Page 35 of To Love

Fourteen

“My lord,” Elara greeted her host, Lord Ashford, as Evelina fell into step beside her.

Elara had been to Ashford Manor only a few times since coming to Castle Blackwood. Though it was a short ride from the village, she had little occasion to visit. The financier of their order had once greeted every new recruit for supper, but now that Lady Evelina no longer resided at the manor, he had stopped the practice.

She watched him now with Evelina, a terse moment as the lady greeted the man who raised her. The man she had believed, until recently, was her father. Yesterday, when the invitation had been extended, Evelina had confided to Elara she worried about this meal. After she and Gareth married, for a time the two had not returned to Blackwood, worried Lord Ashford might wield his considerable influence to see the marriage dissolved. But Evelina had called his bluff and threatened to share with the world that she was not his true-born daughter.

In the end, she kept his secret and a tentative truce had been wrought. Unfortunately it meant Eamon remained in the shadows as her real father, something he claimed did not bother him after so many years, as long as Evelina was happy.

“My lady,” Ashford said to Elara, though his eyes remained on Evelina and Gareth.

As Evelina reunited with the steward and servants, Elara followed Eamon and Lord Stirling into the hall. Lord Bennington was inside already, speaking with Pembroke. She’d wondered if the steward would be attending as well.

“I did not expect you,” Ashford was saying to Evelina behind them. “We’ve business to attend to here.”

That last bit was apparently directed at Gareth.

“She knows,” Gareth said in response.

Everyone present, including the servants, turned to look at him. Gareth said the words to his host as if they were a threat. As if challenging Lord Ashford to question him.

Ashford scowled, even more than he had been scowling already.

“Leave us,” he boomed to the servants, who scurried out of the hall, clearly accustomed to his bidding. How Evelina had lived here, under that man’s thumb, for so many years, Elara could not fully understand.

“Please.” He gestured to the table, on which a meal had already been set. Typically, each course would arrive separately. And Ashford would sit on the raised dais. But not this eve. It seemed, as Elara suspected, this supper was to be more business than pleasure.

“Explain yourself,” he barked to Gareth when the others had left.

Lord Bennington looked as put out at having to pour himself wine as Gareth did at Ashford’s tone.

“I would ask for you to speak to me with the same respect you afford the others,” Gareth said. “But since you afford anyone very little, I suppose I should not be offended.”

Touché, Sir Gareth Claymore.

Before Ashford could respond, he continued. “I told my wife,” he spoke to the group. “Because I keep nothing from her, and I am certain we all agree she is not our traitor.”

“Nay, she is not,” agreed Eamon, who smiled at his daughter, which only seemed to further incense Ashford.

“So we can independently agree,” Ashford shot back, “to confide in those who we deem innocent. Lady Elara?”

He wished to draw her into the disagreement, but she would have none of it.

“Perhaps we can discuss more pressing matters, such as the fact that Empress Matilda has definitively decided to take Winchester and our men will be asked to support her . . . with a traitor in our midst.”

“I’ve begun to quietly recruit men for such a mission,” Stirling said, “rather than make it known to all.”

Ashford continued to frown, his red neck now matching his cheeks. His anger, and inability to control it, was of little concern.

“If any of those men you recruit is indeed our traitor, it will matter little how widely the mission is known,” Elara reminded him.

Stirling’s good eye fixed on her. “I trust each of the men with whom I’ve spoken. And instructed them not to share the information.”

“Little good it will do,” Bennington said after finally making out how to pour a goblet of wine, “if one of those you speak to is the traitor, as Lady Elara has said.”

“Is there anyone who has not compromised this secret?” Ashford spat. “Or shall we simply shrug our shoulders and carry on as if those records were not altered?”

“None are suggesting as much,” Eamon said, taking a bite of his roasted pheasant.