He was tempted to follow, but for what? Just as her life was hers to live, the coin was hers to spend.
“Lord,” he groaned, “let it not become a stone upon which to stumble. Let it bless her.”
Once darkness stole her from sight, he lowered his head and felt the sting of tears of which he would not be ashamed even had the one who knighted him told he ought to be. But Sir Everard Wulfrith of that family known England to France as the mightiest trainers of knights said only those unworthy of defending king and country were bereft of tears for the hurts and sorrows of their fellow man.
“Lettice,” he breathed.
“Milord?”
He jerked, cursed himself. Tears were naught to be ashamed of, but succumbing to them in this place at this time of night—leaving himself open to thievery and gutting—was far from worthy. And now the one who had stolen upon him knew better than to quietly approach a warrior.
Back against the alehouse’s wall, a Wulfrith dagger at his throat, the man who had gone as still as the dead gaped at the man above him.
Elias assessed him. He was attractive and fairly well groomed, near his own age, shorter by a hand, more bone than muscle, and of the common class as evidenced by a tunic fashioned of homespun cloth—albeit of good quality and showing little wear.
“What do you want?” Elias growled.
“But to earn a few coins.” The man splayed his arms and opened his fingers to show empty hands. “No harm intended, milord. None done.”
Elias thrust his face near. He smelled drink, though not of the sour sort. “I have given the last of my coin.”
A loud clearing of the throat. “Surely a lord so fine as you can get more.”
He could. His squire awaited him at the inn which lay opposite the direction Lettice had fled, in Francis’s possession several purses fatter than the one with which Elias had parted. “Why would I wish to do that?”
“The harlot’s babe. I can tell more about him than she.”
What else was there to know? Elias wondered, then asked it.
The man moistened his lips. “There is much to be told that none but straight-fingered Arblette can reveal, milord.”
Straight-fingered, Elias silently scorned. Could a self-proclaimed honest man truly be that?
“Buy me a tankard of ale, milord?”
Elias considered the face below his, released the man. “One, and if you think to play me for a fool, I shall spill every drop from your belly.”
“How know you of the babe? And what?”
Straight-fingered Arblette raised one of those fingers, and Elias thought it ironic there was a bend to it, then the man looked to the pretty girl who approached the table chosen for its relative privacy in the back corner of the inn Elias had insisted on over the stinking, dilapidated alehouse.
“There ye be!” She set down two of four tankards—so hard ale slopped and dripped between the planks onto Elias’s boots. “I be back for me coin.”
As she turned toward a table occupied by a half dozen men, several of whom were overly interested in Elias and his companion, Arblette slapped her rear.
She gasped, teasingly protested, “Naughty!” and swayed away.
Lifting his tankard, Arblette returned his regard to Elias. “Not as naughty as she wishes me to be.” His grin would have been all teeth were he not missing several. “But I aim to marry better, so unless she defies her brute of a father, she must needs be content with pats and pinches.”
Then given the chance, he would ruin the lass without ruffling his conscience. Disliking him more, Elias searched out the owner of the inn in which he and his squire had taken a room for the night. The man was of good size top to bottom, his fat bettered by a greater amount of muscle which bunched as he stared at the one who was too familiar with his daughter.
Arblette was not the only patron to trespass, a recipient of ale at the nearby table hooking an arm around the young woman’s waist as she set a tankard before him.
Again she protested, though without teasing, then swatted free. And yet it was at Arblette her father continued to stare.
“You have your ale,” Elias said. “Now tell how you know of Lettice’s babe.”
He took a long draught, belched. “I know ‘cause my grandsire disposed of that devil-licked thing.”
Though rarely moved to violence outside of defending himself and others, Elias curled his fingers into a fist atop the table. “Disposed?”
“Ah, now!” Arblette splayed a hand as if to ward off an attack. “Not that way, milord, though ’twas as my grandsire was paid to do.”
Then the child was not dead? Or had he been snuffed out in a supposedly more humane manner than exposure to the elements and beasts of the wood?
“What way?”
“The way of a good Christian.” The man took another drink, winked. “Albeit one in need of funds.”
As Elias further tensed in preparation to lunge across the table, the serving girl reappeared. “Give over, milord.”
He drew breath between his teeth, opened the purse his squire had delivered him upon his return to the inn, and dropped a coin in her palm that more than covered the ale. “Go.”
She gave a squeak of delight and trotted away.
“That there coin buys me three more fills!” Arblette called.
She laughed and flicked a hand as if to rid herself of a fly.
He sighed, lost his smile. “Tell milord, how much would you pay for a look inside my head?”
Elias shifted his cramped jaw, dug two more coins from his purse, and pushed them across the table.
Arblette grunted. “Since it seems we are talkin’ about yer son, surely more is warranted.”
Elias raised his eyebrows. “If what you know proves useful.”
The man blew breath up his face, causing his straight black hair to fly upward and settle aslant on his brow. “Certes, you are good for it?”
“As told, if what you tell bears fruit.”
Arblette leaned across the table, rasped, “Seven, mayhap eight years gone, the mother of your harlot—er, Lettice,” he corrected as Elias’s face warmed, “sent for my grandsire. ’Twas to him all around these parts turned when they could not stomach ridding themselves of undesirables.”
Senses warning he and the other man had become of greater interest, Elias glanced around. Though the voices of those unconcerned with what transpired at this table ensured privacy, he lowered his own voice. “Undesirables?”
“Unwanted babes, whether of the lesser sex when ’tis a son a man needs, sickly, deformed, misbegotten, or devil-marked like your boy.”
“Continue.”
“My grandsire was paid for the disposal of Lettice’s newborn son.” Hastily, he added, “Though as told, not the usual form of disposal.”
“What form?”
“Whilst setting out a babe some years before, my grandsire was approached by one who offered to pay him for all those destined to breathe their last in the wood.” He raised a hand to keep Elias from speaking. “He agreed, as ever it was with heavy heart he did what needed doing and he was certain whatever their fate it was better than death by abandonment. A decent man he was. Now what she does with the babes…”