It had been pure instinct, to turn and run when Lady Alyce had made that announcement.
Now instinct gave way to thought.
What must they think of him at Evesham? How was he ever going to explain his action?
How could he explain it to himself?
I can’t explain it. I just know that I can’t see her. Not yet.
It was the only explanation that he could find, this instinctive feeling he had about not wanting to see his mother.
For she was his mother. She must be. Everyone said how much he looked like her.
The living image of Isabel.
He closed his eyes and longed for Isabel to be Adela. His love for his foster mother had been total and uncomplicated, as hers had been for him.
This had not been the kind of relationship he had known with his own mother. He knew that. If it had been, he would not be feeling the way he was.
If Isabel had been Adela, he would have rushed up those stairs and thrown himself into her arms.
Instead, he had run away.
I ran away.
He never ran away from anything. It was one of the laws he lived his life by. It was why he had forced himself to go to Somerford, even though the rational part of him had said to remain safely at Keal.
But he had most certainly run away from Isabel.
Why? What had happened in his childhood that made him so fearful of seeing his mother?
He didn’t want to find out.
Still running away, he thought, and his lips compressed into a thin hard line.
He wrenched his mind away from what had happened at Evesham and looked for the first time at the countryside through which he was passing.
The road had left the Vale of Evesham and become a forest track, closely hemmed in on either side. He was riding through Gloucestershire now, with Wiltshire lying just to his south.
He thought of the offer Earl Robert had made to him.
He wanted to find out who had killed his father and he wanted to be the Earl of Wiltshire.
But he knew he would rather achieve both those aims on his own.
15
It was dark by the time Hugh reached Somerford, which was situated in the very northern part of Wiltshire, close to the border of Earl Robert’s territory. If Hugh accepted the earl’s offer, Somerford would most likely be one of the first castles that Robert would try to take.
Supper was finished and the tables already cleared away when Hugh walked into the castle’s Great Hall. Servants were carrying platters and basins to the buttery to be washed, while others were raking the rushes so that they lay evenly on the floor. A group of Nigel’s knights were gathered in front of the leaping fire. Thomas was playing his lute in accompaniment of Reginald, who was singing a French love song in his mellow baritone. A few knights played at dice, while others were mending harnesses and listening to the music.
Hugh sniffed the air appreciatively, smelling the faint, pleasant aroma of the herbs that had been sprinkled in the fresh rushes.
Reginald saw him first, stopped his singing, and shouted a greeting. Hugh went to join the men by the fire.
After exchanging greetings with the knights, he inquired, “Is Sir Nigel in the solar?”
“Sir Nigel is not here,” Thomas returned. “He left shortly after you did, to pay a visit to Marlborough. We expect him back shortly, however.”
Hugh slowly pulled off his gloves. He was not wearing mail, as Simon’s party had traveled back and forth to Bristol unarmed. Simon had had no fear of attack so deep in the Earl of Gloucester’s own territory.
“I see,” Hugh said, trying not to let his disappointment show.
“The Lady Cristen is here, though,” Thomas went on.
Hugh’s disappointment magically disappeared.
“She is upstairs with her ladies,” Thomas said. “Shall I send a page to tell her that you have returned?”
“Aye,” said Hugh. “Do that.”
He stood with the men in front of the fire, listening idly to Thomas’s music while the page ran upstairs to fetch her. It seemed a very long time before he heard the sound of the dogs’ nails scratching on the wood of the floor above. They came galloping excitedly down the stairs, and then, finally, Cristen herself appeared.
If someone had asked him what color tunic she was wearing, he wouldn’t have been able to answer. All he saw was her face, her eyes, and the delicate flush of color in her cheeks.
He went to meet her.
“Hugh.” She held out her hands. “Welcome back.”
He took her small, competent hands into his own and for the first time since that dreadful near-encounter with his mother, he felt the world steady itself under his feet. He managed a smile. “I’m sorry to arrive at such an inconvenient hour.”
She wrinkled her straight little nose in dismissal of such foolishness. “Come along with me into the solar and I’ll have some food brought to you,” she said briskly.
Ralf was whining softly and butting his head against Hugh’s knee. Hugh looked with mock sternness into the eager black face that was lifted to his. “Do you require some attention?”
The dog’s tail, which was tipped at the end with a splash of white, making it look as if it had been dipped in a pot of whitewash, wagged frantically. Hugh bent and scratched him behind his ears, in the exact spot he liked the most.
Ralf sighed with pleasure.
Cedric, more timid than his companion, looked longingly at Ralf’s ecstasy.
“Play fair,” Cristen said with amusement. “It’s Cedric’s turn now.”
Obediently, Hugh transferred the ministrations of his long, clever fingers to Cedric.
Proper recognition having been accorded to her dogs, Cristen was ready to move to the solar. Hugh and the animals accompanied her.
The page Cristen had sent ahead of them had already lit the candles and was in the process of lighting the charcoal brazier when they came in the door.
Hugh said, “Can it be possible that you have grown another inch in the week that I have been gone, Brian?”
The boy flushed with pleasure. “Perhaps not quite an inch, Hugh. But I am growing.”
“You certainly are,” Hugh said admiringly. “You’ll top me soon.”
Brian stood up straighter. Then he stiffened and his flush of pleasure was replaced with the brighter red of embarrassment. “I’m s-sorry, my lord,” he stuttered. “I did not mean to be overly familiar.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Hugh said easily.
Brian grinned.
“Food, Brian,” Cristen said gently.
“Aye, my lady!”
At last the food had been brought, the wine had been poured, the brazier was glowing, and they were alone.
“What happened?” Cristen asked.
While he ate he told her about his meeting with Simon and their subsequent visit to Robert of Gloucester. He finished by telling her about the earl’s offer.
Silence fell as he sat back in his chair, a cup of wine between his fingers. He had eaten every scrap of food that Brian had brought.
“He must need Wiltshire badly,” Cristen said at last.
She was sitting in her usual chair, with her feet resting on an embroidered footstool. She needed the footstool, else her feet wouldn’t touch the floor. The dogs lay on either side of the stool; Ralf’s chin was actually propped right on it, with his nose touching her small leather slipper.
“He does, of course,” Hugh replied. “He was disappointed, I think, by the response to his arrival. Except for Wallingford, which was pledged to him by Brian fitz Count, all of his support is in the west.”
“Well, he certainly did his best to tempt you.”
His look was wry. “Get thee behind me, Satan…?”
Her face was grave. “Earl Robert has a few adherents in this part of the world, Hugh. Father went to Marlborough because Stephen was there, besieging the castle. John Marshall, the castellan, has declared for the empress.”