Page 84 of Never Love a Lord
Chapter 27
Sybilla could not raise her head. It felt as though all the muscles in her neck had come unbound, the weight of the words now flying around inside her skull too heavy to be moved.
I am Amicia de Lairne, the old woman had said.
Even while the king shouted his command for the hall to be emptied; even amidst the deafening roar of protest from the crowd as they were herded to the doors; even as she was jostled roughly in her chair, some spectators even going so far as to snatch at her hair or pull at her gown before the guards shoved them away; even through all the commotion and turmoil of her physical presence in the king’s court, her mother’s voice whispered in her ear. Words from years ago, months ago; different times, different locations.
An orphaned child was found in the kitchens. She was given the name Amicia.
She was not my sister.
She sent me away.
I can never go back.
When you love someone, you don’t care what happens to you, so long as they are safe.
The truth will come out, but it need not be by your own admission.
You don’t know everything.
The hall was now silent as a tomb, as if it had been recently rocked by a tremor of the very earth. Sybilla supposed that in a way, it had. As if to emphasize this idea, a low rumble of thunder sounded from beyond the stone walls. A storm was coming.
“Lady de Lairne,” Edward said slowly, deliberately. “Perhaps you had better explain yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I am sure that this is a terrible shock to you. You should be pleased, though, that all the information gathered by the very capable and thorough Lord Griffin is most certainly accurate,” Lady de Lairne said. “At least, accurate from my mother, Colette de Lairne’s, point of view.
“An orphaned infant girl was found in the de Lairne kitchens and brought to the lady of the house. The child was retained in the home as a companion to the de Lairne daughter, and groomed to be her lady’s maid. All that is most certainly true. What Colette failed to mention—deliberately, I’m sure—is that the infant was not an orphan in the true sense of the word. She—I—was the illegitimate daughter of Lord Volan de Lairne, born to a poor village girl. Colette thought only she and her husband were aware of this black little secret, but of course, everyone knew.”
“How is it then that the de Lairne family would claim you as their daughter then, and denounce their true offspring?” the king inquired.
“It was the betrayal,” Lady de Lairne whispered bitterly. “The nightmare that preceded Amicia’s final days in Gascony. And the fact that we so resembled each other, we could have been full sisters. I was in the village, purchasing supplies for my sister, when I was spotted by some of Simon de Montfort’s men. They seized me, thinking me to be the true daughter of the powerful baron giving them so much resistance. They thought to torture me into giving them information that would help them bring the de Lairne hold to heel.” The old woman paused. “They were going to . . . to violate me. But I had been so long away, Amicia came to the village searching for me. She found me, just as the villains were about to do their worst. And she fought them. She drew her small, jeweled dagger on a brace of large and vicious men, intending fully to defend me to her own death.”
Sybilla heard Julian’s rapt voice. “What happened?”
“They realized they had stolen the wrong girl,” Lady de Lairne said sadly. “They took her up right away, though not without some bloodshed from Amicia’s blade first. They turned me loose as if I were some farm beast, shooing me away. But I would not leave her.
“She would tell them nothing, even as they beat her. They stripped her bare. Whipped her. She couldn’t see, her eyes were so swollen. They would have killed her.” The old woman’s voice was faint, quivering, as if once more she saw the vision of her sister being beaten. “And so I did what Amicia would not. I told them what they wanted to know.
“They left us both then, and it was I who helped dress her and took her back to the château. We were discovered right away, and an uproar overtook the castle as it was learned who had done such a vicious thing. But then Colette asked Amicia what the soldiers had learned. It was important, you see, for them to know what information had been divulged. But before I could confess to telling the men what I had to, in order to save Amicia’s life, Amicia herself confessed to the treachery. She said . . . she said they had beat it out of her. She had no choice or else she would have died. Colette’s face became very cold, and she said—I shall never, ever forget—‘You should have chosen death.’”
“But why would your sister admit to such a thing?”
“Because she thought my mother still recognized her for who she was, her true daughter. And she thought that if I, an illegitimate orphan, confessed, the family would have me put to death. But the truth of the matter was that, by the time Amicia and I were ten and two, Colette could not discern which girl was which, save to look at our manner of dress. She was not maternal in the least, and growing up, we rarely saw her. And, as I said, we did resemble each other greatly.
“I can only assume that when she saw Amicia, beaten to the point that her features were unrecognizable, her clothing and body dirty and bloody, her ready confession of treachery on her lips, Colette thought she was I.”
Lady de Lairne paused. “May I please have a drink? I’ve not spoken at such length in years.”
While a court servant rushed to bring the lady a refreshment, Edward waited patiently, saying nothing.
“Colette cursed Amicia for a spineless commoner. A traitor. A whore. She had her sent from the house that very night, even as injured and abused as she was. I tried to refute what Amicia had said. I admitted all. I screamed the truth until I was hoarse. But Colette thought I was simply upset at the idea that my only friend would be taken from me. They had me locked in my—in Amicia’s—rooms. And by nightfall, everyone in the village knew that the orphan, the lady’s maid of the de Lairne hold, was a traitor, persona non grata. Anathema.
“By the time they let me out of my rooms, she was gone.”
“So you just assumed her position?” Edward queried.
Lady de Lairne shook her gray head. “No. I was frantic about what had happened to Amicia. Where she had gone, who had taken her. I confessed once again, to Colette. She said—oh, that coldhearted bitch!—she said, ‘Fear not, I will find you another maid.’ And she refused to speak of it—or of Amicia—again.”
