He nodded, smiling, but Dame Cecily, who had fox-sharp ears despite her age, mourned, “It’ll be like a tomb.”
“Deirdre has begged you to go and stay with her,” Skye reminded her old friend. “She never feels happier than when you’re with her.”
The elderly lady preened with pleasure. “Well, perhaps,” she allowed, “I might pay her a short visit. I do enjoy the children so very much.”
“I suspect, although she has said nothing to me yet, Dame Cecily, that Deirdre is breeding again. You could be an enormous help to her,” Skye said.
“I will speak to her, Skye, for she will tell me if I ask, and if there is a new baby coming in the spring then I shall most certainly be needed atBlackthorn Prioryfor many months to come.”
Skye put her hand over Dame Cecily’s and smiled warmly at her. “Yes, my dearest friend, we most certainly will always need you. You have been our rock these many years, and I pray that you will always be here with us.”
Dame Cecily squeezed Skye’s hand. “Not always, my dear. That is not possible, but for as long as the good Lord will allow. Remember that I was seventy-six this past May. If the good Lord will permit that I see Velvet’s first child, then I shall count myself ready to leave this earth.”
Skye looked across the room at her youngest child. Velvet sat quietly with her husband by the fireplace. When two of her little nieces, Cecily and Gabrielle Edwardes, tried to draw her into their game of hide-the-slipper, she refused, giving them a shake of her head and a wan smile. Yes, thought Skye, it is better that she go off to Scotland as soon as possible. Her child’s loss is still too open a wound. She needs to begin her new life quickly. She should have another baby as soon as possible. Dear God, let her conceive quickly!
Velvet felt her mother’s gaze upon her and felt uncomfortable. Standing, she said to Alex, “I am tired and want to go to bed now.”
She looked so drawn that he was suddenly concerned for her. “Are ye all right, lass?”
“Just tired,” she repeated.
“I think we can leave the hall without causing undue attention,” he replied, putting his hand beneath her elbow.
Watching them slip quietly from the room, Skye prayed again for her daughter; prayed that she would be happy at long last, that her life would finally be a calm and contented one, and most of all that she would learn to love her husband once again.
Gaining their apartments, Velvet and Alex found Pansy and Dugald awaiting them, and Velvet was struck with a sense of déjà vu. While Alex and his serving man went into the smaller bedroom, Pansy helped her mistress to disrobe. Taking her gown away, she brought her mistress a basin of warm water scented with gillyflowers and a cake of Velvet’s hard-milled soap.
“The jasmine is almost gone, m’lady, and we can’t get it here in England.”
“Don’t use it,” Velvet ordered tersely. “Put it away somewhere, for I don’t want to be reminded of India.”
“Yes, m’lady,” said a subdued Pansy.
“Are you happy, Pansy? And what does Dugald think of little Dugie?”
“Proud as a peacock, he is, m’lady! You’d think he’d done it all hisself, and he’s anxious to have another, he says.” She chuckled. “Easy for him to say, ain’t it?”
Velvet smiled. “He’s a good man, Pansy, and I can see from the look in his eyes when he gazes at you that he loves you. Take good care of him, girl.”
“Aye, m’lady, I will, for as God is me judge I never thought to see him again! ’Tis lucky I am!”
The little maid worked efficiently, taking her mistress’s undergarments, stockings, and shoes and hurriedly putting them away. Picking out a gossamer silk night rail the color of apricots, she started to lower it over Velvet’s head, but her mistress pushed it away.
“No,” she said. “I am chilled, Pansy, and I will freeze in that gown. Give me a plain, white silk night rail.”
Pansy raised her eyebrows but said nothing, instead obeying her mistress and handing her a simple, white silk gown with long, full sleeves that tied with blue silk ribbons at the neck.
Velvet bowed the ribbons prettily and then, having cleaned her teeth with a mixture of pumice and mint leaves, got into bed. “Leave me now, Pansy, and you needn’t come until I send for you in the morning. I may sleep late, and ’twill give you time with your husband and child. Good night.”
“Good night, m’lady, and God bless you!” Pansy curtsied and was gone from the room.
Velvet reached for the chamber stick on the table by the bed and blew it out. The low fire would light Alex’s way. She snuggled down, drawing the covers well over her shoulders and head until only her nose was visible outside the coverlet. Still, she was cold, and she shivered. Then she realized it was not the late August night air that chilled her, but rather fear. She was afraid, and it fretted her to admit to it. She was no virgin bride awaiting her husband. She was a woman who had accepted two men as husbands in her short lifetime and had borne a child. Hearing Alex come into the room, she closed her eyes tightly and breathed slowly and evenly. Perhaps he would believe her to be already asleep.
She felt the cool night air as he raised the coverlet, and the bed sagged with his weight as he entered it. She stiffened slightly as his long, lean body moved next to hers. When he reached out to draw her against him, she panicked completely and cried out,“No!”
For a moment Alex was shocked. She was his wife, not some captive wench about to be ravished. His first instinct was to be angry, then he felt her shaking and said gently, “Velvet, lass, I only want to hold ye. It’s been so damned long! If it distresses ye, however, I won’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but she did not deny him and gradually her trembling subsided to the tiniest of quivers.
