Sing Me Home (29 page)

Colin stood up and poured wine for all of them as the tale unfolded. A tree branch tapped a rhythm upon the leaded panes. Maura herself had sunk into the hard-backed chair, clutching a chalice with white fingers. Colin laid his hand upon Maura’s shoulder and felt, through the fragile silk, the slow loosening of her muscles as the final mystery was made known.

“None of the sisters knew the truth,” the Abbess continued, “though in later years some wondered why I insisted that you run the kitchens, and not one of the novices or the nuns. You were a fine cook, Maura, but to those watching the books, you were an extravagance.” With a pass of her hand, the Abbess gestured to the ink and papers upon the table. “Sabine’s family’s yearly contribution to the convent was a bounty that helped support your position here, but it didn’t continue after Sabine’s death.”

“That’s why,” Maura said, her voice strangely breathless, “you wanted me to marry the butcher’s son.”

“I was about your age when I fell into … sinfulness. I thought the butcher’s boy was a fine, honest young man. I didn’t want you to waste away as a simple kitchen servant. I wanted you to be happy.” The Abbess’s gaze flickered to Colin’s face. “But it seems blood will seek its own.”

The Abbess talked more and more. She spoke of the years of Maura’s childhood, sharing how she’d slipped, in small ways, and revealed her special affection. Allowing her in for lessons in Latin and French. Special tasks rewarded with time in Sabine’s room, the only place where there were toys of a sort—birds and shiny pennies and dolls. The Abbess spoke until her throat went rough, until she could not speak any more.

“Forgive me, Maura,” the Abbess said, wiping her cheeks. “I could have given you over to a family to be raised. That would have been the wiser thing to do. But I wanted to watch you grow, even if I could never claim you as my own.”

And Colin found himself thinking how family means obligations, and what desperate sacrifices a good woman would make for the love of her child.

They didn’t notice as Colin headed toward the door. As he closed it behind him, he glimpsed his future wife rushing around the desk into the Abbess’s open arms.

Chapter Twenty-Three

M
aura shifted her weight upon the bench. Under the cover of the damask tablecloth, she pinched her thigh to twinge her leg out of its tingling sleep. Around her, women rustled in their fine silk tunics, talking of the labors of childbirth, of the doings of the faraway English court, and the strange cut of a French guest’s gown. She stifled a yawn, bored of the stately harp music and the watered Gascon wine.

High Masses had more vigor than this wedding. Surely this was the dullest event she had ever attended in her life. Or perhaps it just seemed that way, after having spent so much time on the road with the minstrels.

And her mother.

Her heart swelled. She and her mother—the word still felt a little odd on her lips—had spent a long time talking, for the Abbess had shared the road with the minstrels all the way to Shrule. It took Maura by surprise how well the Abbess tolerated the folks she once so disparaged, and Maura had told her so. The Abbess had given Maura a wink and confessed she had a weakness for fallen women.

Unfortunately, the Abbess had long abandoned the mead hall, so Maura was no longer entertained by her sharp observations of the English gentry, spoken in whispers only the two of them could hear. Before she’d retired, the Abbess had pressed a warm kiss upon her brow, wished her happiness in her new life, and laid a very public blessing upon her. That fact that her mother was an Abbess was almost too perfect a guise for the secret they held fast between them. Even William Caddell remained ignorant, his mind put to ease with the harmless, whispered story that the late laywoman Sabine had been her true mother.

I will make her godmother of my first child,
Maura thought. Then the Abbess would have an excuse to visit often.

Now she searched the room until her gaze lit upon Colin. He must have sensed her perusal, for their gazes locked. He raised his brows toward Maguire Mudman, who darted among the crowd playing the wild man, desperately trying to inject some mischief into this wedding.
Aye, Colin, I know where your heart is.
He, too, wished he was listening to Padraig pipe a lively jig, or hearing Maguire tell an earthy story full of human weakness. He probably wished, as she did, that they were both reeling in a merry dance alone under the moonlight instead of watching the stately dances of these English nobility and smiling stiff smiles and talking of inconsequential things.

She sighed and splayed her hands upon the damask tablecloth. Her wedding ring winked in the amber light. Upon the church steps this morning, Colin had slipped the ring upon her third finger and promised to love and honor her for as long as she should live—and thus bound them both to a strange new life.

She couldn’t wait for this dull wedding to end and the true marriage to begin.

Then a rustling rose in the hall, like a gaggle of geese rising from a pond. She knew the sound by now, for she had sat before this table and been served what seemed like a hundred courses over the afternoon. This time, it was the waferer who presented himself before the trestle table. A fleet of servants followed in his wake. Gleaming silver platters heaped with figs and apples and round glistening orbs of an orange fruit said to come from the heathen country were presented at intervals all the way down the table.

The guests settled back at their places. She felt Colin’s breath upon her shoulder as he came up behind her. “When is the bedding, dammit?”

A tingling skipped down her spine. He clambered over the bench and eyed her as she reached for an orange.

“I trust,” she said, rolling the orange between her palms, “that the bedding will be more lively than the wedding.”

“A burial would be livelier than this.”

“Why did Lord William bother hiring the minstrels if he isn’t going to use them properly?”

“He’s using Fingar.”

“Aye, to pluck at that harp like he’s a boy learning his scales.”

“Maybe Lord William has heard too many stories from your guards upon the roads.” Colin lay his hand over his chalice to prevent a servant from refilling it. “Maybe he thinks if Padraig pipes or if Fingar sets loose his talent, or the twins start tumbling, then you’ll tear off your veil and let your hair fly free and dance barefoot.”

She leaned into him, brushing her cheek against the soft wool of his tunic, not caring if they were being watched. “If you think you can get me out of the witnessing of the bedding, Colin, I just might dance for you tonight. And it’ll be more than my feet that will be bare.”

Under the table, he tugged her tunic to make way for his warm hand. “I’m holding you to that promise, lass.”

Lord William suddenly rose from his seat and swung his chalice high. Silence fell upon the crowd. The Englishman’s pronouncements of good health and happiness and peace to Connacht seemed to come at more frequent intervals. But she wasn’t really listening. Colin’s fingers had traced their way up the inside of her leg, even as her husband turned to politely look up at his father-in-law.

“Ladies, knights, worthy men and maidens,” Lord William began, spreading his arms so the embroidery of his silken surcoat glimmered in the firelight. “You all know the wonders that God has bestowed upon me and my family these past months. First, by sending my eldest daughter, my long-lost daughter, back into the fold of our family. And now, by gifting me with a wise son-in-law.”

Lord William pinned Colin by the shoulder. Colin covered the Englishman’s hand with his own, even as Colin tightened his grip on her thigh.

“But,” Lord William continued, “all those months ago, I had sent for this very same troupe of worthy minstrels, not in the thought of finding a daughter, but in the hopes of hearing a certain lady of renown—to hear the voice of a songstress. A foundling who could sing with the voice of an angel.”

Maura’s mouth parched, but not from his words, for Colin had begun tracing circles on her inner thigh.

“Maura.”

She startled and looked up at the Englishman.

“Maura,” her false father repeated, “grant me this one last favor, as my still maiden daughter.”

“F-favor?”

“Sing to your grieving father,” he said, “and let me hear the voice so long denied to me.”

The Englishman had summoned a tear to gleam upon his cheek. Around the room came shouts of encouragement. She didn’t want to sing. Not now. And not for Lord William, of all men. But she realized that if she tried to demur, it would seem as if she was demurring out of modesty—and that was a hypocrisy she couldn’t bear.

She glanced at Colin, who gave her a shrug as he slipped his hand off her thigh. He slid away to give her room to climb off the bench.

“Yes, father,” she said in a husky voice. “I’ll sing for you.”

Amid polite applause, she worked her way around the long table and took her place in the clearing in the middle of the hall. Fingar shifted the harp upon his knee. His yellow grin gleamed in the rush light.

“What will it be, Highness?” Fingar brushed his fingertips across the strings. “
‘Angelus ad virginem’?
Or will ye be wantin’ one o’ those soggy love songs the women sobber over?”

She supposed the Angel’s address to the Virgin was what everyone expected from her. This banquet had the taste of the church to it. She should give them a good hymn about Christ’s wounds, or some such thing, to put them all in the praying mood. She could sing about love, too, she understood that well enough.

Then she thought of another kind of love she craved … a way of loving that Colin had so thoroughly taught her.

It was her wedding, after all.

Maura felt the thrum of the Gascon wine in her blood. She looked across at the man who’d traveled with her upon the roads, who’d taught her how wonderful life—and love—could truly be. Then she tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and let the song unfurl.

As the words fell from her lips, she was very glad that her mother the Abbess was no longer in the room.

***

Colin shoved the door open so hard that it cracked against the wall. Through the haze of her laughter, Maura sensed the heat and blaze of beeswax candles and the billowing fragrance of lavender and roses. She lifted her face off Colin’s shoulder just in time to realize he was about to toss her upon the bed.

She squealed as she hit the wool and furs, a toss forceful enough to send her bouncing. Servants skittered from all corners of the room and clogged the door like so many mice battling to be the first to escape.

“Did you enjoy playing the lusty minstrel, woman?” He turned and bolted the door behind the servants. “On the wedding day of The MacEgan, no less.”

“Did you see them?” She gasped for breath. “Did you see them all standing as if they’d been turned to wood?”

“The women behind you,” he said, wrestling himself out of his tunic, “were opening and closing their mouths like so many fish.”

“Arnaud, in the corner, was choking in laughter.”

“Can you imagine what Lord William is saying now to all those guests?”

“I should have sang ‘The Ball of Ballymore,’” she said, rising up on an elbow, “or ‘The Young Man and His Maid.’”

“A fine, lusty wife you’ll make.”

He seized her ankles and dragged himself over her. His face was lit with the flickering amber glow of candles. His surcoat was gone, his hose untied, his braies in a linen heap on the floor. He pressed his naked body upon hers, his bare skin hot. She crushed the petals of late-blooming roses beneath her back, filling the room with their scent. He ran an eager hand down her side to her hip to tug up her tunic. His hair fell over his brow, slipping out of the civilized bit of something he’d used to tie it back. The
culans
slid over his shoulder and tickled her cheek. He gripped her face and his eyes filled with an emotion she recognized now, for she knew her own eyes were filled with the same.

He kissed her. A deep, long, slow kiss, filled with shared laughter, filled with something else, too, something warm and comfortable and sweet. She couldn’t place it right away, not while he muddled her thoughts with his touch. He was her husband, aye, her lover, oh, aye, but somewhere upon the road he’d also become something unexpected—he’d become her friend, a closer friend than ever she had.