The Pillars Of The World

lifted your skirts for a married man?” Royce yelled. “Have you lost all decency? What are you going to be? Ridgeley’s fancy whore?”
    “Royce!” the baroness said sharply. “I won’t have such things said.”
    “Why not?” Royce demanded, turning on his mother. “If that’s what she is now, she should at least get paid for it.”
    “He isn’t married!” Odella said, straightening in the chair.
    “Then what is he?” Baron Felston said. “Did you go on your back for some ill-bred lout who shovels out the stables?”
    “He wasn’t ill-bred, he wasn’t a lout, and he wasn’t married!” Odella shouted. She paused, then said dramatically, “He was a Fae Lord.”
    Silence.
    Neall heard the clock in the hallway strike the quarter hour.
    “A Fae Lord,” Baron Felston said heavily. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you telling me the truth, girl? You’re not just saying this?”
    “I saw his face,” Odella said. “His real face.”
    “Then where are the gifts?” Royce said. “According to the stories, the Fae always give gifts when they bed a woman. Let’s see them.”
    “I didn’t get any gifts. He said a gift wasn’t given for the night of the Summer Moon, but he would bring a gift the next night.”
    “So where are the gifts?”
    “There aren’t any gifts. He didn’t come back.”
    Royce snorted. “Were you that much of a disappointment?”
    Outraged, Odella shot to her feet. “He didn’t come back because he was bewitched. He didn’t come back because Ari saw him and wanted him. So he forgot about me and has been having his romp inside her drawers!”
    “Liar!” Royce raised his fist.
    “You think just because she refused you, she hasn’t been lifting her skirts for someone else?”
    “She wouldn’t dare.”
    Odella laughed. It was a nasty sound. “Oh, she dared. I saw him there one morning, as bold as you please. My lover. The one who had promised me chests of gold and jewels.” Her mood changed. Her face crumpled in unhappiness. “When I greeted him, he just laughed at me. He laughed . And he was already pulling up her skirt before I could ride out of sight.”
    “That bitch,” Royce said quietly. “I warned her about lifting her skirts.”
    “When was this?” Neall asked. He knew the Lightbringer had been Ari’s lover, but, somehow, the Fae Lord being at the cottage during the day seemed more intimate and threatening than the man spending the night in Ari’s bed. That was just sex, a promise fulfilled because of that damned fancy. But during the day
    . . . that was life . The collection of small details that made up a shared day was what gave richness to what happened in the bed at night.
    When they all turned to look at him, he realized he should have kept quiet, should have backed out of the room before they’d noticed him.
    “Not long ago,” Odella said, her eyes filled with delighted spite. “Well after the new moon, so it wasn’t as if she was just fulfilling a pledge.”
    Neall closed his eyes as he tried to absorb the verbal blow. So. It hadn’t ended. Was that why Ari hadn’
    t given him an answer yet?
    Wait. Wait . Something wasn’t right here. What had Odella said about the morning she’d seen the Fae Lord? That he’d lifted—
    Neall looked at Odella. “You’re lying. You may have seen a Fae Lord there one morning, but you didn’t see him lifting Ari’s skirt.” He smiled bitterly. “She only wears skirts when she has to come to Ridgeley.
    At Brightwood, she wears loose trousers because they’re easier to work in.” He took a step forward. “
    What else are you lying about, Odella?”
    “I’m not lying,” Odella spat. “He was mine! I should have had all the gold and jewels he’s given to her!”
    Neall shook his head. A kind of recklessness filled him, pushing aside any thought of caution. “You couldn’t have met him on the Summer Moon. I’m not saying you didn’t meet a Fae Lord. It’s possible.
    But it wasn’t him. Which means she didn’t steal him away from you.”
    “I say she did!”
    Recklessness shifted to grim anger. ‘“You want to deny whoever it really was you’ve been with in order to avoid a bad marriage, that’s fine. You want to say it was a Fae Lord who got you with child, that’s fine too. That gives you a way out since everyone knows Fae men don’t marry human women. But don’t accuse Ari of something she didn’t do. You might steal a man away from another woman simply because you