Velvet Song (Montgomery/Taggert 4)

The man used this opportunity to speak to Raine, his fingers biting warningly into Alyx’s arm, fairly shouting to be heard over the raucous laughter. “My lord, please forgive the lad. Yesterday a nobleman killed his father and burned his house. He has reason to hate and I fear it extends to all men of your class.”

Instantly, Raine sobered and looked at Alyx with sympathy, which made her stiffen and look away. She did not want his pity.

“What nobleman did this?” Raine asked, his voice full of concern.

“The Earl of Waldenham’s son.”

Spitting in pure disgust, Raine’s face twisted for a moment, his fine lips curling into a snarl. “Pagnell,” he said, his voice full of contempt. “The man doesn’t deserve the title of man or nobleman. Come with me, boy, and I will teach you we’re not all cut of the same cloth. I need a squire and you will do nicely.”

In two steps he was beside her, his arm companionably about her shoulders.

“Do not touch me,” she gasped, jumping away from him. “I do not need your pity or the soft job of serving your sweet cakes. I am . . . a man and I can hold my own. I will work and earn my keep.”

“Sweet cakes, is it?” Raine asked as a dimple flashed in his left cheek. “I have a feeling, boy,” he said, looking her up and down, “you have no idea what work is. You have legs and arms more suited for a girl.”

“How dare you insult me so!” she gasped, scared that she was going to be revealed at any moment, grabbing for her dagger but finding only an empty sheath.

“Another of your mistakes,” Raine said. “You dropped it to the ground.” Slowly, with great show, he removed her little knife from the waist of his hose, those tight, tight hose that clung to his body, a triangular patch loosely tied over his maleness. “I’ll teach you to keep your weapons about you and not discard them so lightly.” Idly, he ran his thumb along the blade. “It needs sharpening.”

“It was sharp enough to cut your thick hide,” she said confidently, smiling back at him, glad she could repay him for some of his self-assurance.

As if just remembering the bloody cut, he glanced at it before looking back at her. “Come with me, squire, and tend to my wound,” he said flatly, turning his back on her as if he expected her to follow him.

Alyx instantly decided that she did not want to stay in this camp at the mercy and whim of this man Raine, who attracted her so yet made her so angry. And she did not like these dirty, greedily staring people who surrounded her, watching as if she were part of a play put on for their entertainment.

She turned to the servant who’d brought her. “I don’t wish to stay here. I will take my chances elsewhere,” she said, turning toward the saddled horse.

“Neither do you know how to obey an order,” came Raine’s voice from behind her, an instant before his big hand clamped on her neck. “I’ll not let a little thing like your terror of me keep me from acquiring a good squire.”

“Get away from me!” she yelled as he pushed her ahead of him. “I don’t want to stay here. I won’t stay here.”

“As I see it you owe me for spilling some of my blood. Now get in there!” he said as he pushed her inside a large canvas tent.

Trying not to cry at the pain in her leg, at the battering her already bruised body was taking, she clutched at a tent pole and tried to stay upright.

“Blanche!” Raine bellowed out of the tent flap. “Bring me some hot water and some linen and make sure it’s clean!”

“Now, boy,” he said, turning back to her and, for a moment, studying her. “You’ve hurt your leg

. Take off those hose and let me look at it.”

“No!” she gasped, backing away from him.

He looked truly puzzled. “Is it me you fear or”—he gave a bit of a smile—“that you’re modest? Oh, well,” he said, sitting down on the cot at the edge of the tent, “perhaps you should be shy. If I had legs like yours I’d be ashamed of them, too. But don’t worry, lad, we’ll put some muscle on your scrawny body. Ah, yes, Blanche, put it there and go.”

“But don’t you want me to dress your wound?”

Alyx looked from her scrutiny of her legs, thinking that they weren’t so bad at all, to see the woman who spoke. Her sensitivity to sound and especially to voices made her look up sharply. The hint of a whine, the begging quality, somehow overridden by a touch of insolence, grated along her spine. She saw a plump woman with stringy, dirty blonde hair, looking at Raine as if she might devour him at any moment.

With pure disgust, Alyx looked away.

“The boy will dress the wound.”

“I most certainly will not!” Alyx said vehemently. “Let the woman do it, ’tis woman’s work and she looks as if she’d like the job.” Smiling, Alyx thought perhaps she might like being a male and not having to do all the thankless drudgery tasks of a woman.

Raine, in one unseen, swift gesture, leaned forward, grabbed Alyx’s thigh in one of his big hands and pulled. As her leg went flying out from under her she landed very hard on her already bruised rump.

“You need some manners as well as muscles. Go now, Blanche,” he said pointedly to the staring woman. When they were alone he turned back to Alyx. “I’ll be forgiving for a few days since you’ve not had a noble background, but if your manners don’t soon improve, I’ll take a switch to that puny body of yours and see if you can learn to behave. The water grows cold, so come and clean this wound and bind it.”