“Sometimes. It’s like your weather here, I think, only with a bit more rain and fog.”
An extra cold gust of wind swept down the road and into their faces, making Margaretha shiver again. “You haven’t told me much about your family. It will distract me if you tell me about them.”
Colin said, “I have two sisters and two brothers. I am the oldest. We live with my mother and father in the castle my grandfather built, in the village of Glynval. My sisters are eighteen and ten, and my brothers are sixteen and thirteen. Or, they were when I left. My littlest sister and brother will have had a birthday since then.”
“And you are twenty.”
“Yes. My parents are very good people and loved my brothers and sisters and me. My father warned me not to go after Claybrook, that it would be a difficult journey and that I didn’t need to let my impulsive nature get the best of me.” He frowned, only slightly, but Margaretha saw it, just before he bent down to pick up a stick and proceeded to peel the leaf buds off of it. “He was right, of course, although I didn’t think so at the time.”
“Why did you go after Claybrook?”
“I was angry.” He tapped the stick in his palm to the rhythm of their steps. “I wanted to make him sorry for what he had done to Philippa. She was eighteen when he murdered her. But the only thing I’ve accomplished is to get my friend John killed as well.”
“You’ve spoken of him before. What was he like?”
He sighed. “John was my father’s steward’s son. We grew up together, and he came with me to England to try to capture Claybrook.” He shook his head. “Stupid, foolish mistake. How arrogant to think the two of us could bring Claybrook to justice. But John was not to blame. He was only following me. I suppose I thought his size and strength and my intelligence would keep anything bad from happening to us.”
He seemed careful not to look her in the eye, but she could see the pain in the downturn of his face and hear it in his voice.
“It is a terrible pity what happened to John. I’m so sorry.”
As she spoke, fat drops of rain began to fall around them. One landed on Margaretha’s head, sending a chill down her spine.
“We should walk in the trees,” Colin said. “Come.”
He grabbed her hand and they ran off the road into the relative cover of the forest. They kept walking, dodging the tree trunks as the rain grew steadier. They stayed mostly dry for several more minutes, but the cold rain eventually leaked through the leaves and began to drip on their heads and shoulders. The wind, which had died down just before it started raining, began to blow harder, sending drops into their faces.
“It looks like there’s a village up ahead,” Colin said, and he cupped her elbow and pulled her forward.
The rain soaked through the layers of her clothing. Her linen undergown and her woolen kirtle clung heavily against her legs, making it harder to move. Her teeth began to chatter, and Colin put his arm around her shoulders as they trudged on through the wet undergrowth.
They emerged from the trees and into the edge of a small village. In front of them were plots of land, sectioned off, with small green plants growing in rows. They did their best to walk around the edges of the plots, as the rain was coming down hard now. Colin led her toward the small, thatch-roofed houses at the other end of the fields, and headed toward the door of the first house.
Colin knocked on the door of the small wattle-and-daub structure as the rain pelted the back of her head. A little girl with bedraggled blonde hair opened the door and stared at them.
“We are looking for shelter from the storm,” Margaretha said.
“No room!” A man’s voice shouted from somewhere inside the dark, dirt-floor house. “Close the door, Joan! You’re letting in the rain!”
The little girl lowered her gaze to the floor and shut the door.
Chapter
25
Margaretha and Colin hurried down the street of the village as the cold rain continued pelting them. A young woman stood in the open doorway of another low, thatched-roof hut. She motioned to them to come inside.
They ran to the doorway. A wooden sign hung above the door with a crude painting of a loaf of bread.
As they ducked inside, the smell of freshly baked bread made Margaretha’s mouth water. The room was pleasantly warm.
The young woman motioned toward two stools. “You’re strangers here. Where are you from?”
Margaretha and Colin sat down. “We’re from — ” Margaretha stopped. Claybrook’s men might come and ask the villagers if they had seen them. “North of here. We’re on our way to visit relatives.” Her relatives, not his. The less she revealed, the better.
“Is he your husband?” the woman asked.
“No. Um, he’s my . . . brother.” God, forgive me.
But instead of smiling at him the way Anne had when she discovered he was the son of a wealthy earl from England, the woman simply nodded.