“And just as it is the same as her mother’s,” Lady Raisa read on, “so is her pretty round face.”
“Close your beak!” Ricard Soames thundered, causing sister and brother to startle and their mother to laugh. But that which sounded from Lady Raisa was not joyous. It was as cruel as the kick to the dog, making Sebille pull Lothaire against her side. Though her bloodied finger stained his tunic, it was where he needed to be. No tears fell or cries parted his lips, but he was so tense she knew his emotions were trying to get out.
Sebille’s father bent near. “My dear girl, take your brother abovestairs and see him into bed, then you as well.”
Though it was morn, she did not ask after so peculiar a command. “What is wrong with Mother?” she whispered as her own emotions caused her father’s handsome face to appear distorted.
“Worry not, Sebille. I will fix this. I promise.” He turned them toward the stairs. “Make haste.”
It was strange, but Sebille was almost afraid to leave him alone with his wife. Perhaps because she sensed fear about her tall, handsome father who was never fearful. However, his gentle push made her take her brother’s hand and lead him up the stairs.
As they neared the landing, she heard her mother scream something—a word that sounded foul though it was not one Sebille knew.
Then her father bellowed, “Give it to me, Raisa!”
More laughter, though in the midst of that was what sounded like a sob. “Too late!” the Lady of Lexeter cried. “I know its every word. I know what you did.”
“Sebille?” Lothaire said, and she realized they had halted on the landing, and she was ashamed she was not protecting him as entrusted to her.
“Worry not,” she said, “Father will fix it. He promised.” As she urged him forward, a thought struck and she glanced at the solar’s door. It was a bad thought, and her father would be disappointed if he caught her, but it might be the only way to learn why her mother had looked at her as if…
As if she hates me, she thought and drew Lothaire into his chamber. “Quick to bed, and I shall be quick to mine.”
Her brother looked around, and amid the worry on his face was confusion. She no longer aided with clothing and unclothing him—at six he was far from a baby—but on the increasingly rare occasion she escorted him to his chamber, she often lingered to read or sing to him or simply talk.
“We must do as father bid,” she said and stepped into the corridor, closed his door, and did not do as told. She entered her parents’ solar and crossed to the wall recess with its little peek door hidden behind a fat candle.
She removed the candle and carefully opened the door. It was silent in the hall below, her mother unmoving on the dais behind the high table, her father on the opposite side. It appeared as if the two were engaged in a game of chase and had paused to catch their breath.
Still her mother held the parchment. A moment later, she raised it triumphantly.
“Raisa!” Ricard Soames barked.
“I have not finished reading it to you, my lord husband.” She set it low before her eyes to keep him in sight.
“Curse you!” he spat.
“Cursed I am, Ricard. Now where were we? Ah!” She cleared her throat. “She was born at the convent of Bairnwood Abbey on the third day of May.” Raisa looked up. “Remarkable, is it not? The same year and month I birthed our daughter, though this whore’s child arrived three weeks earlier.”
Ricard Soames lowered his head, gripped the back of his neck, his figure so defeated and diminished Sebille pressed a hand to her mouth lest she call out to him.
Raisa continued reading. “I have left her there to be raised by the good sisters and am now returned home with none but my mother aware of the true reason for my absence these three months. In a fortnight I shall wed my betrothed and, henceforth, be faithful. I did love you, Ricard, and I believe you loved me, but we were never possible.”
That line sank into Sebille, and she disliked herself for how slow of wit she was, only then realizing the one who wrote to her father was a mistress. That he had one was not surprising since his wife sometimes railed against his infidelities. What surprised was that he had made a child who, it seemed, was nearly Sebille’s age and had golden-red hair the same as the daughter of the lord and lady of Lexeter.
As Sebille’s mind fumbled over the curiosity that she and her father’s illegitimate daughter had hair the same unusual color, she fingered her chain girdle and winced over the sliced tip of her finger and the slick left upon the links.
“I shall think of you as little as I am able that you may sooner fade from memory,” Lady Raisa continued to taunt her husband with another woman’s words. “Oh, Ricard, the whore was so very brave.”
Sebille saw her father raise his head, but he did not move. “Do not stop now, Raisa. Be done with it.”
She shrugged. “She wished you a good, long life with your wife,” she said, then gasped. “That would be me, at that time wed to you for…near on nine months, I believe.”
“The babe was conceived weeks ere you and I wed, and I was faithful to you thereafter.”
She snorted. “For a time.”
“Two years!”
“Why, that is something of which to be proud. Two years, and now we have been husband and wife for ten. And how many mistresses have you had these eight years?”
Her father’s shoulders broadened with breath, then he thrust a hand across the table. “You have entertained your sorry self, now give it to me.”
Taking a step back, she pressed the parchment to her chest. “So you may destroy it as you should have done years past?” She made a sound of disgust. “Fool. A bit of flame and never would I have known you exchanged that whore’s daughter for ours.”
Sebille was glad her hand was over her mouth to capture her cry. Her mind had been moving in this direction but refused to arrive. As she began to shake, she prayed this was only a terrible dream, that her mother was her mother in truth.
“Dear Ricard, until your dying day you shall regret not allowing me to go to the grave all the more certain of heaven believing God healed our babe—made a miracle of her.”
“It seemed the thing to do,” he said with pleading Sebille had never heard from him. The hand gripping her mouth so hard it might bruise, she began to rock her body.
“How could it be the thing to do?” Lady Raisa said so calmly it was more frightening.
“I did it for you—”
“Me?”