Finnula’s surprise was not the kind Hugo had expected…at least, not exactly.
When they returned to the manor house, they were met in the stable yard by Mistress Laver, who slyly informed Her Ladyship that all was in order. Hugo was not in the mood for secrets, though he’d refused to answer any of Finnula’s questions concerning Peter’s statements back at the millhouse, and grumbled that she might do as she liked, but he intended to have a bath, feeling dirty from his fall and sweaty from their ride.
Finnula only turned up her nose at him, so Hugo strode into the house alone, and, after barking orders that hot water be brought to his solar, hastened there.
But when he entered his childhood chamber, he found that it, like his father’s solar, had been stripped bare of furnishings. Everything was gone, from his clothing to the bearskin rug that had lain across the floor. Even the trunks that he had sent ahead from Cairo, the trunks to which only he had the keys and which contained a fortune in jewels and cloth, were missing. If they were sitting outside, waiting to be part of Finnula’s bloody bonfire…
Hugo’s bellow might have brought down the roof had Stephensgate Manor been less well-constructed. As it was, every servant in the household came running, but not his wife, whose name it was Hugo had shouted.
“Where,” Hugo roared at Mistress Laver, who regarded him with more composure than any of the other staff, being well-used to his father’s tantrums, “are my things?”
“Well, with your wife, I would imagine,” was Mistress Laver’s coy reply.
“And where is my wife?” Hugo demanded.
“In the lord’s solar, I should think, where a proper lady would be.”
Hugo thought he might suffer an apoplexy if someone did not give him a straight answer. Seeing this, Mistress Laver smiled and said gently, “The Lady Finnula had all your things moved to your father’s solar, my lord. ’Twas quite gen’rous of ’er, I thought, considerin’ what happened last time she was there. But she thought you’d be pleased—”
Hugo had turned away before the last words were fully out of the cook’s mouth. His father’s solar was quite a ways down the corridor, but he was at the heavy wooden portal in a few strides, and, lifting a fist to thump on it, realized that it was his own room now, after all, and laid his hand upon the latch.
His bed stood in a different place than his father’s had, facing the row of windows on the south side of the solar, the fireplace on the opposite side. The trunks that had arrived before him from Cairo were stacked neatly in a corner. The bearskin rug was stretched across the floor before the hearth, and Gros Louis had already made himself at home there. The dog’s tail thumped once or twice at Hugo’s entrance. In the center of the room, Finnula was changing out of her lavender samite, into something less ornate, but not, he saw with relief, her leather braies.
“Was that you I heard caterwauling before?” Finnula asked, pulling the lavender gown over her head and awarding Hugo a tantalizing glimpse of her slim ankles and calves as the kirtle she wore beneath the samite hiked up a little. “Must you go about the house bellowing my name like that? ’Tis embarrassing, you know.”
“I thought—” Hugo broke off, watching as she bent to scoop a plain yellow gown from her own trunk. The emerald he’d given her winked between her breasts on its silken cord. “I thought you had lain my own things upon the pile for the bonfire.”
“Did you?” Finnula was concentrating mightily hard at working the lacings to the gown. “I said you were a fool to marry me. I didn’t say I was a fool. Why would I throw out your things? ’Twas Lord Geoffrey I could not abide.”
Hugo crossed the room to stand beside her. “And you had them remove his things to make way for mine?”
“You said your solar was drafty in the winter. And ’twas too small for your belongings, let alone the addition of mine. I thought it better to move in here.” Finnula raised the gown to drop it over her head, but Hugo reached out, arresting the flimsy garment in one hand before it covered her.
Finnula looked up questioningly. “My lord? Is there aught the matter with the gown?”
With a rakish smile, Hugo tossed the garment over his shoulder. “Naught that can be remedied by your not wearing it.”
Snaking out an arm, Hugo caught his wife about the waist and pulled her against him. Finnula, feeling the heat of his body through the muslin of her kirtle, looked up at him with amusement in her gray eyes.
“You called for a bath,” she reminded him.
“There isn’t any reason why I must bathe alone.” He grinned down at her. “Have you any objections, my lady?”
Finnula actually burst out laughing. “None at all, my lord.”