Minutes passed. Scrubbing his face, he glowered at the door. Devil take it, what was keeping her? He stared at his coffer – he’d flung his tunic on the top and Rosamund’s blue gown was peeping out from beneath it. The other gowns Lady Adeliza had given her were hanging on a hook, he could see the rose colour which she favoured, and a green gown she’d not yet worn, and...
A prickle of foreboding ran down his neck. Pushing from the bed, he strode over to the gowns and rifled through them. They were all there, there was nothing amiss. So why did he have a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach?
‘Mon Dieu!’ The realisation hit him like a blow from a quintain. Rosamund might be bold as brass in his bed, she might doff her clothes for him, but she wouldn’t dream of stepping half-dressed into the corridor. He was the only man to have seen her naked. Her loving had been as innocent as it was generous, and he knew with an almost savage pride that it had been for him alone.
She’d gone.
He stalked to the door and was down the corridor, wrinkling his nose at the stench in the garde-robe. It was as he suspected, the closet yawned emptily at him.
Rosamund had gone.
Storming back to the bedchamber, he snatched at her gowns. Lady Adeliza’s cast-offs. With an exasperated sigh he threw them aside. They were all there, every last one. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. What had she been wearing when she’d been brought to the keep? He’d never seen that dress for they’d bathed and changed her. He’d assumed that someone in the keep had burned her peasant’s clothes but...
Vaguely, he remembered seeing a pink bundle jammed into the corner of his travelling chest.
He flung back the lid and it cracked against the wall. Yes, he’d seen her wearing a gown of just that pink. It had been darned at the elbows. He could see her smooth arms and her hands as she picked up tiny whorled stones from the beach. May Day. She’d said it was her best. Yes, that fitted, she would have worn her best gown for her wedding. She’d come to the castle dressed in her finest. Proud as a peacock.
Frantically, he disembowelled the chest, tossing aside spare tunics, chausses, his old cloak, a battered scabbard...
If a rose-coloured gown had been put among his things, there was no trace of it. Sitting back on his heels, he stared into the empty chest. There was no rose-coloured gown. She’d gone. But why leave her new gowns behind? She’d never see their like again, it didn’t make sense.
Unless – he expelled a breath – that pride of hers. He’d seen it in her eyes often enough, though he’d discounted it because of her humble background. Her pride had served to amuse him.
He remembered her expression earlier as she’d waited for him outside the stables. She’d wanted him to escort her across the bailey yet she’d been reluctant to ask. She’d talked about leaving and he’d not listened. He’d ordered her to stay. He’d assumed she would obey. Weren’t peasants bred to obey, as he had been bred to command?
Jesu, he’d been a fool. Blind, arrogant...
Getting to his feet, he dragged on his tunic, fumbling the buckle of his sword belt in his haste. What a fool. He groped for his spurs, a wild, unsettling thought sounding a frantic alarm. Rosamund was undefended. She’d gone into the darkness alone, on a night when outlaws were known to be abroad. She might encounter anything – Angevin rebels? Wolves? An image of her lying torn and broken in a ditch flashed through his mind and he groaned aloud.
He snatched at the door latch. His cousin had talked about fitting him out with some decent armour on the morrow – a padded helmet, some chainmail. He swore. No matter, he couldn’t wait. He must find her tonight, before some terrible ill befell her. And then, by the Rood, he’d teach her the wisdom of obedience.
***
The guard stared with a slackened jaw at the fury in the eyes of the man astride the grey destrier. Like flint they were. He took note of the glinting yellow spurs that proclaimed that Oliver de Warenne was no longer the lord’s squire. He’d been knighted.
A man might expect that a newly dubbed knight would be in a happy frame of mind. However, the guard knew better than to comment on the wayward moods of his betters. It was odd though, because earlier that evening he had seen Oliver – Sir Oliver – ride through the arch with his lover set before him. He’d been as merry as any village lad with his lass.
‘She...she said you’d finished with her, sir,’ the guard said, shaking his head. He’d misjudged the girl. The moment she’d offered him the ring to let her out, he’d thought he had her pegged. He’d thought she must have been well paid to be throwing rings about – he’d taken her for a whore.