'No doubt he does believe it. And what do you think, Mariana Farr?'
He did look faintly devilish, smiling down at me with his dark clothes and his dark hair and those glinting eyes the colour of the forest that surrounded us, shutting us off together from the wider world. I studied him closely, and shrugged in my turn.
'I am no simple chit in hanging sleeves, my lord. I have eyes of my own to judge with, and I see no horns.'
He looked down at me soberly as we walked. 'It must be difficult for you,' he said quietly, 'to live in that house.'
I drew myself up stiffly, not welcoming his pity. 'I am but an orphan, my lord, dependent upon the charity of my relations. I do not question my position.'
His eyes doubted my sincerity, but he let my comment pass, and we walked on a ways in silence. When we came to another slight bend in the river, the gray stallion behind us flung his head back and tugged sharply at the reins, bringing my companion to a standstill.
'I believe Navarre is thirsty,' he interpreted the action for me. 'Come, sit with me while he drinks. This is a pleasant spot to pass the time.'
I let myself be led to a grassy clearing several yards from the water's edge, and seated myself on the trunk of a fallen tree, brushing off the small twinge of guilt that nagged at my conscience. My uncle would never learn of this, I reminded myself, and even if he did, what shame was there in it? After all, I had not invited Richard de Mornay's company, and one could not simply dismiss the lord of the manor from one's presence as if he were a common farm lad. The fact that I did not particularly want to dismiss him from my presence was, to my mind, inconsequential.
He seated himself at my feet, his back against the rough bark of the tree trunk, one booted leg drawn up to support his outstretched arm. With lazy eyes he watched the gray horse drinking.
'You said you were the last of your family,' I reminded him, attempting to make conversation. 'Have you no brothers?'
'I have five brothers,' he said, 'but they are in their graves. They died in service to the first Charles.'
I looked down solemnly. 'Your family stood for the king, then, against the Parliament.'
'Ay.' The word was bitter. 'And for their trouble they lost their lives, their lands, and all they owned and ever loved.'
'You did not die,' I pointed out.
'No, I did not die.' He shifted his shoulders against the fallen trunk and half smiled at me. 'The youngest of us was eighteen, and newly wed, when he did fall, and then the king himself was put to death. I was myself but twenty. After the execution, I fled to France and joined my mother's family at the French king's court. I had no stomach left for fighting, and with my father in the Tower I could be of little help to him in England.'
I stared at him. 'Your father was in the Tower?'
'He was captured at the defense of Exeter, in forty-six. Fourteen years they kept him within the Tower walls, without a lawful trial. He grew old in that dismal place. He lived to see freedom, and his lands restored, but not my return from France.' He pulled a blade of grass and passed it between his fingers, the shadow of an old pain crossing his stoic features. 'I am sorry.' I leaned forward a little in sympathy. 'I know what it is, to lose a father. So you have no one left?'
'Not quite no one. I have a nephew, Arthur, the son of my younger brother. He lives in Holland with his mother. He is fifteen and a leaping gallant, but he is my nephew, nonetheless. And I have Evan. That is family enough."
Evan Gilroy, he told me, had been a friend in the old days, before the fires of war swept across the countryside and left a sovereign dead. When Richard de Mornay had followed Charles Stuart home to England five years ago, Evan Gilroy had offered his services to the new lord of Crofton Hall, taking charge of the stables and the tenant farms.
The man at my feet smiled at the memory. ' 'Tis no great welcome for a man to come home to an empty house and a barren land,' he told me. 'Were it not for Evan, I doubt I would have stayed.'
I silently acknowledged my debt to Evan Gilroy. I was feeling very much at ease, in spite of my wet clothes, sitting here in the dappled sunlight of the little clearing and talking to a man who stood several notches above my station in life. My father would have liked this man, I thought, for all that Uncle Jabez did not approve.
I leaned back and clasped my hands around my knees, lacing my fingers together. 'Have you met the king, then?'
'Officially? Only once.' He glanced at me over his shoulder. 'Although I have seen him quite often, and even gamed with him once or twice. He was very much in evidence at the French court, during his exile.'
'I saw him only once, myself. At the coronation.' He had made a great impression on me at the time, I recalled, a regal and vivacious figure with his long curling hair, sensuous mouth, and languid dark eyes. 'He seemed a kind man,' I commented.
'He is kind enough,' Richard de Mornay agreed, 'and fairer than most. He has a large heart, but he is not a great king. The time for great kings is past.'
I furrowed my brow, thinking. 'They say he is, at heart, a Catholic'
The man beside me shrugged his powerful shoulders. 'My mother was a Catholic,' he said. ' 'Tis no great sin, I think.'
I feigned nonchalance. I had never met a Catholic before. 'And you?' I asked him. 'What is your faith?'
Richard de Mornay bent his head, his features darkening. 'I have no use for God,' he told me flatly. 'Nor He for me.'