Page 48 of The Thornwyck Rose

“Come, milady, the hearth is warm, and your bed is ready.” Seren walked to the edge, and Margot hesitated before she reached for Seren’s robes.

“What is it?” Seren asked.

Margot chewed her lip. “I have many secrets, milady. Will you keep one?”

“Of course, Margot.”

Though Seren wondered if Margot was worth trusting. Was this also a test?

Margot waved Seren over to her and Isolde’s alcove.

Seren followed, but found it empty.

“Where is Isolde?”

Margot wrung her hands and spoke quickly in a hush. “Lord Henry called her. He likes her fair hair. I can’t trust her. I never know what she tells him. But she cannot refuse the lord or risk her life.”

The pit opened. She was not so selfish as to believe her lord husband would only take his wife to bed, but his wife’s personal handmaid? The man knew no boundaries—a pious man, indeed not.

Seren looked around the small alcove with the double cots on the floor and shelves between them, filled with the few belongings of her handmaids.

Seren’s lips parted. It must have been Isolde who spoke of the garden, but if she were truly a spy, then she would have told Henry the entire conversation between her and Erik. It seemed Henry only knew of the kingcups. Maybe she was truly asleep and only half-listening, or maybe, as Margot said, she had to say something to keep herself safe.

“Is this what you wanted to show me, Margot?” Seren asked.

Margot reached behind the tapestry at the base of the wall. With a sharp tug, the fabric pulled aside to reveal a stone alcove, and beyond it, the faint black slit of an abyss.

“I found this while sweeping when Isolde was with Lord Henry and you were asleep with child,” Margot said.

“A passage?” Seren whispered.

Margot nodded again. “It runs between the lady’s chambers and the nursery—it opens behind the tapestry in our alcove. I think it was used long ago, before the upper hall was built. It’s not lit, but it’s dry.”

Margot struck flint and lit a stub of wax. The flame threw a trembling glow over the narrow spiral staircase. Seren peeked in. Wooden walls, moss-lined and uneven, stoodwhere stone should have been, with cobwebs crowding the ceiling beams like lace.

Seren shivered, the wool shawl not enough to fend off the chill. But she kept peering in, one hand braced against the wall. No one had used this staircase in years, maybe decades. And yet, an appreciation bloomed in her chest. It was a place unseen and unwatched. It wasn’t an escape, but it was a start.

“This is my secret, now yours,” Margot said. “No one comes here.”

The air was heavy with old dust, the smell of forgotten years. Seren breathed it in like freedom.

“Do you think Lord Henry knows of it?” Seren asked.

Margot shook her head. “His nursery was where Commander de Montfort sleeps now. He grew up on the top floor, never used the nursery, never went into his mother’s room. It seems it was overlooked when Castel Thornwyck was remade in stone.”

Seren turned and looked Margot in the eyes. “The prior wives, did they know it?”

Margot shook her head.

“I was warned not to trust anyone, Margot, for just one person could end my life.”

Margot immediately dipped her chin.

“Milady, I have many secrets, and many of them I will take to my grave. I know Lord Henry likes to test, but I would rather die than see you murdered. I found this and showed it to you because I know how much you love your children, and if Lord Henry knows, it was not of my doing.”

Seren lifted Margot’s chin and smiled at her. She drew her into an embrace. “I believe you. I trust you.”

“Milady, you are so good to me. I will be yours until the Lord calls me home,” Margot said, squeezing Seren. “But do not let Lord Henry know of my loyalty to you, or he will replace me. He replaced the last one with Isolde when she cried when he made her stand aside while her lady died after the stillbirth.”