Bairnwood Abbey, where her real mother had birthed her in secret nine years past.
She did not need to be told that was where she awakened. Even had she not heard the bells calling the sisters to prayer she would have known. Where else would her father have brought her? Where else would she be safe from Raisa Soames?
“Drink,” he said.
She looked into the cup he had handed her after propping her on pillows.
“Warm honey milk. Your favorite, Seb.”
She sipped, wished she could feel its warmth and taste its sweetness. But at least it wet her mouth.
He did not speak again until the cup was drained, then he set it on the stool alongside the narrow bed and scooted his chair nearer. “Did you hear it all, beloved?”
She jerked her chin.
“I did love your mother—your real one. But she was to wed another as was I. Our families needed alliances. And so we sinned.”
As still he sinned, Sebille thought and, despite Lady Raisa’s hatred of her, felt that pain of betrayal as ever she had since first becoming aware of her sire’s infidelities.
“Unless your mother…” He momentarily closed his eyes. “Unless Lady Raisa reconciles her mind and heart to the truth—and she may the longer she is parted from you—you shall remain at Bairnwood Abbey, and I will visit as often as I can. When you are a woman, I shall see you properly wed as befitting the legitimate daughter of a noble, which none can dispute now the parchment is destroyed.”
“I am frightened, Father.”
He took her hands in his. “Providing you never reveal the truth—what you saw and heard in the hall—you need not be frightened. Here you will be safe and well cared for.”
“I am frightened,” she repeated.
His smile was sorrowful. “Then I shall sit with you until you sleep again.”
She gasped. “And then?”
“I shall leave.”
“Why?”
“To alert your real mother that our beautiful secret has been discovered so she may be prepared should I fail in keeping Lady Raisa from revealing your existence to her husband. Then I must return to High Castle—to our people and your brother who shall need me more now his beloved sister is gone.”
“Lothaire,” she whispered. “I shall miss him nearly as much as you.”
“When ’tis safe, you will see him again.” He kissed her cheek, eased her down the lumpy mattress, and drew the blanket up to her chin. “Now sleep.”
She did not, knowing once she drifted away he would be gone and she might not see him for weeks…mayhap months. But he stayed as promised and, hours later, without realizing she had closed her eyes, sleep stole her father from her. Forever.
Chapter 38
Lothaire’s head was in his hands, though it was his chest he ought to be gripping for how many wounds it had sustained throughout his sister’s tale of a day so long gone he could hardly recall it. But then, there had been little cause for it to burn itself into the memory of a six-year-old.
He opened his eyes, stared at Laura’s hand on his knee, then set a hand over hers.
“Forever,” Sebille repeated.
He looked from her to the man over her shoulder. “All this you knew, Father Atticus?”
“Upon your sister’s return to High Castle, she needed someone to confide in and chose a man of God who could keep her secret whilst praying for and counseling her. However, only this day have I learned those things she did in hopes of permanently removing your mother from High Castle. Though I do not condone them, I understand her desperation. And now I can tell you it was not only Lady Raisa’s disapproval of how near you drew to me that led to my departure from High Castle. Though your mother was unaware Sebille and I knew the circumstances of her birth, oft I corrected her behavior toward her daughter until…” His eyes moistened. “…she cursed me, near shouted down the chapel, and pushed me so hard against the altar I fell.”
Lothaire felt Laura jerk. Certain she recalled his mother’s attack on her, he squeezed her hand.
“Still, I would have stayed at High Castle had Lady Raisa not demanded I leave,” the priest continued. “So I might remain near should Sebille and you need me, I went only as far as Thistle Cross. Blessedly, Sir Angus and others of your father’s knights were discreet in arranging for me to meet with Sebille from time to time—and you as your relationship with your mother grew strained.”
Lothaire remembered. The priest had listened, advised, and prayed for him. And the wary boy he had become following his father’s disappearance had known not to reveal those meetings to his mother.
“I did what I could,” Father Atticus said. “As I do what I can now.”
There was no question he cared for the siblings, just as there was no doubt the years of Lady Raisa’s vengeance had damaged Sebille. For that, the priest worried over the family Lothaire now had with Laura and to which they would add. For that, he believed Sebille ought to enter a convent.
“Do you remember when I left High Castle, Lothaire?” his sister asked.
“Aye, I missed you, felt your absence and Father’s all the more for how difficult Mother became. She was angry and often at tears, and never had she spent so much time with me as she did whilst you were gone. It seemed I could go nowhere without her following and assuring me of her love for me and mine for her. Though I did not wish to be carried, oft she fixed me on her hip as if I were a babe.”
Sebille’s tear-swollen face convulsed.
“I was pleased to discover I could sooner climb down from her did I ask when Father and you would return. Then, finally, you came home.” That was something he remembered clearly—barreling into his sister and hearing the click of prayer beads that would sound from her person thereafter. “It seemed like months you were gone.”
“’Twas a fortnight. For as much as I cried, it felt months to me as well. When Lady Raisa arrived at the convent and said Father had decided I should not give my life in service to the Lord and had sent her to collect me, I tried to hide how frightened I was since I had vowed not to reveal I knew the truth of my birth. Though in the presence of the abbess she behaved as if pleased by our reunion, her eyes were cold. Still, I thought if I tried very hard I could make her love me again. Not until our return to High Castle did she reveal Father had never come home and said his disappearance was a result of fornication—that he had been with a mistress and the Lord punished him for sinning against his wife.”