Read Online Lost Innocents (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 3) by Denise Domning - Free Book Online Page B

the tightness of her arms, it was clear she resisted his suggestion with all her might. Faucon recognized the moment she gave way as her shoulders reluctantly sagged.
    "By your reckoning, sir, I will admit that I cannot say for certain it was Odger," she conceded. "But if not him, then who?" she demanded, her voice raised to a higher, wounded pitch.
    Then she shook her head and cried, "But it's not who did the deed that cuts me the deepest each time I think on what happened that night. Why did I let myself drink until my head spun? Then, when he attacked, why did I do nothing to protect myself? I should have screamed as I'd done that first time! Why, when he was finished, did I not leap up to chase after him, raising the hue and cry? That night left my life in ruins and I still don't know why I didn't move to save myself. Why, why, why?" she finished, her words dissolving into an aching silence that lasted until she gave an outraged huff.
    "Do you know what I did instead? Coward that I am, when I could at last find the will to move, I crawled into the darkest corner of the barn. There I crouched, emptying my gullet as I gasped and cried like some dying fish, even though I bled not nor had any bruise. Try as I might and despite how dearly I longed to be home and safe within familiar walls, I couldn't stand, so terribly did my arms and legs tremble. I was certain he yet lurked in the dark along the way, waiting to use me again. Even when first light came, my heart pounded in terror as I raced along familiar paths in the newborn light. And, still I quaked and wept, certain that I would be taken again at every corner."
    She shuddered at the memory, then turned her hooded gaze to her daughter's corpse. With a finger, she outlined the girl's brow and followed the line of Jessimond's nose to its tip. "For years there'd been no life in my womb, but on that night and in that one instance, a seed took root. If you wish me to say right now that not even his daughter's face proves that Odger did the deed, I would agree. In all ways, Jessimond was mine and mine alone, and I cherished her for that, despite the manner of her coming and what it cost me."
    Once again, Edmund shifted, this time sighing as he did. The sound was unexpectedly sad. Amelyn must have heard the monk for she looked up at him as she continued.
    "Odger never repeated his attack," she said, her voice firmer than necessary, as if she yet struggled with her Crowner's suggestion that it might not have been the bailiff who misused her. "If there's a cause for that, I think it most likely because he had expected me to be barren. Instead, I'd come easily with child.
    "Still, taking me that night didn't sate Odger's need to destroy me for my earlier defiance. Once Jessimond passed her first saint's day, proving that she was hale and in all ways unlike Johnnie, our bailiff called everyone to that door." Amelyn indicated the front of the crumbling manor house. Entrance was by way of a small oaken door that looked heavier than the wall in which it was set. The door stood a little bit above the ground with a narrow porch in front of it, accessed by a single wooden step.
    "There, and in front of all my friends and neighbors, Odger did as he had done when he called Tom to claim our Tilly. He shouted for the one who had made Jessimond in me to step forward. And just as Odger had known would happen this time—" she once more shifted, turning her hooded gaze toward Faucon, then insisted "—because he was the one who had done the deed, no man took that step. Then, Odger demanded that I provide the name of Jessimond's father so that man could be forced to claim and support his child."
    This time when her hooded head moved, it was clear that she addressed the oldster. "What could I say? There was no point in telling a tale of rape that had happened at an ale almost two years' prior. No woman can cry misuse so long after the deed. Odger would only have denied all, and every one of you