Lady Lili was waiting for him at the end of the corridor. Alred supposed she had been there a while, as he had spent some time talking with Dunstan in his room. Indeed, he had done so deliberately, in the hope that Lili would not try to speak to him before he retired.
“Good evening again, Lili,” he said as lightly as he could.
“Good evening, Vash.” Dre’s voice rang out in the silence as coldly as the clanging of the iron bars he closed behind him.
Vash did not reply, but only sat and watched the little dancing flame.
“Sigefrith!”
Sir Sigefrith was startled out of a pleasant fireside conversation with his wife by the banging of the tower door and the bellowing of his tallest friend.
Alred supposed he should have been grateful that he had managed to kiss Lady Lili’s hand before Dunstan got it into his. Otherwise he suspected he would not have had a chance to wish her a good night at all.
His fifteen-year-old son had spontaneously developed an affection for Lili that would have pleased Alred if it had been for any other girl—it was satisfying to see him suddenly so talkative and even almost flirtatious. On the other hand, it was not any other girl: it was Lili, and Alred was beginning to fear that she possessed some sort of sinister attraction for men of his family.
“Papa, we came to see you!” Peleia cried. However, she scarcely looked at her father and instead ran for the corner wherein the toys were piled.
“Not so fast, young lady!” Leofric lifted her high above the floor. Leia could only kick her fat legs against the empty air in frustration. “If you come to see Papa, then you see Papa.”
“Ach, no! You have already set up the game!” Lady Hedwige cried. “I hope I did not keep you waiting long.”
“If you had, I would have already started playing by myself,” Dunstan said.
Lili found Alred in his study with his two sons.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” she said coldly.
Lady Luitgarde tiptoed into her sister’s room. Hetty wasn’t in it, but neither did she want to be discovered there, given the sensitive nature of her mission.
It was bad enough that she had left her own Psalter behind in her excitement over their visit—although, she wondered, what could one expect? She hadn’t left her castle since her baby was too big inside of her to allow her to ride!
Lady Sophie talked on and on, and Lady Hedwige was beginning to believe that it was not enough that Sophie speak German to make her company agreeable.
Sophie was a clever, educated young woman, and though she was not interested in literature, her conversation could be interesting when she told of the many people she had met and places she had visited in the train of the Baroness of Engern. However, now that those stories had been told, her conversation lately consisted primarily of complaints about her new home, her mother-in-law, and especially her husband.
“Lullay, lullay, little nightingale,” Eadgith sang as she brought her tired niece into the twins’ room.
Gala was fond of her aunt, but she whined and reached for her mother at once, and Eadgith’s heart sank wearily within her. She would have to hand the warm, soft baby back to her mother, and then go out into the cold night with her husband, her arms empty. Drage would never dream of sitting on her saddle when his Papa and his Papa’s tall horse were nigh.
“Matilda Reincarnate… Alred will be having flashbacks followed by an aneurysm.”
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