Velvet Song Read online

  There was news that in July Judith Montgomery had borne a son and later in August Bronwyn MacArran had also been delivered of a son. The Montgomery cousins were still incensed over Stephen’s adopting the Scot’s name and ways.

  Alyx listened avidly to everything Jocelin reported to her.

  “It’s good that I’m no longer with him,” she said quietly, strumming a lute. “His family is full of ladies while I am a lawyer’s daughter. If I had stayed with him I don’t believe I could have been docile or polite to his lady-wife and she wouldn’t have wanted me near, though some of these ladies I see are coldblooded wenches. Perhaps he could have used a little warmth.”

  Jocelin tried to show her that what was different between her and the ladies could be solved with a silk dress, but Alyx wouldn’t see it. He knew she brooded not only over Raine but over the hatred of the people in the forest.

  As Alyx’s pregnancy advanced she grew quieter, more thoughtful, and she seemed much more aware of the world than she had been when he first met her. Once in a while, not often, really, she’d stop practicing to help someone do something. On the road they always traveled with a group rather than risk the highway robbers alone, and Alyx sometimes took a few children for a walk to give the mothers some peace, and once she shared her food with a toothless old beggar. Another time she prepared a meal for a man whose wife was lying under some trees giving birth to her eighth child.

  The people smiled in gratitude and as a result they’d made friends wherever they traveled. A child once gave Alyx a little bouquet of wildflowers, and there’d been tears in Alyx’s eyes.

  “These mean a great deal to me,” she’d said, clutching them tightly.

  “She was repaying you for helping her yesterday. The people here like you.” He motioned to the travelers beside them.

  “And not music,” she whispered.

  “Pardon?”

  “They like me for something besides my music. And I have given them something besides music.”

  “You have given of yourself.”

  “Oh, yes, Joss,” she laughed. “I have tried to do things that were difficult for me. Singing is so very, very easy.”

  Jocelin laughed with her. That anyone could say that music such as Alyx produced was easy was amazing.

  Now, in August, when the burden of the heavy child was dragging on her, her steps were slower and slower and Joss wished they could afford to stay in one place for a length of time.

  “Are you ready to go?” she asked, trying to heave herself upward. “We’ll make the castle by nightfall if we hurry.”

  “Stay here, Alyx,” he urged. “We have food.”

  “And miss the lady’s betrothal celebration? No, once we’re there we’ll have plenty to eat, and all we have to do is create a divine bit of music celebrating the heiress’s slender charms. I do so hope this one is pretty! The last one was so ugly I confessed the severity of the lies I sang to the priest.”

  “Alyx!” Joss said in mock chastisement. “Perhaps the lady was beautiful inside.”

  “Only you would think such a thing. Then, of course, with your face you can afford to be generous. I saw the way the ugly girl’s mother threatened to devour you. Did she make you an offer after the singing?”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  “Joss, you can’t keep cutting yourself off from people and life. Constance is dead.”

  It had taken Alyx a long time to get him to tell her about the woman he’d once loved.

  Jocelin set his jaw in such a way that Alyx knew he was refusing to speak of himself. Between them, her problems were common property while his were his own.

  “Of course, none of the women have been as lovely as Rosamund. Except for her devil’s mark, that is. That hideous thing makes it difficult to see any beauty at all. I wonder if it really is Satan’s sign.”

  Jocelin whirled on her. “It is more likely a mark of God’s favor because she is a good, kind, passionate woman.”

  “Passionate, is she?” Alyx teased as he turned away.

  “You are cruel, Alyx,” he whispered.

  “No, I only want you to see that there is no reason for you to bury yourself with me. You cannot hold yourself inside. You have so much to give, yet you stay inside yourself.”

  When he looked at her, his eyes were cold. “Raine is not here, so why don’t you find someone else to love? I’ve seen many men, from noblemen down to stable boy, give you looks. They’d take you even with your big belly. Why not marry some merchant who will give your child a home and who will make love to you every night?”

  After his attack, she was quiet for a few moments. “Forgive me, Joss. I had hoped Rosamund could replace Constance, but I see she cannot.”

  Jocelin turned away because he didn’t want Alyx to see his face. Too often in the last months the face he remembered at night was Rosamund’s, not Constance’s. Rosamund, so silent, almost apologizing for her existence, was quite often the woman he saw, not as the quiet, gentle woman he knew but as the woman who’d kissed him goodbye. For the first time since Constance’s death, a spark had shot through him. Not that there hadn’t been a few women here and there, but before he’d met Constance and since then he’d been detached, always apart from the women. Only that one brief time when he’d held Rosamund had he felt even a flicker of real desire, real interest in a woman.

  Joss took Alyx’s hand in his and together they started toward the castle that loomed ahead of them. It was an old place, one tower crumbling, and Alyx knew they’d have another drafty sleeping place. In the last months of traveling she’d learned a great deal about the nobility. Perhaps the most significant thing was that noble women had as little freedom as women anywhere. She’d seen great ladies with blackened eyes from their husband’s beatings. She’d seen weak, cowardly noblemen who were treated with contempt by their wives. There were matches of great love, couples who hated each other, households of great decadence and some based on love and respect. She’d begun to realize that nobles had problems very similar to those of the people in her own small town.

  “Daydreaming?”

  “Thinking about my home, what a protected childhood I had. I almost wish my music hadn’t set me apart from everyone else. It makes me feel as if I don’t quite belong anywhere.”

  “You belong wherever you want.”

  “Joss,” she said seriously, “I don’t deserve either you or Raine. But someday I hope I can do something worthy.”

  “Did you know you talk more like Raine every day?”

  “Good!” she laughed. “I hope I can rear his child to be even half as good as he is.”

  As they approached the old castle, they had to wait to be admitted, since there were hundreds of people entering before them. The betrothal was to join two powerful, rich households and the guests and entertainment were to be sumptuous.

  Joss kept his arm around Alyx’s shoulders as he led her through the crushing crowds.

  “Are you the singers?” a tall woman shouted down at Alyx.

  Alyx nodded up at her, awed by the dark, steelbanded hair, the richness of her gown.

  “Follow me.”

  Gratefully, Alyx and Jocelin followed her up a narrow, winding stone stairway to a large round room at the top of the tower, where several women were pacing and showing signs of agitation. In the center of the room was a young woman wailing loudly.

  “Here she is,” a woman beside Alyx said.

  Alyx looked up at an angelic face, blonde hair, blue eyes, an ethereal, delicate smile.

  “I am Elizabeth Chatworth.”

  Alyx’s eyes widened at the name, but she said nothing.

  Elizabeth continued. “I’m afraid our little bride-to-be is terrified,” she said in a tone of exasperation and disgust. “Do you think you could calm her enough so that we could get her downstairs?”

  “I will try.”

  “If you can’t, then I’ll have to put my hand to her cheek and see if that music will quieten her.”