“An excellent idea,” Cristen said briskly.
She got to her feet and looked down at Elizabeth. “You have been most kind, my lady. I appreciate your hospitality more than I can say.”
“You’re welcome,” Elizabeth snapped.
Hugh held out his arm. Cristen took it and they walked together out of the room.
“Well,” Elizabeth said ominously once the door had closed behind Hugh and Cristen, “they certainly seem to be a friendly pair.”
Richard came into the room and seated himself in a chair near Elizabeth’s. “Hugh has been living at Somerford these last six months, I believe,” he said. “He and Lady Cristen have clearly become friends.”
His words were reassuring, but there was a troubled look in his blue eyes.
“He couldn’t wait to get her to himself,” Elizabeth said. “I hope the girl knows what she is about. He’ll never marry her. He’s her overlord, for heaven’s sake.”
“A fine way to thank the man who discovered him and made him the heir to an earldom,” Lady Sybil said severely. “By seducing his daughter!”
“You don’t know that that has happened,” Richard said fairly.
Elizabeth shook out the embroidery work that had been lying neglected in her lap. “I wonder if Lord Guy knows that Lady Cristen is in Lincoln,” she said innocently. She lifted her needle and seemed intent on the pattern she had been embroidering.
“I doubt it,” Richard replied.
She raised her eyes and looked at him. “Perhaps someone ought to tell him. I should hate to see the girl ruin herself without making a push to help.”
“You are always so kind, my lady,” Richard said with a hint of amusement in his voice.
Elizabeth took a stitch in her embroidery. “I try to be,” she replied.
“Sir Richard,” Lady Sybil said imperiously. “What is this I hear about a town fair? Surely there is not going to be any kind of festivity so soon after Lord Gilbert’s murder?”
“It is a very small fair, my lady,” Richard replied. “The town holds it every year at this time, before the beginning of Lent.”
“Under the circumstances, I do not think it would be proper to hold a fair of any kind, no matter its size,” Lady Sybil pronounced.
“My father will not allow it to go on at the same time as the trial,” Richard assured her.
Once more, Elizabeth put down her embroidery. “And just when is this trial going to happen?” she demanded. “We have known for weeks who the murderer is.”
“As I believe my father has explained to you, my lady, your father’s eminence demands that the case be heard in a royal court, not the shire court. Lord Richard Basset, the Chief Justiciar of England, has written to inform my father that he will hear the case himself. He is extremely busy and will get here as soon as he can. We can do nothing but wait for him.”
Elizabeth tipped her head back against her chair and shut her eyes. After a moment, she opened them again and looked appealingly at Richard. “I do not mean to sound like a shrew, Sir Richard, but this has been a very trying time for me.”
She was breathtakingly lovely.
“I can appreciate that, my lady,” Richard returned. “Why don’t you let me take you for a ride? It can only benefit you to get some fresh air and exercise.”
Elizabeth’s lips curled into an entrancing smile. “I believe you are right.”
Lady Sybil frowned warningly. “It must be a short ride, Elizabeth.”
“Do not worry, my lady,” Elizabeth returned. “I know what is due to my honor.” She sighed. “It is a thousand pities that the same cannot be said of Lady Cristen.”
“What made you come?” Hugh asked Cristen as they crossed the Inner bail side by side. Her small hand rested lightly on his sleeve, and he could feel her presence with every fiber of his being.
She didn’t reply.
He turned and looked down at the top of her head. He said in a low voice, “Did you know?”
The shining brown head nodded.
“I had a headache,” he offered.
She shot him a slanting look. “It wasn’t just that.”
“No,” he replied slowly. “It wasn’t.” He looked around the familiar environs of the Inner bail. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to come back to Lincoln.”
Her head nodded once more.
“Does Guy know you are here?” he asked.
“Not yet,” she replied ruefully.
As they walked past the stockade that held the knights’ horses, several equine heads lifted to watch them go by. The brisk breeze lifted the horses’ manes from their necks.
“I wonder what Guy is doing in Lincoln,” Hugh said in a puzzled voice.
“He came to find you,” Cristen informed him. “First he got Father out of the way by sending him to Cornwall, and then he came here to find you. I have a feeling that Guy has not yet given up on the de Beauté marriage.”
“He has wasted a trip then,” Hugh said grimly. “I will never marry Elizabeth de Beauté.”
“She is very beautiful,” Cristen pointed out.
“She’s a brat.”
Cristen smiled. “Well…perhaps just a little spoiled.”
Hugh snorted. “More than a little.”
“Did you know,” Cristen said, “that Ranulf of Chester is in Lincolnshire as well? Father heard that he had gone to visit his half brother.”
“Aye, I had heard that.” Hugh inhaled deeply. “Cristen, there is a possibility that Roumare himself might have been involved in de Beauté’s murder. He is the one most likely to profit from the death of the earl, after all. And John Rye, who was one of the castle guard during January, turns out to be a cousin of Roumare’s.”
He told her what he had discovered during his trip to Linsay.
She immediately put her finger on the one thing that Hugh could not explain. “But if, as you suspect, this John Rye did indeed murder the earl at Roumare’s behest, why would he have offered to sell you evidence?”
“I don’t know,” Hugh admitted. “Unless he was just trying to put me off the scent.”
By this time they had reached the market stalls in the Bail, and someone nearby shouted Hugh’s name.
Hugh and Cristen stopped and turned. Edgar Harding of Deerhurst was approaching, his blue mantle blowing in the wind.
“Master Harding,” Hugh said as the man came up to them. “How nice to see you again.”
The Saxon’s gray-blond eyebrows were drawn together in a scowl. “I have a request to make of you, Lord Hugh,” he said abruptly.
Hugh looked resigned.
“It is a complaint against the sheriff,” Harding said.
“Master Harding,” Hugh said gently, “I am not the person to whom you should make such a complaint. I have no authority here in Lincoln.”
“You are Ralf Corbaille’s foster son,” Harding replied fiercely. “Ralf gave his life’s work to Lincoln. His son cannot let all of the good he did be trampled underfoot by a greedy successor.”
Hugh’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”
Harding took a step closer to Hugh. “I mean that Gervase Canville is robbing from the town.” He gestured to the busy marketplace behind them. “Did you know that he rented these stalls out?”
“He himself told me about it,” Hugh replied. “He also told me that he used the money from the rentals to increase the pay of the castle guards.”
The Saxon snorted. “Hah! Perhaps he did increase the guards’ pay, but I’ll wager all I possess that the increase in pay does not begin to account for the amount of money he is collecting from renting those stalls.”
Hugh looked into the angry pale-blue eyes of the Master of Deerhurst. “How do you know that?” he asked.
“He never offered me a stall,” Harding said. He wrapped his cloak tightly around him to keep it from blowing. “He should have offered me a stall. I have the largest farm in the area. But he didn’t. Do you know why he didn’t?”
Hugh shook his head.
“Because he knew that I’d discover his scheme,” the Saxon replied vigorously. “I know how much money goes to the castle guard because I make it my business to know such things. And I have found out how much money these fellows”-he gestured to the stalls behind him-“are paying Canville. The two figures don’t add up.”