Gilbert Carpenter approached her, striding across the courtyard.
“Hello, Annabel.” He nodded to her.
“Oh, hello, Gilbert. How is the building coming along?”
“Very well. Lord le Wyse is pleased.” Gilbert moved closer and smiled.
This is it, time to be honest with him. “I feel I need to tell you something. I’m not going to be able to marry you.” Annabel made her tone as gentle as possible. “You see, Lord le Wyse has kindly arranged for me to enter a convent. As soon as the sickness that is plaguing the abbey is gone, I will be leaving.”
Gilbert’s posture softened.
“I’m sorry,” she went on, “but I know there is some worthy woman out there waiting for a man like you. You’ll make her very happy, I’m sure.”
Gilbert smiled wanly at her. “I thank you for telling me. Lord le Wyse will be allowing me to go back to Lincoln in a few weeks. Adam will find me a wife there, don’t you think?”
Annabel smiled back. “I’m sure he will. He is a wonderful little boy. I know you’re proud of him.”
He smiled broadly and nodded. “I’ll see you tonight at supper then.” He turned and walked away.
That was nearly painless. She was surprised that being honest was easier than pretending she might come to love the man just to keep from hurting his feelings.
Annabel hummed as she hung the sheets on the line. The wind at her back sent the chill of coming winter across her shoulders as she hurried to finish her task and return to the warm kitchen.
Six weeks had passed since the coroner’s inquest, and Beatrice, instead of harassing her about staying away from Lord le Wyse, had actually been friendlier with her. Ever since the day Annabel stood up to her and told her she wouldn’t stop reading to Lord le Wyse, Beatrice always spoke to her with respect, asking her opinion and listening to her, daring anyone else to disparage what Annabel said. Life in the undercroft had become downright pleasant.
Beatrice still flirted with Lord le Wyse, though she was more subtle about it. Instead of hanging all over him and pretending to hurt herself, she smiled at him and always had something to say to him whenever he was nearby. Annabel sometimes wondered if Lord le Wyse would grow to like her attention. Would he think she was a sweet girl? Could he ever think of marrying her? Certainly the girl seemed to adore him. Any man would want that, she supposed. But those kinds of thoughts always made Annabel uneasy, even sick inside, so she pushed them away.
Standing in the clearing beside the manor house, she slipped another bedsheet onto the clothesline. Hammers and chisels rang out from the small hill, and the loud voices of the laborers could be heard beyond the trees. Lord le Wyse’s new home was rising to life. The front wing of the stone structure was complete enough that her lord would be moving in today. Now he had the privacy he’d lacked since his arrival in Glynval.
A crackling sound behind her caught her attention. Someone was walking toward her. She spun around.
“Forgive me if I startled you.”
“Lord le Wyse.”
She began to smile but faltered when she noticed his slow, purposeful stride toward her. His brown eye was fixed on her face.
“I have two things to tell you.” He sighed and motioned to two tree stumps, just the right height for sitting.
Annabel stopped hanging the laundry, and they both sat.
“My aunt has written to me again. She believes it’s safe now for you to go to the abbey.” His expression was solemn as he spoke in a soft voice he seemed to use for no one’s ears but hers. “And the second thing is that Bailiff Tom came to me this morning. He remembers everything that happened that night.”
“Oh. What will he do?” Annabel whispered back, her heart in her throat.
“He had some idea to bring you and Stephen to court, but I told him I would expose everything he had ever done to you, including the violence of what he was trying to do to you that night, and that he would lose any fight of that kind. I also told him I was relieving him of his bailiff duties, and if he complained to anyone about it, I would not give him the six months’ pay I was planning to settle on him.”
Annabel nodded. “Th-that is good.” She was surprised at how nervous just talking about Bailiff Tom still made her. She squeezed her hands together. “Did he agree? Was he angry?”
“He agreed, and I’m sure he was angry. I have already told the most loyal of my men to watch out for him, and if they see him coming around here, to have him followed and to come and tell me.”
His words and actions made her dizzy with gratitude.
A muscle in his jaw twitched as he went on. “Not that you will need to worry about Tom any longer, as you’ll be going to the abbey tomorrow. I give you leave to go to your home and gather what possessions you left there. Gilbert is waiting for you at the manor house and will escort you there and help you carry your things.”