Almost Innocent by Jane Feather Page A

two to realize that Edgar and Lord de Gervais had indeed been teasing her about the strictness of discipline in the manor at Hampton. It was a place of light and laughter, although there was routine, lessons to learn, and tasks to perform; but always plenty of time for music and play and mirth. The only serious offense for anyone in the household was to cause the Lady Gwendoline the least distress, and since she was a lady much beloved by all, it was an offense rarely if ever committed, and never intentionally.
    Lord de Gervais, with a party of liveried retainers, all of whom, like their lord, wore at their shoulders the red rose of Lancaster, was waiting for them in the inner court. His caparisoned palfrey was held by a squire, who had been obliged to forgo the merriment in the village since it was his task this day to serve the lord. Magdalen’s small mare stood patiently in the hands of a groom.
    The child came running over to him. “Are we to go immediately, my lord? I fear I am sadly untidy.”
    “I fear you are, too,” he agreed affably. “You had best find one of your maids and make haste to change your dress. Do not keep me waiting above a quarter hour.” He gestured with his whip to the sundial in thecenter of the court where the new-risen sun threw its shadow. Magdalen scampered off, narrowly missing a head-on collision with Lady Gwendoline, coming out of the hall.
    “You will not return this day?” Gwendoline walked over to her husband, smiling ruefully at the precipitate Magdalen.
    He shook his head. “We will sup at the Savoy, and it will be too late to bring the child home afterward.”
    “The roads at night are ill for traveling anyway,” his wife said.
    “We are well protected, sweetheart,” he said, but there was a frown between his brows as he ran his eyes over the armed retainers. “I trust there will be no danger.”
    “Do you fear danger for the child?”
    “At some point, it will be inevitable. But I cannot think it will come this soon. Her identity cannot yet be known for certain beyond the duke’s confidants, although there are bound to be whispers, both busy and malevolent. But that is another reason why we will travel only under the sun.”
    He glanced with a hint of impatience at the sundial again. The quarter hour he had allotted Magdalen was all but over. However, she reappeared even as he thought this, fresh and pretty in a clean gown of blue damask, full-skirted with a white collar, her plaits looped at the side of her head beneath a
chaperon
of dark blue silk.
    “I am not late, am I?” she asked anxiously, hurrying across to them.
    “Not unpardonably. I am accustomed to waiting for maids and ladies while they beautify themselves.”
    She blushed prettily as he said this. Laughing, he lifted her astride Malapert, and she arranged her full skirts decorously around her. “What is our business in London, my lord?”
    “All in good time.” He turned from her to bidfarewell to his wife. “Try to rest, sweetheart. You had little enough sleep last night.”
    Gwendoline had thought she had succeeded in keeping her sleeplessness from her husband, gritting her teeth on the gnawing pain, clenching her muscles so that her restlessness would not disturb him. But she should have known that he would be aware of it. “I am going to take counsel with the dame from Shrewsbury in the morning,” she said again, almost like an incantation, lifting her face for his kiss. His gaze lingered over her upturned face as if he would read some hope therein, then he bent to kiss her with ineffable tenderness.
    Magdalen grew impatient with this whispered congress and the extended salutation. For some reason, it made her uncomfortable and a little cross. She shifted on her mount. The mare skittered on the cobbles as her rider’s heels accidentally nudged her flanks. Guy looked round sharply at the sudden clatter, catching the mare’s bridle above the bit.
    “It’s not like you to be clumsy,