“Why are you here?” Nick's wife demanded.
So blunt a question deserved an equally blunt answer. “I’ve come to ask you to return to Graceton.”
“Nay, I cannot.” Despite her hard look Cecily’s voice trembled. “You should be his rightful wife now. Perhaps the steward hasn’t told you. I've requested an annulment. Although it may be a year or more before it’s granted, no one need ever know Nick and I were wed.”
Belle nodded. “He said as much.”
“I can’t go back.” There was a pained intensity to Cecily's voice as she placed her fist against her bodice as if to ease an ache. “For ten years, he was mine. To be near him now knowing I must spurn his every fond look and touch, is more than I can bear.”
Belle sighed, all too well understanding this particular torment. It was no different for her with Jamie. The sense of connection only made the news she bore that much harder to spew.
“You must come back, Cecily,” she said, daring to use the woman’s given name. “It's time.”
The woman beside her drew a sharp breath as she recognized the message in those words. Tears started to her eyes. She blinked them away then shook her head.
“Nay,” she breathed in denial.
“Aye,” Belle told her, laying a hand upon the woman's shoulder. “Squire Nicholas—Nick needs you, Cecily, just as I need your skill to help make him comfortable as he passes.”
Cecily jerked free then backed across the chamber until she collided with the table. The pot rattled. Belle followed then took the healer’s hand. Cecily's work-hardened fingers clenched around Belle's, as if all that kept her standing was the gentlewoman's touch.
“You must have known months ago that he faced this,” Belle said, her voice soothing and low.
The color drained from Cecily's face as her single nod confirmed Belle's comment. Even so, a tear trailed down her cheek. Her mouth pinched as she held back a sob.
Belle laid an arm about the woman's shoulders. “Cecily, what I hear in your husband's lungs says to me that you've had him far longer than our heavenly Father originally intended. Come to him now, content to let him go. Take with you my assurance that as I give him over into your care it’s with no expectation that you hide your love.”
A keening sound escaped the healer. Her hands flew to her face as she buried her cry into her palms. “I'm not ready to let him go,” she mourned into her hands.
“Are we ever ready?” Belle asked, stroking a hand down her sister-wife’s back. “Come now. Find your cloak and we'll be on our way.”
Rubbing the tears off her cheeks, determination came to life in Cecily’s gaze. “What am I doing, grieving for him already? Where there is life, there is hope. A moment, my lady, while I gather the things I'll need for him. It’s fever and the filling of his lungs that plagues him now?”
“Aye,” Belle replied, then dared a tiny smile. “I was hoping you’d have something to offer him. God knows, he'll take nothing I make for him.”
Cecily laid a coarsely woven sack upon the table and began pulling items off the shelves on her wall. “Take no insult from his refusal, my lady. He'll accept only half of what I brew for him, and that only because I’ve given way to tears as I begged him to it.”
“I've noticed he's not at all an easy patient,” Belle said, making herself useful by dousing the flames on the cottage's hearthstone with water from a bucket, then laying the pottery cover atop it.
Cecily paused to shoot a wet and wary look over her shoulder at the woman who should have been her lady.
“Why are you doing this when I have stolen your husband from you?”
Wiping her ashy hands on her skirt, Belle smiled. “How can you steal from me what I never wanted? Besides, I’ve thought much about you since the wedding day. You and I, we are much alike I think.”
Cecily's brow creased in surprise. “We are? How so?”
“Neither of us are great beauties,” Belle said then realized how odd the comment sounded. “Pardon, I hope you don’t mind me saying so.”
Nick's wife only laughed. “I’ve never had any pretension to beauty, knowing what I am. How else are we alike?”
Grateful that she’d offered no insult, Belle continued. “We’ve both been scorned by those around us. And we both love a man it seems we're bound to lose.”
“Ah,” Cecily said with a swift smile as she turned back to gathering items off her wall. “But if you’re not married to Nick, why do you worry over losing this man you love?”
“I fear his love for me won’t endure past the squire's death,” Belle replied before she realized what her words revealed.
Cecily whirled to look at her. Intelligence gleamed in the woman’s strange eyes as she added the sums and read its total. “It’s Jamie you love,” she breathed in astonishment.
Belle grimaced. Once again she bumbled, spewing the truth instead of dissembling as a lady should. “We’ve done naught improper,” she said, only to realize that this wasn't true, not if Jamie was right about them not being married.
Drawing the string on her sack, Cecily smiled, her grin weak. “Of course not. Jamie's not one for impropriety.”
Her amusement faded and she sent Belle a rueful look. “You’re wise to fear Master Wyatt’s reaction. For far too long he’s lived only to satisfy Nick's need for him.”
Tears rose to fill Belle's throat as she heard confirmation of what she’d seen on Jamie's face. “So it seems,” she sighed.
“You're right,” Cecily said, coming to stand beside her. “We are much alike. I'll offer you my sympathy, guessing at the sorts of burdens you've borne and share with you my joy at finding a kindred soul.”
She dropped into a deep curtsy. “Thank you for coming to me this day. You’ve done me more kindness than I deserve.”
A wry smile touched Belle’s lips as Cecily rose. “Enough of that. If you’re ready, it's time we returned.”
Cecily's nod was brief and filled with confidence. “I am ready, my lady.”
On the return to Graceton Cecily sat behind Belle in the saddle, the heat of an additional body making the day's cold far more tolerable. As they reached the stables two lads darted out to take the horses. The lad who came toward Belle started as he saw the woman seated behind her, his face whitening. He crossed his fingers and began to back away from the horse.
Belle frowned at him. Now that she knew Cecily, his reaction seemed all the more unfair. No matter how strange the woman's eyes, a few moments' conversation with her would convince anyone she was no witch.
“Come hold your lady's horse, you fool,” Jamie barked at the lad as he dismounted.
The fear of losing his position was greater than the lad’s fear of Cecily. He crept close to Belle's horse and caught its bridle. Still, he turned his back so he didn’t have to look upon the woman he believed to be a witch.
Cecily dropped her sack then slid to the ground. Belle followed in a flurry of skirt and petticoat. Shoulders hunched against the wind, Jamie strode for the gate. Cecily picked up her sack and followed. Belle kept pace, linking her arm with the healer's as they walked.
“What reason have they for thinking you evil?” she asked, the wind brisk enough to rip the words from her lips.
“It was my mother,” Cecily replied, leaning her head near Belle’s so the gentlewoman could hear her. “Her need for solitude drove her as far away from the village as she could go and still survive.”
Amusement flashed through the woman’s strange eyes. “Our home, my home, was once a hunting hut for one of Graceton's lords, abandoned long before Nick’s grandsire took his title. My mother believed no man cared that she’d claimed the place when in truth Graceton's huntsmen avoided it because of her. They feared her and her companions.”
At Belle's questioning look, Cecily smiled. “My mother healed injured forest creatures, keeping most of them as pets. They were dearer to her than I ever was.”
Belle shot the woman a startled look. “She kept wild crea
tures?”
“She not only kept them,” Cecily said, “she spoke to them. There were more than a few in the village who called them her familiars. All that kept her from the hangman's noose was her uncanny ability to cure those most horribly injured, folk like Nick.” There was a catch in her voice as she spoke his name.
They entered the castle’s gate and the battering of the wind abated for the moment. In this respite both women paused to catch their breaths. Jamie was already in the inner yard.
“Well, that explains why they might accuse your mother of witchcraft,” Belle said. After the wind’s roar, her comment rang like a shout in the gateway's quiet. “What did you do to win that accusation?”
“You mean beyond the color of my eyes?” Cecily shifted her sack from one shoulder to the other then smiled, the lift of her lips bitter. “It's the man who sired me on my mother,” she said, starting for the gate's opposite end.
“That’s an odd way to speak of your father,” Belle said, hurrying to keep pace.
“It might be, if I knew who he was,” Cecily replied. “All I know is that he took my mother by force when he made me.”
“Nay!” Belle cried, the word echoing about them.
“Aye,” Cecily said. “When the villagers learned my mother was with child they sent the bailiff to wring my father's identity from her in the hopes of forcing a marriage and relieving them of spending community funds to support a bastard. As if my mother would ever have taken their coins,” she added in a quiet and bitter aside.
“To this day I don’t know if she meant to conceal the man's identity, or if his misuse left her more addled than she’d been before my begetting. What she told the bailiff was that my sire had evaporated with the morning's mist.
“Then I was born with these eyes.” The lift of her hand indicated her yellow irises. Cecily shrugged. “After that, there weren’t many who didn’t think me the devil's spawn.”
“That would be enough,” Belle agreed with a nod, a little more unnerved by the tale than she wished to reveal. “What of the village minister? Hasn’t he ever offered to question you, in order to prove or disprove what is suspected?”
“Him?” Cecily spat out. “He hasn't the spine to stand against the bailiff and his family. Nor does he like the fact that Nick pays my fine for not attending his church.”
They paused at the opposite end of the gateway. Ahead of them Jamie was bulling his way across the yard, his head lowered against the wind. Belle watched him then glanced at Cecily.
“About Master Wyatt. I didn’t mean to offer the confidence I did.” She followed this with a nervous shrug.
Again, Cecily laughed. “If you're asking me to keep your secret, I will. Who am I to spill it, married in secret as I am?”
Smiling, Belle gave the woman's arm a grateful pat. “Well then my sister-wife, brace yourself. We’re back into the wind.”
Locking their arms, they lowered their heads and drove out into the yard. The air battered at them. By the time they reached the entrance to the hall they were gasping in exertion and shivering with the cold. As Cecily started to walk on for the farther tower door, Belle pulled her close again, the pressure of her grip keeping Cecily at her side as the wind swept them up the steps and through the doorway. It was dark enough in the passage that Belle nearly ran into Jamie before she saw him waiting in the shadows.
“My lady, it might be better if you let Cecily enter by the tower door,” Jamie said, his voice strained and cautious.
“Why?” Belle replied in astonishment. “We’re here. She’s not going back out into that, not when we’re so close to the warmth of our fire.
“Come, Cecily,” Belle said, her hold on the healer’s arm insisting that the woman keep pace with her.
Together, they entered through the screen's opening. It was the dinner hour and servants filled the many tables, their heads bent over their trenchers as they ate, their conversation muted. However invisible Graceton’s master might be, his illness had thrown a pall over those who served him. At the nearest table scullery lads looked up, their eyes wide as they recognized Cecily. One crossed his fingers.
Belle felt Cecily’s flinch beneath her hand on the healer’s arm. So this was why Jamie had suggested the tower door. But somehow and in less than an hour, Cecily Elwyn had joined those few Belle accorded as family; no one was going to hurt one she already considered dear.
Belle laid a protective arm across the woman’s back. “Come, Cecily,” she said, forcing Nick’s reluctant wife deeper into the room.
With each step they took more folk turned to watch. Someone whispered the healer’s name, then another and another until it was a harsh murmur, a warning being called forward, table by table. If some stared boldly, others turned their heads so as not to see her. Still others lifted crossed fingers to ward off the devil's eye.
At the room's highest table, Mistress Miller came to her feet. With her gnarled fingers braced upon the table's top to steady her, the housekeeper shot her usual challenging look at Belle before turning a vicious glare onto Cecily.
“What is this?” the old woman called out, her voice echoing about the quiet room.
“What it is, Mistress Miller, is none of your business,” Jamie called back, his voice raised and hard.
The crone gave the steward her customary dismissive sniff. “You’ll not bring that creature into my hall. Out with you,” she commanded, waving at Cecily as if she could sweep the woman from the hall with the movement of her fingers. There was something in her manner that suggested she believed the hall her sole domain now that Graceton’s squire ailed.
An instant and complete silence claimed the watching servants. Every soul in the room looked to their steward to see how he'd react to such blatant insubordination. They were looking at the wrong person.
Releasing Cecily, Belle strode to the high table and stopped before the old woman, her fists braced on her hips. “Do you dare speak so boldly before me?” Belle demanded, her voice ringing up into Graceton's ornate rafters. “This is not your hall to rule, and you do not have the right to say who comes or goes from it.”
The crone eyed the gentlewoman before her, then gave another, quieter sniff as if Belle wasn’t worthy of her best scorn. “Lady you might be, but you’re an outsider here. You know nothing of this woman. It’s her who made Lord Nicholas ill, doing it because he chose to wed you instead of her. She's poisoned him.”
If the old woman had believed what she’d said, Belle might have forgiven her. Instead, what glowed in the biddy's eyes was the certainty that her invented accusation would swing the servants into supporting her over one who should have been their rightful lady.
What Belle could not do for herself when she first arrived, she did now for Cecily who was weaker and even less protected than she had been those few weeks ago.
“That’s a vicious lie,” Belle retorted. “Do you know, I believe I’ve had enough of you. Not only are you a liar, but you’re insufferably rude. I'll have no servant under my roof who dares to argue with me. Your employment here is ended.” Never mind that Belle was certain her title was Mistress Wyatt and, as such, she had no right to issue such an order.
Confident outrage filled Mistress Miller's gaze. “You’re mistaken if you think you can oust me. I have my position from the old lord, himself.”
“Spew another word and you'll rue this moment for what remains of your life,” Belle warned, her voice raised so all could hear. And they did. Save for the crackle of the fire, her words were the only sound within these four walls. “Have you any kin in the village?”
The old woman’s sneer slipped a little. With a haughty lift of her chin, the housekeeper refused her lady the requested information.
“She has grandchildren.” This came from Graceton's cook, whose rank was high enough that he shared this table with the housekeeper. The old woman gasped as she was betrayed by one she’d counted on as a supporter.
“Good,” Belle said with a nod. “I won’t
have it said that I threw an ancient from her home with no place to seek shelter in this storm.” Turning, the woman who wasn’t Graceton’s rightful lady faced those who believed she was.
“You there, Watt and John,” Belle called to the two men she knew best and liked most among the footmen. “Will you help Mistress Miller remove her belongings to her kinsman’s house in the village?”
“Aye, my lady,” Watt said as he made a fine show of leaping to his feet. “That we will.”
“Nay,” the housekeeper cried out, new panic creeping into her quavering voice. “You’ve no right to do this to me. My tenure here is guaranteed by the old lord’s will.”
“What you say is true,” Jamie called out. “However, Lord Graceton's will also set aside an endowment to be given to you on the day you choose to leave the household. As it seems you’ve made that choice this day, you’ll leave here with coin enough to see you comfortably settled.”
As Jamie spoke he strode forward until he stood at Belle’s side. He glanced at her. She felt his approval like a caress. He turned his gaze to the rest of Graceton’s servants gathered at their meat. “Those who give Graceton their care are cared for by Graceton,” he told them.
Belle almost smiled. He couldn’t have done it more neatly. Such a promise made it unlikely any dissension would arise over the housekeeper’s public dismissal. Nor was there any hostility on the faces of those within the room, or in their voices as they conferred with their neighbors over this unexpected turn of events.
Proud of herself, Belle returned to Cecily. “Come, Mistress Elwyn,” she called out for all to hear as she caught the healer's arm. “Come help me tend my husband with all the skill I know you own.”
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