“It is almost time for the contest. The other singers are waiting in front of the stage. You shall be the second one to sing.” The woman, whose eyes were as wide as her smile, turned and opened the front curtain the rest of the way.
Evangeline and Westley stood as the woman motioned with her hand to a young woman. They both climbed the three steps to the stage. Then the woman faced the crowd and announced, “Maud Waldgrave of Caversdown shall be our first singer. Our four judges here in front of the stage shall decide which of our singers shall be crowned the winner of the Harvest Festival singing contest.”
The older woman left the stage and the young woman began to sing.
Westley and Evangeline stood in front of the stage. He kept hold of her hand, and she found herself completely unable to listen to the singer on the stage representing Caversdown village. All she could think about was Westley’s kiss . . .
Suddenly the woman was motioning to Evangeline. Westley let go of her hand and nudged her forward. She hurried toward the woman and climbed the steps with her.
“And now we have Eva . . .” She paused, waiting for her to supply her surname. When she did not, the woman continued. “Eva of Glynval.”
Evangeline turned to face the meadow full of people, some of them looking up at her, some talking or otherwise not paying attention to her. But a small group of people in front of the stage seemed to be attentively waiting for her to sing.
The woman left her all alone on the stage.
Evangeline was surprised not to feel nervous. Instead, her mind and senses were still filled with Westley’s kiss. She closed her eyes for a moment.
She opened her eyes and started to sing the song she had planned, a song she had sung several times already to Westley and his family. She concentrated on the words and the sound coming out of her mouth as the buoyancy lingered. She even smiled as she sang.
When she finished the song, most of the people near the stage were smiling and clapping, while others all over the meadow had stopped to look at her. Some older people at the other end of the stage—perhaps they were the judges—put their heads together and were talking, nodding, and gesturing with their hands.
Westley smiled broadly. She caught sight of Lady le Wyse standing farther out in the crowd, smiling much like her handsome son. Lord le Wyse was probably dealing with his new prisoners.
Evangeline walked off the stage, practically skipping down the steps. Westley met her at the bottom. “You were wonderful.” He took her hand. “You sing more beautifully than a songbird.”
“You are flattering me.”
He drew her hand through the crook of his arm and walked her into the crowd.
“My dear Eva!” Lady le Wyse was holding on to the hands of her two youngest children. “Your singing was the most beautiful! I cannot imagine anyone’s voice as lovely as yours.”
Evangeline impulsively hugged Lady le Wyse. The woman embraced her in return as if it were the most natural thing.
Later, after Lady le Wyse was occupied with talking to one of the other ladies who pulled Westley into the conversation, Evangeline suddenly had a thought. She turned to Westley. “Where is Sabina?”
“Sabina?”
“Yes. She was helping John Underhill. She taunted me after John’s men locked me in the dairy and told me that John Underhill had taken you.”
Westley’s brow creased. “I don’t know where she is. We did not see her when we captured John and his men. But I will tell Father and our men to look out for her.”
“She boasted about marrying John. And she told me that John blamed you and your father for his father’s death.”
“His thinking is so warped. He isn’t remembering his father the way he actually was.” He stared past her shoulder, a dazed look in his eyes. “I suppose his father influenced him much more than I did, in the end.”
Evangeline nodded. Who had influenced her? Muriel? The other servants and her early nursemaids? The priest at the castle, whom she had been inexplicably afraid of until a couple of years ago? She had no parents, and one of her nursemaids had abused her. What had that done to her thinking?
But she had also read her Psalter until she memorized it. Surely God was guiding her through those psalms. Her thinking could not be all bad with those scriptures in her head.
“I am sorry you lost a good friend, Westley.”
“And I am sorry you were treated roughly by those vile men. I assure you, they shall be punished and will never hurt you again.”
“I am safe now.” She drew closer to him, and he put his arms around her. “And you are safe, and that’s all that matters.”
He kissed her temple.
Suddenly everything quieted around them. The woman who had led her onto the stage to sing now stood on the stage again.
“After hearing the five singers from each of the five villages who are participating in this festival, the judges have come to a decision. The winner of the singing contest is . . . Eva of Glynval.”