Cast Love Aside (13 page)

“No,” Royce said, shaking his head. “We don't
have it yet. Perhaps the code is a combination of letters and
numbers. Let's try this.” Picking up a quill, he dipped it in the
inkwell and began to mark one of the parchments, counting under his
breath between each mark he made.

Lilianne lingered at the far side of the
arch, alternately straining to hear what the low masculine voices
were saying and peering around the arch to see what Magnus was
doing. Surely, men so determined would soon unravel Erland's secret
writings. If he had written anything about Gilbert, certainly
Magnus would tell her, for he knew how worried she was about her
brother.

All the same, she stayed where she was,
watching and listening intently until the chill of the stone walls
and the approaching voices of Braedon and William on the stairs to
the solar drove her back to her bedchamber.

The squire whom Royce had sent to Hythe for
new clothing returned to Richton Castle late the next morning. The
gown he brought for Lilianne was of blue wool and Alice's gown was
russet wool. Both fit remarkably well, perhaps because the style
was simple, with wide, rounded necklines and long, loose sleeves.
Soft leather sashes cinched any extra fabric at the waist. Two
woolen shawls, linen shifts, combs, several pairs of stockings, and
a bowl of scented soap were also included.

“I have three sisters,” the squire informed
Lilianne as he handed over the baskets, “so I made free to add a
few items I thought you'd like.”

“Thank you,” Lilianne said, wishing she dared
express her pleasure by kissing him on his cheek. From her own
sibling experience she knew that wasn't a good idea. Boys his age
didn't like to be smothered with sisterly affection, so she
contented herself with a smile, adding, “Lady Alice and I are in
your debt for the thoughtful choices you've made.” The squire went
away blushing.

When Lilianne tried to thank Royce, who had
been watching the scene, he brushed the matter off as something of
little import. But fresh clothing was no small thing to Lilianne,
or to Alice.

“How nice it is to be clean and neat again,”
Alice said. In her self-designated role as temporary chatelaine of
Richton Castle, she had commandeered a small pantry just off the
kitchen and a large metal tub of hot water, so she and Lilianne
could bathe and scrub their hair.

“It is lovely,” Lilianne agreed, smothering a
yawn.

“You came late to bed,” Alice remarked. “Were
you with Magnus?”

There was a faint smile on her lips and no
chiding in her tone. Lilianne supposed Alice was thinking of
William and of how she would like to be with him. The last vestiges
of the unwilling novice nun had disappeared like the soapsuds from
Alice's light brown hair. With a sigh of pleasure she spun around
in her new gown, making the full russet skirt flare out and looking
very much like any other young noblewoman who was eager to face her
future life.

“I was not with Magnus,” Lilianne said. “He
was busy with Royce.”

“While they were both busy I trust you did
not go to the west tower to visit Count Erland?” Alice turned
serious. “I am not a fool, Lilianne. It’s clear to me that all of
these men are engaged in dangerous matters, and you and I don't
know half of what they are doing. William says they have locked up
Count Erland for good reasons, though he refuses to tell me what
those reasons are. I know you are impatient, but I beg you not to
interfere in what you don't understand.”

“I haven't seen Uncle Erland.” Lilianne put
an arm around her friend's shoulders and squeezed affectionately.
“I do swear to you, I am being as patient as I can. Now, what
chatelaine's chores do you have planned for today?” she asked,
hoping to keep Alice diverted from the subject of where Lilianne
had been when she should have been in bed.

“The linen closets,” Alice answered. “There’s
much sorting and mending to be done before any more guests arrive.
I do believe the only decent sheets at Richton are on our bed.”

“How shocking.” Lilianne laughed. “Lead me to
the linens.”

To her relief, Alice let the matter of her
midnight absence from bed drop. Lilianne spent the rest of the day
working dutifully by Alice's side. When night came she retired when
Alice did, and she waited until her companion was fast asleep
before she crept out of their room and made her way to the solar
entrance, to keep watch again as Magnus and Royce tried to decode
Erland's documents. She kept to the same routine the next night,
and on the nights that followed.

She sympathized with Magnus and Royce in
silence while they tried one method after another, always without
success. Lilianne longed to confront Erland directly, but she made
no attempt to see him. Her impatience and Erland's wicked temper
were likely to make her angry enough to reveal that Magnus had
taken the documents and that she wanted to know what they
contained. She didn't think Magnus, or Royce, wanted her uncle to
know just yet that they had those documents. And she certainly
didn't want Magnus to know she was spying on him.

Aside from her nocturnal observations she
rarely saw Magnus. Though he appeared at the midday and evening
meals, he stayed well away from her and spoke to her with
impersonal politeness. He had said he didn't want to hurt her and
she understood his reticence, but each time he avoided her glance
or sat at a distance from her at the table in the solar, her heart
ached with an unfamiliar pain.

The days passed much too slowly for Lilianne.
Magnus and Royce grew ever more grim, no doubt from lack of sleep
and lack of success with their efforts at code breaking. Even
Braedon became quiet and unsmiling.

The only cheerful note in those days was the
increasing warmth between William and Alice. Lilianne never saw
them embrace. The most she had seen them do was touch hands
occasionally and briefly. But they were often together and when
they were, they smiled a lot and gazed into each other's eyes.
Occasionally, Lilianne detected fear in Alice's eyes. She knew the
cause, for the same concern ate at her, too, for Magnus's sake.

Alice was right to say they were engaged in a
dangerous game. Sooner or later, the three men who had visited
Manoir Sainte Inge to abduct Erland would leave Richton Castle for
France, there to exchange Erland for Magnus’s captured brother. It
would be a mission undertaken far more openly than their first
voyage across the Narrow Sea and, given the French predilection for
treacherous dealing, it would be a more perilous venture, from
which they might not return.

Late on the seventh night of her vigils,
Lilianne wearily trudged along the corridor, wishing she could
enjoy one full night of sleep. But, fatigued or not, she wasn't
willing to forego the chance of learning what was encoded in
Erland's writings.

Magnus and Royce were already at work, with
the parchment documents spread across the table. Though she was
wearing her woolen dress and had wrapped her new, warm shawl about
her shoulders, for the sake of quietness she was barefoot. Soon the
cold of the stone surrounding her seeped into her very bones,
making her shiver. She pulled the shawl tighter, burying her hands
in the woolen folds, seeking a bit of warmth. Time crept by with
excruciating slowness.

She judged it was nearly dawn and she was
smothering a yawn, wondering how many more nights she could stay
awake, when Royce uttered a soft exclamation.

“What?” Magnus asked, sounding as weary as
Lilianne felt.

“There it is!” Royce said, tapping a finger
on one sheet of parchment. “That's the key.”

“So simple?” Magnus questioned, leaning
forward to see better. “So easy to understand, yet we've missed it
until now? Despite all the hours of concentration?”

“We missed it because it
is
so
simple,” Royce said. “Simplicity is the trick of it. Erland’s
clever; I'll give him credit for that much. Unless a man knows
how
to look at what he's seeing in these documents, the code
is secure.”

“Yes, I take your meaning,” Magnus said
slowly, his gaze fixed on the place Royce was indicating. “When we
saw Erland yesterday, I was surprised by the way you framed your
questions to him. It was for this reason, so you'd be able to see
the correct pattern in what he wrote. And he never guessed at your
intentions.”

“Why should he?” asked Royce. “He doesn't
know we have these documents.”

“Now we can read them.” Magnus smiled grimly.
“We can uncover Erland's secrets.”

“So we will, though slowly and with care.”
Royce began to separate the leaves of parchment into two piles.
“You take one; I'll work on the other. We can confer on any
questionable passages.”

“I will not put a mark on any piece that I
think you may decide to send back to France,” Magnus said, pulling
the inkwell nearer.

“Good man.” Royce spoke almost absently, his
attention on the largest sheet of parchment. “The key to this code
will prove useful to English agents working in France. Yes, keep
these leaves free of extraneous marks. We don't want any but our
own people to know we have solved the cipher, lest the code be
changed.”

They fell silent, engrossed in their work.
Lilianne waited impatiently, shifting from one foot to the other to
try to stave off the cold, but failing. Chilled or not, she
couldn't leave now. She had to know what the men were uncovering.
Surely, some of it would be about Gilbert.

“Merciful God,” Magnus muttered, shaking his
head over a slip of parchment that appeared to be a narrow strip
trimmed from the edge of a larger sheet. Such small pieces were
often used for making notes, then scraped until the ink was erased,
so the piece could be reused to save on the cost of expensive
parchment. “Our prisoner suffers from a serious lack of
conscience.”

“What have you found?” Royce looked up, his
brows raised at Magnus's angry tone.

“It's nothing to do with Erland's activities
as King Louis's agent,” Magnus said. He waved the slip of parchment
in the air as if trying to cleanse it of a foul odor. “This is the
first draft of a note to Norbard, commanding him to arrange a fatal
accident for Paul de Sainte Inge.”

“That’s not beyond Erland's character, as I
know it,” said Royce.

“Perhaps not. But the note is more than four
years old. Why would any man keep an incriminating document on his
desk for so long?” Magnus asked.

“So he can read it from time to time, to
remind himself how clever he is,” Royce answered. “The minds of men
like Erland move in peculiar ways.”

“If I committed such a crime, I'd burn my
notes about the order before the deed was done, and I'd make
certain that Norbard had burned his copy,” Magnus said.

“You would never commit such a crime.” Royce
spoke with absolute certainty. “Ordering a brother's death is
beyond the scope of a decent man's thoughts.”

“Not entirely beyond a man's thoughts, given
enough provocation,” Magnus muttered, glaring at the scrap of
parchment he still held. “But beyond a decent man's doing, yes. And
beyond ordering, too. That's part of the horror I feel over this
crime. Erland did not have to wash Paul's blood from his own hands.
He left it to another man to commit the deed, and to make the
murder seem to be an accident.

“Royce, I don't want Lilianne to know of
this. It will break her heart to learn the true manner of her
father's death, and she’ll be convinced that Erland has ordered her
brother's death, too.”

But Lilianne already knew. She was standing
with her back against the stone corridor wall for support, with her
hands pressed to her mouth to stop the sound of her sobs. Tears
poured down her cheeks and her shoulders shook with the force of
her grief.

“Lilianne is stronger than you think.”
Royce's voice reached her as if from a great distance. “Nor can you
protect her if these documents do reveal that Erland ordered his
nephew's death, too. You may hide the manner of her father's death
from her; that's a sorrow consigned to the past and best left there
undisturbed. But she has been most insistent about uncovering
Gilbert's fate. If the information is here, locked in Erland's
code, we must tell her as soon as we discover it, however dreadful
the truth is.”

Lilianne could bear no more. Still with her
hands over her face she turned away from the open arch to flee back
to her bedchamber. Blinded by tears as she was, she didn't see
Alice until arms caught and held her.

“Lilianne!” Alice cried. “My dear, what's
wrong?”

“Who's there?” Royce exclaimed.

From within the solar came the sound of
scraping wood as the bench was pushed away from the table. Within
the next instant Royce and Magnus were in the corridor where Alice
was restraining Lilianne despite her efforts to break away and
run.

“This is where she has been going every
night,” Alice told the men. “At first, I thought she was meeting
Magnus in secret. I was wrong. Lilianne has been coming here, to
spy on you. Please don't blame her, for I'm certain she was
eavesdropping out of fear for Gilbert's sake. I heard a little of
what you were saying just now, enough to understand that the
terrible knowledge of the way her father died has overset her.”

“Lilianne, I am so sorry you overheard us.”
Magnus pulled her away from Alice and swept her up in his arms.
“And you in your bare feet, too. It’s a wonder you aren’t confined
to your bed, quaking with the ague.”

“I was right,” Lilianne cried, burrowing her
face into his shoulder, seeking warmth and comfort from him. “Uncle
Erland wanted my father dead. He wants Gilbert dead, too. He’s
determined to have Manoir Sainte Inge for his own.”

“I wish you hadn't learned it this way,”
Magnus said, holding her closer.