Page 34 of Never Love a Lord
“I don’t understand,” Sybilla said, frowning around the jumble of thoughts, memories, suppositions shoving at each other to form a queue in her mind.
“Lady de Lairne loved your mother very much,” Julian said. “They were raised together and Sybil considered Amicia her sister, no matter that your mother was given a servile position in the family.”
She was not my sister!
Sybilla winced. “That makes no sense.”
“Why? Because of what Amicia did to the family?” Julian took a casual step closer and glanced down at the portrait Sybilla clutched in her hands. Her fingers ached with it. He pointed to the darkened edge of the frame. “See that soot there? Lady de Lairne’s mother—the very woman who saved Amicia from certain poverty and orphanhood-sought to burn the portrait after Amicia’s betrayal was learned. But Sybil rescued it, refusing to believe such a horrid thing of her sister. Her mother thought better, though.”
She was not my sister!
Maman, what does my name mean?
Sybilla? Why, it means little Sybil, of course.
“But . . .” Sybilla’s voice trailed off. She was in no state to try to decipher this terrible riddle, and especially not in front of Julian Griffin. She swallowed. Took a deep, hard breath, and stiffened her mouth before looking up at the imposing man still watching her closely. “Thank you, Lord Griffin.”
His eyebrows quirked. “Thank you?”
Sybilla sighed shortly. “Thank youvery much,” she said pointedly. She drew the portrait to her chest and then made to step around Julian. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I find that I am very tired after the day’s events. Good night.”
He stopped her with a firm hand about her upper arm. “Sybilla, wait—”
Sybilla threw her arm up with a short, primal scream, startling her own ears, and Julian Griffin was tossed against the stone wall surrounding the fireplace, his boots leaving the floor for an instant.
“Don’t touch me,” she said in a low, cold voice.
He stared at her, not with shock or fear or loathing for what she had just done, but with alarmed concern.
“You’re not alone, Sybilla,” he said quietly. “I’m right here. You can tell me.”
Sybilla walked straight through the open doorway, and her feet seemed to skim the stairs as she descended, the door’s slam echoing round and round the spiral corridor as the voice screeched in her ears.
You stupid girl! You stupid, stupid, stupid girl. What have you done?
Chapter 13
It was a new moon, the sky overcast with thick clouds and the layers of blanketing smoke from the campfires, blocking out even the meager light the stars could have offered. She slithered quickly through the blackness between the tents and glowing red coals sheltered by awnings, wrinkling her nose against the smell of smoke, horse, and unclean men. Every score of steps she would stop, ducking between oilcloth shelters as soldiers quickly passed by her, talking in low, troubled voices. Each time, she would squeeze her eyes shut and hold her breath until they were gone, praying that she could control the sobs whirling in her chest, praying that no one would discover her, capture her.
If you are caught, I don’t know what they will do to you. Terrible things.
Sybilla was frightened.
But she was a patriot, like her father; and like her mother’s friends the de Montforts, although her father had never had much of a kind word to say about the family at Odiham and Kenilworth Castles, and Sybilla didn’t know why. It seemed Lord de Montfort and Sybilla’s father both wanted the same things for England. United. Lawful. At peace.
She would do her part then. Her father was a leader of men, getting too old for battle, but once this civil unrest was at an end, he would be at Fallstowe nearly all the time. Sybilla could sit outside his tower room on the topmost step while he worked at his ledgers, waiting for him to call for her. She would not have to help tend the little girls, Cee and Alys. She would be busy learning to run Fallstowe. Her father would teach her; he’d promised. And Morys Foxe always kept his promises.
Sybilla dared a peek around the sidewall of the tent. No one was coming, and from here she could clearly see her destination—the largest shelter in the encampment, one of the flaps was pulled back revealing a triangle of lighted interior. She looked both ways again, took a deep breath, and then ran toward the tent.
She ducked inside with a gasp, drawing a startled frown from the man seated inside on a folding chair pulled up to a cot he was using as a makeshift table.
“What in the bloody hell?”
“I know a way through,” Sybilla whispered. “I know the unwatched way to Lewes. I can tell you how to go . . .”
Crying, crying, wailing—echoes all through the great stone room.
Her father was dead. Dead at Lewes.
