“The girl child you birthed was deformed, Raisa—a hole in her lip nearly up to her nose. Do you not recall how you screamed when you saw her? You demanded she be taken from your sight, and when the midwife told the babe could not suckle and was not likely to survive beyond two days, do you not recall what you said? I do—If God will not work a miracle, put the babe out. And I said unlike many a man who would set their deformed child out in the night to feed the beasts of the dark, I could not. With your face turned from our babe, you said, Then pray for a miracle so the child’s suffering will not be long. And that is what I did.”
Raisa thrust a hand across the table, shook the parchment. “Nay, whilst I recovered from a birthing that nearly killed me and the shock over what came from my body, you exchanged our daughter for your wrong-born child and came home from that convent spilling lies of the days you spent on your face praying for our child’s healing. Ah, the miracle the Lord worked, rewarding his faithful servant for a belief so holy that flesh was perfectly healed! How you must have laughed at how eagerly I accepted our hideous-turned-beautiful daughter that I did not question why she was so much larger, narrow face round, hair where there had been none of a color neither of us possess.”
“I did not laugh, Raisa. I made something good out of bad, and you were happy as never have I seen you.”
“Because I thought her special—touched by God, not the devil—”
“Enough!”
It was the same Sebille was screaming inside, but no matter that she told herself to retreat to her chamber, she had to know all.
“Nay, not enough,” said the woman who was not truly her mother, whose adoration had turned to loathing. “You fooled me into raising your mistress’s child.” She slapped the parchment to her chest. “From my own breasts I fed her. No wet nurse for her—not for our miracle of a daughter.”
Her husband stepped nearer the table. “I know this is a blow, and I am sorry to have hurt you, but Sebille is a good daughter, and she loves you as you love her. That need not change.”
“Of course it must change. I cannot love her now. Will not! It makes me sick to think of all I wasted on her that should have been Lothaire’s. Instead, I loved her better, just as you have, though for you it is because she is of your mistress.” Raisa thrust the parchment forward. “Lady Honore!”
He did not respond, and she said, “I know only one of that name, she of the family Nevarre. She who is wed to Baron Graville.”
Again, he did not respond.
“He will be distressed to read this, especially were he made to believe his wife came to him untouched.”
Sebille’s father moved so quickly she did not see what he did until he swung away and bounded off the dais.
“Give it to me!” Raisa cried as he strode to the hearth with the parchment in hand.
His wife ran around the table and across the hall, but all evidence of the truth of Sebille was upon the flames and beginning to blacken when Lady Raisa reached to retrieve it. Empty-handed, she jumped back and turned to her husband.
“Still I will tell him and ruin Lady Honore’s life as she has ruined mine!”
Sebille’s father grabbed her and shook her. “You will not. You will keep that sharp beak of yours closed. You will accept the blessing of a beautiful, healthy, loving daughter and—”
His wife whipped her head down, and a moment later Ricard Soames thrust her away and gripped his arm.
Crying softly into her hand, tears running over it, Sebille guessed her mother—nay, not her mother!—had bitten her father.
“I will not!” Lady Raisa cried. “She is as dead to me as…” She took a step toward her husband. “Our cursed child is dead, is she not?”
Sebille’s father’s chest was heaving, face florid, eyes like flames.
“Tell me!”
Was he purposely refusing to answer, or did he not trust himself to speak?
“I would know, Ricard!”
“Why? So you may reject her again? Have her set out in the wood to suffer teeth and claw?”
“Does our daughter live?”
A smile turned his mouth. “She does, is this moment abovestairs in her bed.”
Lady Raisa screamed, her rage and frustration paining Sebille’s ears, though it seemed not to move her father. When she quieted, bending forward as if to recover her breath, her husband leaned near. Only by holding her own breath was Sebille able to hear what he spoke.
“I did not set out the babe whose face was as desolate as your heart. I held her close as I rode night into day, and when I reached the abbey I gave her into the care of the good sisters. Gently, quietly, in the arms of the old abbess, Sebille whom you could not bear to look upon died the following morn. And I returned to you with the miraculously beautiful Sebille who sooner healed you and loves you as never have you been loved. And never again will you be loved if you do not set your mind to forgetting what was written on that parchment.”
Forget, Sebille silently entreated. Pray, Mother, forget and I shall ever love you—ever make you proud, ever be your beautiful Sebille.
Lady Raisa remained bent over, each minute that passed giving Sebille more hope her angry, hurt heart would heal as she remembered all the embraces, kisses, smiles, and words of love spoken between them.
Finally, the Lady of Lexeter straightened, and Sebille could see the shine on her face that evidenced she had been crying.
All will be well, Sebille assured herself and slowly lowered her hand from her mouth and clasped it with the other over her heart.
“I cannot forget,” Lady Raisa said. “Every time I look at her I shall see the woman who lay with my husband, and you who made a fool of me. And one day…” She shrugged. “You will not always be here to protect her, Ricard.”
“Raisa!” His shout covered his daughter’s pained gasp before she could get a hand over her mouth.
The Lady of Lexeter laughed again, and her husband shoved past and strode toward the stairs.
Guessing the solar his destination, Sebille pulled back, but not before her father’s chin came up and she saw the determination on his face turn to alarm. Had he seen her in the opening? Or merely noted the little door was ajar?
She longed to run to her chamber but hesitated over whether to close the little door and return the candle to its place. If he had seen her, it would be of no benefit. If he had not and were it left open, he—or Lady Raisa—would know they had been observed.
Sebille closed the peek door, set the candle in the recess, and ran across the solar. She made it halfway down the corridor before her father’s boots on the landing announced she was seen.
She whimpered, turned.
“Ah, Sebille,” he said as he closed the distance between them. Then she was in his arms, her face pressed to his shoulder. “Why did you do it?”
“Sh-she looked at me as if…” A sob escaped. “…she hated me. And she does.” Then came wracking sobs she did not realize resounded around her own chamber until her father lowered her to her bed.
“Cry into the pillow,” he said softly and turned her face into it. “We do not wish to disturb your brother.”
Pressing her mouth into the sack of feathers, she looked up.
“I must gather your things, Sebille. I am taking you from here.”
She wanted to ask where they would go, but all her breath was spent on sobs.
When finally she went silent, head aching too much to cry further, her father enfolded her in a blanket and carried her out into a day that seemed like night with her head covered. Then she was atop his horse and cradled against his chest as they rode into the night.