Velvet Song

  With his features set in a grim line, Raine watched the men as they left the camp, sulking like little children. “Those are your fine friends,” he said in an undertone to Alyx as he turned away.

  “They are no friends of mine!” she snapped.

  “Nor is Pagnell a friend of mine!” he retorted.

  Halting, she stared after his broad back. It was true, she knew. She had no right to hate him because of what another man had done.

  “Blanche!” Raine grunted. “Food!”

  With that, Alyx went tearing after him because she was very hungry. Inside the tent, Blanche placed roast boar, bread, cheese and hot wine before them, and Alyx tore into the food with gusto.

  “That’s the way, boy!” Raine laughed, slapping her on the back, making her choke. “Keep eating like that and you’ll put some size on yet.”

  “Keep working me like today and I’ll die in a week!” she gasped, trying to dislodge a piece of pork from her throat, ignoring Raine’s laughter.

  The meal finished, Alyx looked with longing toward the pallet along one wall of the tent. To rest, she thought, just to lie down and be still for a few hours would be heaven on earth.

  “Not yet, boy,” Raine said, grabbing her arm and pulling her upright. “There’s still work before we can sleep. The guards need to be checked, I have animal traps set and we both need a bath.”

  That startled her awake. “Bath!” she gasped. “No, not me.”

  “When I was your age I had to be forced to bathe, too. Once my older brother scoured me with a horse brush.”

  “Someone forced you to do something?” she asked, incredulous.

  Raine’s pride seemed to be at stake. “Actually, it took both my older brothers, and Gavin came away with a blacked eye. Now, come on. We have work to do.”

  Reluctantly, Alyx followed him, but no matter how hard she tried, she could put no energy in her steps. Like someone dead, she followed Raine through the forest, occasionally bumping into trees, stumbling over rocks, as he went around the perimeter of the camp making sure the guards were on duty and awake and removing rabbits and hares from his traps. At first he tried to talk to her, explain what he was doing, how to toss a rock and see if the guards responded, but after a while he studied her in the moonlight, noting her exhaustion, and stopped talking.

  At the stream outside the camp he told her to sit still and wait for him while he bathed. Half asleep, reclining on the bank, her head propped on her arm, Alyx watched with languid interest as Raine removed his clothing and stepped into the icy water. Moonlight silvered his body, caressed the muscles, played along his thighs, made love to those magnificent arms. Lifting herself on her elbows, Alyx unabashedly watched him. All her life had been given to music. While other girls were flirting with the boys at the town well, Alyx was composing a Latin lamentation for four voices. When her friends were getting married, she was inside the church organizing a boys’ chorus. She’d never had time to talk to boys, to get to know them—actually, had never been interested in them, had always been too busy to even notice them.

  Now, for the first time in her life, watching this nude man bathing she felt the first stirrings of . . . of what? She certainly knew about mating, had even listened to some of the gossip from the recently married women, but she’d never felt any interest in the process. This man standing before her, rising out of the water like some heavenly centaur, made her feel things she’d never thought possible.

  Lust, she thought, sitting up farther. Pure and simple lust was what she was feeling. She’d like for him to touch her, to kiss her, to lie beside her, and she would very much like to touch that skin of his. Remembering how it felt when she’d straddled his back, she began to tingle, her legs seeming more alive, even her feet growing warm.

  When he left the water and came toward her, she almost lifted her arms toward him.

  “You look lazy,” Raine commented, drying himself off. “Sure you won’t take a bath?”

  All Alyx could do was watch the course of the cloth he used for drying as it ran over his body and vaguely shake her head.

  “I warn you though, boy, you start smelling so bad you drive me from the tent and I’ll bathe you myself and it won’t be a gentle bath.”

  Eyes wide, Alyx looked up at him, her breathing changing just slightly. To be bathed by this great god of a man, she thought.

  “Are you all right, boy?” Raine asked, concerned, kneeling beside her as he frowned at her odd expression.

  Boy! she grimaced. He thought she was a boy, and what if she were revealed as a girl? He was of the nobility and she was only a poor lawyer’s daughter. “Aren’t you going to get cold?” she asked flatly, rolling away from him to stand apart, not watching as he dressed.

  When he was finished, she silently followed him back to camp, where she collapsed on her pallet but did not sleep until Raine had settled himself on his narrow cot. Content at last, she fell asleep.

  Chapter Six

  LEANING OVER THE edge of the water, Alyx studied her own reflection. She did look like a boy, she thought with disgust. Why couldn’t she have been born beautiful, with lovely features that could never be mistaken for a male’s no matter what she wore? Her hair, all a mass of curls, its color not sure of which way to go, changing with each strand, eyes turned up, lips like a pixie’s, were not what a woman’s should be.

  Just as tears were beginning to blur her vision, Jocelin’s voice startled her. “Cleaning more armor?” he asked.

  With a sniff, she turned back to her task. “Raine is too hard on it. Today I had to hammer out a dent.”

  “You seem to care much for his things. Are you perhaps beginning to believe that a nobleman could be worth something?”

  “Raine would be worth much no matter what his birth,” she said much too hastily, then looked away, embarrassed.

  She’d been in Raine’s camp for a week now, had spent nearly every second in his company and her opinions of him had completely reversed in that week. Once she’d believed he took over the camp, but now she knew it was that the outcasts forced him to take care of them. They were like children demanding that he provide for them, then acting rebellious when he did. He left his bed before anyone else and saw to the security of the people and always, late at night, he made sure the guard was alert and ready. He forced the people away from idleness and made them work for their own keep or else they’d sit and wait for him to provide for them, as if it were their due.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “Raine is worth something, although he gets little reward for what he does. Why doesn’t he leave this scurvy lot and leave England altogether? Surely a man with his wealth could make a decent home for himself.”

  “Perhaps you should ask him that. You are closest to him.”

  Close to him, she thought. That’s where she wanted to be, even closer to him. Only now was she beginning to be able to function through her blinding fatigue, to live through the strenuous training sessions each morning, but as her muscles hardened and she began to feel better, she became more involved in the camp life.

  Blanche occupied an exalted position in the camp, making everyone believe she shared Raine’s bed and had his ear for anything they wanted. Alyx tried not to consider if Blanche ever had spent the night with Raine, but she liked to believe he had more taste than to use a slut like Blanche. And something else Alyx was able to find out about Blanche: she was terrified of Jocelin.

  Jocelin, so incredibly handsome, so polite, so considerate, had every woman in camp panting after him. Alyx had seen women use every manner of enticement to lure him to their sides, but as far as she knew, Joss had never accepted an invitation. He preferred his duties and the company of Alyx to anyone else. And although he never mentioned her, he stayed well away from Blanche. When the woman happened to meet him she’d always turn tail and run.

  Besides Joss, the only other decent outcast was Rosamund, with her beauty and the devil’s mark on her cheek. Rosamund kept her head down, expecting p
eople’s hatred and fear. Once Raine had found a couple of men wagering on whether or not they’d be selling their souls if they took her by force. Twenty lashes each was his punishment for the men, followed by banishment, and Alyx felt a surge of jealousy that Raine so violently protected the flawed, beautiful healer.

  “Alyx!” came a bellow through the trees that could only belong to Raine. At least now he called her by her name.

  Using every ounce of power her voice contained, she yelled back at him, “I am working.” The man was obsessed with work.

  Coming through the trees, he grinned at her. “That voice of yours gives me hope that you’ll grow, although it looks to me as if you’re getting smaller.” Critically, he eyed her legs stretched before her.

  With a little smile, Alyx was glad to see that at least one part of her was unmistakably female. Her long legs and curvy little bottom had only been enhanced by the hard exercise of the last week. Perhaps now, at last, she would be revealed as a girl and then . . . what? She’d be tossed from Raine’s tent and he’d once again only have that whore Blanche to care for him. Reluctantly, she slapped a steel leg sheath over her own legs.

  “I’ll grow,” she snapped, “and when I do I’ll pin you to the ground with your own sword.” An upward glance at Raine saw that he seemed to be puzzled by something.

  “You wanted Alyx for something?” Joss asked, his voice full of amusement as he interrupted the silence.

  “Yes,” Raine said quietly. “I need some letters written and some read to me. A messenger has come from my family. You can read, can’t you?”

  Curiosity made Alyx jump. She very much wanted to know about Raine’s family. “Yes, of course,” she said, gathering the armor and following Raine.

  A man, dressed finely, his doublet embroidered with gold leopards, sat outside the tent, waiting patiently for Raine’s command. With the wave of one hand, the young man was dismissed and Alyx wondered if all Raine’s men obeyed so well and what a far cry from the outcasts they were.

  There were two letters for Raine, one from his brother Gavin and one from his brother’s wife, Judith.

  The news from Gavin was bad. Bronwyn, Raine’s other sister-in-law, had been taken prisoner by the same man who held Raine’s sister, Mary. Bronwyn’s husband was waiting, sitting and waiting, afraid to make a move for fear Roger Chatworth would kill his wife.

  “Your brother Stephen,” Alyx asked tentatively, “he loves his wife?”

  Raine only nodded, his lips drawn into a tight line, his eyes focused on nothing.

  “But it says here that she was in Scotland when she was taken. Why was she in Scotland? The Scots are coarse, vicious people and—”

  “Hold your tongue!” he commanded. “Bronwyn is the laird of a clan in Scotland and there is no finer woman. Read me the other letter.”

  Chastised, Alyx opened the letter from Judith Montgomery, fully aware of the way Raine’s eyes softened as she began to read. The letter was full of prayers for Raine’s safety and entreaties for him to leave England until it was safe for him to return. She asked after his comfort, whether he had food and warm clothing, which made Raine chuckle and Alyx bristle at her wifely tones.

  “Does her husband know she concerns herself so for her brother-in-law?” she asked primly.

  “I’ll not have you speak of my family so,” he reprimanded and Alyx hung her head, embarrassed at her jealousy. It wasn’t fair that she had to pose as a boy and never have a chance of gaining his attention. If she could wear a pretty dress perhaps he’d notice her, but then again she certainly was no beauty.

  “Take your head from the clouds, boy, and listen to me.”

  His voice brought her to the present.

  “Can you write what I say? I want to send letters back with my brother’s man.”

  When she had pen, ink and paper, Raine began to dictate. The letter she was to write to his brother was one of anger and determination. He swore to stay as near as possible to his two sisters and he would wait as long as he could before bringing his fist to Chatworth’s head. As for the King, he had no fear, since Henry’s main source of income was from men he declared to be traitors. He told Gavin that Henry would pardon him as soon as he agreed to forfeit a goodly portion of his land.

  Raine ignored Alyx’s startled gasps at the insolent way in which he referred to their sovereign.

  The letter to Judith was as warm and loving as hers had been, even once referring to his new squire, who thought he had no sense, not even enough to keep warm, and often covered him at night. With her head lowered, Alyx wrote, not allowing Raine to see her flushed cheeks. She’d had no idea he was aware of the many times she’d tiptoed about the tent, pulling the fur-lined coverlet about his bare shoulders.

  The rest of the letter Alyx merely wrote, too embarrassed to even read what she wrote, and when she finished them she held them open, ready for Raine’s signature. As he bent toward her, his face close to hers, she inhaled the smell of his hair, that thick, dark, curling mass and wanted to bury her face in it. Instead, she reached out and touched a lock of it, watched it curl about her fingertip.

  Raine’s head came up as if he’d been burned, his face inches from hers, his eyes wide as he looked at her. Alyx knew her breath had stopped and her heart had leaped to her throat. Now he’ll know, she thought. Now he’ll say that I am a girl, a woman.

  Frowning, Raine stepped away from her, looking at her as if he couldn’t quite decide what was happening. “Seal the letters,” he said quietly, “and give them to the messenger.” With that he left the tent.

  Alyx gave a sigh that made one of the letters flutter to the floor and quick tears came to her eyes. Ugly, she thought. That’s what I am—very, very ugly. No wonder no man ever even tried to contradict the priest and take me for his wife. Why fight for a prize not worth winning? Who wanted a flat-chested, boyish girl with a noisy voice for a wife? And no wonder Raine didn’t see through her disguise.

  With a sharp backhand swipe, she wiped her eyes and returned to the letters before her. No doubt his sisters-in-law and his sister were beautiful, beautiful women with chests . . .

  With another sigh she finished the letters, sealed them and took them outside to the messenger, walking with him to his horse.

  “Have you seen this Lady Judith or the Lady Bronwyn?” she asked the messenger.

  “Aye, many times.”

  “And are they, perhaps, handsome women?”

  “Handsome?” he laughed, mounting his horse. “God must have been happy the day he created those women. Lord Raine will not leave England nor would I if I had either of those women in my family. Go on, boy, try and find someone to console him,” he said, motioning toward the tent. “The loss of such beauty even for a moment must make him a miserable man.”

  Console him! Alyx muttered as she went back to the tent, only to be greeted by some commotion, Raine standing at the heart of it.

  “It is well for your life that you did not kill her,” he was saying to two men, one a pickpocket, the other a beggar. Both had been on guard duty all morning. “Alyx,” he said over their heads. “Saddle my horse. We ride.”

  Taking off at a run, Alyx had the big horse saddled and ready by the time Raine reemerged from the tent, a battle ax and a mace in his hand. He had mounted and pulled her up behind him before she could ask a question, and in seconds they were galloping through the forest at a breakneck speed.

  After a good run, as fast as the trees permitted, Raine drew to a halt and jumped from his horse. Catching the reins, Alyx slid forward into the saddle and got her first glimpse of what was going on. A pretty woman with big brown eyes, wearing a beautiful dress such as Alyx had never seen before, was flattened against a tree, looking with terror at three men from the camp as they brandished knives and swords at her.

  “Get out of here, you scum,” Raine growled, tossing first one man, then the other aside.

  The woman, shaking in fear, looked up at Raine in total disbelief. “Raine,”
she whispered before closing her eyes and starting to slide down the tree.

  Raine caught her in his arms, lifted her, cradling her to him. “Anne,” he whispered. “You are safe now. Alyx, fetch some wine. There’s a pouch on my saddle.”

  Somewhat in awe of the scene before her, Alyx dismounted and took the hard leather container to him as he sat down on a fallen tree, holding this woman close to him.

  “Anne, drink this,” he said in a sweet, gentle voice, and the woman fluttered her lashes and began to drink. “Now, Anne,” he said when she was fully awake. “Tell me what you were doing this deep in the forest.”

  The woman certainly didn’t seem to be in any hurry to remove herself from Raine’s lap, Alyx thought, as she looked with absolute wonder at the woman’s dress. It was of deep, deep red silk, a fabric she’d only seen in church, and it was embroidered all over with tiny hares, rabbits, deer, fish, all sorts of animals. The square neckline was very low, exposing a great deal of the woman’s ample breasts, and about the neckline and waist were trims of gold and red, sparkling jewels.

  “Alyx!” Raine said impatiently, handing her the bag of wine. “Anne,” he said with great tenderness, holding the full-grown woman as if she were a child.

  “What are you doing here, Raine?” she asked in a soft voice.

  Can’t sing, Alyx immediately thought. No strength in her voice and just a hint of a whine.

  “King Henry has declared me traitor,” Raine said, one dimple flashing.

  Anne smiled at him. “After your money, is he? But what have you done to give him reason to take your lands?”

  “Roger Chatworth has taken my sister Mary and Stephen’s new wife.”

  “Chatworth!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t that woman Gavin was so in love with marry a Chatworth?”

  “My discreet brother,” Raine said in disgust. “The woman is a whore and one of the worst sort, but Gavin could never see it. If nothing else, my brother is loyal. Even after he married Judith he still loved Alice Chatworth for a while.”