“She has changed!” declared the Countess of Alcester. “She has changed greatly.” Her voice held a hint of disapproval.
“She has grown up,” replied Lady Blackthorn. “Do not forget, Willow, that we have not seen Velvet for two and a half years.”
“I am more than well aware of the passage of time, Deirdre, but our sister is not the same girl.”
“No,” Deirdre had to agree, “she isn’t.”
“Did you expect her to be?” inquired their mother. Skye looked at her two older daughters. God’s nightshirt! Was it actually possible that she was the mother of daughters aged thirty-one and twenty-four?
“What has happened to her, Mama?” asked Deirdre.
“Believing Alex dead, she fell in love with another man. Now her heart is torn between the two. She has no choice in the matter and must return to her husband. It makes the forbidden fruit, in this case the Indian emperor, somehow more attractive, and being an independent girl, she chafes at beingforcedto a decision. She would like to feel that the choice is hers to make.”
“Poor Velvet,” said Deirdre, who was a compassionate and gentle woman.
“Humph!” snorted Willow. “If she had stayed where she belonged, instead of running off when she believed Alex was killed in that ridiculous duel, none of this would have happened.”
“You are too hard on your sister, Willow,” replied their mother. “In your whole life nothing has ever gone awry for you. You cannot know how you would have acted under similar circumstances.”
“Well, I most certainly would not have left my husband’s burial to others!” Willow appeared to be outraged, but the truth of the matter was that she was made somewhat uncomfortable by her mother’s reference to her charmed life. She had, she thought, been born practical, and most of her upbringing had been supervised by Dame Cecily, who had raised Willow to have all the English goodwife’s virtues of thrift and loyalty to duty first. She felt secure with her values, and only once or twice in her life had she entertained the thought of a life as filled with adventure and passion as her mother’s had been, only to push such a wild notion aside with a shudder. Willow, Countess of Alcester, was the perfect example of a high-minded English noblewoman, and she would have had it no other way.
“Has not Velvet led a charmed life, too, Mama?” she countered. “She has certainly had much more time with you than the rest of us did, and is the only child you really raised yourself.”
“That is true,” agreed her mother, “but you must remember that both Adam and I were forced to leave her at a time when, as it turned out, she needed us very much. She had no one to really guide her. Be patient, Willow. Velvet has been home only two weeks, and she is very worried about her reunion with Alex.”
“She doesn’t seem comfortable with us,” grumbled Willow. “I told her that I had made her little Johanna’s godmother, and she was not the least bit thrilled. All she wants to do is ride that damned stallion of hers from dawn to dusk!”
Skye said nothing more, her eye catching a glimpse of Velvet through the window as she mounted her big-boned chestnut and galloped down the drive. How could she explain to Willow about Velvet’s own daughter who was only a month younger than Johanna? She couldn’t. Before they had even reachedQueen’s Malvern, Velvet had insisted that nothing be said to anyone about Yasaman. Pansy had already been sworn to secrecy, as had Daisy and Bran.
“What of Alex?” Skye had queried of her daughter.
“No! If I cannot have my baby, then why should Alex have the knowledge of her with which to reproach me, Mama? I will never tell him of her.”
Then they had reachedQueen’s Malvern, and the family had joyously hailed her safe return, thrusting their new babies upon her to admire. It had not been easy, and Skye had devoutly wished in the days that followed that her children and grandchildren would all depart for their own homes if only to give Velvet some peace. When they didn’t, Velvet sought her own solitude upon her horse, feeling no guilt at all in making her escape for she knew that her mother understood.
This particular afternoon, she had eagerly sought refuge from her elder sister who persisted in dandling her youngest child at her. Velvet had tried to enjoy little Johanna, who was a most charming baby, but each time she held her niece it brought her to tears remembering her own daughter. Finally this afternoon she could stand no more and had rudely thrust Johanna back into her mother’s arms, snapping at Willow, “Her bottom is wet, and she is drooling all over me! Do not give me the child again unless I ask for her. I dislike being soaked!” Then she had stormed from the room.
Now, as the late-summer wind blew her auburn hair about her face and shoulders, Velvet felt the weight lifting from her. Leaning forward, she kicked her horse into a gallop and raced up into the hills, feeling freer than she had in weeks. It was almost as it had been five years ago when she was yet a child and could not remember the name of Alexander Gordon, Earl of BrocCairn. She had been in such a hurry to grow up. Why was it, she wondered, that children were always in such a damned hurry to get older? Childhood was so very brief. If only children understood that and enjoyed their time in that safe and innocent world. She sighed, then laughed softly to herself. That was knowledge that came only with age.
Reaching the crest of the hill, she stopped and, turning her stallion back for a moment, gazed down upon her home.Queen’s Malvern, so called because it had been built for a queen and was situated in the Malvern Hills in an almost hidden valley between the Severn and Wye rivers, sat like a jewel in a perfect setting. She had never thought to see it again. There was a faint late-summer haze over the valley, and everything was so very lush and green. There was peace here; the kind of peace she had never been able to find anywhere else. She would miss it when she went to Scotland with her husband.
Then her eye caught a movement on the road below, and, gazing down, she could make out a large party of men approaching the manor house. Even from a distance she could see they were Scots, their plaids fluttering bravely in the light breeze.Gordon plaid.He had come, and she could not take her eyes away from the scene below. He rode at the head of his men, but suddenly they stopped, and then Alexander Gordon broke away from the main group and headed his horse directly up the hill toward her.
Panic gripped Velvet’s heart, and, wheeling her own stallion sharply about, she galloped blindly off. It wasn’t long before she heard him behind her, his own horse relentlessly coming onward. Inwardly she cursed herself for being caught like this. In the valley below she was certain she could have outrun him, but here the ground was so uneven and dangerous. Should her mount step into a rabbit hole he would break a leg, and she could break her neck.
Then she felt herself being lifted from her saddle, and, surprised, she didn’t even have the presence of mind to struggle.
Bringing his own horse to a stop, Alex lowered her to the ground and then, dismounting himself, asked her in a none-too-gentle voice, “Just what is it about me, madame, that sends you fleeing almost every time we meet?” He towered over her menacingly, his golden eyes blazing.
If he had expected tears or anger, he was totally surprised when, looking up at him, she burst into laughter instead. “I have never thought about it,” she said with complete candor, “but I do seem to spend a great deal of time going in the opposite direction from you, my lord.”
He gazed down at her. Had she always been this beautiful? He shook his head, surprised at his bemused thoughts, and then said, “Welcome home, Velvet. I’ve missed ye.”
She would almost rather he had shouted and railed at her, but that, she was certain, would come later. “Did you, Alex? Did you really miss me? You didn’t wait overlong to replace me in your bed with Mistress Wythe.”
“Nor did ye wait overlong to desert me. My body wasn’t even cold, Velvet, and ye were hurrying off to India to yer parents.”
“Padraic swore you were dead! I was in shock! I was in agony, for I loved you, and you had wagered our future for the false honor of a strumpet in a ridiculous duel! I begged you not to go! I begged you, Alex, but you would not listen!”
