Velvet Song

  “My lady,” the priest said, and it took Alyx a while to understand that he was speaking to her. “It is not the church’s place to encourage unwanted marriages. Is it your desire to marry Lord Raine?”

  She looked up at Raine’s profile, furious that he wouldn’t look at her. With two steps, she planted herself in front of him, his eyes focused somewhere over her head. Slowly, she reached out and took his hand, held it in hers. His hand was cut in several places, bloody, bruised, and as she looked down at it she knew he’d been hurt saving her. She raised it to her lips and kissed his palm, and when she looked up, his eyes were on her. For a moment they seemed to soften.

  “She will marry me,” he said as he glanced back at the priest.

  Alyx wanted to curse at him for his self-assurance and for his refusal to weaken in his anger at her. Silently, she moved back beside him and the marriage was completed, a gold ring slipped onto her finger.

  Raine gave no one time to congratulate her. “Come, Lady Alyx,” he said, fingers digging into her upper arm. “We have a great deal to discuss.”

  “Leave her alone, Raine,” Gavin said. “Can’t you see she’s tired? And besides, this is your wedding day. Rail at her some other time.”

  Raine didn’t bother to even look at his brother as he ushered Alyx from the chapel back through the courtyard and into her room. The moment the door was closed, Raine leaned against it.

  “How could you, Alyx?” he whispered. “How could you say you cared for me then put me through the last few months of hell?”

  It was very frustrating not to be able to talk. She looked about for a pen and paper but remembered Raine couldn’t read.

  “Do you know what it’s been like the last few months?” He tossed his helmet on the bed. “For years I’ve searched for a woman I could love. A woman with courage and honor. A woman who wasn’t afraid of me or after money or land. A woman who made me think.”

  He began unbuckling the leather straps that held his armor in place, tossing piece after piece in a heap on the bed. “First you drive me nearly insane in those tight hose, flipping about in front of me, looking up at me with big eyes so full of hunger you frightened me.”

  With one movement, he pushed all the armor to the side, sat down on the edge of the bed and began unfastening his leg coverings. Alyx knelt before him and helped. Raine leaned back on his elbows, never stopping his tirade.

  “When I found you were a female I had a fever and wasn’t sure I wasn’t dreaming, yet that night I found more joy than I ever had. There was no coyness about you, no holding back, just exuberance, pleasure given, pleasure received. Later I was furious at you for having played such an ugly trick on me, but I forgave you.”

  He said the last as if he were the most magnanimous person alive, ignoring Alyx’s look of disgust as he raised his leg for her to unbuckle the second leg sheath.

  A knock on the door made him pause. Several servants, dressed more costly than Alyx had ever been, entered the room bearing a large oak tub and several buckets of steamy hot water.

  “Put it there,” Raine said distractedly.

  Standing, Alyx watched the procession with disbelief. A tub full of hot water, brought by servants and set before them as if they were royalty. Never in her life had she had a full, hot bath. In Moreton she’d bathed from a basin and in the forest there’d been the icy stream.

  “What is it, Alyx?” Raine asked when they were alone again. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

  Silently, she pointed at the steaming tub.

  “You want to bathe first? Go ahead.”

  Cautiously, she knelt by the tub, put her hands into the water and smiled up at Raine as he began to remove the leather padding he’d worn under his armor.

  “Don’t try to distract me,” he said a little too sweetly. “I am still considering blistering your behind. Do you know how I felt after I found you with Jocelin?”

  She looked away from him, remembering the hurt in his eyes that night.

  “It took me years to find you, then to have you tell me your . . . your music meant more than I did. Close your mouth! You did in effect say that. You know, Alyx, I rather like your not being able to talk. My brother wouldn’t believe that a little thing like you could outshout fifty grown men. I offered for him to put some money on his big mouth, but he declined.

  “Alyx,” he warned, “don’t look so offended. You have no right to be offended. No! I am the one who’s gone through hell these last months. I never knew where you were, how many men you were sleeping with.”

  At that, she sent him a look of blackness.

  “You were the one who made me believe you lacked virtue—that is the kindest way I can say it. At camp I drove the people nearly insane. Some of them rebelled and refused to go near the training field.”

  He frowned for a moment at the way she was pointing at him. “I spent a great deal of time there, if that’s what you mean. I was trying to wear myself out so I wouldn’t remember you and Joss.”

  Alyx narrowed her eyes at him, used her hands to form a large curving mound over her chest.

  “Oh, Blanche,” he said, understanding so easily that Alyx hissed at him. “It would serve you right if I had invited her into my bed, but after you I wanted no other woman. Damn you, Alyx! Stop looking so pleased with yourself. I was miserable while you were gone.”

  She pointed at herself and all her love showed in her eyes.

  He looked away and his voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “I nearly killed Joss when he came to me. I refused to see him and the guards wouldn’t let him pass, but he knows his way about the forest too well. One night I’d had a little too much to drink and when I woke in the morning Joss was sitting on a stool by my bed. It took a while before I would listen to him.”

  Alyx heard the understatement in his words and rolled her eyes so exaggeratedly that Raine pointedly ignored her.

  “I can tell you that it didn’t help my sore head any to hear of Pagnell’s capture of you, nor that the loathsome man planned to set a trap for me.”

  Alyx, sitting by the tub, reached up and grabbed Raine’s hand. He wore only a loincloth now. To think that he had risked his life for her.

  “Alyx,” he said softly, kneeling before her. “Don’t you realize yet that I love you? Of course I’d come for you.”

  She tried to show him, with her hands and expressions, how she’d worried about Pagnell harming him.

  “What?” Raine said, standing. “You thought I didn’t know about the trap?” He was obviously insulted. “You thought some mosquito like Pagnell could maneuver a Montgomery into his clutches?”

  With a swift gesture, he tore off the loincloth and stepped into the tub. “The day a bit of filth like that—Alyx, you didn’t really believe that Pagnell—?”

  She threw up her hands, bowing before him with mock humility.

  “Well, perhaps you should be forgiven. You don’t know what the man is like. Maybe to you all noblemen are alike.”

  Now she was the one insulted. By “you” he meant people of her class, lowlings who believed in witches and the goodness of the King, who thought the trials were honest and fair and other stupid things. She slammed her fist into the water, splashing it into Raine’s face.

  He grabbed her wrist. “Now what was that for? Here I’ve forgiven you for leaving me, saved your skin from a fire and married you and you aren’t even grateful.”

  Oh how very, very much she wished she could talk. She’d tell him in a voice that’d pin his ears back that she left him to keep him safe from the King’s wrath and she was facing being burned because she carried his child. As for marrying her, he’d no doubt done it out of his stupid sense of honor.

  “I don’t like what you’re thinking,” he said, pulling her closer to him. “Gavin laughed at me when I said you’d be grateful for what I’d done. He said women never reacted the way they should, I mean with logic. Now what have I done?”

  She’d doubled her fist and t
hreatened to smack him in the nose.

  “Alyx, you really are trying my patience. Don’t you have even one kind thought for me? I’ve been through an awful couple of days. I had to scale that tower wall at night, kill the guard on the roof and put on his armor, all so quietly the other man wouldn’t hear me.”

  As he held both her wrists, she could feel herself melting. No matter that it was his fault that she was facing being burned; he had risked a great deal to rescue her.

  “Aren’t you pleased with me just a little?” he murmured against her lips. “Aren’t you just a little bit glad to be married to me?”

  As Alyx felt her body dissolving, disappearing under his strong will, she wasn’t aware of how he was pulling her across the tub. With a great loud splash, he pulled her onto his lap, water sloshing over the sides.

  “Now I have you,” he laughed as she tried to sit up. “Now I’ll make you pay for your lack of gratitude.” He laughed again as Alyx tried to protest, her voice croaking, but as he began to kiss her, she forgot about speaking.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ALYX’S ARMS WENT about Raine’s neck and all thoughts of anger were gone. It had been so long since she’d seen him, and her hunger for him was overwhelming. Eagerly, she pulled him closer to her, her mouth clinging to his, her tongue invading his mouth, seeking as much of him as she could reach.

  “Alyx,” he whispered into her hair, and there were tears in his voice. “I saw you as I went up the wall, sitting alone in that tower room, crying softly, so little, so sad. Right then I wanted to kill all the guards, but I knew I couldn’t rely on the men from the forest to help me. If my brothers had been free, I would have tried it, but I wouldn’t risk injuring you.”

  Her head came up at the mention of brothers. Elizabeth!

  “What is it, Alyx? What’s wrong?”

  She tried to get out the word “Elizabeth,” but it was unintelligible. After several more attempts she managed to say “Miles.”

  “Did you meet my little brother? No, you couldn’t have. He’s been on the Isle of Wight. After Mary . . . died, Miles nearly went crazy and Gavin persuaded him to go visit Uncle Simon. He left the Isle a few weeks ago.”

  Raine was puzzled at Alyx’s vigorous shaking of her head. Miles, she kept mouthing. “Has something happened to Miles? Is he in danger?”

  Alyx nodded yes, and before she had made one more nod, Raine was out of the tub, Alyx under his arm. Hastily, he set her down, wrapped a cloak around her and pulled on his loincloth. “We’ll go see Gavin and you can write what you have to say.”

  Alyx’s face was red the instant they left their room. She wore only a wet sheath under the cloak while Raine wore practically nothing as he pulled her through the holy monastery. They found Gavin in the stables.

  “You aren’t ready to ride so soon, are you, brother?” he teased. “Surely your bride deserves some attention.”

  Raine ignored his jibe. “Alyx says Miles is in trouble. She’ll write for you what’s happened.”

  Gavin’s face immediately turned serious. “Come to the monk’s study.”

  He led the way with such long strides that Alyx would not have been able to keep up if Raine hadn’t grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him. He’d better enjoy this time while she had no voice, she thought.

  The monk in the study protested a woman’s presence, but the men ignored him.

  “Here!” Gavin said, thrusting paper, pen and ink before her.

  It took her several minutes to write the story of Pagnell’s tying of Elizabeth Chatworth and his plan to deliver her to Miles. Raine and Gavin hung over her shoulder until her palms began to sweat.

  “Elizabeth Chatworth,” Gavin said, “I thought she was still a child.”

  Alyx shook her head.

  “What does she look like?” Raine asked seriously.

  Alyx’s expression was enough to make them understand.

  “The King isn’t going to like this,” Gavin said. “He has placed a heavy fine on the Chatworth estates and ordered Roger away from all Montgomery land.”

  “Land!” Raine shouted. “Is that all you care about? Chatworth kidnapped Bronwyn and killed Mary. What does it take to make you consider people instead of land?”

  “I care more for my brothers than any land. What will happen if Miles rapes this Chatworth girl? It will look as if we are disobeying the King, and who will suffer then? You! He will never pardon you and you will have to spend your life in that forest with that army of cutthroats. And how will the King punish Miles? By outlawing him, too? I’m worried about losing two of my brothers because of Pagnell’s nasty tricks.”

  Raine was still glaring at his brother while Alyx looked at Gavin with new respect.

  “It’s been days,” Raine said finally. “I’d put my life on it that the girl is virgin no longer, and I’ll wager that Miles raped no one. Perhaps if he knew who she was, he released her, and all we can do is pray she doesn’t bear his child.”

  Gavin’s snort said a great deal. “I’ll take half my men and leave now and try to find Miles. Maybe I can talk some sense into him. Perhaps the girl’s fallen in love with him and won’t demand his head.”

  Alyx grabbed Gavin’s arm and shook her head vigorously. Elizabeth Chatworth was never going to fall in love with a Montgomery in less than a fortnight.

  “A hellion, is she?” Gavin asked, then paused and raised Alyx’s hand to his lips. “Raine is going to take you home and you’ll meet my Judith. I’m sorry your wedding has been such a hurried affair. When this is all settled we’ll give a tournament in your honor.”

  Still holding her hand, he looked back at his brother. “You’ll be safe at the Montgomery castle for a while. Take her there, let her rest. You haven’t seen my son yet, either. And buy her some clothes!”

  Alyx was sure Raine would take offense at Gavin’s tone, but Raine was smiling. “It’s good to see you again, brother,” he said softly, his arms open. The brothers clasped each other fiercely for a long moment.

  “Give Miles my best and try to keep him out of trouble,” Raine smiled. “And when he returns he can meet my wife.”

  With one flashing grin, Gavin left them.

  Raine turned back to Alyx. Her cloak had fallen open and the damp gown clung to her. “Now, if I remember correctly, we were just starting something when my little brother’s problems interrupted us.”

  Alyx took a step away from him, gesturing toward the room they were in.

  With a laugh, Raine swept her into his arms, carried her through the courtyard and back to their room. Heedless of the piles of dirty armor on the bed, he tossed her in the midst of it and in one gesture stretched out on top of her.

  “Will I hurt the child?” he murmured, biting her earlobe. Her headshaking was so vigorous that he gave a warm, seductive laugh as his hand trailed downward and pulled at the linen gown. The coarse, poorly sewn garment came away from her body with one easy tear.

  Alyx had never been very proud of her body, always wishing for more curves, but now, bloated with child as she was, she didn’t want him to see her in daylight. Her attempts to cover herself were brushed away by Raine.

  Moving off her, he kissed her stomach, caressed it. “It’s my child who distorts you, and I love it as well as his mother.”

  “Daughter?” she managed to say, hurting her raw throat.

  “I only ask for your safety and, if God wills, the life of the child. I would love to have a daughter. With you for a mother, Bronwyn and Judith for aunts, I will gladly leave her all my estates. I’m sure she’ll run them better than I do.”

  She tried to speak again, but he didn’t let her as he began kissing her neck again. When she felt him remove his loincloth, knew his skin was next to hers, she forgot her worries about how she looked.

  She had no idea how much she’d missed him physically, how much she needed the caress of his hands. He touched her body all over, running his hard fingertips over her skin from toes to head, making her feel che
rished, loved. Even now when she could feel the power of his hunger for her, he took his time, loved her, touched her.

  She lay on her back, eyes closed, her arms lightly about his neck as he ran his hands over her. When he touched her inner thighs, she opened her eyes, met his and the deep, dark blue piercing through her made chills run along her spine. The power of this man, the strength, the size of him, all held in leash as he fondled her, excited her horribly.

  With an upward thrust of her body, she pressed against him, kissed his mouth hungrily, making him laugh deeply as he rolled onto his back and pulled her on top of him. The armor surrounding them clanged and a couple of pieces fell to the floor.

  Alyx ran her teeth down Raine’s neck, her hands sinking into the mass of muscle of his upper arms. Glorious! she thought, such a magnificent, splendid man—and all hers!

  The laughter that came from her burned throat wasn’t pretty, but the deep, raspy quality of it was seductive. She ran her thumb down Raine’s ribs so hard he pushed her arm away as he sought her mouth. But Alyx applied her thumb to his other side, laughed again when he twisted away from her.

  “Hellion!” he murmured, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her head back as he lifted his head and bit into her stomach.

  Gasping, Alyx brought her feet forward, attempted to get away from him. Raine caught her left foot and proceeded to bite each one of her toes. The sensation that ran up her made her stop all movement.

  She lay on top of him, stretched out, her feet in his face, his in hers. Two can play this game, she thought as she raked her teeth across the soft underpad of Raine’s toes. She was quite pleased to feel him jump beneath her, and another piece of armor went crashing to the floor.

  Raine’s arms, longer than hers, slid up the sides of her legs, caressing and kneading so provocatively that after a moment she could think of nothing else but his hands on her body.

  She began to tremble, shiver, and her skin seemed as hot as when the fire had been licking at her back.