Crispin stared at Jack with growing unease. Jack swallowed. “Or…maybe I should leave.” The boy backed out of the door and looked once at Rosamunde and once at Crispin before he made himself scarce in the shadows of the stairwell.
“What are you doing here, Rosamunde?” asked Crispin.
“I will explain.”
“This is entirely improper.”
She flashed a brutal smile. “When did that ever trouble you?”
“How did you get in?”
“Your landlord was most gracious. But it has been an hour at least.” She found the courtesy not to wince at the surroundings. Her soft skirts followed demurely like servants, and she sat in the only chair.
He stood awkwardly in the doorway, trying to recall courtly manners he hadn’t used in seven years. He didn’t think he had any wine. There was no food to offer, save for some of Jack’s day old stew.
A draft churned up from the stairwell and he shivered, glanced once at Jack, and closed the door. He advanced on the hearth to stoke the embers, taking his time with the poker, and he carefully laid the last square of peat on the awakening flames. Another long moment passed before he tore his gaze from the fire, took a breath, and turned.
It was a mistake. The fire threw gold onto her smooth features, emblazoning her round cheeks with a blush of rose.
“Crispin,” she said again, her voice tender.
“My lady.” He bowed. “How did you find me?”
“I am not so sheltered that I do not follow such tidings. It is known where you live.”
He grunted. “I do not know if I am consoled by this information.” He stepped away from the fire to the low coffer by the door and gingerly sat. “Still. It does nothing to explain your presence.”
She smiled playfully. “No words of greeting? No ‘how have you fared, Rosamunde?’”
He glanced away. “I should think that when my sword was broken before your eyes and my blazon torn from my surcote that there were no words left.”
She squared her shoulders and drew her lips into a brooding frown. “And you blame me.”
Crispin leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why are you here?”
“You blame me for your dishonor? I say again, as I said seven years ago, I had nothing to do with it.”
“No. Your brother saw to everything. My dishonor, the seizing of my titles and lands, and the end of our betrothal.”
“How could I go against my brother, my only kinsman?”
He snapped to his feet. “I was to be your husband! I would have defended you to the death had your honor been questioned!”
“It wasn’t a question of honor!” She bit off the rest of her words and shook her head. “You know very well,” she said quietly, “it was a question of treason.”
Crispin stiffened. “Why are you here? I have nothing to offer now. But riches were important to you then, weren’t they? Is that why you married only a fortnight after our betrothal ended?”
Rosamunde tilted her head but otherwise did not move. He fully expected her to stalk away, silent and enraged as she had done so many times before. He well knew her moods and the performances that accompanied them. He waited for her to cast her skirts aside, flash her teeth in a grimace of disgust, and stomp away, whereupon he was to follow behind and plead an apology.
No more. Those refined games were long over.
At last she rose, head bowed, hands fumbling at the pin of her cloak. “I need your help.”
He laughed, an unfamiliar sound. “That is doubtful.”
“No. It is the truth.”
He strode to the door and pulled it open. The draft gusted the hearth smoke and it rolled out of the fireplace, across the room, and over the threshold.
“Please. There is no one who can help me.”
“What of your husband, Madam?”
She sighed and lowered her eyes. “He is dead, Crispin. More than a year now.”
Widowed? It took a monumental effort to keep his face impassive. “Indeed.”
“Yes. I am alone.”
He almost spat the words but checked himself. “Your brother, then.”
“But Stephen is missing. I need you to find him.”
Stephen missing. Of course. Committing a murder. He better damn well be missing. He longed to say it aloud, but held his tongue.
Her gown rustled when she came up behind him. “A woman needs the protection of her kinsman. The lands…” She drew back and he watched the shadow of her gown move across the floor. “There were no children from this marriage to Lord Rothwell. Had there been an heir, I might be in a better position now. But as it is…”
He listened to his own breathing a long time before his hand of its own accord closed and latched the door. The same hand rested against the door’s worn surface before he turned again. She stood only an arm’s length away. With one bold step, she crossed the space between them, forcing Crispin’s back against the door.
He took a breath and then another. Rasping, he said, “Of all people, why me? You know what he did to me. To us.”
“There is no soul I trust more.”
He lifted his hands and reached for her shoulders. He felt her warmth, her nearness. It had been a long time. Too long.
After only a moment, he dropped his hands limply to his sides. Leaning forward slightly he stood almost close enough to kiss. “If I find him for you…”
“No, Crispin. When you find him.”
“When I find him, then. What is there for me?”
She drew back. “I will be grateful.”
His flesh warmed. He remembered such gratitude. “Is that all?”
She took another step back. “What do you want?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Your knighthood?”
He leaned back and rested his head against the doorframe. “King Richard will not restore my shield. And there is little you could do on that account, at any rate.”
“Then what do you want?”
His tongue slid over a tangle of desires, but he could not speak any of them. The next thing that came to mind crossed his lips, but he never meant to say those words either. “I am paid to find things. It is now my sole means of living.”
Her face hardened. For a moment, Crispin expected her to slap his cheek. It would be better than that coldness with which she regarded him.
She moved her hands, but not to slap. Instead, she reached up behind her neck and released the clasp to the gold chain at her throat and thrust the bauble toward him.
“Your payment, Master Guest. If this is what is required for you to do a lady a courtesy, then so be it.”
The chain, a thumb-width of gold filigree in clever knots, boasted a pendant with a ruby the size of a sheep’s eye surrounded by white fresh-water pearls.
Far too much. He wanted to refuse it, but her tone urged his hand upward and the metal pooled in his cupped palm. It was still warm.
“I see these years have caused your memory to lapse on courtly manners.”
His fist closed over the gem and he lowered it to his side. “Honor does not fill the larder.” She said nothing. He felt the necklace in his hand grow cold. Breathing deeply, he wondered what more to say when he suddenly blurted, “Stephen is accused of murder. A man at the Boar’s Tusk. Perhaps that is why he is missing.”
“Murder? How can the sheriff accuse Stephen?”
Slightly ashamed of himself for the relish with which he told Rosamunde, Crispin stood stiff as a reed. He wanted to go to her and enfold her in his arms. But to tell her what? ‘Sweeting, once your brother is hanged, we are free to marry. Does that not cheer your heart?’ If Stephen died, Crispin’s vengeance would be paid in full, and one part of him wanted to caper about the small room.
The sober part of him, the part whose pride kept him within the nimbus of Westminster Palace and its court, kept harrying the facts like a child poking a badger’s warren.
“Circumstances point in his direction,” he answered, “but we must discover the entire truth.”