Page 25 of The Silent Songbird

Westley laughed, then he pressed his lips together.

“I was very sorry.”She erased it.“I would have died”—erased—“if he had been badly hurt.”

“Had you ever used a scythe before?”

Scythe.That was the word they had used for that long, curving blade with the wooden handle. She shook her head.

“What have you done?”

She wrote,“Embroidery.”Then,“I can sing.”

She instantly realized her gaffe and her cheeks heated. She erased it and wrote,“Or I used to sing, before I lost my voice.”

“I am so sorry for what happened to you.” His voice was low and kind. “In a small way, I feel responsible for all the terrible things masters have done to their servants and villeins.”

“Why?”

“Because my father owns so much land and has so many servants and villeins, not only here, but in three other counties. His stewards could be mistreating people and we would not know it. Besides that, Isuppose I feel a bit guilty that my family lives much better than anyone else in Glynval—better food, better house, better everything.”

So he felt guilty for having more than everyone else. It had hardly even occurred to her that she had better food and shelter and clothing than other people around her. A stab of guilt went through her middle. She was too busy feeling sorry for herself that she did not have the freedom of a peasant, while Westley felt sorry for her because of a lie.

She was a terrible person. She did not know how to do anything useful. She had nearly killed a man, and she ruined everything she touched. She was deceiving everyone around her by making them think she could not speak, and she and Muriel were taking jobs other people genuinely needed. And the worst thought of all was that Westley would be hurt if he knew the truth.

“The Bible says masters should treat their servants well.”

Evangeline brushed out the last words she had written and wrote,“You have read the Bible?”

“Yes.”

“You own a Bible?”

“Yes. Would you like to read it?”

Evangeline’s heart leapt, then sank.“Does your priest approve?”

“He does not disapprove. My father has owned a Bible all his life. He commissioned one to be transcribed into English a few years ago.”

Evangeline sat back on her heels. She’d never even heard of such a thing. Westley and his family must be terribly powerful to be so unafraid of translating the Bible into the people’s base language. Priests she had known only read and quoted it in Latin. Was it wrong to read it in English?

There was a look of peaceful reflection on Westley’s face. Could such a person be wrong? Could someone who was wealthy, who had risked his life to save a child from getting injured by a runawayhorse, who had helped her get the pigs she had let out back into their pen, could such a person be committing a grievous sin by reading the Holy Writ in the people’s language?

“Would you like to read it? The Bible?”

Suddenly she wanted to, more than anything. To be able to read the very words that God spoke, that Jesus said, everything written in that holy book . . . And since she understood Latin . . .“Yes, please. The Latin one.”

“Very well. Come to the castle tonight after your work is done and ask for me.”

Her heart thumped. She wrote,“You are very kind.”

“It is nothing. And now I will let you get back to what you were doing. I’m off to see how many fish I can catch.” He smiled as he turned away to retrieve his fishing equipment.

His smile might be friendly, but he was not thinking of her as someone he might fall in love with. She was only a servant. When she had thought him a peasant, she hoped that she could get him to marry her. But he was not a peasant. He was the son of the lord of the land. As a servant, was she too lowly for him to fall in love with? And even if he would consider her more than a servant, how would he ever fall in love with her if she had no voice? If he never heard her sing?

Someday, somehow, she might be able to make him think that her throat was gradually healing, and she would begin to speak again. And then,Please, God, Westley would fall in love with her, as she was already falling in love with his kindness and good nature.

One day she would tell him the whole truth, because to keep deceiving him would make him hate her so much more if he discovered the truth on his own. Hopefully, if she confessed to him, he would understand why she had played this farce and would forgive her. She could hardly bear to think of him hating her.

Westley was walking back toward home when he heard a commotion in the woods. A woman screamed.