Laura surged to sitting, looked to wide-eyed Clarice and Tina, then the ceiling.

“Wh-what was that?” her daughter asked.

Was it Lady Raisa’s response to learning her son was to wed the woman who had cuckolded him?

“Mother?” Clarice leaned forward in the chair she had dropped into when Sir Angus admitted them to the chamber.

Laura swung her legs over the mattress and stood. “It sounded like a hawk. Did it not, Tina?” She widened her eyes at the maid, entreating her to agree.

Tina frowned and resumed the transfer of her lady’s possessions from the packs to a spacious trunk set between the windows. “Certes, hawks screech like that,” she allowed. “Mayhap one entered the donjon through an open window.”

“It sounded like a woman’s scream,” Clarice said.

Laura feigned a shrug. “It was a strenuous journey. Do you not wish to lie down?”

Clarice peered at the ceiling as if awaiting further disruption, then dropped back in the chair. “I am not tired. I prefer to explore my new home.”

Laura might have acquiesced as often she had since Maude’s passing, but this was High Castle, and until she wed Lothaire, it was not truly their home—indeed, might never be if the one who had screeched found a way around Queen Eleanor.

“You may acquaint yourself with it later,” Laura said.

“Why not now? I just sit here with naught to occupy myself.”

How had Maude responded to argument? Two answers—the first being firm correction of a young Laura, the second less than firm correction of the stronger-willed Clarice. Though Laura had not dozed so deeply she was unaware Maude often yielded to her beloved granddaughter, ever it had been easier to allow another to rear her child.

Now it is for you to do, she told herself. You were raised well, presented so fine a young lady the foreboding Raisa Soames approved of you wedding Lexeter’s heir.

“Well?” Clarice tossed her hands wide.

“We shall aid Tina in unpacking and arranging our clothes.”

“But ’tis for her to do! I wish to look about the castle.”

“Later,” Laura said firmly and started toward the maid.

Clarice thrust up out of the chair. “Then I shall rest.”

Laura longed to allow her to laze on the bed though she claimed she was not tired—far less conflict than exerting authority to teach her daughter responsibility as Maude had done with Laura when she was younger than Clarice—but she set a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

“What?” The girl’s demand caused anger to nip at her mother.

“You shall aid with the clothes, Clarice.”

“Ah nay, milady,” the maid said with false cheer surely meant to ease the tension. “The task is best left to me.”

“You are more fatigued than we are, Tina. Thus, we ought to unpack whilst you rest.”

“I will not!” Clarice gasped.

Laura kept her chin up. “You will. Now come.” She started to draw her daughter toward the packs, but the girl pulled free and moments later tossed open the door and started down the corridor.

Laura hesitated amid Tina’s entreaty, “Let the child go,” then once more reminding herself she was awake, broke free of all that conspired to drag her in a less uncomfortable direction and ran.

“Clarice!” she called when she saw her daughter stood in the middle of the corridor as if also pulled in two directions.

Clarice resumed her course, but her mother’s legs were longer, and Laura did not stomp her way to the landing. As she took hold of the girl’s arm, Clarice swung around. “I do not wish to be with you.”

“Regardless, you are. As I am your mother, you shall abide by my instruction.”

“Instruction? You are not Lady Maude.”

“True. I am more to you than that. I am your—”

“You are not! You are a shadow.”

Laura nearly choked on her next breath. “A what?”

“A shadow.” Defensively, Clarice raised her chin. “’Tis as Lady Maude told.”

Hurt flooding Laura, she whispered, “She said this to you?”

Her daughter hesitated as if considering a lie, then scowled. “Nay, ever she defended you. I heard her tell it to the baron.”

Her stepson, Michael’s older brother.

Laura swallowed. “She spoke true. A shadow I was, but a shadow no longer. Though I cannot replace Lady Maude in your affections, I am trying to be a better mother.”

“Then you are failing. Try harder!”

Were she alone, Laura would put her face in her hands to muffle her cry of pain. Instead, she suppressed it. “I know, and I regret it.” She released her daughter, touched her cheek. “If you will help me—”

Clarice drew back.

Lowering her hand rather than display how empty it was, Laura said, “I know change is difficult, especially our loss of Maude, but—”

“What of Donnie?”

Her affectionate name for the one who had been her playmate the same as Simon had been Laura’s. But Donald, nearly three years older than the cousin he did not know Clarice to be, had left behind the playthings of boys as evidenced by his exploration of the playthings of men—that which dealt the blow that awakened Laura.

Clarice made a sound of disgust. “It was just a kiss, but you had to make more of it, and now I have lost him as well.”

“You are nine, Clarice! He is nearly twelve. It was not just a kiss.” At the time, perhaps, Laura silently conceded. It had been the same for her at close to the age Clarice now was, but as the years had born out, it had meant far more to Simon. And had been the beginning of the end of Lothaire and Laura.

The tears brightening Clarice’s eyes contrasting with her stubbornly set jaw, she said, “Methinks you are jealous that no one kisses you.”

Laura lurched back, but when her daughter spun away, recaptured her arm.

“Release me!” Clarice cried as she was pulled off the landing, then she let her legs go out from under her.

Laura stared at the girl at the end of her hand. So much hurt shone from Clarice, as if the one who had born her intended to beat her into submission the same as Simon—

Laura thrust aside the memory. “Forgive me,” she said. “I but wish you to return to our chamber.”

Her daughter’s nostrils flared. “Let me go, and I will follow.”

Laura released her, but once more her daughter made for the stairs.

Laura snatched hold of her and pulled her around. “Pray, Clarice, do not make this more difficult than already it is.”

“You are the one who makes it difficult. Let me go!”

“Nay.” Putting in her eyes what she hoped was steel, Laura lifted her chin.

And could make no sense of the flurry of movement until Lothaire barked, “Enough!”

He stood behind her daughter, gripping the wrist of the hand drawn back to strike the one Clarice defied, and when the girl strained against his hold, he said, “Cease this foolery!”

Clarice drew a breath that added to her height, looked over her shoulder at Lothaire where he must have come off the third floor stairs, then yielded up the extra height on a long exhale.

He released her. “Go to your chamber, Clarice.”

“You are not my father!”

“I need no reminder of that, but henceforth you will treat me with the respect due one’s sire, for that I shall be when I wed your mother. Now go.”

Laura could hardly breathe for the ache of what had happened between Clarice and her, the shame of what Lothaire had witnessed, and the judgment to come.

Clarice brushed past her, moments later slammed the door.

“Have I this to look forward to every day until she is old enough to wed away?” Lothaire demanded.

His eagerness to rid himself of Clarice wounded, but blessedly he spoke low enough to ensure his rebuke did not travel beyond them.

Though Laura longed to defend the behavior he had witnessed, it was a waste. She was at fault for the failed relationship with her daughter, and until she remedied it, Lothaire would have to bear whatever cost was passed to him.

“Yet more I must pay for the queen’s tax break?” he scorned.

Now his words cut. “A sizable break of which you ought not be dismissive, Lord Soames! After all, its reward for wedding me is your greatest chance of saving Lexeter.”

How she missed the young man who had regarded his betrothed with dismay when she behaved as he deemed inappropriate but could be teased into accepting her displays of happiness. How she missed the possibility he was not entirely lost to her when he had kissed her palm at Castle Soaring. Now he regarded her with what seemed disgust. There would be no teasing the man he had become. No way of stopping whatever words of condemnation he loosed upon her.

Actually, there was a way. Though her question was unkind, his answer might better prepare her for the reunion to come. “Was that your mother screeching like a hawk defending its territory?”

Condemnation falling from his eyes, he said, “A blow she has been dealt, but she will recover.”

“You will send her from High Castle as Queen Eleanor directed?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I know how to be hated, Lothaire. My daughter does not. Yet. The longer that is delayed, the better.”

His shoulders broadened with breath. “In advance of our arrival, I had Lady Raisa moved to a third floor chamber. As she is unwell, you are unlikely to encounter her providing neither you nor your daughter venture above this floor. Once my mother is hale enough to travel, I will deliver her to her dower property.”

That was hardly comforting, for it was nothing definite, increasing the likelihood Clarice would be exposed to the woman. Moved to a threat, albeit a gentle one—for now—Laura said, “I look forward to sending word to my cousin that my daughter and I are comfortably and safely settled upon Lexeter.”

His lids narrowed.

She inclined her head. “Until supper, my lord.”

He let her go. Thus, it was she who halted her progress. Turning before her chamber, she saw Lothaire stood in profile, a hand to the door beyond which must lay the lord’s solar.

“I wish a bath,” she said. More than wished. She hungered for warmth and weightlessness.

Lothaire looked over his shoulder. “And you wish me to do what? Collect a basin and towel?”

She frowned. “Such I would not ask of you. I but wish to arrange a tub bath.”

His eyebrows rose.

Feeling herself shrink, she said, “Is it asking too much?”

“This is not Windsor, Lady Laura, and your host is not the Queen of England. This is Lexeter, and as you must know from the state of the castle, few are the luxuries afforded even its lord since labor is far better spent improving the living conditions for all than heating and lugging water for one.”

Mayhap I am as spoiled as Clarice, Laura silently admonished. Ashamed by her request that must have sounded like a demand, she said, “I apologize. I did not mean to be thoughtless.” She turned aside.

Once she had closed herself in her chamber, she felt such relief that if not for the sight of Clarice sitting back on her heels alongside Tina, she would have propped herself against the door. Instead, she lowered to her knees on the other side of the maid and, ignoring her daughter’s sulking, began making High Castle her home.

* * *

A bath was not unreasonable, especially after the long journey. However, the audience with his mother who had screeched like a hawk upon learning Laura Middleton had come to take from her the title of Lady of Lexeter, had dragged Lothaire’s toes—then heels—to the edge of forbearance.

There had been only one screech, then Raisa went lax and would have crumpled to the floor had he not caught her. As he laid her on the bed, she had gripped the neck of his tunic and demanded he return the Delilah-Jezebel and her misbegotten daughter to Eleanor.

It had taken some time to reason her down from hysterics which she often scorned as a weapon wielded by women too weak of mind to control a man any other way. But as Sebille and he knew, her aversion had more to do with such displays being ineffectual with her roving husband.

When Raisa had calmed, she grudgingly conceded King Henry’s harlot had given her son no choice. Without the tax break Laura Middleton brought to the marriage, it could prove impossible to hold onto Lexeter. As he did not need his twice betrothed to remind him, it was generous compensation—naught of which to be dismissive.

Nor were the hours that remained of daylight. It was time to resume the labors neglected during his absence.

Garbed in homespun tunic and chausses, to which he had become so accustomed he no longer scratched at his skin, he departed the donjon certain he would not join Laura for supper. If he returned ere the middling of night, it would be early. And likely he would once more depart ere she rose to face the first full day of the thousands she would pass upon Lexeter.