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Burdett sat with his hand over his eyes. “Ethelburgha knows everything.”

“Not everythin’, but I know who yer lady is an’ what she was t’ me old master,” Ethelburgha retorted.

Hugh heard her and he kept walking, and Ethelburgha kept following him. As soon as she cleared the door, he grabbed her fleshy arm. She tried to twist away, but he clutched the fat that jiggled there. “My lady didn’t know your old master.”

She walked sideways when he pulled her away from the alehouse so his men wouldn’t hear them.

She never stopped talking. “No one knew th’ master, but he had a way o’ stalkin’ a woman that sucked th’ goosebumps up on th’ flesh.”

He didn’t believe it. He’d asked Edlyn if she knew Pembridge, and she’d denied it. Yet he remembered the way her eyes fell away from his when he questioned her, so now he asked, “What makes you think he stalked my lady?”

“He used t’ go t’ Jagger Castle an’ come back wi’ that wild look in his eye.” Ethelburgha jerked herself free and rubbed her arm. “An’ all th’ maids wi’ brown hair an’ green eyes would tremble an’ hide.”

“That’s hardly proof of wrongdoing by my lady!”

“I’m no mean gossip, m’ lord.” Ethelburgha’s eyes snapped, and she poked him in the chest with her pudgy finger. “I didn’t say there was wrongdoin’. If there’d been wrongdoin’, I wouldn’t have told ye. ’Twas a wandering minstrel who gave me th’ gossip, m’ lord. He said th’ folk at Jagger Castle buzzed about their lady’s virtue in th’ face o’ her husband’s adultery, an’ when I said I didn’t care about folks so far away, he laughed an’ said I ought, since ’twas me own lord who sniffed after her.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” Hugh asked, half to himself.

“Because havin’ Edmund Pembridge lurkin’ behind ye is nothin’ t’ brag about, m’ lord.” She lowered her voice. “I’m tellin’ ye this because Burdett wouldn’t listen. He says I’m just a woman an’ t’ stir me kettle an’ leave th’ thinkin’ t’ th’ men, but I tell ye, m’ lord, Pembridge never let anythin’ go that he wanted. As long as he lives, I fear fer Roxford, an’ ye should fear fer yer lady.”

Sincerity shone from her, and Hugh took her words to heart.

Then she raised her voice. “A little public gratitude wouldn’t go amiss wi’ yer lady. Try it, m’ lord, an’ ye’ll see.”

Hugh glanced up. His men stumbled out of the alehouse. Ethelburgha didn’t want them to hear this scandal.

He didn’t either. Raising his voice to match hers, he said, “Mayhap I will.”

“Try givin’ her th’ same loyalty ye espouse fer th’ king.”

Hugh glared and stomped toward the castle.

“Or more!” she yelled.

He pretended not to hear.

Hugh and Edlyn met at the foot of the stairs going into the keep. They stood, two wet, miserable people who happened to be married, and stared at each other as if unsure what to say. Behind them were Burdett and Neda, Wharton, Dewey, Sir Philip, Sir Lyndon, and all the men of Hugh’s retinue, and they stared at the couple with an interest heightened by the recent revelations.

Edlyn wanted to speak, then wondered if she should allow Hugh to speak first as a gesture of respect.

Hugh wanted to speak, but he didn’t know what to say to a wife he’d been alternately fighting with and making love to since the day of their wedding.

Finally, driven by the west wind, the increasing rain, and a strong sense that someone had to do something, he stepped back with a slight bow and indicated the stairs.

She smiled, a slight curve of the mouth, and started up ahead of him.

“Mama! Mama!”

The boys’ shouts spun her around.

“I fought Allyn with a sword and won!” A mudcovered boy—was that Parkin?—danced in the puddle at the side of the stairway.

“He did not!” Allyn, just as covered, kicked water at his brother. “I let him win.”

Edlyn stood immobile. The two urchin boys who had fought in the mud with sticks were her sons. Hers!

“Yeah?” Parkin said.