Renard stepped closer. His face briefly disappeared from the light until he stopped in front of her, and the candlelight fell across his eyes, revealing their dark depths.
“You ought to be careful, Mistress…?”
“Gwynnie Wightham, sir. I’m a maid here at the palace.”
“So I hear. Even more curious, for I do not remember seeing you here before this last month.”
“I am new, sir.”
“Ah, that must be it.” He tipped his head back, looking down his long nose at her.
As the silence stretched out, Gwynnie’s adjusted her grasp on the trug. She felt the urge to flee, but to do so would be announcing that she was afraid of him.
“Is there anything you need, sir? I should return to the laundry.” She held up the trug for him to see.
“By all means, return to your duties.” He waved a hand, urging her to carry on, but he did not step out of her way. Slowly, Gwynnie walked around him. She kept her distance as much as she could, glancing back only when she was at the far end of the courtyard.
Renard had started to follow her, his silhouette barely discernible in the darkness.
Turning forward again, Gwynnie kept her pace even as she turned down a narrow lane between two of the palace buildings. Only when she was certain she was out of sight did she run. Sprinting on the toes of her boots, she tried to avoid making any sound at all. She glanced back but didn’t see another figure enter the lane.
When she reached the far end, rather than heading to the outer walls and the laundry room, she stepped up onto a stone platform erected outside the gate that led to the wider estate of the palace. A great statue adorned the plinth, depicting the king’s father, his heavy robes hanging down as if billowing in the wind. Hiding behind the statue, she waited, her palms clammy despite the chill of the evening air. When footsteps sounded close by, she held her breath.
Glancing at the nearest window, Gwynnie caught a glimpse of a figure in the reflection. It was Renard, turning in a circle as he searched for her.
“Renard?” a voice called.
Gwynnie closed her eyes, hearing the unmistakable shrill notes of Henry Fitzroy.
“Renard?”
“Quiet, Your Grace.” Gwynnie opened her eyes and saw Renard’s reflection disappear back down the lane, toward Fitzroy.
“Well? Is it her?” Fitzroy hissed.
“I do not know. Yet have no fear, Your Grace. I shall find out.”
As their voices and footsteps faded, Gwynnie breathed a sigh of relief. A memory shot across her mind. It was of her mother the night she had appeared with those blood-stained palms.
“Do you know what they do to people with blood on their hands, Gwynnie?” Emlyn had plunged her hands into a bowl of water, scrubbing madly to try and remove the dried blood. “They hang them from the gallows.”
Gwynnie dropped to the ground and ran.
CHAPTER 8
“I’m not doing it.” Emlyn flapped the clean sheet in the air of the laundry room. Gwynnie snatched it from her mother’s hands, raising her brows in silent challenge. The morning sunlight streamed through the glass, making the dust particles dance in the air between them. “I pray you, do not look at me like that. You’re a sorry sight this morning. There are shadows under your eyes and you’re walking at a strange angle.”
Gwynnie flopped down onto the nearest stool, to give her back a rest. She was not going to admit to her mother that she’d had another dreadful night’s sleep, with her back aching so much that she’d practically crawled out of bed when the sun rose. The running she had done the night before to avoid Renard hadn’t helped matters, and she feared that if she didn’t recover soon and she had to run from him again, he would be able to catch her all too easily.
“Ma, think about it,” Gwynnie urged. “If you and I continue to do nothing, then Renard will keep watching me. What if he finds the jewels?” She whispered the last word despite their being alone, yet her mother still looked around sharply as she continued to fold the next clean sheet. “You know as well as I that he will use them against us. I promised long ago I would not see you at the gallows,” she hissed. “I will not see it happen now.”
As Gwynnie watched her mother, a pain radiated through her body that had little to do with the injury in her back. It was the thought of losing Emlyn that caused that ache.
“If we wish to live, then we need a way to help the truth come out.” Gwynnie stood and took one end of the sheet, to assist with the folding.
“How are you going to do that then?” Emlyn asked tartly. “Do you plan to just walk up to that nice Pascal and his difficult lawyer, and announce that you saw the whole thing? Think it through, Gwynnie. They’ll hang you.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” Emlyn huffed, taking the folded sheet from Gwynnie’s hands. “At this moment, I think a newly weaned pup has more sense than you.”
“I have sense, Ma.”
“That is debatable.”
“And you wonder where I get my sarcasm from.” Gwynnie crossed the room to the barrel of water and lye. Emlyn followed, helping as Gwynnie plunged more soiled sheets and chemises into the barrel. “There must be a way to reveal what Fitzroy did.”
“How?”
“Perhaps we could find out more about why Florian was blackmailing Fitzroy in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” Emlyn plunged the sheets into the water as Gwynnie chewed her lip, trying to recall what she had overheard in Fitzroy’s garderobe.
“Florian said that Fitzroy had a lover. A man named Master Woodville.”
“Woodville?” Emlyn paused in her task.
“You know the name?”
