Unmarked: My Mate Refused, The Alpha King Didn't novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Tea

The Moot sat again at first light, and nobody in the hall had slept.

Lavinia stood in the middle of the floor with her hands folded over her belly.

My father stood across from her, gray in the face, his hands in iron.

"I never wrote that girl a word," he said. "Not one."

"He sent his note by a maid," Lavinia said sweetly. "I burned it, as he told me to."

"You can't show a burned note," the presiding elder said.

"No, Elder. I can only tell the truth."

I watched her cry, and it was very good crying.

Then Pippa walked in through the great doors with a stooped man in a Stanmore apron at her side.

"I had riders out all night," she said. "He was asleep in the Stanmore kitchen."

The man twisted his cap in his hands.

"You brewed Lady Stanmore's tea at the Stanmore hall?" the elder asked him.

"Yes, Elder. For eight months. From the herbs the mistress gave me."

"Which mistress?"

He pointed at Lavinia.

"Miss Cray told me it was a calming blend for the wife's nerves," he said. "She had me add a pinch of moonbloom, every day, and put more in when the wife looked well."

A gasp ran around the tiers.

Lavinia's smile didn't move.

"He's confused," she said. "He's an old man."

"Who paid you for the moonbloom?" the elder asked.

"The young master signed for it at the apothecary himself," the cook said. "I carried the receipt."

He pulled out a crumpled slip and held it up.

Jasper's name was on it, in his own loopy hand.

The hall went silent.

Jasper's face drained so fast I thought he would fall over.

"I didn't know what it was," he said. "She said it was a sleeping tonic. Elders, it was her, she did it all! I only signed where she told me!"

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