Lady Thief - By Rizzo Rosko Page 0,87
and turned to Anne, though there was no ice in his stare. “My lady you cannot for one moment believe that Marianne does not know what you have just done. She is the lady of this castle and you her guest. Being out of her company for so long there is only one place you would surely be.”
Anne’s face twisted in horror and she turned towards John. “She could not know!”
He pinched the bridge between his eyes and sighed for the tenth time since Anne dragged him into the Solar with her. William pitied him but knew well enough not to let it show.
“Your cousin is correct. Logic would state to anyone that you have run off only to shout whatever secrets you hold to anyone who will listen.”
“I did no shouting! And certainly not to anyone who will listen!”
William clasped her shoulders, the wild panic in her eyes proof that she had been punished enough for breaking her word. “Aye, and Marianne will know that you innocently made mention of this to your husband before he told me when I speak with her. She shall hold no grudge against you.”
The moisture in Anne’s eyes disappeared.
William did not release her shoulders. “But you must learn to hold your tongue when secrets pass your ears and not turn them into gossip.”
Panic twisted her face again.
William smiled and released her. “Now, where did you leave her?”
***
Marianne was leaving the stables, having completed her daily visit with Mare and Archer, an act she found much more pleasing and peaceful now that she no longer had to fear that Robert would be there. James was no longer trailing her like a lost dog since tonight he was spending the night in the chapel for his knighting ceremony the next morning.
After surviving his attack from Robert and telling his lord what happened, William decided that the event could not wait for spring. And when Lady Anne excused herself Marianne gave Olma leave to sit outside the chapel to pray for him.
Food was being prepared for the occasion and minstrels were hired. William made a special plan of presenting him with a horse since James’s father could not afford one.
‘Twas more proof of his large heart, and while preparing to disappoint herself with thoughts of how it was not large enough for her, she looked up and sighted William casually strolling towards her. He quickened to a trot when he spotted her.
She sighed. Her stomach had been doing clumsy flops when Lady Anne excused herself from her company. When she did not return fifteen minutes later Marianne knew what she had gone and done, and also knew that she should have known better than to trust a woman who loved to gossip.
‘Twas only a matter of time before her husband came to set her straight, to tell her to stop moping and accept what she could have rather than what she could not. Now was that time it seemed.
He came to her, his face betraying nothing of his emotions though his eyes did dart behind her to the stables. “If you continue to spend all of your time there you will smell like a horse.”
She stood straighter. ‘Twas not what she had expected him to say. “I thought I smelled like the autumn leaves.”
He shook his head, a grin touching his lips as he refused to answer her question. His next words were straight to the point. “I have heard some unsettling things just now,” He crossed his arms behind his back. “Perhaps we can put them to rest.”
Bitterness swelled inside of her, and she folded her arms and looked away. “From your dear cousin, no doubt.”
He took her arms and unfolded them. “Nay, this particular news came from her husband.”
Marianne opened her mouth but he cut her off.
“She told him and he told me, do not be cross with her.”
Despite his words, Marianne found it difficult not to be. “I suppose you will now tell me I am foolish.”
“Aye.”
She looked away from him, unable to let him see her own eyes lest it become apparent that they burned with moisture. Treacherous things that they were. She imagined this moment coming for weeks, and in none of her reenactments had her eyes swam so.
He gave her no choice but to look at him and lifted her chin, inspecting her dripping eyes so closely that his nose was inches from her own.
Abruptly he released her and stepped back, shaking his head and blinking at her. “You truly