“Oh.” So it was to happen so quickly? Was she to say goodbye to him now? Here?
He looked straight into her eyes. “Please come back and stay one more night here, if you wish, so that you can start your journey at first light. Gilbert will accompany you to the abbey. It’s only a day’s ride.”
The breath she’d been holding rushed out. She still had until morning with Lord le Wyse. They would be able to spend one more evening together.
“Very well, my lord.” She curtsied.
He turned without a word and strode away from her.
Strange that she didn’t feel any sense of loss at parting from her own mother and brothers, but the thought of putting so much distance between herself and her lord made her wonder if she was doing the right thing.
When Annabel went to see her family, she found the three of them pretty much as she’d left them. Edward still planned to go to London, Durand sat around looking listless, and her mother seemed falsely cheerful.
“Mother, Lord le Wyse is allowing me to go to Rosings Abbey. He’s sending me there tomorrow.”
“But why?” her mother exclaimed.
“How did you manage that?” Durand asked.
“What did you do to make him send you away?” Edward looked at her with an evil sneer.
“I’ve always wanted to live in a nunnery and study the Bible,” Annabel told them. “You know that. Lord le Wyse …” How could she explain? She couldn’t tell them that she was possibly in danger from the bailiff over his accident. “He found out I wanted to go to an abbey, so he is sending me.”
Edward shook his head. Mother passed a hand over her hair. “You could have made a good match,” her mother said sadly. “If your father had been alive, he would have taken you to London and found a wealthy husband for you, and then our family wouldn’t have the troubles we now have.”
“Why would you ask him to send you to a nunnery?” Edward demanded. “You must be daft. How does that benefit anyone? If he is sending you there, he must be sending money as well. You should have asked him for money instead. That would have at least benefited someone.”
“They do have good herbal healers at nunneries.” Durand’s face brightened. “Perhaps I can come visit you and you can tell the nuns with the greatest healing gifts about my illnesses, and the pains in my head. They might prescribe a remedy for me.”
Edward closed his eyes in disgust. “Didn’t you think at all of your family? You’re selfish. You’re a selfish, conceited sister.” Edward flung the words at her and stalked away down the hall, slamming his bedchamber door.
Her mother cried, sniffing and wiping her eyes, but didn’t say anything else. In fact, her family made little comment as she gathered her remaining possessions. Hadn’t they missed her? Didn’t they wonder how she had gotten along at the manor house with all the other servants? Did they assume all had been well with her, or did they simply not care?
Dusk of her last day in Glynval was only a few hours away as Annabel plodded along beside Gilbert, who carried the two bags that contained all her earthly possessions. Tomorrow she would be on her way to the abbey.
She was no longer sure why she was going.
She had wanted to enter an abbey so that she might read the Holy Scriptures. And she had wanted to get away from Bailiff Tom. But she was already reading the Holy Scriptures. She and Lord le Wyse had made it through the entire New Testament in the last few weeks. And as for Bailiff Tom … if he revealed what happened that night in the forest, she might have to admit to the entire village how he had tried to take advantage of her. But if Lord le Wyse was standing near her, even that might be bearable.
Certainly her reasons for cloistering herself in an abbey were fewer and less urgent than they had once been, but the fact remained that she had no wish to be coerced into marriage by her life situation. The whole concept of marriage had always seemed somewhat unappealing to her … And yet, hadn’t she felt something, some new feeling she’d never felt before, for Lord le Wyse in the last few weeks?
She felt repulsed by the thought of marrying Bailiff Tom, or anyone else. Anyone else, that is, except Lord le Wyse.
She didn’t like the path her mind was taking. Her lord was a good man, chivalrous and honorable and worthy of her respect. He’d helped her in so many ways. It was wrong to think about him this way.
She pressed her hands against her burning cheeks.
Annabel stumbled over a root in the pathway. Gilbert glanced at her. “Are you well?”
She nodded.