Page 23 of Never Love a Lord
Julian had drained his cup and was wiping at his brow with his sleeve. He rested his wrist on his knee, the cup clasped loosely in his fingers, and regarded her.
“I’m not certain you’re prepared for that,” he said, and his face held no trace of condescension.
“I’ll not have this hanging over my head any longer, Julian. Edward has sent you here to do his bidding. I would know the details of what I have been charged with so that I might have time to gather evidence to disprove it.”
“You think I would charge you falsely? I can assure you, what I know as fact is bolstered by witnesses, documents. The things I have pieced together on assumption, I have done with much forethought, but I would not hand you over to the king based on my own theories, unless they could be substantiated.”
She said nothing, only held his gaze.
“Sybilla, I—” He broke off abruptly, reached for the flagon, and refilled his cup. After taking a drink, he regarded her for a long moment before beginning again. “I have come to admire you greatly these past few months.”
“You can’t admire someone you don’t know,” Sybilla pointed out.
Julian nodded in acquiescence. “I admire what I do know of you then. What I have learned, and yes, what I have seen thus far in my short time at Fallstowe.”
“Are you attempting to flatter me into a stupor before getting to it, Lord Griffin?” she snipped. “Because I find I am in no mood to play your court games. Either tell me what you know and get it over with, or this is finished.”
“Finished? What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Sybilla said coolly, “that we will return to Fallstowe, you may collect your daughter and your servant, summon your minions, and have at the siege.”
“I’m not leaving now that I’m in, Sybilla,” Julian answered quietly, but his tone was every bit as cool as Sybilla’s had been. “Surely you don’t take me for that kind of fool.”
“Then it will be your general who leads your men in your name,” she said pointedly. “Get on with it, Lord Griffin.”
His head bobbed slightly as he stared at her, obviously considering his options. “All right,” he said quietly at last.
He set his cup deliberately on the oilcloth, and the flame from the candle seemed to want to dip inside and explore the shadow of his wine.
“Your mother was serving as the de Lairne lady’s maid in Gascony when Simon de Montfort was appointed to that post by King Henry III. The barons were not giving Simon his due, and so your mother saw a means to thwart her employers—the ones that had saved her from a life of poverty as an infant—and perhaps better her station at the same time. She conspired with de Montfort to bring the de Lairnes to heel, and in exchange, after his triumph in Gascony, Simon agreed to allow Amicia passage on his return to England.”
Sybilla said nothing, but inside she quaked at the accuracy of Julian’s information.
“She was quite adept at playing the part of a noble lady—she knew the manners, the way to walk, to talk, to carry herself. When she arrived in England, she was a guest at Kenilworth and a favorite with Lady Eleanor de Montfort, the wife of Simon and the sister of King Henry III, who took an unusual liking to Amicia and allowed her to stay, even when her husband returned to Gascony. Lady de Montfort even went as far as to encourage the ruse, introducing your mother as Lady de Lairne to her peers, boldly flaunting her about as if it were a great game.
“And while your mother enjoyed the attention and luxury she received at Kenilworth, she was no fool. She was in serious trouble. Very serious. And she knew that it was only a matter of time before Lady de Montfort grew bored with the novelty of her and—” Julian paused. “I’m sorry, Sybilla. I—”
“Go on,” she demanded curtly.
“And she was pregnant,” Julian finished. He gave her a moment of silence. “With you.”
Sybilla wanted to drop her head and close her eyes as the reality of her situation crashed onto her like a weight of stone, but she would not allow a display of weakness now. So instead she looked away from Julian Griffin, through the stones and into the blackness of the night-hidden hills.
“It was a soldier from de Montfort’s army, on the return from Gascony,” Sybilla said calmly, as if speaking about some historical fact from long ago, and yet she could hear her mother’s voice in her ear just as clearly as when she’d first found out. “Oddly enough, he was her protector. Had she not given herself to him, she would have been at the mercy of the baser men. She would have been raped daily. Probably would have died before gaining England, which would have suited de Montfort at the time, I can only imagine.”
She looked back to Julian and saw sympathy on his face. In a way, it was a relief. He continued the story that Sybilla already knew too well.
“She was in serious trouble,” he repeated. “And she had heard of the legend of the Foxe Ring. She became separated from de Montfort’s hunting party, but with purpose, desperate to find the old ruins and try it. When she found Morys Foxe about the ruins, she took her shot, not knowing that she was about to seduce the greatest ally of de Montfort’s enemy.”
“The king,” Sybilla supplied.
“Your mother was rumored to be a beautiful woman. Young. Morys Foxe was neither beautiful nor young. Perhaps it was the romance of the legend—”
“It wasn’t,” Sybilla said bitterly.
Julian was quiet for a moment. “What Idon’tknow is if she ever confessed to Morys that you were not his child. For all intents and purposes, he claimed you as his own.”
Sybilla looked away again. “It doesn’t matter. Even if Edward insists on declaring to the land that my mother was a fraud, without a single drop of noble blood in her veins, he has no proof that I am not of Morys Foxe’s issue, and neither do you. King Henry awarded Fallstowe to my mother after”—she paused—“after Morys died at the battle of Lewes, defending the Crown against the English barons and de Montfort.”
