The Braeswood Tapestry

by Robyn Carr

  Enid made no attempt to bury the argument or pretend compliance, but she nodded an affirmative answer nonetheless. She knew, as did the entire household, that there were two people within the walls of Braeswood who could voice themselves like equals with the lord on a few occasions. Now that it was clear that she and Avery had had their piece, they would not have those liberties bestowed on this subject again.

  “Yes, my lord,” she said, giving her head a slight bow. And with a glitter in her gray eyes and a slight twisting of her hands, she almost smiled as she added, “I think I understand what it is you want.” And with that she left, leaving Trent with a curiously raised brow. She might not voice further protest or complaint, but from the way she left him, he knew that she would be about some quiet mischief until the conclusion of this affair pleased her.

  He leaned back, alone in the study and not feeling a mood for the food that had been delivered, and contemplated his foolishness. “I lectured myself on the ride from Dearborn and I lectured myself with the aid of plentiful brandy as I watched her sleep. It is a foolish man that does not listen to even his own wiser judgment, and the cost of defiling the maid will be high—higher probably than I can afford. But I will take great pleasure in paying the toll while she prances upon my purse and about my house.”

  From past experience, Trent could easily consider the amount of time that Avery and Enid would suffer unto him their displeasure, and he thought that by the end of the week the tight-lipped pouting would be spent. The crippling obsession for Jocelyn might then be quieted as well and worth the wait, then duties could go on as before. It was hardly the first time he had displayed unpredictable straying from custom, and his mind was quickly bent on methods he would use to settle his affairs in a way that would leave all pleased. He thought perhaps a small and quiet reward to those servants who honored his whim with discretion and good humor might set a certain standard among the staff. He had learned much of living by his wits alone when beggared by war and was strong and intelligent enough to turn things to his favor quickly.

  More optimistic, he bent his head again to his work, his breakfast untouched, and made an effort at better concentration. The teasing thought kept rising, however, that he had not installed this vixen for a mere twenty pounds paid to Lord Kerr for her brother’s release. He wondered, in spite of himself, what great sum she would eventually extract from him in exchange for her simple virtue and damaged reputation.

  Jocelyn watched the woman, Enid, busy herself about Trent’s chamber while she ate a hearty breakfast at a small table. She’d risen to find herself alone and quickly donned the clothes she was given the day before. She pulled the coverlet over the bedding in a fruitless effort to conceal her shame, but she was discovered quite easily.

  Enid had entered the room as Jocelyn believed was a morning ritual, and upon first sight of the single inhabitant, she had displayed wide, shocked eyes. The older woman went directly to the bed to tear off the linen and mumbled angrily all the while, ranting at the deeds of the night past. Jocelyn feared her anger, for the woman asked no questions of her but glowered at her as she attempted to set the room aright. Then, the storm seemingly spent, Enid bent to Jocelyn, and although her expression was strained, her words were not unkind.

  “My name is Enid and I manage this household for Sir Trent, not always to my liking. Since you are here alone, I am to believe that you were occupied here through the night.”

  Jocelyn nodded weakly, half-expecting the housekeeper to slap her at any moment.

  “What is your name, child, and where are you from?”

  “Jocelyn,” she gulped. “Of Bowens Ash.”

  “You have a family there?”

  Perhaps out of fear or complete exhaustion of her energy, Jocelyn simply shook her head to the negative. It was true that after what had transpired she could claim no family now. And the less the manor servants knew of her circumstances the better. She absolutely did not want any of her brothers or her sister to suffer poor treatment if the gossip of her choice reached as far as her village.

  “Well, I doubt there’s much I can do to change Sir Trent’s vile treatment of you, but I will see you fed and washed and learn of his intention. Has he hurt you badly, child?”

  She shook her head again, for with the exception of that fierce and quick coupling, she had felt no pain. And although she kept still with eyes closed through the night, she was completely aware of his arms about her. He had been gentle and loving, for which she was deeply grateful. The tears that glistened on her lashes did not come from her defilement. The riveting emotions she felt were born of another matter entirely. She assumed that now that he’d used her, she would be loosed to make the way of her choosing, and his gentle touch had been the first she’d felt applied to her since her mother’s death. It had been many years since a tender hand had touched her brow or strong arms had protected her from the dark of night.

  But Enid surmised the tears were wrought of pain and shame. She shook her head sadly. Her chubby finger lightly touched the mark on Jocelyn’s cheek that was by now well healed. “It’s been a long time that I’ve known the master, and never have I known him to lay such a brutal hand to a maid, and mark me, I’ll not stay to see it again. What brought you here, maid?”

  “It was a …” Jocelyn began, her eyes wide and glistening and her heart suddenly aching to explain that she was not an opportunistic whore seeking out this life and this man with single-minded interest. But she stopped herself and lowered her gaze, deciding that she had no right to set herself above Sir Trent or this woman he employed by trying to excuse what she had done. “I dare not speak of my intention, ma’am, but to rest your mind and stay your hatred of your lord: he did not force me.” And then Jocelyn’s own fingers caressed the line of the wound on her face. “This happened before I came here.”

  Jocelyn felt Enid’s eyes on her but did not raise her head to meet them. The woman’s breathing was rapid and anxious, and for a long time she seemed to contemplate the situation, finally reaching out a hand to smooth Jocelyn’s hair away from her brow in a kind gesture. “Stay where you are, lass, and I’ll have a tray of food sent to you. Then we’ll see how the master means to deal with you.”

  The promised food was delivered and the reaction of the maid who brought it was not so kind. She had a glower as fierce as an angry dog and nearly spilled the entire breakfast as she dropped it before Jocelyn. The cause was lost on Jocelyn, but apparently Enid was familiar with the problem, for she entered on the maid’s heels and barked at her.

  “Treena! You’ll not punish this innocent with your wounded pride. Set the tray right and hold your movements with a care.”

  “Innocent?” the maid retorted. “Ha! Look at the gloat o’ her! She’s right pleased wit’ herself, ain’t she now?”

  “Treena! Get yourself gone!”

  When the maid had closed the door, Jocelyn braved a few words to Enid. “She’s right, you know,” she said quietly. “I’m not very innocent.”

  Enid huffed and snorted a noncommittal reply, moving about the chamber in a stilted manner, fluffing quilts and pillows with more strength than was required, finally letting her stifled complaints be heard more clearly. “She’s a jealous witch, that one, and I’ll be coming between the two of you more than once, I vow.”

  With time her manner softened and she seemed more tractable. “Can your stomach not take more than that? I think you’ve been through more than you allow and I imagine you feel the weight of it. Have you no mother to take care of you, child?”

  “She’s been dead a long time, ma’am.”

  Enid sighed heavily. “He’s right, I aim. There’s naught but myself to see that you bear what’s been done with some small scrap of decency. I don’t ken, you understand, but the chance is small that it’s better for you to stay on, rather than be shuffled out without a thought. At least I can keep some rough methods at bay ’til you’ve grown a little stronger and smarter … but I can’t keep himself from
what he wants. You’ve taken a poor turn, lass, to put any stock in Sir Trent. He can’t do right by you now, even if it’s what he thinks he wants. And the day’ll come you’ll have to leave and be much alone, I trust.”

  Jocelyn’s eyes widened in surprise. She hadn’t thought about a future time of leaving Braeswood. She fully expected that at the first light of dawn she would be shown the door. It never occurred to her that Trent had planned that, until he lay beside her for one night.

  “I’d have called myself crazed for thinking I’d approve his lordship’s foolishness, but I’m seeing now it’s better that you’re here with everyone knowing what you are to him, rather than passed off to some village nearby and left there to shift with the gossips as you might. Aye, better, I think, after all.”

  “I’m to stay here?” she asked, appalled at the thought.

  Enid simply nodded. “Not in this room, mind you, but we’ll get you something with comfort to it.” She turned and looked across the room at Jocelyn. “Have you ever worked in a manor the likes of this? Ever cleaned for a nobleman or mended his clothes or attended to his meals?”

  Jocelyn shook her head.

  “Then I can see there’ll be much to show you, and pleasing this one is no simple matter. I knew a wounded bobcat once with a kink in his tail was easier to please than Master Wescott.” The old woman cackled in equal parts of aggravation and pride. “Aye, he’s of a mind to keep you underfoot, and I’m to set you in a room and show you the workings of the house. Under whose lordship was your family and your service before you came here?”

  Jocelyn swallowed hard, wondering how to answer the woman’s questions without giving away too much personal information. These careful politics were entirely new and she felt her inexperience. “Lord Kerr,” she said quietly.

  Enid immediately cast a knowing stare in her direction and calculated very quickly. “Tell me truthfully, Maid Jocelyn. Did the Kerr family threaten yours?” Jocelyn looked at her in a long pause and finally gave a brief nod. “You, in particular?” Enid asked. Again, she was a long time in responding, and again she nodded slowly. Enid’s eyes darkened and glittered, her mouth fixed in a grim and angry line, but she did not direct this at Jocelyn, rather at the very mention of the Kerrs. This was the first indication Jocelyn had as to how deeply the hatred penetrated Wescott and all those who served him.

  Enid looked away and fluffed a bed pillow for the ninth or tenth time, muttering to herself. “Saints be stricken, it’s all coming to pass in ways I’d never have believed … but he’s locked himself into a poor battle this time, God help him.”

  When finally Jocelyn laid down her fork, having finished as much of the meal as she could, she had Enid’s attention again. “I’ve chores for you and later a bath. Now, my aim is to help you as much as I can, since you’re not able to do for yourself, and you might as well know, it comes by his order. But you must never ask anything of me that puts Sir Trent at a disadvantage. Do you understand me, girl?” Jocelyn nodded eagerly. “I don’t like what he’s done, mind, but I can’t undo it and I can’t change his intention.” And in a voice unmistakably firm, she added, “And I won’t have anyone in this house who would plot his misfortune.”

  Chapter Six

  After a long space of early morning during which Jocelyn was left to wait alone in the lord’s chamber, Enid returned for her and led her to another room for cleaning chores. From the lord’s chamber they went into an adjoining broad sitting room with a hearth that was under some reconstruction and beyond that to another bedroom which from all appearances was being reopened for the first time.

  Two maids were hard at the task there of cleaning and pulling down stained and rotting draperies. Cobwebs scarred the sculptured walls and richly carved furniture. There were wide windows in this room that overlooked a courtyard and the long expanse of lands in the rear of the manor, but the glass was so dirty one could barely see through it.

  As Enid talked to one of the maids, Jocelyn took the hem of her skirt up to the glass and rubbed a hole in the dirt, looking out over the grounds. The generous stream that ran behind the stables formed a rich, velvet bank lined with fruit trees. From this vantage point, she could see the work being done to set the lawns in order better than she could see it from ground level. Gardeners labored beneath her, a painter worked hard on one wall of the stable, and loads of lumber lay stacked on a cart near the rear of the house.

  “The view of the Wescott property is better from this window than any other,” Enid said from behind her.

  Jocelyn turned to find the eyes of all the maids upon her. “It’s a beautiful room,” she said, at a complete loss as to how she should behave now.

  “And it’s our labor today to see it cleaned. Take up a broom, girl, and let’s see how you handle yourself.”

  There was a great difference between the cleaning of a small village abode and a rich manor chamber. Jocelyn had spread fresh rushes sweetened with herbs on her father’s floor, while in this room there was scrubbing and polishing to be done. She required a great deal of instruction, and it seemed that no matter what her intention, whether she picked up a cloth, brush, or broom, one of the maids impatiently corrected her action and gave stern directions.

  The morning was nearly past and the greater part of the obvious dirt had been cleared away, when a repast of bread, fruit, and cheese was brought to the room. The maids grabbed at the food selfishly, and only a heel of bread and chunk of hardened cheese were left by the time Jocelyn timidly approached them. She shrugged off the insult, thinking she should expect no better, and lowered herself to the floor within their company. Eyeing them warily, she retrieved the heel of bread and bent it carefully, replacing half of it on the tray. She did the same with the hardened chunk of cheese and began to nibble at her meal. Before she swallowed, she noticed the two maids staring at her and she stopped.

  The older of the two indicated the remains on the tray with her own filled hand and manipulated the food in her mouth to one side to speak. “That’s yours,” she mumbled. “Go ahead and eat it.”

  “It’s all right,” Jocelyn self-consciously replied. “You may be hungry when you’ve finished. You can have it.”

  The first began to laugh and poked at the younger, heavier maid. “I’ve taken my share and Agnes needs to be eating less. You needn’t take it upon yourself to see her fattened.”

  The heavier woman glowered, her mouth too full for her to speak. “Truly,” Jocelyn said. “It’s more than I’m accustomed to.”

  “I hadn’t thought you to be shy, Jocelyn,” the first said, a bit of sarcasm in her voice. “Sir Trent is not tightfisted with his food.”

  Jocelyn left the remains on the tray until the two maids had eaten their fill and were back about their duties. When she thought no one was looking, she slipped the bread into her pocket and popped the cheese into her mouth. She quickly placed the empty tray outside the door and turned to help the others with the cleaning. As she turned, the maid who had spoken to her was right there, looking at her intensely. She had a sad expression, and unless Jocelyn misread it, pity showed in her eyes.

  She tapped the apron pocket in which Jocelyn had stowed the bread and spoke quietly. “You needn’t be afraid that you won’t be fed,” she said quietly.

  “I, ah, thought perhaps later I might—”

  “There’s aplenty in this hall, Jocelyn, and if you’ve need of something, you have only to ask. No one is beaten or starved here.” She looked over her shoulder where the other maid glowered at them both. “In fact,” she said, turning back to Jocelyn, “we here fare better than do those who live outside this hall. Richly, I aim, compared to the villagers and farmers outside this burg.”

  Jocelyn lowered her eyes, embarrassed at having drawn so much attention from them and certain that they knew she came from a small farming town. She didn’t aspire to gain entrance to their group but hoped the stony silence they maintained as they worked together would pass and in time they might be on friendl
ier terms.

  “I am Glynnis, and Enid is my grandmother. You may ask me any questions about this house, when you have them. But the master will be angry if he finds you stealing food away for fear of starvation. Tell me when you are hungry.”

  Jocelyn smiled uncomfortably and answered, “Yes ma’am,” to which the young woman laughed very pleasurably, certainly unaccustomed to being addressed with such respect. And at Glynnis’s amused laughter, Agnes scowled blackly. Jocelyn thought it would be a long time before she would understand the many undercurrents here. She could not distinguish their kindness from their mockery of her.

  In the afternoon hours, the maids were accompanied by others doing their chores within the chamber. A carpenter repaired a leg of a dressing table, furniture was moved in and out, and rolled tapestries were hung on the walls. A new feather mattress replaced the old, worn one, and fresh lengths of bed curtains were nailed to rods that spread across the posters. The windows were cleaned by men on ladders, and heavy, thick blue draperies were brought in to replace those older ones that had rotted with age. The wood was oiled and shone, the floor was aglow with wax, and the smells of soap and clean linen filled the air.

  The transformation of the room was magnificent and it sparkled as any queen’s chamber. Even Jocelyn was proud, although she could quickly admit that the skill in the cleaning belonged to the others and she had simply worked by their orders. But as the last of the workmen left and she was alone with the other two maids, she sighed in honest appreciation. “It is lovely, ain’t it,” she said, and then quickly flushed at the way they looked at her and her own spontaneous tongue. John Cutler would not condone any covetous remark about wealth or beauty in his house. “You are so very talented,” she said to them, trying to smooth over whatever had set them on edge. “You must be so proud of your skills. I’ll watch very carefully, and I know the next time I’ll do much better.”