Page 85 of Never Love a Lord
“Did you ever hear from her again?”
Lady de Lairne smiled. “Yes. Months later, an English soldier sought me when de Montfort’s outfit returned to Bordeaux. He had been Amicia’s protector en route to England. He told me she had even stayed with Lady de Montfort at Kenilworth Castle. He seemed to be very much in love with her, but said she had taken up with a wealthy English lord and was to be married.”
“Morys Foxe,” Edward mused.
Lady de Lairne nodded. “Indeed.”
“What of the soldier?” Sybilla asked suddenly, glancing up at the old woman, who indeed looked so much like her mother. “What was his name? Where was he from?”
Sybil de Lairne shook her head slightly. “I never saw him again.”
Sybilla’s heart pounded in her chest. That soldier, she knew, had been her father. The man Amicia had said had kept her from the other soldiers, nursed her, cared for her. He had loved her mother. The idea made her breath catch in her throat.
“And then, years later and quite suddenly,” Lady de Lairne continued, “a letter arrived from my sister. Her husband was dead, leaving her alone with three young daughters. She was in some sort of trouble. Amicia at last admitted her protection of me, in hopes that the years had softened her mother, and that Colette would welcome her back home. But instead Colette was furious. She would never admit the horror of what she had done, even though her actions could have saved Amicia and you girls. She said that there was little sense in two victims. And that what was done was done, and Amicia had made her choice long ago. She sent back a letter telling her never to contact her again.”
Sybilla remembered vividly the day that letter had arrived, after the battle of Lewes. She remembered her mother’s bitter tears.
“And so when Lord Griffin came to our home with his investigation, my mother told him the truth as she had used it to soothe her own conscience. She perpetuated the lie. Reinforced it. And shed not a tear that her only daughter was now dead, and her only grandchildren were in jeopardy.” Lady de Lairne paused. “She was an evil, heartless woman. And I am most terribly glad that she is at last dead.”
“Why do you now confess this?” Edward asked. “Why not long ago? And how do I know that it is true? Your own king may not be pleased.”
Lady de Lairne shrugged. “What do I care now? Why would King Philip III care? I am old. I can’t inherit anything. My family estate has fallen now to the hands of a distant male cousin, who could not care less if I live or die, if only that he does not have to support an old woman in one of his houses.
“I knew I would come to England after Julian Griffin departed my home. I have missed that girl for thirty years. Every day. Every night. She does not deserve the reputation these vicious rumors have given her, and I will not allow for it. She is still my sister.” Lady de Lairne looked at Sybilla. “And you are my niece. I will protect you now, as Amicia would want.” Her next words were spoken clearly, emphatically. “As she protected me.”
Sybilla could still not bring herself to look at the old woman. She didn’t know if she was grateful or furious. But she was desperately confused, and suddenly very afraid now. What did this all mean for her fate?
“This is all very extraordinary,” Edward said quietly. “Lady de Lairne, I will have more questions, of course.”
“Of course,” she deferred quietly. “But now I must ask to be excused, Your Majesty. I fear I am not as young as I once was, and the excitement of my journey and then reliving such memories has fatigued me greatly. May I rejoin you later, upon your request?”
“Of course,” Edward said. “And I thank you for your bravery.”
Lady de Lairne did not speak to Sybilla as she shuffled from the dais on the arm of a court servant. The king was silent. Sybilla wondered if Julian was indeed still in the cavernous chamber, which echoed only with the loud scratches of the scribe’s quill and the muffled rattles of the soldiers’ armor. She sat in her wooden chair, the hardness of it seeming to bruise her bones, her flesh being overtaken by the creeping coldness of the floor, her skin covered in gooseflesh beneath the pitifully thin linen garment she wore. She could no longer feel her toes. But there was a vibration in her now, and energy born of—not hope, exactly, but perhaps more of conviction. She was who she was. She was right in what she was doing this day, in this room, before this man.
She would not be swayed.
“So,” Edward said at last, pensively, as if still turning his thoughts over in his own head, examining them in this new light. “So, perhaps we have come down to the truth of your mother’s birth. Perhaps we have. But as for you . . . well, it’s not so simple as that, is it? There is no one to vouch for the circumstances of your birth, is there?”
“No, my lord. There is not,” Sybilla said. “Although I was indeed present on that day, I fear I have little remembrance of it.”
To her surprise, Edward snorted. Then he said, “Were you under the impression that Morys Foxe was indeed your true father?”
“The whole of my life,” Sybilla said, knowing that this tiny detail could neither save nor damn her. The truth would suffice because it was irrelevant.
“It is no secret that he claimed you,” Edward conceded. “And without proof to the contrary, I cannot in good conscience contradict your patronage. Lord Griffin, have you any evidence that Sybilla Foxe was not indeed the offspring of the late Lord of Fallstowe?”
“None at all, my liege,” Julian said at once.
“So be it, then,” Edward said. He was quiet for a moment. “The more arduous task lies yet ahead, any matter. The one that will decide your fate, Lady Sybilla. Although I have my own theories, I would hear it from your lips: Why is it that you and your mother repeatedly ignored all royal summonses, even after Evesham, when my father readily welcomed even the widows of the men felled under him?”
Sybilla swallowed. “It is because she—because my mother feared that . . . we would be recognized.”
“Recognized. Hmm,” Edward said. “Recognized would imply that someone important at court had met one of you previously, or had occasion to see you. Perhaps at some task you wished to keep secret?”
“Yes, my lord,” Sybilla said.
“Perhaps someone would have seen you at Lewes, you think?”
