Velvet Touch

by Catherine Archer

  Fellis watched her father nod.

  Mary looked at her daughter then. “Fellis, let me begin by addressing you. I want you to know that I am sorry for all that I have put you through in these last years. I realize now that I have made many mistakes. I thought that your deformity at birth was a sign to me that I had allowed myself to love where I had no right. But I was wrong.” Her gaze went to her husband’s confused face.

  He made as if to speak but she stopped him. “Please allow me to finish what I have to say. ’Tis hard enough done.” She continued, “In the past few weeks I have come to see that I have been wrong. I am only sorry that it took a stranger’s arrival to show me how very wrong. Sir Stephen Clayburn arrived with no preconceived notion of Fellis and what she was. From the beginning he treated her as any other young woman and questioned my inability to do so.”

  Mary looked on her daughter with the first open display of love and pride in Fellis’s memory. “Fellis, he saw you for what you truly were, loving, strong and gentle. The only reason I could not see you as such was that my own insecurities and fears stood in my way. I had forsaken my own husband, and my duty to him.”

  She turned to Fellis’s father. “I had forsaken you and my vows to you. Not because I did not want you or love you, but because I loved you too well. When our babe was born with a twisted ankle, I feared God had punished me for finding too much joy, too much happiness in your arms.”

  At this point Richard Grayson stood. “Mary, what are you saying? Do you mean…?”

  “I do,” she told him. “I have been wrong, so very wrong. I believe now that Fellis’s clubfoot was not some punishment from God but a test. A chance for me to learn how to show true strength and compassion. I failed that test miserably not only by marking our daughter’s birth as a punishment but by turning away from the man I loved. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

  He rose and took her in his arms. “Mary.”

  They simply stood together like that, seeming too overcome at holding each other after such a long time to even speak.

  Fellis could only’stand in stunned surprise. What, she asked herself, could have brought this on? Her mother said that Stephen Clayburn had brought about this new understanding of things. But the knight had been at Malvern for weeks and there had been no real change in her mother’s behavior until this moment. Certainly, now that Fellis looked back, she could see that there had been signs that her attitude was becoming less harsh where Stephen was concerned. She had been surprisingly respectful of him that day when he had come to the solar to tell Fellis of Wynn’s desire to meet with her a second time. But even that behavior was a far cry from the contrite woman they saw before them.

  Fellis could not fathom what had been the catalyst that had brought about this wondrous yet astonishing transformation.

  She had to ask. “Mother?” Fellis found herself blushing as she intruded upon their silent communion. It was hard to think of exactly what she wished to say when her heart ached with happiness at seeing her father and mother embracing for the first time in her memory.

  Mary Grayson turned to her, holding out her arms awkwardly. “Fellis.”

  Hesitantly Fellis went to her. “Mother.” She held back for a moment, looking into those eyes that had often viewed her with such censure and now were filled with a diffident but unmistakable glow of love. She felt compelled to try to understand. “Why are you saying these things now?”

  Mary Grayson blushed as she looked down at the floor, then back at her daughter. “I overheard you and Sir Stephen this afternoon in Lady Myrian’s chamber. You were gone so long that I came to see if you had need of assistance to find what I had asked for.” She put her hand on Fellis’s shoulder. “I heard the way the knight refused you, putting your own well-being first, even at great cost to himself.”

  Fellis could feel the heat of embarrassment rising in her throat and face. Her wonder at her mother’s changed demeanor was overshadowed by her own shame. She raised her hands to her cheeks. “Oh no.”

  That she had offered herself to Stephen like some wanton harlot was indeed bad enough, but to have had her own mother listening to the whole thing. ’Twas intolerable.

  Gently her mother pulled Fellis’s hands down from her cheeks, holding those icy fingers in her own. “Do not feel shamed by what happened. You care for the man. And I must admit that were things different it would be him I would see you with. He is a good man, Fellis, able to set aside his own desires for the good of another. It was learning this that made me finally see that the other things he had said to me had merit. He could have taken you this very day in that very chamber. He would not have any need to force. You made clear your desire for him, but he denied himself something he wanted, for your good.”

  Fellis backed away. “Oh, Mother, you heard all that. What you must think of me now?”

  “I think only well of you, daughter. ’Tis clear to me your heart is given to the knight. And he is worthy, if any man can be, of that gift. If only it were in my power to give you your heart’s desire. But I cannot. The path of your future has now been set. Stephen Clayburn must go, but it will not be without my deepest regret and thanks for all he has done for us.”

  “And mine,” Richard Grayson echoed, placing his hands on his wife’s shoulders from where he stood behind her. That her father was dazed by this change in his wife was readily apparent as he looked at Fellis, but she could also see the happiness in him. “I cannot say that I am pleased that the man’s will was so sorely tested where you are concerned, Fellis. Yet I, like your mother, am grateful that his care for your good was more important to him than his own desire. Given the turn this day has taken, I find I am inclined to be tolerant.”

  Fellis could not take it all in. Not only was her mother forgiving of what she had overheard, but it seemed her father would not reprimand her. Nor did it look as if either of them was angry with Stephen. This made her mother’s metamorphosis all the more apparent, considering the way she had always spoken of the sins of passion in the past.

  Albeit this seemed a good thing, Fellis could not accept so much so quickly. Despite their leniency in this matter she found it unbearable to face her parents, knowing they were aware of her deepest secret.

  She backed away from them. “I must go.”

  Her father held out his hand to her. “Nay, let us help you. Too much have you undergone alone already.”

  Mary Grayson seemed to understand some of what her daughter was going through. “Let her go, Richard. ’Tis only fair to give Fellis some time to herself. Unfortunately, I have been very thorough in my teachings.”

  Looking at them standing there, Fellis knew her mother was indeed correct. This change would take more than a little bit of adjustment. She must now reconsider all her mother had ever said to her about what she must and must not do.

  She turned and hurried from the solar.

  As she did so, Fellis realized that part of her shock came not just from seeing her mother behaving and speaking so differently. It also came from realizing that the change had come too late for herself.

  Her parents at least had a future—together.

  Fellis had no such hope. She was to marry Wynn ap Dafydd.

  Stephen was lost to her. And even if he had not been, he would not have her. She knew her mother believed Stephen had been noble in sending her away.

  Fellis was not so certain. He admitted to wanting her, but it was not the same deep, aching need she felt for him. He refused to forget that he had come here out of duty. And that duty would not be denied, even when she had come near to pleading with him to disregard it.

  For Fellis knew Stephen felt as her parents did, that she had need of protection. They had come to approve of the knight, because he continued to treat her as a child without the power to make decisions about what was best for her. After all that had passed between them, he could not see that she was a woman, with a woman’s wants and needs. That was the way she wanted Stephen and her
parents to view her, not as some helpless infant.

  Stephen would soon leave Malvern for good. He would leave her with scant memories of his loving to see her through the long years ahead.

  She had told Wynn that theirs would be a marriage in name only. It was surely ironic that she was to live the rest of her life in the same state of purity that she would have if she had taken her vows.

  It seemed that in the end, her future existence would not be so very different from what it would have been before the knight came into her world.

  Only the newfound pain of her broken heart would mark the fact that he had come into and would soon be gone from her life.

  Fellis spent a restless and miserable night. The hours between blowing out the candle, as she climbed numbly into bed, and dawn seemed to stretch on interminably.

  In spite of her fog of despair, Fellis did her very utmost to lie still and silent so as not to waken her grandmother. The elderly woman needed her sleep to help her fully recover from the illness that had ravaged her already delicate health.

  Yet there were a few times lying there that Fellis was sure she sensed a change in the older woman’s breathing. But Grandmother never spoke or made any overt sign that she was awake and Fellis told herself that she was simply mistaken.

  Morning did finally arrive and with it no answers to the problems that plagued Fellis’s heart and mind. She went about getting her grandmother’s breakfast and readying her for the day with a heavy burden of sorrow weighing her down.

  As she was setting aside the bowl she had held for the elderly woman, her grandmother broke the silence. “Fellis,” she asked, her blue eyes troubled, “is there aught I can do to help you?”

  The young woman blanched, then felt herself flush, though she tried to speak with an even tone. “I do not know what you mean, Grandmother.”

  The older woman refused to be put off. “I can see that you are troubled, child. And I know that you slept no more than I.”

  Fellis reached out to cover the blue-veined hand. “I am sorry, Grandmother. I had no wish to disturb your rest.”

  The elderly lady made a sound of dismissal. “There is no need to apologize. You did not keep me awake. ’Tis a complication of living with these old bones of mine. Many nights do the aches and pains keep me from my rest. But I know it is not the same with you. Methinks your hurt lies more in the region of your heart.” She watched Fellis directly.

  Trying to hide the truth by looking away, Fellis turned to busy herself with rearranging the items on the tray, but she could not hide her embarrassment from herself. Was she to have no privacy in this matter? Did every member of her family see how hopelessly in love with Stephen she was?

  If they did, did he too know the truth?

  The thought was mortifying. It was one thing for Stephen to believe she was wanton enough to throw herself at him. And quite another for him to know that her actions were not simply motivated by a physical need but by the love she bore him. She did not want the worldly knight to know she had been so foolish as to fall in love with a man she could never have.

  She felt her grandmother’s hand on her sleeve and turned back to face her, trying to mask the sadness in her eyes.

  “Fellis.” The older woman’s gaze was full of compassion and understanding. “Don’t hold yourself from me, dearling. I wish you only well. Too long have you had to be strong with no one to care for you.”

  Fellis looked at her for a long moment in which she fought hard for control of her emotions, fought hard and lost. She laid her head on the old woman’s lap with a cry of misery. “Oh, Grandmother, what am I to do?”

  “There, there, love.”

  Fellis felt the old woman’s hand on her hair and looked up, her expression bleak. “You don’t understand, Grandmother. Mother and Father have decided to reconcile. And even more unbelievable than that, they know of my feelings for Sir Stephen. Instead of being angry, they treated me kindly.” She smiled bitterly through the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. “You see they think that Stephen is too noble to defile me.”

  “But that is a good thing, dear,” her grandmother answered with a bemused expression, then shook her head. “Obviously Sir Stephen’s presence has been able to break through the wall your mother had erected to keep us all out. For that we can only thank him. Sir Stephen seems a man of great honor and integrity.”

  “Rot his integrity,” Fellis cried in frustration. “I am in love with him and he turns me away.”

  Grandmother answered softly. “Have you told him?”

  “Nay.” She put her face in her hands. “How can I tell him when there are so many problems between us, not the least of which is his life is in danger? It is all so confusing.”

  The older woman sighed deeply. “Never were truer words spoken.” She reached up to gently take her granddaughter’s hand from her face. “Now please, child, tell me what you are talking about when you say Sir Stephen is in danger.”

  Fellis looked at her wondering if she could possibly unburden herself. What if Grandmother went to her father and told him of the attempt on Stephen’s life? Would Lord Richard then refuse to go forward with the wedding? He had made his own displeasure with the arrangement known since the beginning. Only because Wynn had appeared to live up to the truce they had both signed had he felt obligated to go along with the king’s directive. Surely any hint that the Welsh had broken their word would be sufficient reason for him to renege.

  She could not let that happen. Fellis longed for peace. Over the course of the weeks since the truce was signed, there had been much less mayhem and strife amongst their people. Not since the day the crofter had come to report the fire in his outbuilding had any untoward incidents occurred.

  Grandmother interrupted her thoughts. “Well.”

  Fellis frowned, unsure as to what she should do. “You will not tell Father what I tell you?”

  The other woman gave her a long, assessing look. “You have my word. Though I may end in advising you to do so.”

  Ignoring the last remark, Fellis began. As she did, it was as if the words flowed of their own accord, as if they had been too long bottled up inside her. She explained everything, starting with the first threat to Stephen at Glenmarket and all that happened since. Fellis even told of Wynn and Ardeth’s relationship, though it pained her to do so. Through it all, Grandmother did not interrupt or make any sound until Fellis spoke of the attack on Stephen in the forest.

  Here the older woman brought her up short with a curt question. “Why did you all assume Stephen was the target?”

  Fellis looked at her. “Who else would it be? Stephen had been threatened by Wynn’s man, Owain, in Glenmarket.” She put her hand to her breast. “Are you saying they mean me harm? It does not serve. I was standing away from Wynn and Stephen when it happened.”

  Lady Myrian shook her head. “Pray listen while I tell you something, then we shall see if you too grasp what I suspect is the truth.”

  Her eyes took on a faraway cast. “When we first came here and you were a babe, your father had the best of intentions. He had been awarded the honor for service to the crown in France. He meant to try living in harmony with his neighbors. To that end he did contact Wynn’s father, Dafydd. Dafydd was mistrustful, but he agreed to come to the castle and talk. He came once and never again. Your father learned afterward that the man had been poisoned, and that Dafydd lay desperately ill for some time afterward. After a time we learned that Dafydd’s cousin had blamed Richard for the attempt on Dafydd’s life.” Myrian gave Fellis a long look. “He took no poison here. Your father would not have lied on that. Sometime later a Welshman came begging entrance to the keep. He asked for positions for himself and his family. He was questioned as to why. The tale he told was one that gained his entry and your father’s trust. That man was Walter, the same Walter who manages the granary to this very day.”

  Fellis could not help being drawn into what her grandmother was saying. “What was it he told?”
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br />   “He said that he knew who had tried to assassinate Dafydd, and that it had been his very own cousin, Owain.”

  Fellis gasped, the older woman’s reasoning beginning to become clear to her.

  Myrian went on. “Owain did not want to make peace with the English, hated them with every fiber of his being and would do anything to stop Dafydd from treating with them. But, you see, after Dafydd believed he had been poisoned by your father there was no more need to harm him. When he was finally recovered he went on a spree of vengeance that lasted for years and wreaked havoc on both sides. Which I might add seemed to thnll Owain.” She ended with a heavy silence.

  Fellis was seeing just where her grandmother was leading. The thought was a disquieting one. She said slowly, “Owain.”

  Grandmother nodded. “You do see. ’Tis only logical. Why at this point would they bother with Sir Stephen? Surely Wynn had discussed his decision to marry you with his folk. With that choice made, Stephen is no longer the object of threat. His part in it is done.”

  Fellis’s mind was numb. “But, Grandmother, it is too much. Wynn would never believe this. He professes to trust the man completely.” She shook her head trying to think clearly. “Can you actually suppose that Wynn was the target of Owain’s arrow?”

  “Aye, I do, as do you,” she replied, and there was no satisfaction in her blue eyes. “It is obvious when one knows how far he has already gone to keep from making peace with his enemies.”

  “But,” Fellis said, “Ardeth would recognize her own father. She told Wynn that she did not know who it was.”

  “And mayhap she did not,” Myrian reasoned. “And even if she did, would she give him away? Think on it How easy could it be to choose between your father and your lover?”

  Fellis knew not what to say to that. “What am I to do?”

  “You must tell someone. Wynn could be in terrible danger.”