“You owe me nothing.”
“You!” Alyx spat, then calmed herself, forcing a smile. “Perhaps I do owe you something, but I owe more to these people.”
“Since when have you cared?” He narrowed his eyes at her.
“Since they risked their lives to save me,” she said calmly. “Would you care to join me for a bit of food to break your fast? I can offer you a cold meat pie.”
He seemed to want to say something but turned on his heel and left her.
Alyx kept smiling, her heart pounding as she watched his broad back retreat.
“Pleased with yourself?” Jocelin asked from behind her.
Alyx laughed aloud. “Am I so transparent? Raine Montgomery is an arrogant man, isn’t he? He thinks I’m here only because of him.”
“And aren’t you?” Joss asked.
“I shall drive him insane,” Alyx said happily. “Would you like something to eat? Do you have time to sit with me and answer some questions?”
The questions Alyx asked were about the camp people, questions she should have known the answers to, since she’d lived with them for months. But she felt like an outsider.
“They won’t be easy to win,” Jocelin said. “They have many grudges against you. Blanche has blamed many problems on you.”
“Blanche!” Alyx said, sitting up straight. Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place.
“Blanche was the woman who caused Constance’s death. How else would she have known about Edmund Chatworth? You must hate Blanche.”
“I am through with hating.” He stood. “Would you like to see Rosamund? If you want to help the people, she can tell you how to start.”
Alyx wasn’t prepared for the changes in Rosamund. Her eyes shone so brightly when she looked at Jocelin that the birthstain on her cheek almost disappeared. Joss’s eyes were no less bright.
“Alyx would like to help you,” he said in a soft, sweet voice, taking Rosamund’s hand.
Rosamund gave Alyx a tolerant smile that made Alyx stiffen her back, and she thanked heaven for Judith’s training.
“I’m sure we can find something for you to do,” Rosamund said in her soft voice.
It took Alyx a week to make Rosamund realize she meant business. During that time Alyx worked early and late and no job was beneath her. She washed and bandaged running sores. She delivered a child to a woman eaten with the French pox and when the blind baby died, she buried it; no one else would touch the poor thing. She sang to an old woman who screamed incoherently at ghosts only she could see.
“Her ladyship’s doin’ us low ones a favor,” a man said to her as she went through the dark to her tent. “Afraid to dirty her hands, she was, and now nothin’s dirty enough for her. But I don’t see Raine bowin’ before her.”
In her tent, Alyx put her hands to her temples. Her head ached from noises and ugly smells. The sick allowed her to touch them, but the healthy people ignored her except to taunt her. And as for Raine, she rarely even saw him.
“Did you come here to win Raine or these diseased scum?” Joan asked frequently.
“Raine,” Alyx had whispered, rubbing her temples. Now the tent was empty, Joan obviously sleeping somewhere else. Alyx wasn’t used to having servants and was a failure at controlling Joan. Seeing that the water buckets were empty, Alyx grabbed them and went to the river.
Kneeling at the bank she looked about her, at the sparkling surface of the water, broken diamonds in the moonlight. A sound made her turn and her heart leaped to her throat at the sight of Raine, his big body—a body she knew so well—blocking the moon.
“Have you proven what you wanted?” he asked quietly, his voice as smooth and hard as steel. “Did you expect to bandage one nasty wound and the people would fall at your feet in gratitude? They are better judges of people than I am.”
“And pray tell me what that means,” she said, aghast.
“You are a good actress. Once I believed you were . . . honest, but I learned the hard way. I hope they do not fall as far as I did.”
She stood, hands into fists at her side. “Spare me your self-pity,” she said through her teeth. “Poor Lord Raine lowered himself to fall in love with a commoner, and then when she did her best to save him from the King’s wrath, he knew at once she’d overstepped her bounds.”
Her voice rose. “I want to tell you something, Raine Montgomery. It doesn’t matter if these people do hate me. I damn well deserve it. And as for their falling at my feet, I don’t expect them to. At least they are the honest ones. You hold yourself up like some martyr and won’t listen to anyone. Instead you’d rather believe yourself wronged and to think that only you has a sense of honor.”