Free Velvet Bond by Catherine Archer Page A

uncertainty and fear of facing the future with a virtual stranger.
     
    She could feel Olwyn watching her closely from her seat in the lead wagon. She knew her companion was concerned for her. Over the past two days, the woman had tried repeatedly to speak with her mistress about what was happening, but Elizabeth had refused to be drawn out. Raising her chin, she avoided meeting Olwyn’s eyes. She needed all her strength to fight back the sting of tears, like shards of glass behind her eyes.
     
    Even at the early hour, many people came out to watch the passing entourage. The folk of Windsor were more than accustomed to the comings and goings of nobility, but never seemed to lose interest in watching them.
     
    More than once she saw fingers pointed at the rear wagon, where Elizabeth’s great bed rode in splendor. The cloth that had been draped around it to protect the massive piece of furniture from the elements did nothing to disguise it. Such a bed was a symbol of both position and wealth. Many of the nobility took their beds with them as they moved from one holding to another.
     
    As they rode along through the village, the streets grew busier. Their progress was slow, which, judging from the frown on his face each time they halted to let a group of travelers or a loaded wagon pass, clearly irritated Raynor.
     
    It was only as they started down the more open road outside the town itself that Raynor appeared to relax a little. After a time, he began to converse quietly with Bronic, who rode beside him.
     
    Elizabeth didn’t want to admit it, but Raynor’s improved attitude caused her own stiff muscles to release some of their tension. Her buttocks, which had been aching with the tension of her body, relaxed in the saddle. She began to look around with some semblance of interest.
     
    It was a fine, clear April day, despite the unseasonable morning chill. After the first couple of hours, their breath could no longer be seen as they went along. As the sun climbed higher in the blue sky, Elizabeth’s sable-lined cloak began to grow overwarm, and she let it slip down from her shoulders to lie over the horse’s white rump in a splash of scarlet color.
     
    Now they saw few other travelers, only an occasional cart filled with produce. No words were exchanged with the drivers, who moved aside with meekly bowed heads and allowed the nobleman and his party to pass.
     
    The fields beside the road were covered with the short green sprouts of new grain, which strained toward the sun. Oak, alder, ash and birch trees crowded the edges of the fields, offering up their own bright and tender buds in anticipation of the fullness of foliage to come. It was as if God were trying to tell her something with this joyous display of new beginnings. But Elizabeth could not be moved. Her own new life held no such promise of bounty.
     
    The few cottages they saw sat far back from the road; thus, the occasional bark of a dog or the sound of a raised voice seemed distant and disconnected to Elizabeth and her life.
     
    No one knew or cared that she rode north toward a life she knew nothing about and had not asked for.
     
    But here she stopped herself with a jolt of self-examination. Had she not asked for what had happened? If not for her insistence on dining alone with Raynor, she would not now be married to a man who had no use for her.
     
    No wonder Raynor resented her.
     
    He’d made his attitude toward women abundantly clear at the outset. In no way was he responsible for what had befallen them. But, though honesty forced Elizabeth to admit her own guilt in the matter, there was little else she could do at this juncture.
     
    If only in name, they were well and truly wed.
     
    What she could do was try to heal the breach between them. Raynor was her husband, and she did not wish to spend her future years bemoaning her fate. All her life Elizabeth had been a doer, a fixer. It was not like her to just accept defeat. And she could not do