be conducted with dueling queries.
“Was Amicia Foxe of noble blood?”
“You don’t already know the answer to that question, my lord?”
“I do.” Julian sighed. “I believe I’ve worked through the mystery surrounding Amicia’s installation as Lady of Fallstowe so many years ago. Perhaps I was only trying you to see if you would tell me the truth.”
“But you truly desire knowledge about the lord’s betrayal at Lewes, do you not?”
Julian stilled. “Which lord? Morys Foxe or the king?”
Graves cocked his head. “Does it matter?”
