Velvet Song (Montgomery/Taggert 4)

“You think you’re too good for me, don?

??t you, you in your pretty clothes with your fine manners. Just because you’ve spent today with him doesn’t mean you’ll spend every day with him.”

With a sneer, Alyx kept working on the horse. “Go about your business, woman. I have none with you.”

Blanche grabbed Alyx’s arm, pulled her about. “Until this morning I waited on Raine, brought his food to him and now he orders me to prepare a bed in his tent for you. What kind of boy are you?”

It took Alyx a moment to understand Blanche’s insinuations and when she did, her eyes blazed purple fire. “If you knew anything about the nobility you’d know that all the lords have squires. I merely perform the duties of any good squire.”

Blanche, obviously attempting to appear as part of the nobility, tried to stand erect. “Of course,” she snapped. “I know about squires. But just you remember,” she said threateningly, “Raine Montgomery is mine. I care for him as his lady would—in every way.” With that, she turned on her heel and left through the trees.

“Lady!” Alyx muttered, going after the horse with a vengeance. “What would a slut like that know of being a lady?” Angry, she was unaware of time passing until she heard Raine’s voice close to her.

“Boy,” he said, making her jump. “You’ve got to be faster than that with a horse. There’s plenty more work to be done.”

“More?” she whispered and looked so sad that Raine smiled, eyes twinkling, and Alyx straightened. She’d give him no reason to laugh at her again.

After setting aside the brush, whispering one last tune to the stallion, Alyx followed Raine back to the camp, where he went directly to a group of disreputable-looking men huddled about a fire. Raine, with his proud stance, his noble bearing, made these men seem even filthier than they were.

“Here, you three,” Raine said in a low growl. “You take the first watch.”

“I ain’t stayin’ out in them woods,” one man said as he turned to walk away.

Grabbing him with one hand, Raine pulled the man back and administered a swift kick to his backside that sent him sprawling. “If you eat, you work,” he said in a deadly voice. “Now get to your posts. I will come later, and if any of you are asleep, it will be the man’s last sleep.”

With his features set in a grim line, Raine watched the men as they left the camp, sulking like little children. “Those are your fine friends,” he said in an undertone to Alyx as he turned away.

“They are no friends of mine!” she snapped.

“Nor is Pagnell a friend of mine!” he retorted.

Halting, she stared after his broad back. It was true, she knew. She had no right to hate him because of what another man had done.

“Blanche!” Raine grunted. “Food!”

With that, Alyx went tearing after him because she was very hungry. Inside the tent, Blanche placed roast boar, bread, cheese and hot wine before them, and Alyx tore into the food with gusto.

“That’s the way, boy!” Raine laughed, slapping her on the back, making her choke. “Keep eating like that and you’ll put some size on yet.”

“Keep working me like today and I’ll die in a week!” she gasped, trying to dislodge a piece of pork from her throat, ignoring Raine’s laughter.

The meal finished, Alyx looked with longing toward the pallet along one wall of the tent. To rest, she thought, just to lie down and be still for a few hours would be heaven on earth.

“Not yet, boy,” Raine said, grabbing her arm and pulling her upright. “There’s still work before we can sleep. The guards need to be checked, I have animal traps set and we both need a bath.”

That startled her awake. “Bath!” she gasped. “No, not me.”

“When I was your age I had to be forced to bathe, too. Once my older brother scoured me with a horse brush.”

“Someone forced you to do something?” she asked, incredulous.

Raine’s pride seemed to be at stake. “Actually, it took both my older brothers, and Gavin came away with a blacked eye. Now, come on. We have work to do.”

Reluctantly, Alyx followed him, but no matter how hard she tried, she could put no energy in her steps. Like someone dead, she followed Raine through the forest, occasionally bumping into trees, stumbling over rocks, as he went around the perimeter of the camp making sure the guards were on duty and awake and removing rabbits and hares from his traps. At first he tried to talk to her, explain what he was doing, how to toss a rock and see if the guards responded, but after a while he studied her in the moonlight, noting her exhaustion, and stopped talking.

At the stream outside the camp he told her to sit still and wait for him while he bathed. Half asleep, reclining on the bank, her head propped on her arm, Alyx watched with languid interest as Raine removed his clothing and stepped into the icy water. Moonlight silvered his body, caressed the muscles, played along his thighs, made love to those magnificent arms. Lifting herself on her elbows, Alyx unabashedly watched him. All her life had been given to music. While other girls were flirting with the boys at the town well, Alyx was composing a Latin lamentation for four voices. When her friends were getting married, she was inside the church organizing a boys’ chorus. She’d never had time to talk to boys, to get to know them—actually, had never been interested in them, had always been too busy to even notice them.

Now, for the first time in her life, watching this nude man bathing she felt the first stirrings of . . . of what? She certainly knew about mating, had even listened to some of the gossip from the recently married women, but she’d never felt any interest in the process. This man standing before her, rising out of the water like some heavenly centaur, made her feel things she’d never thought possible.