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her of the dead partner? Had she perhaps loved Lord Hadlow as he had loved Sarah?
    Hadlow had fallen victim to a huntsman's arrow. A mysterious arrow that no one would own. It had carried nothing to identify it as belonging to one of the huntsmen present at the chase. Most arrows carried their owner's mark, so that there would be no dispute over who had brought down the prey. An unmarked arrow had killed Lord Hadlow and left his wife in possession of all the land between Matlock and Chesterfield. Land rich in coal and iron. Forested land, well stocked with game, surrounded Hadlow's manor house at Matlock. The woman now owned so many manors and hunting forests in the county, she could progress from one to the other without repeating a visit in a six month.
    Hugh went to the window, lacing his shirt as he looked out again across the lush gardens to the water meadowsbeyond. Looking upon the softness of the mellow stone of the Hall and its flower-rich terraces, Hugh could understand how she might prefer Mallory Hall over all the others. Had she married Stephen Mallory just to get her hands on the Hall?
    What manner of men had these husbands been? He knew very little about any of them, not even the first who had had some kinship through marriage to Hugh's own father. Roger Needham had been a lot older than his sixteen-year-old bride. Maybe twice her age. Not a particularly pleasant prospect for a young woman. The marriage would have been arranged for her and she could not have expected any real say in the matter. But no one would have obliged her to marry any of the other three men. She had entered into those alliances entirely of her own volition. And she had drawn up her own marriage contracts. Learned noblewomen were not unheard-of. The king's bastard daughter the Lady Mary was a distinguished Latinist and scholar and it was said that her four-year-old sister the Lady Elizabeth was rigorously taught. But a legally trained mind was a rather different matter, Hugh reflected.
    There must be servants, old retainers, who had known the lady well over the years, who, with luck, had been with her through her marriages. The steward, for instance. The chief huntsman. A tutor, perhaps. A tiring woman, perhaps. In the morning he would throw his net wide and see what he caught.
    He put on a doublet of crimson velvet and fastened a tooled leather belt at his waist just as the chapel bell rang for vespers.
    “Come, Robin. ’Tis five already. We mustn’t keep our hostess waiting.” Hugh slipped his arms into a wide, loose gown of richly embroidered crimson silk lined with dark blue silk and slid his dagger into the sheath at his waist. He ran an appraising eye over his son's appearance, flickeda piece of lint from his shoulder, and ushered him out of the apartment.
    Robin sniffed hungrily of the rich aromas of roasting meat drifting from the kitchens as they crossed to the chapel where the bell was still ringing.
    All the senior members of the household were gathered for vespers on the long oak pews in the chapel in the upper courtyard. They glanced up as Hugh and Robin entered the dim vaulted space.
    “That boy must sit with us,” Pippa announced in her high clear voice from a box pew in the chancel. “Boy, come over here,” she called imperiously.
    “Pippa, don’t shout!” Pen said in a scandalized whisper. “You’re in the chapel! And his name is Robin.”
    “Oh, I forgot.” Pippa clapped one hand over her mouth even as she beckoned frantically with the other one.
    Hugh could see no sign of Lady Guinevere in the box pews as they walked up the aisle to the chancel. Perhaps a guilty conscience kept her from her prayers, he thought grimly.
    “Come and sit by me,” Pippa hissed, scrunching up on the pew, heedless of the creasing of her green silk gown as she made room for Robin.
    Hugh restrained a smile. It was clear to him that Robin would infinitely prefer to sit beside the elder sister, who was smiling her own much shyer