By Love Unveiled by Sabrina Jeffries

Author:Sabrina Jeffries
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2013-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Loyalty is still the same,

Whether it win or lose the game;

True as a dial to the sun,

Although it be not shined upon.

—Samuel Butler, Hudibras

After hours passed, during which Marianne saw nothing of Garett, William showed up to bring her into town. As soon as he led her into Lydgate’s finest inn, she began to fret. Garett was making good on his promise to involve the townspeople in his search for the truth.

And he’d commanded that she come unmasked. It made her feel undressed. She hadn’t appeared publicly in town without her disguise in weeks.

Quickly she scanned the ale room for some sign of Garett. When she saw nothing of him, she shivered.

“You mustn’t let the master worry you, miss,” William whispered as he led her toward a chair near the hearth. “It’s just that he don’t know what to do with you. You and your aunt being so closemouthed and all . . . well, that bothers him.”

What an understatement. “Where is he?” she whispered back as William beckoned her to sit.

William cocked his head upward. “We’re to wait ’til they send a message down for us to go up.”

She groaned. The town council used one of the inn’s upper rooms for their meetings. Garett had obviously called them in.

A pox on him! How she wished she hadn’t become embroiled with him. If she’d only acted more meekly the first time they’d met . . . if she’d just been more careful when she’d treated his wounds . . . if—

This serves no purpose.

Instead, she should prepare for what was to come and decide how to act.

Telling the truth—that she was Sir Henry’s daughter—was one choice. But Garett, with his loyalty to the king, would follow his duty and give her over to the soldiers. Aside from the danger to her—the possibility that she might hang for her involvement in the supposed plot to kill the king—the truth would endanger others as well: her aunt, Mr. Tibbett, any townspeople who’d knowingly aided her. Given the choice, the council might prefer to have her keep her secret rather than risk being accused of treason for harboring her. At least if they said nothing, Garett could never really prove they knew all along who she was.

Of course, she might be trusting too much to their loyalty. They might just reveal her secret to the earl the moment they saw her face. They might claim her mask had kept them from knowing the truth.

No, they’d never betray her so easily. Nor could she betray them by telling all at the first sign of trouble. Her only safe recourse was to keep silent and hope everything worked out.

Shifting uncomfortably in the hard chair, she glanced around the room. The guarded looks occasionally thrown her way by the other patrons of the inn were, for the most part, kind and encouraging. She took some comfort from that.

Then she caught a stranger gazing at her as if he knew her. But how could he? She would have remembered the sly coldness in his manner.

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