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own, I do not, although I saw him earlier in the chapel. I also saw him speaking briefly with Sir Hugo’s sister Kate.”
    “Aye, sure,” Lady Clendenen said with her cheerful smile. “For is he not
le chevalier
Etienne de Gredin, one of my own kinsmen? Sithee, he is a distant cousin on my mother’s side and likewise kin to le Duc d’Anjou. He tends to be a trifle encroaching, but he is a most charming and amusing creature withal.”
    “He is French then.”
    Lady Clendenen shrugged. “Most of us have French blood in us, do we not? However, Etienne’s people came over with the Conqueror, as did the Sinclairs’ and my own. His father, before he died, was envoy to France, and I warrant Etienne has as many kinsmen in France as he does here. He travels there frequently. But then many young men of good birth who have access to boats do, do they not? He wants to meet you, which is doubtless why he had the impertinence to approach. But then, he does not know it was impertinence, because he does not yet know of Ardelve’s death. Nevertheless, I cannot allow him to annoy you at such a difficult time.”
    “Thank you,” Adela said. “I do not want to talk to anyone.”
    “I’ll present him another time,” Lady Clendenen said. Then, with a direct look, she said, “I hope you do not mean to mourn overlong, my dear. Ardelve would not want that, not for a lass of your youth and beauty.
    “Indeed,” she went on before the astonished Adela could speak, “you must not shut yourself away or waste your attractions. A woman of your years requires a husband to be respectable. But I shall say no more about that now. I shall chatter away, to be sure, but you need heed none of it.”
    It was as well that she added the last, because Adela could think of nothing to say. That her ladyship could even raise such a subject seemed outrageous, but Adela was sure that any reply she might make would only be more so.
    “Such an odd way for Ardelve to go,” her ladyship went on as they entered the stair hall and approached the stairway in the thick walls forming its northwest corner. “Still, I doubt he would object much to it if one could seek his opinion.”
    Motioning for Adela to precede her up the stairs, she added without pause, “It is certainly a better passing than my late husband’s. He was wounded in battle, poor man, and it took him months to die. To my mind, Ardelve’s was a gentler way. Not that you will thank me for saying that. Indeed, your mind must seem befogged now, but we will talk again when you can think clearly. In the mean-time, I’ll just keep talking to put off anyone else who might approach us.”
    Adela let her prattle on, although they met no one other than a hastily curtsying maidservant before reaching the bedchamber that, until that morning, had been Adela’s alone since her arrival at Roslin.
    When she opened the door, the crackling fire on the hooded hearth drew her attention at once. Since she assumed that a chambermaid or gillie had lighted the fire to warm the room, the sight of a man turning sharply from the bed made her gasp and clap a hand to her breast.
    Making a swift, deep bow, he said, “I pray ye’ll for-give me, Lady Ardelve. I didna expect—”
    “Mercy,” Lady Clendenen exclaimed, putting a hand to Adela’s shoulder and urging her into the room. “ ’Tis a wonder we did not startle one another witless, Angus. It quite slipped my mind that you’d likely be here, putting all in readiness for your master and his lady.”
    “Aye, sure, Lady Clendenen. But, surely, the feasting ha’ only just—”
    “Angus, a dreadful thing has happened,” her ladyship interjected. She explained hastily.
    “The laird be dead?” The man frowned heavily. “But he had nowt amiss wi’ him earlier, nowt that I who ha’ served him these thirty years past could see.”
    “Nevertheless,” Lady Clendenen said on note of warning, “Ardelve is dead, Angus, and we must look after her young ladyship