Free Never Love a Lord by Heather Grothaus Page A

returned it, relieved. “But no—Cateline preferred the excitement of town, the shops and fairs. Especially the dressmakers’ shops.” Sybilla looked over to Julian when he paused, and she caught him looking back at the small, purple shadow that was Fallstowe at dusk.
    His eyes came back to her, and the emotion in them was sincere. “She would have been very impressed by Fallstowe, though.”
    Sybilla directed her gaze over Octavian’s head once more, not liking the uncomfortable sensation Julian Griffin’s honesty provoked in her. Still, she pressed on, feeling as though she was on the verge of a very important discovery, like smelling the water on the air before a much needed rain.
    “It is through her position that you are here, is it not?” she guessed boldly.
    Julian was silent for a handful of moments. “In part, yes. I knew Edward years before Cateline and I met, however. We warred together.”
    Sybilla felt a surge of triumph course through her body, but outwardly she remained unmoved, as if she had known this all along. “The Crusade, yes.”
    “You seem to know almost as much about me as I do about you, Lady Sybilla,” he said, in a not entirely easy fashion.
    “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Sybilla hedged, as her mind worked up a fire behind her eyes that mirrored the flaming burst of the sun at their back.
    “You’re just humoring me,” he accused her. “You knew of Cateline, that she was a cousin to the king; that I had enjoined in the Crusade with him.” He paused. “What else do you know?”
    She gave him a smile over her right shoulder. “Lord Griffin, you flatter me. I daresay I could ask the same of you.”
    He shook his head at her, his mouth quirking once more. Sybilla’s heart thundered in her chest, and she quickly brought her head around so as not to look at him.
    He and his daughter were related to the king. He lived in the king’s home. He had been sent on a mission quite dear to Edward’s heart, and was trusted enough to command hundreds of the king’s men at his whim.
    I can help you, Sybilla. Let me.
    “Have you never thought of marrying, Lady Sybilla?” he asked suddenly from behind her, and Sybilla’s thundering heart came to a frozen stop, as the image of August Bellecote bloomed in her mind.
    “I have, yes,” Sybilla answered, struggling to keep her words from sounding choked as they scraped past her constricted throat. “I once gave it very serious thought.”
    “What happened?” Julian pressed. “I would think it to be the wisest choice you could have made, considering your circumstances. Not that it could have saved Fallstowe entirely, but—”
    “He died, Lord Griffin,” Sybilla interrupted him. “ I would think that you above all others could sympathize with that.”
    The sound of hooves rustling in the wet grass rose between them for a time.
    “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “Would I have known him?”
    “We should eat if we are inclined to,” Sybilla said, blatantly ignoring his question. The last thing she needed was Julian Griffin prying into the strange order of events surrounding Sybilla’s secret marriage to August Bellecote.
    “All right, yes,” Julian said lightly, oddly unperturbed that she had declined to answer him. “Where shall we go?”
    Sybilla brought Octavian to a halt and took a deep breath, looking around the shadowy landscape as if considering their options.
    Which was exactly what she was doing.
    “Well”—she took a deep breath and blew it out quietly before turning to face Julian Griffin—“I think I shall leave it up to you.”
    His lips quirked and he gave her an amused look. “Me?”
    “Yes. We can either turn south, which will lead us to the husbandry barns where we might procure a table and afterward you might investigate the livestock . . .”
    “Or?” Julian prompted.
    “Or . . . we can proceed to the old ruins,” she said lightly, and then added, “and the Foxe Ring.”
    He shouted his disbelieving