“I beg your pardon?” My cheeks grew warm, and I hoped this was not the typical Christian fretting I had been unchaste.
I would no doubt be sleeping better if I had.
“Where are they keeping you, love?” the baroness persisted. “Are your quarters not comfortable?”
Oh. Well, no they weren’t, now that she asked. “His Grace did place me in the attic.” I hoped it would not sound like a complaint.
“Nonsense.” Baroness de Lyne shook her head. “That is no meet reward for all you have done. We can have you moved down here, to replace Marjory here at my bedside. In case I get ill in the night.”
The handmaiden dropped her stitch and let out a tiny yelp.
Poor thing.I had no desire to replace her. “Surely that will not be necessary,” I said quickly. “You look well, and Marjory is no doubt better accustomed to your needs.”
Marjory’s head bobbed like a little bird’s.
The baroness sighed. “Very well, then. But we shall find you quarters more suitable than the attic. I insist upon it.”
And who was I to disagree?
My new chamber was larger than I had ever dreamed of, and designed for someone of much greater status among the mortals than I. I’d my own fireplace, rather than shivering in the drafty attic. My window was shuttered, I had easy access to the garderobe, and there was even a low second bed for the servant I did not have or require. My room was big enough for two, surely, and if I alone commanded such spacious accommodations, Thomas’s would surely be large enough for the both of us.
If only I had the opportunity to bring that up.
With my new respect came additions to my wardrobe, again at the insistence of the baroness. Margaret of Roxburgh did bring me a new kirtle, not as fine as her own—in two colors, no less—but finer than any I had worn in my life.
“Her Grace insisted you be properly attired,” Margaret told me, with a downward glance at the hem of my kirtle.
Too short?I wondered.Too mud-stained? Or simply out of fashion?Most likely it was all three.
I stared at her forehead until three small blemishes appeared, marring the perfection of her high-plucked brow.
“You’re to be measured for two others as well.” There was more than a hint of condescension to her tone. “I hope you appreciate Her Grace’s generosity.”
“Of course,” I told her. “You must thank her for me.”
Margaret made a cursory nod and muttered under her breath as she took her leave.
That one and I are never going to be friends.
Along with new clothing, I must have a new way of wearing my hair, no longer in dangling plaits but arranged into proper ram’s horns like Margaret’s, though I demurred at plucking my hairline. Away went my well-worn kirtle, and the boots I had dragged through the dust so. I felt like a fine lady indeed, but I did not feel like myself.
Thomas put his finger right upon it when we met one another in the hall. “But where has my wood nymph gone?” His manner was teasing, and his eyes did twinkle, but there was a sense of loss in his tone.
Does he truly miss her? Is his attention not wholly taken up by Margaret of Roxburgh after all?
I fell against Thomas, and whispered into his chest, “She is more with you now than she has ever been. But I fear she will wither in this place.”
He encircled me with his arms. “Ah, lass,” he said, squeezing tight, careless of any around who might judge and disapprove. “The things I would do wit’ ye if we were only home.”
He was still mine, the baron’s son. This Thomas de Lyne was all a pretense, and my sweet, amorous shepherd still lingered inside.
Then let us go. Through the fae-haunted forest, back to my business and your flocks, to the dog Cullen and the brownie Morven, to the life for which I gave up Faery. There is nothing I desire more.
But it could not be. Thomas yanked himself away, standing rigid, straight, as if he played the soldier at arms. “Your Grace,” he said and dropped to his knee as his father passed.
No, if Thomas de Lyne pretended, the shepherd king was awfully good at it. ’Twas worse than glamour, worse even than the shifting shapes of the Amadan Dubh, how he, like all these humans, switched from one mask to another.
And here I was, in my elegant new garb, doing the same thing.
