She put her hand on his arm. “Please do not take offense to what I am about to say, but you have dealt with this for many years with little result. Perhaps you can let me try. Perhaps a woman will have a better touch with his grief.”
Her words were reasonable, softly spoken. Matthew glanced at Mark, who simply shrugged his shoulders. Matthew did not think it was such a good idea, either. However, against his better judgment, he agreed.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “Try if you must.”
She gave him a brief smile and was gone, moving across the fine carpets and wood flooring with grace and elegance. Matthew watched her cross the room, simply because she was so entrancing. She moved like an angel in her blue surcoat and luscious bronze hair. Every minute of every day that passed and he came to know her better, the more captivated he was by her.
While he and Mark watched, Alixandrea approached Adam and said a few words to him. Adam seemed to look at her with a blank expression, but she said a few more words, smiled, and gently pried the bottle out of his hand. Then she took the cup, setting both down on the table.
A few more words were exchanged between the two, though the brothers could not hear what was being said. Finally, Alixandrea put her hand in the crook of Adam’s elbow and, with a large smile, led him away from the table. The last Matthew and Mark saw of Adam, he was actually smiling as he allowed Alixandrea to lead him into the next room. They were talking; or, at least, Alixandrea was talking and Adam spoke up now and again. And then they were gone.
“Where are they going?” Mark asked.
Matthew shrugged; frankly, he was still surprised that his father gave up the alcohol without a fight. “I do not know.”
“Should we follow?”
“Nay.” Matthew shook his head, but from expression it was apparent that he was unconvinced. “They will not go far.”
Unconvinced, Mark nonetheless lost himself in the food that Livia had presented. The Wellesbourne brothers could eat more than the population of a small village, and Mark had been known to put away ghastly amounts. Only Matthew wasn’t eating at the moment, standing by with his ale in his hand, his gaze lingering on the door that his father and wife had just left through. But that only lasted a few minutes before his curiosity got the better of him and he was compelled to follow.
The room they had disappeared into was another receiving room, as lavishly furnished as the one he had just left. There was a door off to his right, half-open, and he assumed it was the path to follow. Matthew found himself wandering the halls of Rosehill until he came across a door leading to the gardens outside. He almost walked past it until he heard voices coming from the other side. Opening the door, he walked straight into Alixandrea and Adam, seated on a wide covered porch, watching the heavy rain fall.
Alixandrea smiled up at him. “Greetings, husband,” she said. “Come and join us.”
Matthew’s gaze moved between his wife and his father. Adam looked amazingly composed while Alixandrea just looked cold. Their breath hung heavy in the air as the inclement weather drizzled around them.
“What are you two doing out here?” he asked. “Father, ’tis cold out here for her. She needs her cloak.”
“Then go and get it,” Adam told him. “Be a good husband as I entertain your wife.”
It sounded suspiciously like a command. Matthew lifted a disapproving eyebrow but said nothing. He went back to retrieve Alixandrea’s cloak and when he returned, it was to the sounds ofher sweet voice filling the misting air. When Matthew heard the song, he froze.
I dreamt that you loved me still
And loved me forever and a day.
From beyond the mellow sea
I felt your spirit calling to me
And I dreamt that you loved me still.
It was a beautiful song, made more beautiful by her sweet, lilting voice. Matthew looked to his father for his reaction, noting that he seemed rather distant. He had frankly expected an explosion given the fact that the song Alixandrea had just sung contained yet more personal memories. A glance at his wife showed her with a smile on her face, looking straight at Adam. She reached out and put her hand on the old man’s arm.
“Is that how she sang it?” she asked. “’Tis such a lovely song. Did she sing it often?”
Adam nodded. “I could hear her singing it about the keep. She used to sing it to the boys when they were babies.”
“Ah,” she said knowingly. “A perfect song for babies, as it is soft and soothing. But it is a beautiful song for lovers. The words have such meaning.”
Adam seemed to have difficulty knowing what to feel, or how to react. He started to get up. “I would like something to drink,” he muttered.
But Alixandrea kept her hand on him, keeping him in his chair. “You do not need drink, my lord,” she said gently but firmly. “Stay with me. We shall remember your wife fondly so that whenever you think of her, you will do it with joy. Shewasa joy, my lord, as I said earlier. She was not something to be associated with endless pain.”
Adam looked at her, unsure how to respond. It had become such a habit for him to correlate his wife with agony that he could hardly remember any other way. Alixandrea’s concept of remembering the joy and not the pain was almost incomprehensible. It almost made him angry.
“When she was alive, she was my joy,” he said. “But her death did not bring me joy. You may not deny me my grief. ’Tis my right.”
