Page 52 of The Sinner
“A convent?” he said, raising his voice. “The child is what—five, six years old?”
Sabine got to her feet and smoothed her gown. “Before you decide to abandon her—”
“Me abandon her?”
“I suggest you meet your daughter,” Sabine finished, ignoring his interruption.
His daughter. Could it be true that he had a daughter?
“My ship leaves in two days.” Sabine pulled a slip of paper out of her sleeve and handed it to him. “Meet me at this address at dawn, and I’ll take you to her.”
Alex heard the rustle of Sabine’s silk skirts as she walked to the door, but he did not look up from the folded paper clenched in his hand.
“One last thing, Alexander,” she said. “Albany intends to have you arrested as soon as D’Arcy leaves the city.”
CHAPTER 21
Skrit scrit, scrit. Claire drew her feet in as the mouse crossed the floor. It was bigger and bolder than the mice in the fields at home.
The old woman had not brought food yet today, so she and her doll were hungry. Poor Marie was dirty as well. If Grandmère was here, she would scold Claire for not taking better care of her doll. Grandpère had made Marie specially for his little girl from straw and rope, and then Grandmère had sewn her pretty gown from scraps.
The girl pressed her nose against Marie’s soft belly and sniffed, but the smell of Grandmère and Grandpère had been gone for a long, long time.
CHAPTER 22
When Glynis came down for supper, a man dressed in a priest’s robes was already sitting at the head of the table. He looked at her with gray eyes that were the same color and shape as her own, but they were as cold as a frozen pond.
“She does look like our former sister,” the priest said in a flat tone.
“Ye are my uncle?” Glynis asked.
After growing up in a family in which she looked like no one else, Glynis had been disappointed to see no resemblance between herself and her aunt. She could see herself in this tall, gaunt priest—but she did not like what she saw.
“Yes, I am Father Thomas,” he said, as if being himself was a great responsibility. “You may sit.”
Glynis’s backside was barely on the bench before her uncle started the prayer. He recited it rapidly with no inflection, giving Glynis the impression that his mind was elsewhere. When he finished the prayer, he helped himself to the choicest piece of meat on the tray and began eating before the rest of them had any.
“I hope you have a more obedient nature than your mother did,” he said, looking at her with a grim expression. “I pray you will not bring more shame upon our family.”
He did not expect an answer, and Glynis had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from giving him one he was sure not to like.
Glynis’s lively aunt Peg and Henry seemed to wilt in the priest’s presence, and the supper conversation was stilted. Midway through the meal, the priest put away his eating knife.
“Gavin Douglas has been imprisoned,” he announced.
Aunt Peg gasped, and Henry went pale.
“How can that be?” Henry asked. “He was supposed to become the Archbishop of St. Andrews.”
“The queen nominated him, and she is no longer regent,” Father Thomas hissed. “Now the Douglases are out of favor.”
“What does this mean?” Peg asked in a hesitant voice.
“It means, dear sister,” Father Thomas said, turning his venomous eyes on her, “that I will not be going to St. Andrews with Gavin Douglas.”
Glynis was tempted to suggest that Father Thomas should be grateful he was not following this Gavin Douglas to prison.
“What in the name of God possessed Gavin to advise his nephew to marry the queen?” Father Thomas raised his hands as he spoke, as if beseeching Heaven. “As her lover, Archibald Douglas had the queen in his pocket. And the council could do nothing because the king’s will provided that the queen should be regent so long as she did not remarry.”
