Page 54 of Never Love a Lord
Sybilla laughed uproariously. “Oh my! That does happen to me all the time!” She leaned down slightly and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “I won’t tell anyone. Now, let me pass.”
He nodded as if in a daze. “Yes, of course.” But then he halted, holding up one finger. “But I do recall that I am not to allow anyone to enter on horseback. I’ll need to take your mount until you are ready to take your leave of Bellemont.”
“Nooo,” Sybilla said gravely. “I can’t let you do that, good sir.” Sybilla leaned down once more, and she was no longer smiling, putting on the act. “He would stomp you to death as soon as you laid a hand to him.”
The man’s eyebrows rose.
Sybilla stared at him. “He is trained to kill you. And I would let him.Now, open the gates and let me pass.”
The soldier backed three paces away from Sybilla and Octavian before signaling the men on either side of Bellemont’s plain but sturdy wooden gates. In a moment, the bailey was revealed to her.
Sybilla nudged Octavian’s sides, jerking on the reins when he made to rear. Fighting the beast into his previously submissive prance, she rode through the gate, blowing a kiss to the still perplexed-looking young man.
She rolled her eyes once she was safely inside and the gates were closing behind her.
“Edward, Edward.” She sighed. “You never learn.”
She could have absconded with the whole of Bellemont once through the gates, Sybilla discovered, for she saw only a handful of Oliver’s own men and none of the king’s inside the bailey. Two little peasant girls were playing in the dirt near the steps that led into the hold, and so Sybilla dismounted there. She crouched before them and gave each girl a shiny coin in exchange for their promise to stand watch and tell anyone who approached that the horse belonged to the lady of Bellemont and was not to be put to stable or touched in any way.
At their eager acceptance, Sybilla rose and strode to Octavian, grabbing his muzzle to pull his head down so that she could look in his eyes while she rubbed his forelock roughly.
“Babies, Octavian,” she whispered, and glanced at the girls. “Careful.”
The horse tossed his head free and sidestepped a pair of paces away from the girls before dropping his head to pick at the new grass growing along the side of the steps, his reins trailing after him.
“No riding, girls,” Sybilla warned the urchins.
“No, milady!” they piped excitedly, having forgotten all about their game now, watching the passing townsfolk with wary eyes.
There wasn’t a doorman, and so Sybilla let herself into the shadowy entry, pushing back her hood. It had been years since she’d stepped foot inside Bellemont. Before her mother had died. When August first began trying to win her.
And won her he had, although what a poisoned prize she had turned out to be.
Sybilla paused, closed her eyes, and dropped her head for a moment. She had to swallow twice before she had composed herself enough to venture farther into the castle, seeking the great hall. It was midday. Everyone would either still be at luncheon or just quitting it.
In the great hall, she gasped a quiet breath when she saw the small group of people knotted together at one of the common tables, their heads leaning toward each other, their faces wearing similar masks of intense concentration as they conversed in low tones.
Oliver and Cecily on one side, Alys and Piers on the other. Sybilla’s sisters were reaching across the table, clasping hands with each other.
Sybilla placed a palm against the stone archway and leaned there, drinking in the sight of them. Oh, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed them both! Her throat constricted as she watched them, and she remembered that these were the same two little girls that had so long been in her charge, even up until months ago, weeks ago, when they were no longer little girls, but grown women.
Alys, who would dance around in the cook’s apron, tucking dandelions into the rising mounds of dough and pinching anyone who told on her.
Cecily, who had a lovely singing voice but was too shy to ever perform, and who would burst into tears at the slightest hint that she had disappointed anyone.
Alys, who had kept what she’d thought was a kitten in her chamber for nearly a fortnight before anyone discovered that she had actually been spoon-feeding thinned porridge to a rat.
Cecily, who’d been convinced that babies came from wishing for them in the well and then drawing them up in the bucket, which was why they were always so wet and messy for days after they were born.
Now they were grown and away from her, away from Fallstowe, and both to be mothers themselves before the year was through. They had their own families now, their own homes. Sybilla loved them both so, and she missed them more than she could ever say, standing alone in the shadows, watching them.
They would not like what she had come to tell them. And Sybilla didn’t want to. But, like most things in her life, she had no choice.
Cecily turned her dark head just then, as if Sybilla had called her name. Maybe she had; Sybilla couldn’t honestly say. But in an instant, Cecily had popped up from the bench and was running across the hall toward her, her arms outstretched. Sybilla heard Alys gasp from the table.
“Sybilla!” Cecily cried, and the relief in her voice was obvious. “Oh, thank God, thank God!”
Sybilla smiled and stepped from the shadows, catching her sister and clinging to her just as tightly as Cecily hung on.
