Velvet Song

  “For the reason I said: he wants to train with you. The King won’t like your training one nobleman to fight another. And what is this I hear of your raising an army of criminals to overthrow the King?”

  Raine guffawed at this idea. “What liar told you this?”

  “Pagnell of Waldenham told King Henry this. Hadn’t you heard? I thought Alyx came to warn you of this. The King’s ears are being filled with lies against the Montgomerys.”

  “Alyx hasn’t seen fit to warn me,” Raine said.

  “And I’m sure you sat down and asked her nicely why she deserted her child and the comfort of Gavin’s house to come live near you in this cold forest.”

  “I neither need nor want your interference in my life.”

  Stephen shrugged. “I remember a few kicks I received when Bronwyn and I had problems.”

  “And now all is sweetness and light with you, is it?” Raine asked, one eyebrow raised.

  Stephen cleared his throat. “We do have . . . ah, a few disagreements now and then, but generally she learns the true way.”

  “I’d like to hear Bronwyn’s version of that,” Raine said before changing the subject. “Have you seen Miles?”

  Stephen was saved from answering by the appearance of Alyx bearing a tray, Joan behind her with a second tray. Stephen didn’t want to tell Raine that his problem with women was mild compared to Miles’s.

  As soon as Alyx realized that Joan was going to make a fool of herself over Stephen, she sent the maid out. The meal was an awkward one, the first Raine and Alyx had shared since she returned to the forest. Stephen did nearly all the talking, entertaining them with stories of Scotland.

  “And you should see my son,” Stephen boasted. “Already Tam has taken him riding and he can’t really sit up yet. You and I weren’t on a horse until we could walk. And how is your daughter, Alyx?”

  For the first time in two weeks Alyx let herself think completely about her daughter. “She is strong,” she said dreamily, “short and healthy with a lusty cry that made Judith’s son cry, too.”

  “Protective of his cousin, no doubt,” Stephen said. “She has your eyes.”

  “You saw her?” Alyx came off her stool. “When? Was she healthy? Had she grown any?”

  “I doubt if she’s changed much since you’ve seen her, but I agree about her voice. Do you think she’ll be able to sing?” He turned to Raine. “She has those dimples you got from Mother’s family.”

  “I must see to the camp.” Raine stood so suddenly he nearly upset the food Alyx had brought. Quickly, he left the tent.

  “He’ll come around,” Stephen said confidently, smiling at Alyx’s tearing eyes.

  * * *

  Alyx tried not to think of Raine’s constant anger and instead turned her attentions to Brian Chatworth. He was a miserable young man, his eyes black with a deep, burning hatred, and he never smiled nor seemed to find pleasure in anything. Alyx could not persuade him to talk or to confide in her about any subject. Her questions about where he’d been for the last several months since Mary’s death were met by silence.

  Alyx gave up after a while and left him to the men on the training field. As for Raine, he neither looked at nor spoke to the boy and spent most of his time with Stephen.

  After Stephen had been in camp for three days, Joan came to Alyx.

  “I think they’re fighting,” Joan said excitedly.

  “Who? Not Raine and Brian Chatworth?”

  Joan’s voice was impatient. “Of course not! Lord Raine and Lord Stephen have gone deeper into the forest, and one of the guards has reported loud voices coming from there. Everyone’s planning to go and watch.”

  “You will not!” Alyx said, pushing past her maid and out into the cool air. “Jocelin,” she shouted when she saw her friend. “Stop them. Leave Raine in private. And you,” she turned to Joan. “Help keep the men in camp. Do what you must. But nothing lewd,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried forward.

  Jocelin enlisted the aid of some ex-soldiers to help him while some of the wounded helped Alyx, and Joan had her own methods of making men obey her. Together they managed to keep the camp people away from where Raine and Stephen were having their “discussion.”

  “They’re just settin’ now,” said a guard as he was replaced by someone else.

  Alyx walked away, not wanting to hear any more of the facts. Raine was so much heavier than his brother, obviously so much stronger. Stephen couldn’t possibly win a fight between them, and Alyx prayed Raine would hold back and not truly hurt his slim brother.

  At sundown, Alyx took the water buckets to the river, hoping to escape the gleeful voices of the people in the camp. They were all huddled about campfires listening to the guards with rapt attention.

  She stood beside the river, motionless, glad for the quiet, when a sound made her whirl. Coming toward her, walking heavily, wearily, was Raine. Perhaps she should have listened to the people’s comments so she would have been prepared for her first sight of him. The left side of his face was swollen and turning purple. There were bruises on his jaw, his eye a flamboyant mixture of unnatural colors.

  “Raine,” she whispered, making him look up and away from her as he knelt by the water. She forgot any memories of anger between them but ran to him, knelt beside him. “Let me see,” she said.

  Docilely he turned his head to her and she placed cool fingers on his misshapen face. Without a word, she raised her skirt, tore away linen petticoat, dipped it in cold water and touched his face.

  “Tell me all of it,” she said in a half-command. “What sort of club did Stephen use on your face?”

  It was a long moment before Raine spoke. “His fist.”

  Alyx paused in her washing of Raine’s face. “But a knight—” she began. She’d heard Raine shout a hundred times about how unchivalrous, how unmanly it was to fight with one’s hands. Many honorable men had died rather than lose their honor by using their fists.

  “Stephen has learned some strange ways in Scotland,” Raine said. “He says there is more than one way to fight.”

  “And no doubt you stood there like a great ox and let him beat you rather than do an unknightly thing such as hit his face in return?”

  “I tried!” Raine said, then winced and calmed himself. “He danced about like a woman.”

  “Don’t insult my sex. No woman did this to your face.”

  “Alyx.” He grabbed her wrist. “Have you no feeling for me? Will you always side with others against me?”

  She took his face gently in her hands, her eyes searching his. “I have loved you since the first moment I saw you. Even then, when I had planned to hate you, I was drawn to you. I fought against loving you, but it was as if some great power controlled me and I had no say in what I did. Don’t you realize that I’m always on your side? That day at the fair if you’d killed Roger Chatworth you could have been hanged. I pretended to bed Jocelin to keep you from leaving the safety of the forest. What more can I do to prove my loyalty and love?”

  He pulled away from her. “Perhaps it’s your methods I don’t like. Why can’t you tell me what you’re doing? Why must you fight me all the time?”

  “Fighting is the only way you’ll listen to me,” she said in exasperation. “I told you you could not leave the forest when the people accused me of stealing, but you wouldn’t listen. I told you not to kill Roger Chatworth, but you stood there like a bull with veins standing out on your neck.” Her voice was rising.

  “I don’t know who unmans me most—my brother or you.”

  His tone was so little-boy, feel-sorry-for-himself that Alyx tried not to laugh. “What did you and Stephen quarrel about?”

  Raine rubbed his jaw. “Stephen suggested I consider that perhaps you weren’t disloyal when you saved Chatworth’s miserable life.”

  Raine turned and looked at her. “Have I been wrong? Have I treated you very badly? Is there any love in your heart left for me?”

  She touched his chee
k. “I will always love you. I sometimes think I was born loving you.”

  A single dimple appeared in his cheek and she caught her breath as she thought he was going to pull her into his arms. Instead, he reached under his doublet and rummaged in his pocket. “Perhaps I can purchase a smile or two,” he said as he dangled the Lyon belt before her eyes.

  “My belt!” she gasped. “How did you find it? I thought it was lost forever. Oh, Raine!” She threw her arms around him and began kissing his face so enthusiastically that she caused him great pain, but he didn’t mind.

  “You are the best husband,” she whispered, kissing his neck. “Oh, Raine, how I have missed you.”

  She didn’t say anymore because his hands twisted in her hair and pulled her head backward as his lips came down on hers. Alyx was sure she would burst apart into little pieces. She catapulted all her weight against him, and as he was in a precarious position, he fell backward, caught himself, then changed positions on her mouth and let himself fall, pulling Alyx with him.

  Mouths attached, they rolled sideways, then changed directions, and in one quick movement landed themselves in the icy river water, Alyx on bottom.

  “Raine!” Alyx screeched in pain as his heavy body rolled atop her arm, scraping it against a rock. “You’re breaking me!” Already, her teeth were beginning to chatter.

  “It would be small payment for what you’ve done to me,” he said, lying in the water as if it were a feather bed. “Before I met you my life was peaceful and calm. Now my own brother beats me.”

  “Which you deserved!” she spat. “It’s the only way to make you listen. Now let me up and let me get dry before I freeze to death.”

  “I know a way to keep you warm.” He began to nuzzle her neck.

  “You great stupid boar,” she yelled into his ear, making him move away and shake his head to clear the ringing. “I’m cold and wet, and if you don’t let me up I’ll bring the whole camp to my rescue.”

  “You think they’d come to rescue you or would they side with me?”

  She pushed at him. “They wouldn’t recognize you with your great purple face.”

  He chuckled at that and easily moved off her. “You look good, Alyx,” he said, his eyes alight, looking at her wet dress, which clung to her.

  Alyx put her arms behind her and started to push herself up and found the wet dress to be very heavy. With another chuckle, Raine stood, lifted her and started toward the darkest part of the forest.

  “The camp is that way,” she pointed.

  “Alyx, someone should teach you that you shouldn’t always give orders. Perhaps you are right now and then, but sometimes you should listen and leave the commands to the men.”

  “I have to do what is right, and if you need to be saved from yourself, I will,” she said arrogantly.

  “You are leading up to a paddling such as you’ve never had before—if you’ve ever had one, which I doubt. That priest who trained you should have applied a lute to the bottom half of you now and again and perhaps you’d have a little humility.”

  “I have as much humility as you do,” she said, watching him. “If you do foolish things, am I to stand aside and not raise my voice?”

  “Alyx, you are going too far,” he warned.

  “And how will you punish me for speaking the truth?”

  “Not in a way that you’ll like.”

  “How can you threaten me after all I’ve done for you? I’ve saved you from Roger Chatworth. I was nearly burned at the stake because the judges wanted your lands. I left with Jocelin to keep you safe in the forest.”

  Raine grabbed her shoulders and held her at arms’ length, her feet off the ground. One half of his face was swollen purple, but the other half was red with rage. “You’ve gone too far,” he said through his teeth.

  Before Alyx could take a breath, Raine had seated himself on a stump, pulled Alyx across his lap, bottom end up and tossed her skirts over her head. He gave her one strong, painful whack across her buttocks.

  “You were not tried as a witch because of me,” he said. “You had your quarrel with Pagnell before I ever met you.”

  Alyx didn’t have a chance to answer as Raine smacked her bottom again. “True, I was angry and perhaps should not have ordered Chatworth to be killed, but as we were in a secluded place, who would have known to tell the King? I am not as stupid as you seem to think and would not have left the body near my brother’s estate.”

  Again, his hand came down. “I don’t like having my orders countermanded and especially not before my men. Is that clear?” Again he punctuated this with a blow.

  Alyx, tears in her eyes, nodded silently.

  “Good! Now, as for you and Jocelin, I don’t like games and jests at which I’m the butt. It hurt too much to see you with another man, and later when I found out it’d all been a trick, as if I were a dunce to be made a fool of, I could have killed you. And you risked the life of my daughter with your stupid jests.”

  A very hard blow hit her. “You nearly lost my daughter to the fire as well as to the hazards of the road while you and Jocelin wandered about the country. I want no more of it, Alyx.” He struck her again. “Do you understand me? You are my wife and you damn well better start acting like it.”

  With one more painful spank, he pushed her off his lap.

  Alyx sat up, wincing with pain when her bottom hit the forest floor. There were so many tears in her eyes that she could hardly focus.

  Raine stood, towering above her. “When you’re through sulking,” he said, “come back to the tent and I’ll make love to you so passionately you’ll forget who you are.” With that, he walked away from her.

  For a moment, Alyx sat staring after him, then she closed her mouth and stood. No sulking in the world was worth missing a bout of lovemaking. As quickly as her stiff legs could carry her, she ran after Raine.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ALYX LAY ON her back on Raine’s cot, a bare leg dangling over the edge, one soft leather shoe hooked over two happy toes. All of her was immensely happy, from toes up to the roots of her hair. Raine had made good his promise. All last night he’d been insatiable, never letting her sleep, tossing her around like a rag doll. She’d be on top, then on bottom, then he’d stretch her sideways and pull her between his legs. One minute he was sweet and gentle, the next fierce, driving, and the next he’d be almost bored, as if he’d forgotten she was there. At those times Alyx would do something naughty to get his attention back to her. His sensuous laugh would make her aware that he was manipulating her and was far away from being bored.

  The sun was coming up when she finally pleaded with him to halt. He’d merely kissed her nose, smiled lopsidedly with his battered face, rose, washed, dressed and left the tent. Alyx settled her sore, bruised, exhausted body to a few hours’ sleep.

  Now, awake at last, she lay still, humming to herself and remembering last night.

  “Looks like you finally learned what to do with a man,” Joan said, slipping inside the tent. “I wondered if all the brothers were as good as Lord Miles. It looks like you think so. Did you know you were smiling in your sleep?”

  “Be quiet, you insolent woman,” Alyx said in such a friendly way that Joan only laughed.

  “You’d better get up. Lord Stephen has had some news from Scotland and he’s leaving very soon.”

  “It’s nothing bad, is it?” Alyx asked, reluctantly sitting up, wincing at a pain in her back. Sometimes Raine seemed to think she was a piece of cloth the way he wrapped her about his body, one leg here, another one there, an arm over there. There was a crick in her neck and the memory of what Raine had done to hurt that area made her grin.

  Joan was looking at her with unconcealed interest. “My four men together could not have made me look as you do now. Is Lord Raine really such a lover?”

  Alyx shot her a dangerous look. “I’ll have your heart on a platter if you so much as look at him.”

  Joan only grinned. “I’ve been trying for y
ears and he’s not interested. What will you wear today?”

  Alyx dressed carefully in a dress of palest lavender, trimmed in rabbit fur dyed a deep, luscious purple.

  “Ah,” Stephen said when he saw her, “such beauty in the midst of such a wilderness.” He took her hand and kissed it.

  Alyx caught his hand, examined his knuckles, which were raw, cut, not yet beginning to heal. “May you lose your hand if you strike my husband again,” she whispered passionately.

  Stephen blinked once before he laughed. “And my brother worries about your loyalty. You must come and meet my Bronwyn. She will like you.”

  “I’ve heard you have news.”

  Stephen’s face darkened. “Roger Chatworth found Miles and Elizabeth alone and has run a sword through Miles’s arm. Lady Elizabeth has returned to England with her brother.”

  “Then perhaps soon this feud can end. Roger has his sister safe. All that’s left is to make the King forgive Raine.”

  “Perhaps,” Stephen said. “Now I must go home and help my clan. My little brother is in a rage and wants to ride on Chatworth.”

  “Go!” she said. “Stop him.”

  He kissed her hand again. “I will do what I can, and now I know I leave Raine in good hands. He is a stubborn man.”

  Alyx laughed at that. “In your . . . talk yesterday, did you by chance mention Brian Chatworth? Now that Roger has harmed Miles, will Raine take it out on Brian?”

  “No, I don’t think so. This morning Raine and Brian talked for a long time and I believe Raine’s heart has gone out to the boy. I don’t believe there’ll be more problems. In fact, they’re on the training field now. I must go. My men wait for me.”

  “Your men?” Alyx asked, astonished. “I saw no one. I assumed you were alone.”

  Stephen seemed pleased by this. “There are six MacArrans with me, all stationed about the forest, keeping watch.”

  “But we have guards. They should have come into the camp near the fires and had some hot food. They’ll freeze out there.”

  Stephen laughed hard at this. “The English are a soft lot. Our summers aren’t as warm as your winters. You’ll have to come to the Highlands someday. Douglas says your singing will make his brothers cry.”