"Should we be going, my lord?" she said.

"I suppose Guy has been kept in suspense about his punishment long enough. Yes, let us go."

He mounted, then lifted her up onto his horse, holding her steady as they began to move.

"What punishment? What has the master-at-arms done?" she asked.

"He put you in danger." The destrier moved into the woods.

She gasped. "But he only followed my orders!"

"That is not the point. You were in his charge. He knew better than to lead you off the main road. He is lucky I did not kill him last night. He will receive twenty lashes tonight when we reach Crewel, and he will be grateful that is all he will get. He knows he did wrong."

She was horrified. "I wish you would not punish him, my lord. No one must suffer for what was my fault." She was shouting over the horse's hoof beats.

"You can accept the blame, Leonie, and rightly so, but you will not interfere in my judgment. The man will be punished for his carelessness, and nothing can prevent that."

"What will be my punishment, my lord?" she asked.

"I hope you learned an important lesson last night."

"Should you not whip me as well?" she demanded. "I was just as careless as the master-at-arms."

"Do not tempt me, Leonie. You were more than careless," he said in a hard voice. "Because of you I nearly came to blows with the king."

Leonie groaned. "No."

"Yes. I called him a liar when he insisted you were not hiding under his protection."

"Sweet Mary!" Leonie lost her color. "I told Damian I was going to the king only to delay your following me. I did not think you would disbelieve Henry when he told you I was not there."

"Sir Piers swore he had not seen you leave Westminster Hall. If he had not realized half my men were missing and told me so, I would have torn Henry's hall apart looking for you."

"You—you did not really call Henry a liar, did you?"

"I did."

"God's Mercy, he will never forgive you! What have I done?"

"He has already forgiven me," Rolfe said a little less severely. "He is not an insensitive man. He allowed my behavior was understandable. He even told me of your conversation with him, to help me understand your behavior. I was furious, knowing you could tell Henry why you will not accept me, but you could not tell me."

There was a silence, and then he said, "Now I find it was not even the truth, what you told Henry."

"Itwasthe truth."

"Was it? You swore last evening that you do not care."

Leonie opened her mouth, then thought better of speaking. They had been through this and gotten nowhere. He had made his position clear.

He would not give up Amelia. She would not ask him again.

Rolfe sighed. "Do not drug me again, Leonie. And never run from me again either."

"Yes, my lord."

He said no more.

Chapter 37

HARVESTING had begun on the Crewel manor lands, that portion of the lands devoted to the lord's use. But Crewel lacked a bailiff to oversee the villagers' work, and although Leonie was able to do the overseeing, she recalled the animosity of the villagers to her and decided not to try.

She did appoint an acting bailiff, however, the village headman. It was an unheard of choice, but a logical one, for the serfs would listen to him.

She had made the decision on her own, because Rolfe was away. He had been gone for all of the two weeks since their return from London.

His absence was only one of the difficult things Leonie had suffered since the night Guy of Brent received his twenty lashes. Rolfe left directly after the punishment for the siege at Warling, and hadn't returned since.

Warling Keep was nearly fifteen miles north of Crewel, a long distance. She understood that he couldn't come home, but she missed him. She caught herself listening for the sound of horses approaching, and even considered riding to Warling herself, but she knew Rolfe wouldn't approve.

Missing Rolfe was not the only unhappiness in her life, either. There was the endless presence of Lady Amelia.

One evening, at dinner, Sir Evarard was called away from the table, which left the two women with only his empty chair between them.

Although Leonie had every intention of being civil to Amelia, it was not easy. The other woman positively radiated smugness. Leonie was perplexed by this. What could be the reason for Amelia's attitude?

That night at dinner, when Sir Evarard was gone, Amelia asked Leonie for a potion to quell nausea.

"Should you not be in bed if you are ill?" Leonie asked her.

"Heavens no!" Amelia laughed. "There is nothing wrong with me that another month's time won't cure. I have this difficulty only at meals."

Leonie grasped the meaning then. "You are insinuating something, Lady Amelia. What is it?" She meant there to be no mystery about this.

"Surely Rolfe told you!" Amelia seemed aghast. "It is hardly something that can be kept secret."

"You are saying you will bear my husband a child?" Leonie said levelly.

"The babe is Rolfe's, yes," Amelia replied. "He does not deny it."

So much fell into place in that moment. No wonder Rolfe refused to send Amelia away! It was almost a relief to understand this.

Leonie's gaze moved down over Amelia's figure, as pathetically thin as ever, and she said icily, "When did you conceive?"

"What difference—?"

"Answer me, Amelia!"

Amelia shrugged. "It has been a month."

Leonie figured swiftly. It had been a month since she was brought to Crewel to live. She could remember clearly the night Rolfe left their chamber angrily. Amelia had been in exceptionally good spirits that next morning.

Leonie left Amelia without saying another word. What was there to say? But that night was the most miserable of her life. Alone, she cried and stormed, cursing Rolfe for his weakness and his lying. But she cursed herself as well—because it mattered to her, it mattered much too much.

When another note arrived from Alain Montigny the next day, Leonie was too distracted to think about it. She tucked it away with some other papers and forgot about it. She sank into a terrible melancholy all the remainder of the week, an unhappiness caused by the shock of learning that she, too, was pregnant.

The fact that the babies would be born about the same time was most telling. It was not unusual for a lord to ask a new wife to raise his bastard children if he had any. The wife had no grounds to refuse because those children had been conceived before her marriage to their father. But it was another thing entirely to accept children conceived by other women after the marriage.

Leonie did not think Rolfe would ask her to raise Amelia's child. But she had little doubt that he would want to keep both child and mother near him. This would not be the child of a serf. A serf could be expected to give up her child because the father would give it a better life than she could. But such was not the case with Amelia. Amelia would never give up her child, and so Rolfe would never give up Amelia.

The future looked progressively grimmer. She no longer had the hope that Rolfe would send her away one day, not if she had his child. Rolfe would never let her go if he knew there was a baby on the way.

She was not going to tell him. She could hope to leave him before her body gave the truth away. Perhaps she could lock herself away in Pershwick until after the child was born. She would not, she determined, give him an excuse to keep her.

Leonie could share some kinds of love, could share her gift for healing, but she could not share her husband with another woman. Always there had been the hope that Amelia would leave. Now that hope was gone. It seemed her heart flew out of her, for she bore an ache in her breast that did not diminish, even with the passing of many days.

Sir Bertrand and his oldest son Reginald came to Crewel late one afternoon with news that Rolfe had sent for them to meet him at Crewel.

Bertrand was Leonie's own vassal at Marhill Keep, one of her holdings.

Why her husband should ask to see Bertrand was a mystery.

All she could think about was that Rolfe would be home soon. She managed to ask the proper questions about Marhill, about the harvesting there, but she could not later recall what was told her. Her mind was in complete confusion over Rolfe.

It was a busy time. She entertained her guests as best she could, with Sir Evarard's help. Thankfully, Amelia kept herself absent from the hall.

It grew late and still Rolfe had not come. Leonie readied rooms for her guests, but the men preferred to remain in the hall, curious as to what Rolfe wished to see them about.

Sounds of his arrival were heard at last, and Leonie quickly excused herself, retiring to her room. She had finally concluded that she could not face Rolfe without her resentment bubbling over, and to let that happen in front of her vassal was unthinkable. Safe here in their room, she did not have to conceal her feelings.

There was no time, however, to prepare herself for what she assumed would be a full-fledged battle. Rolfe came to her immediately, so quickly that she realized he could not have spared more than a moment's greeting for their guests below. What might excuse such rude behavior?

After all, he had sent for the two men.

Her brows narrowed suspiciously. "You have not shamed me, have you, my lord?"

"How so?"

Rolfe tossed aside his helmet and gauntlets, but his eyes did not stray from Leonie. She kept her position by the hearth, standing stiffly at attention.