Free Rhuddlan by Nancy Gebel Page A

apparently misinterpreting her silence for
horror. “I’m not very good at putting things prettily, I’m afraid,”
he continued when she shook her head dumbly. “I’ve obviously
startled you and I’m sorry. It was a terrible shock to me, too. The
last few weeks have been hell. I wanted to do everything properly.
I took Robert back to Oakby.”
    “Oh—my father!” Eleanor breathed, putting a
hand over her mouth.
    “Yes, to say he was upset would be an
understatement,” Hugh said. “In fact, he was almost irrational.” He
looked away with some embarrassment, into the flickering flames of
the candles. “You should know that he accused me of murdering
Robert. He practically threw me out of Oakby in his rage.”
    “He loved Robert,” Eleanor said
matter-of-factly. “Robert was his whole life.”
    “I know…But I loved him, too, not only as a
brother by marriage but as a dear friend, and to be so accused…”
Hugh shook his head angrily. He appealed suddenly to his wife with
a pained expression. He had shed his cloak of aloofness and was
inviting her to console him, believing that she had cared for her
brother as he did, for he was genuinely grieved and once Sir Thomas
had driven him out of Oakby there was no one at all to whom he
could speak about Robert. He turned to Eleanor in despair and if
she had been more mature or more astute, she might have recognized
his appeal and from then on their marriage might have been, at
least, a congenial success.
    But Eleanor had ceased to look at him. She
was wildly happy but struggling, out of politeness to his
friendship with Robert, not to show it. A hunting accident, ha! she
thought. More like her avenging angel had finally come to her
rescue. Gwalaes would be saddened, of course, but she preferred
Alan d’Arques now, anyway; she’d get over it in no time. Sir Thomas
had been punished for ignoring her for all her life and reneging on
his promise to give her to the abbey. Now she was his only
heir—what a laugh: the girl he had never wanted. As for her
husband, no longer would he mope around waiting for Robert Bolsover
to arrive. Now he had no excuse not to be a husband to her…She
couldn’t help it—a tiny, triumphant smile creased her lips.
    Hugh, who had been watching her hopefully,
saw it. He frowned briefly in confusion but then he realized his
judgment had been wrong. His eyes became cold and expressionless
and he put his cup down on the table very deliberately. It was as
though all his vulnerability shriveled up inside him. It was
replaced by rage. He knew in a few moments he would start lashing
out. He turned his back on Eleanor and in a clipped, abrupt voice
dismissed her from his rooms.
     
    Chester was his pride and his joy, and
whenever he was in residence he felt at his most comfortable and
usually let slip his austere demeanor. But not this time. There
wasn’t any familiar corner into which he could glance and not see
the lingering ghost of Robert Bolsover. They had lived and loved
here together from the time they’d left Oakby after making the
arrangements for Hugh to marry Eleanor until the actual wedding
five months later. Afterwards, Robert had gone to join the king in
Ireland, but when he finally left the king’s service he’d returned
not to Oakby or to one of his own manors, but to Chester. To Hugh.
Only a few months…The brief space of time the earl had had with
Robert Bolsover made him feel his loss even more keenly.
    Days passed, but brought Hugh no relief. He
was either morose or violently angry. After a week and a half, Sir
Miles ceased consulting him on matters of formality. The servants
dared not look him in the face—he’d practically thrown one poor
fellow halfway across the hall when the man had had the wretched
luck to be laughing at some joke as Hugh had walked by him. Roger
of Haworth was the only person who would voluntarily intrude on the
earl’s grief and even he came away looking abnormally pale and
humble. Mealtimes had