William had told Cecily that King Henry had given him some of the prettiest acres in England, and even now, four years after she had first laid eyes on the land he had granted her husband, she could not help but gasp at their beauty. Rolling hills covered with thick forests gave way to deep green dales, and the peaks of the Pennines were never out of sight. Their stone manor house, now complete, was situated to take advantage of the sweeping views. Cecily had designed the tapestries hanging in the solar and William had overseen the construction of the immense great hall, with its tall, timbered ceiling and enormous fireplace.
Private rooms surrounded the courtyard, and the gatehouse was more for show than safety. There was little danger of being attacked, not now that England was so stable; war was limited to France. The money William received from the families of the prisoners he had ransomed at Agincourt paid for the house and the beautiful chapel that stood near it and left the family coffers still overflowing. He had already ordered alabaster effigies of himself and his wife, so that they might be buried together, never forgotten by their descendants. Father Simon, horrified by the truth about Adeline’s behavior, had come with them to Derbyshire and lived in a small rectory next to the church. Hugh de Morland visited them frequently, the three men the closest of friends.
William was a good landlord, and when the king summoned him to join his latest campaign in France, his tenants lined the road outside the house at Anglemore to bid him farewell. They would all pray for his safe return, but none could match Cecily’s fervor. She had come to view him not only as her lord and husband, but as her closest confidant and the other half of her soul.
After he had left, she retreated to the chapel, where she knelt before the altarpiece, fashioned after the diptych he had given her on the day they wed. She was no longer haunted by guilt over her mother’s death; she had come to terms with that, spurred on by the birth of her own child, a boy they named Nicholas after the saint in whose church King Henry had given thanks after his victory at Agincourt. The moment Alys had put the tiny infant, so helpless and vulnerable, into her arms, Cecily was consumed with peace and clarity. This little baby, nicknamed Colin, could harm no one, just as she could not have harmed anyone on the day she was born. God had answered her mother’s prayers and brought her home, and Cecily ought never have thought she bore the responsibility for any of it.
Two days later, when she was busily picking herbs in the kitchen garden, she was interrupted by one of her servants, a young girl who showed great aptitude for learning. Cecily was teaching her to read, and expected she had come to ask when her next lesson would be. Instead, she brought news.
“An old friend of yours has arrived, my lady,” she said. “The Baroness Esterby.”