She paused, glancing aside for a moment. “After her passing, I thought about leaving because the darkness here frightens me sometimes, but then I heard you were coming and knew I couldn’t leave.”
“Why not?” Gelis looked at her. “If you were unhappy, surely it would have been better to go?”
Anice’s chin rose. “I thought you might need me. And I wanted to serve you.”
“But you did not know me,” Gelis puzzled. “That doesn’t seem —”
“I knew your father,” the girl said, completely surprising her. “He —”
“You met him before he brought me here?” Gelis could scarce believe it.
Anice nodded. “He helped me once and I never forgot it. I’d gone with my parents on a trip to town — to Inverness — and was so overwhelmed by the size of the market and the noise and all the people that I became separated from them.”
“You were lost?” Gelis encouraged her.
“Horribly,” Anice confirmed, “and so frightened, my lady.”
“And my father helped you?”
“I . . . bumped into him.” Anice tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear, her blush returning. “I was crying and running through the market stalls and just plowed right into him. He caught me by the shoulders and asked me what was wrong and when I told him, he took me up on his horse and brought me safely to my parents’ door.”
Gelis blinked against a hot prickling at the backs of her eyes. “That sounds just like him,” she said, smiling at the girl. “I am glad he was the man you bumped into.”
“I am, too, my lady.” Anice’s own eyes shone a bit over-bright. “So you see why I stayed on when I heard you were to be the Raven’s new wife.”
Wife.
The word leaped at Gelis, biting hard and making her heart seize. Even worse — saints forgive her — the very thought of another woman having been the Raven’s own jabbed hotly at all her softest and most vulnerable places.
Never before had the notion lanced her so.
But never either did anyone at Dare seem to speak of his two former ladies.
Only in hand-muffled mutterings she’d done her best not to hear.
She swallowed once, then twice, and even nipped the inside of her cheek trying to hold back the questions burning on her tongue. But then curiosity and the green-tinged stabs still pricking her overrode her willpower.
She tossed back her hair and drew a deep breath.
Nothing helped.
So she blurted, “You served the Raven’s second wife, Lady . . . Cecilia?”
Anice looked surprised, but nodded. “Aye, I did. Even to her last day, God rest her soul.”
“You were there at the birthing?” Gelis hated herself for asking, but her tongue seemed to have taken on a mind of its own. “When she . . . died?”
“Aye.” Anice’s brow knit. “Auld Meg and I attended her. We couldn’t do anything to help her. She —”
“The Raven must’ve been heartbroken.” The words tasted like cold ash in her mouth.
Gelis frowned.
Shame scalded her, but the taste of bitter ash remained.
Now she’d surely damned herself.
“I know how much he loved his first wife,” she rushed on anyway, unable to stop, “but can you tell me . . . do you think he loved Lady Cecilia as much?”
