“Julian didn’t pay me to kiss him.” Lizzy bit down on her lip and returned her gaze into the water, grateful to hear the heavy breathing of the laundress behind her. “Ye four. Fetch up your pails and take hot water to the family solar.” Grateful to detach herself from the discussion, Lizzy fell into step, mimicking their actions. She pushed thoughts of Broc and Sybil to the back of her mind and focused on her mission. With a pail of water in each hand, she followed the maids up the eastern side of the keep. Two knights guarded the family solar. The Duchess of York sat calmly in a velvetcovered settee, her ankles crossed, her hands clasped in her lap. Lizzy couldn’t stop herself from staring. She was beautiful, young, with alabaster skin that nigh glowed beneath the hint of dawn rising outside her window. A lady’s maid stood behind the duchess’s shoulder holding a bowl of toiletries, her eyes unblinking and fixed on nothingness. The maids emptied their pails into a wooden tub in the center of the solar, bowed deep before the duchess, and obediently disappeared once excused.
