ROOK AND RAVEN: The Celtic Kingdom Trilogy Book One by Julie Harvey Delcourt Page A

But I do, oh I do .  I don’t want to!  I hate him at the same time.  What’s wrong with me?  What is going to happen when he finds out about-“
    Nanny cut her off.
    “You always knew there was a very strong chance he would come back one day.  I should have taken a stronger hand at the time.  It’s a right cock-up and no mistake about it.  When your husband made it clear that you were not to be following through on what were the reasons for your marriage, we all went into a panic. Not that it has been a bad arrangement.  I want to know now, and what is most important, is how does the Earl of Redsayle feel about you?  Besides the obvious,” and Jessy didn’t see her lips quirk as she spied the small bite mark on her girl’s collar bone.
    “Oh how should I know,” she sighed with exasperation.
    “You’re a woman now.  Give me a real answer,” Nanny demanded.
    “As you surmised from my hair, it’s clear that he wants me.  It’s unfortunately not one sided either.  Beyond that?  I truly don’t know.  He’s so much the same and yet something has changed about him.  I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there.  I used to think I understood him, but I haven’t been sure about that in a long time.”
    “I think you understood each other just fine, two halves of the same coin I always said. Anyone seeing you two together would have had to be blind not to see you suit each other like bread and jam.  It was that witch of a mother of his we all underestimated.”
    “She always seemed so kind and she was mother’s friend.”
    “Hah!  The way a spider is friend to the fly?  The Dowager Lady Redsayle is a piece of work and, make no mistake, she was never your mother’s friend.”
    “How can you say that? She was forever at the house and seemed so caring for mama.”
    “Ever heard the expression keep your friends close but your enemies closer? I think some Italian might have said that.  Sounds like something an Italian would say anyway,” she mused. “Your mama didn’t exactly know what that woman was, but she had her suspicions.  Your Sebastian is a wild one, but not a bad one like his mother, no matter how hard she tried to make him in her image.  What all these years in Celtica have made of him I can’t say but, he had a good heart and I hope they didn’t manage to poison it.”
    “It used to hurt me that you were never angry at him like I was.”
    “Grant me a little more experience of life than you young ones.  That boy loved you, really loved you but he was hardly more than a boy. He was always too much under his mother’s thumb.  How do we know what she did to make him leave?  I always felt he was judged too hastily.  A boy who rescues wet kittens, writes bad poetry, and helps build a tree house for a girl who always wanted one, a boy who would wake you up at dawn and sneak you out to see the first daffodils is not a bad boy.  I have a hard time seeing him turn into a bad man.  He just has those wicked dark looks and tried hard to make people think he was bad.  He was a good lad,” she said with certainty as she plaited
    Jessy’s long hair for the night.
    “I worried something fierce about him when he disappeared but then I had you to worry me sick too right after.  Between the two of you I aged a decade in a matter of few weeks. I lost my last bit of hair with any color.  You two turned me white.  I just want you to consider he might have had his reasons.  If you are wise, you’ll take the time to find out his side of the story and put that temper aside.” 
    Nanny turned her about and with a damp cloth removed any last vestiges of cosmetics with rather more vigor than necessary.  When it suited her, Birdie could make her feel about five years old again. The idea that any reason could justify leaving her worried and abandoned raised Jessy’s ire.  She hadn’t unpacked her bag for two weeks!  She hadn’t believed he could leave her without a word, until