The Vampire & Her Witch

As soon as Jocelynn said that she would accept the Baroness’s invitation, Devlin pushed off the wall and crossed the frost-covered cobblestones of the carriage yard in quick, powerful strides.

”I’ll ride up top,” he said, making it a statement rather than a question. He gave the startled footman sitting in the driver’s seat the same stern look he’d given countless deckhands over the years, before softening his expression as he turned back to Lady Jocelynn.

”I spent half my years on the deck of the Blue Gull in worse weather than this, my Lady,” he said when he saw the brief look of concern on her face. ”A short ride in the cold won’t trouble me at all.”

Some might argue that there was no need for him to accompany Jocelynn since the Baroness was already escorted by one of the Aleese knights on a horse waiting nearby. Devlin could just wait until the Blackwell carriage was ready and bring it to the temple himself. But the people from Blackwell had learned too well that they couldn’t trust the local lords with Lady Jocelynn’s safety. Even if he lacked the status to ride in the carriage with her, Devlin wasn’t about to let himself be separated from her.

Baroness Peigi looked at the sailor-turned-captain with an appraising eye and gave a small nod of approval before gesturing for Jocelynn to climb in ahead of her. She’d heard rumors that Lord Owain had recruited several ship captains to become knights in the coming war, and while she remained skeptical of the move, her first impression of Devlin wasn’t bad.

The carriage interior was modest but well-kept, with leather seats worn smooth by years of use and a heavy wool blanket folded neatly on one side. It smelled faintly of cedar and something floral that Jocelynn couldn’t quite place, but the scent felt oddly comforting after the frost-bitten sharpness of the yard.

Jocelynn settled the chest on her lap and folded her hands over it as Peigi took the seat across from her. The door closed, the driver called to the horses, and the carriage lurched into motion, wheels grinding against the frozen cobblestones as they rolled out through the manor gates and into the dark streets of Lothian City.

Here and there, light poured from a few windows, but it was clear that few people took the city ordinances seriously enough to keep a lamp burning through the long winter night. Blackwell wouldn’t have been so dark, Jocelynn thought. At home, far too many things depended on catching the morning tide to allow the streets to be dark in the small hours of the morning. But here in the foothills of the great mountains, the people kept a very different pace, and lamp oil was far too expensive to squander on keeping nearly empty streets lit.

For a time, neither woman spoke. The silence was comfortable in a way that surprised Jocelynn. Peigi didn’t rush to fill it with pleasantries or force conversation before it was ready, and Jocelynn found herself grateful for the older woman’s patience.

Through the carriage walls, she could hear the city just beginning to wake: shutters creaking open, the distant bark of a dog, and the low murmur of voices from a baker’s shop standing out as one of the few businesses that was already lit against the predawn dark.

”I was sorry to hear about your sister,” Peigi said at last in a tone that was gentle and sympathetic. ”I regret that I never had the chance to know Lady Ashlynn well. Politics,” she said, pursing her lips and shaking her head in regret.

”Too many ’important’ conversations among the old goats to get away to meet the young bride,” she said apologetically. ”By the time I had a chance to visit Lothian again in the summer, she had already been moved to the Summer Villa, and then...” Peigi let the sentence trail off rather than finish it. There was no graceful way to say ’And then she was declared dead under circumstances that no one with any sense believes.’

”Thank you,” Jocelynn said. The words felt thin and automatic, but she meant them. ”Ashlynn would have... She would have liked to know the ladies of the court. She couldn’t leave the manor much at home,” Jocelynn explained a bit awkwardly. ”But she studied hard to be a good marchioness, and I think she would have enjoyed learning from you and the other ladies.”

”About all the things that aren’t written in books about the frontier,” Jocelynn clarified quickly. ”She, she loved to read more than anything, because there were so many places she couldn’t go...”

It slipped out before she could stop it, a crack in the careful composure she’d built for herself this morning. A small, honest admission that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the simple truth that Ashlynn had been diligent and attentive in a way that Jocelynn had always envied and never managed to imitate.

If Peigi noticed the crack, she was kind enough not to press a finger into it. Instead, she simply nodded and gave the young lady a smile that looked like it belonged on her lightly lined face.

”Then we’ll honor her memory by being the friends she would have wanted you to have,” she said quietly. ”I know it isn’t the same. Nothing can replace what you’ve lost. But I want you to know, Lady Jocelynn, that if you ever find yourself in need of someone to talk to, or simply someone to sit with, my door is open to you.”

”I remember what it was like to arrive at the frontier as a young bride,” she added with a distant look in her stormy gray eyes. ”Everything is a little different from what you’re used to, and everyone is watching to see what kind of woman you are before they’ve given you the chance to show them. It can be terribly lonely if you don’t have someone in your corner.”

Jocelynn looked at the older woman across the narrow space of the carriage, and for a moment, the walls she’d built nearly wavered. There was no calculation in Peigi’s voice, no political maneuvering hidden beneath the sympathy, or if there was, Jocelynn couldn’t hear it.

”Forgive me, I should remember,” Jocelynn said tentatively. ”You aren’t from the march originally?”

”Oh, Merciful Light, no,” Peigi said with a light laugh. ”I doubt you’d have heard much about Yorin Barony in Keating. Not many people pay attention to coal miners. My father remarried twice before he was forty,” she said, pausing for a moment as she realized that she was now several years older than her father had been when he married her mother.

”I have three brothers and four sisters,” the Baroness continued. ”My father had hoped that Bors Lothian would follow in his father’s footsteps, waging a war that filled everyone’s coffers with riches plundered from places like Airgead Mountain, and he hoped that I would be able to send some of that wealth home to my family.”

”Imagine his disappointment when Bors only fought for a few years, waging a war that earned the moniker, ’The War of Inches,’” Peigi said with a snort. ”But by then, I had two little ones of my own, and I’d found plenty of things to love about living in the frontier,” she added. ”Perhaps,” she said lightly. ”Perhaps it could be the same for you...”