Authors: Christina Dodd
His gaze slipped lower, and he began to pant like one of Wenthaven’s dogs.
“Won’t you at least help me out of my boots?”
“Oh, aye.” He dropped to his knees and leaned toward her. “Oh, aye.”
She couldn’t believe he was so credulous; when he reached for her boot, she lifted the other foot and kicked him square in his bare throat. He tumbled backward, and she took to flight. Stumbling on the rough ground, she could hear him trying to scream, heard the squawking noise he made instead. In a kind of horror, she wondered if she’d injured him enough to kill him, but she stilled the impulse to help him.
For if he didn’t die, he would kill her. Of that she had no doubt.
With fingers that fumbled, she untied her horse’s reins, then spun in terror as she heard hooves thundering behind her. “Griffith.” She clutched her fist at her chest, pleased to see him, close to tears. Then irrational fury swept her—where the hell had he been when she needed him?—and she shouted, “By my troth, you’re too late to play the gallant rescuer, Sir Knight.” Swinging her leg over the saddle, she sat defiantly astride, but he snatched her reins from her.
“What do you mean?” He leaned forward, looking twice as menacing as Harbottle had. “Rescue you from what?”
It was too late for second thoughts, Marian realized. Too late for wisdom.
Harbottle still knelt on the ground, fighting for breath, but his gaze on the two riders raised the hair on Marian’s arms. He’d found the answer to his question “Who else were you expecting?” Regardless of the danger to himself, he expressed hostility with his red-rimmed eyes, with his feral snarl.
Marian grasped Griffith’s arm urgently. “Don’t bother with him. I already hurt him badly.”
Shaking his head as he dismounted, Griffith murmured, “Nay, dear one. Nay, he’s vermin and deserves to be crushed.”
She tightened her grip. “’Tis not your concern.”
She dropped her hand when he lifted his gaze. He, too, showed teeth in a snarl. The perception of being a bone between two rampant dogs swept her, and Griffith’s guttural voice frightened her. “It’s been my concern since last night. Now go home, Marian. Wait for me there.”
He turned the head of her horse, and as it moved away he slapped it on the rump. It started, then broke into a gallop—a gallop that she couldn’t control, she
told herself. It wasn’t that she was obeying Griffith, just that she couldn’t
not
obey him.
Castle Wenthaven rose on an island in a tiny jewel of a lake, and she galloped across the drawbridge to find the stables almost deserted. Thank God, the hunt hadn’t yet returned. The stable boys sprang forward when she rode in, and she slid out of the saddle and tossed them the reins in one graceful motion.
It wasn’t a desire to avoid Griffith that made her hustle from the stable yard. It was a desire to get away from the curious lads.
But before she’d ducked into the orchard, she heard the hard noise of hooves on the drawbridge, and her prevarications dissolved in panic. Taking to her heels, she wove through the trees, knocking off blossoming tips and leaving deep footprints in the soft ground.
A trail, but she didn’t care. The longer it took Griffith to find her, she reasoned, the more time he’d have to cool down. It would be nice if he had worked off some of that fury on Harbottle. It would be nice if he hadn’t killed him, either. But that was of lesser importance when compared to—
Griffith caught her arm and swung her around. “To where, dear Lady Marian, do you escape so impatiently?”
He whispered as if he dared not speak aloud, as if he would shout if he loosened the restraint on his poise, and she babbled, “Home. You told me to go home, and I’m—”
Looking tall, dark, and beastly, he said, “I want to talk to you.”
“I guessed.”
“Don’t be clever with me.”
She opened her mouth and then shut it. He watched with a sort of satisfaction as she wondered if she shouldn’t use the feminine skills she’d ignored lately. They might appease him. But she had to know one thing first. “Is Harbottle alive?”
“Aye, he is, no thanks to you.”
Her feeling of conciliation faded, and she stepped back until she bumped into a trunk. The tree shook; a few apple blossoms fluttered to the ground.
“But he’ll not lift a sword for a few months,” Griffith added.
“I didn’t ask him to follow me.”
“Some men don’t wait to be asked.” Waving his hand up and down the length of her, he declared, “And some men would consider garb such as you’re wearing an invitation.”
With a smile of well-practiced scorn, she declared, “A man would have to be a dunder-whelp to be attracted to me in this outfit.”
Clutching the front of her coat, he pulled her close and glared down at her. “Are you calling me a dunder-whelp?”
Her smile faded. This man, this broad and stalwart oak, looked sincere. Looked insulted! When she knew, she
knew
he must be jesting. “You aren’t attracted to me!”
“Indeed?”
You despise me, she wanted to say, but she satisfied herself with, “I look like a boy.”
“You do not look like a boy. You do not walk like a boy or act like a boy, and you could never fool a man with half his senses into thinking you are a boy.” Warming to his subject, his voice rose as he insisted, “It’s not your clothes that tempt a man, it’s the body beneath it—no!”
Her head spun with his contradictions. “No?”
“It’s not even your body. It’s the challenge of your personality.” Stroking his chin, he stared into space, looking for answers. “You can read. You’ve traveled with the court. What can a man offer you? You look right at a man, and you’re not looking at the clothes he wears or the horses he rides, but at
him
. A man always knows you’ve judged him and found him
wanting, and he wants to prove himself. Most men”—his eyes focused and narrowed on her—“think they can prove themselves in bed.”
She couldn’t help it; she laughed with contempt. “No man has ever proved himself to me in bed.”
“Aye, no doubt you’ve told them so when they lie panting and smug beside you. ’Tis a miracle one of your lovers hasn’t murdered you. I tell you truly, Marian, if you’d mocked that pretty boy after he finished with you today, he would have strangled you and buried you under a bush, and thought nothing more of it.”
“I know.”
“That’s why I told you not to wear”—he plucked at her jerkin—“this.”
Furious with his assumptions, she said, “I’m the victim here.” She pointed to herself. “Me. Every time a man rapes a woman and feels a niggling guilt, he blames the woman. ‘She tempted me.’ ‘She asked for it.’ Well, I didn’t ask for it, and I don’t care what you say, I’m not tempting in this garb.”
“You little fool.”
“I’m not the fool. It shouldn’t matter how I dress. It shouldn’t even matter how I act. Harbottle’s a grown man, he should be responsible for his actions. I didn’t want him to touch me. Maybe I could be wiser, but it’s discouraging when”—to her horror, her voice caught, but she steadied it—“when I behave with all the circumspection of a nun”—it caught again—“and because of one sin I’m considered easy prey. A sin I didn’t commit alone, may I say.” One tear trickled down her cheek, and she wiped it away on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I wore these clothes. It was a stupid impulse, but—”
“But I almost dared you.”
She wanted to look into his face, but to do so would reveal her watery eyes, and she couldn’t bear that. Instead she looked at his hands as they slowly closed
around her arms and he pulled her closer. She didn’t want to cooperate—after all, she had her pride—but after one moment of stiff dignity she relaxed. Just a little. Just her body. And she held her head erect.
His arms wrapped around her, he rocked her back and forth.
She kept her eyes open.
“You’re right, lass. Of course, you’re right.”
She memorized the weave of the fabric in his coat and admired the fur trim on his cloak.
“’Twas just that I was frightened when I realized you would go out on the hunt dressed like a man and looking so much like a woman.” He hugged her a little tighter, and his voice rumbled close to her ear. “Then I found Wenthaven and his guests, milling around while the dogs scared up game, and you weren’t there. No one knew where you were, or cared, and I imagined you lying broken in a ditch.”
He spoke faster and faster, and she found her head drooping closer and closer to that broad, comforting chest. His displeasure was understandable—how often had she wanted to smack Lionel when he frightened her with some childish escapade?
When had anyone cared enough about her even to be worried?
“Then I searched for you, and discovered that charlatan had found you first.”
His mention of Harbottle made him as stiff as she had been when he first held her, and she snuggled her head into his chest. His heart thumped within the padded stomacher, and she tried to give back the comfort he’d given her. “He didn’t hurt me,” she said, low and earnest.
“No?” Rage brought a quiver to his massive frame. “Would you like me to kiss you now?”
“What?”
“An arseworm like Harbottle must give a woman a distaste for all of God’s masculine creation.”
Now she understood, and without hesitation she lifted her face. “I would very much like you to kiss me. You see, I could never compare the two of you.”
His golden eyes glowed with flame.
“And you are very good at kissing.”
He looked as passionate, as violent, as he had when he sought his vengeance on Harbottle. But when his lips touched hers, he transmitted only the passion.
The heat of the previous night rekindled as if it had never been extinguished. As if she’d spent the night and day contemplating it. As if he saw, as he claimed, beyond her boyish garb and her mocking smiles.
His mouth touched hers tenderly and with an intimacy that initiated her into a world she hadn’t imagined.
“He didn’t kiss you,” he whispered, as sure as if he’d been there.
“No,” she agreed.
“I still should have killed him.”
This time the kiss was not as kind, nor his caress so comforting. He lapped at the corners of her eyes, taking possession of her salt tears as if he had a right to them. He put his hands under her coat, stroked her breasts, and unerringly found the places she liked, places she touched when she touched herself.
He pushed her against the tree and one of last year’s apples broke loose to thump him in the back. He didn’t seem to notice, but she rubbed the place and he purred like a kitten.
A big kitten. A beast kitten.
His mouth opened on hers, and willingly she gave up her pride and solitude. Whether she was assuring him of her admiration for him, or he was assuring himself of her safety, or they were both simply feeding a need, she didn’t know or care.
Lifting his head only an inch, he muttered, “We’ve got to find someplace.”
Her mind had fled, and she proved it when she offered, “My cottage.”
“Lionel?”
She groaned. “Asleep.”
“Alone?”
“Nay.” Desperate, in heat, she said, “Behind the cottage. There’s a place between the back wall and the castle wall. With trees. My private place. No one knows.” He didn’t even look doubtful, but she begged, “Please.”
He kept his arm wrapped around her back. She kept her arm around his waist. They hurried along, unable to loosen their grip, clumsy with giddiness.
Almost mindless, Marian wondered briefly if he would notice the place where she’d buried her treasure and decided he wouldn’t. She wished they could walk faster and prayed they could pass the cottage without Cecily noticing. She skidded to a stop before they left the orchard and nudged Griffith toward the shady side of the castle wall. She glanced at the cottage—then glanced again.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“Griffith?”
But he’d seen it, too. “Why are the windows broken? Why are there feathers floating in the yard?”
Panic smacked her, knocking sense in as it knocked passion out. “Lionel?” she said on a rising note. “Lionel?” Without a glance at Griffith, she raced toward her home and vaulted the fence. The door hung open on its hinges; inside she found utter destruction. The mattresses had been cut open, the shelves torn from the wall. Dust floated so freely that she could taste it on her tongue, and the small room smelled of kitchen spices, mustard, and honey. Every cupboard had been opened and the contents trampled.
And Lionel was gone.
Marian stood poised
on tiptoe, ready to run, not knowing where. “Lionel?” she called calmly. But her hands were outstretched, braced for a fall. “Lionel?” she called again, stepping over the piles of rubble.
“Would Lionel have run?” Griffith asked, reeling with shock yet concerned about the child he’d been sent to protect. About the child, and about Marian.
She looked as if she didn’t remember his name. “He might have. That’s what we’ve practiced.”
“Practiced?”
“We practiced running away. But he’s not yet two, and I don’t know—”
She left it dangling, but he heard the unspoken words.
If the men who had done this had let him
. Careful to sound confident, Griffith said, “I’ll look in case he’s hiding and afraid to come out.” Diving into the ruin of Marian’s home, he lifted furniture, piles of clothes, remains of beds, looking for a small body. When he stood, covered with feathers, holding only the bag of gold he’d brought from the lady Elizabeth,
Marian was nowhere in sight. Stepping outside, he could hear her calling, “Lionel!”
He sought her around the corner of the cottage and heard her exclaim, “Cecily!”
“Thank God, my lady,” Cecily answered, and a long, slow sigh floated through the air.
“By my troth, you can’t faint now.”
A small stand of trees stood fast against the castle’s curtain wall, and Griffith bounded there in time to see Marian slap Cecily with the flat of her hand. Cecily bounced off the ground, her eyes sparking, but Marian demanded, “Where’s my son? Who did this? Where’s Lionel?”
“I removed him from his bed and ran when I saw that man sneaking into the yard.” Grass stains marred Cecily’s skirt at the knees, and her steeple headdress hung askew. “I ran all the way to the manor with Lionel and saw him to his hiding place, then ran back to watch.”
“He’s safe?” Griffith asked, and Cecily’s gaze found him. She looked away, then looked back speculatively.
Marian grasped Cecily by the arm and jerked her back to face her. “Lionel’s safe?”
Cecily nodded rapidly. “Aye, I’m sure he’s safe.”
Marian set off at a run toward the manor. “Let’s find him.”
More a lady than the lady she served, Cecily tried to hang back, but Marian dragged her. Griffith heard her cry of dismay, saw Marian’s disgust, and he glanced around him hastily.
Marian had spoken of this coppice as her own private place. A hammock swung between two trees, and sunlight dappled the trunks, the grass, the bare spots of dark ground. It seemed a place of solitude, quite out of character for the lively Marian. It roused his suspicions, and he resolved to come back and seek out Marian’s secrets.
He caught up with the women as they raced through the flower beds. Cecily’s pointed headdress had slid off the back of her head and she clutched at the useless veil, but Marian scarcely noticed. As they approached the gray stone walls of the keep, the smaller woman set her feet. “Lady Marian, I’m not going to run through the house like a hoyden.”
“Then stay.”
“Lady Marian.” Cecily tugged at her. “Do you want everyone to know you’ve lost Lionel?”
Marian glared at her, but Cecily pushed her advantage. “Do you want everyone gawking when you find him, asking questions about the cottage and wondering what you have that someone wants?”
Marian’s chest rose and fell. She shut her eyes, and when she opened them all trace of anxiety had disappeared. To pass the inspection of servants and guests, she became the Marian whom Griffith had first met. The carefree Marian, unbound by conventions.
Griffith watched as she leaped up the stairs and wondered, Was this a chimera to deceive the world, or did she have another, more hidden reason for her deception?
She nodded at the footman who held the door for them. Down the main hall she pranced in her masculine garb, leading Griffith and Cecily past a gaping priest. “Good morrow, Father,” she said, but she didn’t turn back when he called to her. Instead she turned down the corridor where Griffith’s first room had been.
“Where
is
Lionel?” Griffith asked.
The door to the tower was in sight, and Marian’s stride lengthened.
Cecily pointed to the door. “In there.”
Comprehension burst on Griffith. “In the countess’s tower?”
“I pray it is so,” Marian said fervently.
Cecily scoffed at her concern. “Many months ago
you insisted we make a place for him under the stairs, with a blanket. He’ll stay there.”
But when they opened the door, no little boy ran out of the dark to meet them. “Lionel?” Marian’s call echoed up the empty stairway, and her breath caught audibly.
Cecily’s inelegant curse reminded Griffith of the duty she had forsaken, and it reminded Marian, also.
“How could you have left him? The stairs…” Marian dropped to her knees, searching the floor with her hands as if she expected to find his tiny body smashed on the stones. “Lionel?”
Griffith ran lightly up the stairs.
“I wanted to see what was happening,” Cecily babbled. “I wanted to help. I wanted to see who destroyed our home.”
“I’ve told you and told you your first duty is to Lionel.” Marian was out of control, panicked. The light of one thin arrow slit shone on her face. “Where do we look for my son now? Up the stairs? Outside in one of his favorite places? Back at the cottage?”
Cecily whimpered.
“What if he ran into the brute who searched the cottage?” Having examined the floor, Marian leaned her back against the stone wall and pulled herself up. “What if someone took him? Cecily—”
Faint and far away, childish laughter sounded, and Griffith hissed down the stairway. “Shh.”
Immediately Marian hushed and listened. It came again, a little more clearly, and Marian took the stairs two at a time. Griffith got to the countess’s room first and opened the door for Marian.
Bent over a silver ball on the floor, Art and Lionel looked up with astonished faces as Marian rushed in. When she stopped and took in the domestic scene in a glance, Griffith again observed her transformation. Not Wenthaven’s wild daughter, nor Lionel’s frightened mother, but a pillar of strength only slightly
chipped by life. “Well! Have you had a good time, Lionel?”
It was a good act, but Griffith saw the anguish and relief behind it.
Lionel grinned, showing baby teeth and a plethora of dimples.
“That we have,” Art said, his gaze going from one to the other. “He’s a bonny lad, Lady Marian. Ye should be proud.”
“Aye. I am.” Marian knelt on the rich carpet and extended her arms. They shook, and her voice shook, too, defying her attempts to steady it. “Lionel, have you a hug for your mama?”
With a childish lack of tact, Lionel shook his head and picked up the ball in one dirty hand. He hugged it close, and a bell hidden within jingled. Jiggling back and forth, he called forth the pleasant toll.
Clucking like a hen with a wandering chick, Art said, “Yer mama will not take the ball from ye, and we’ll play again when ye’ve kissed her.”
Lionel stuck out his lip, and tears closed Marian’s throat. He didn’t mean to be cruel, she knew. If he’d been frightened before, he’d forgotten it. She’d interrupted his play, and he had no time to spare for his mother. But she needed that hug, needed that reassurance of his chubby arms around her neck and his firm body pressed to hers.
“Lionel,” Art crooned, “why don’t ye roll the ball to yer mother?”
Lionel stared at her suspiciously.
“And your mother will roll it back,” Griffith encouraged.
Unable to speak, Marian nodded.
Proud of his new possession, Lionel hefted the ball and threw it as hard as he could. Art cried out, Griffith moved to intercept, but Marian’s hand flashed out and snatched it from the air. “You’ve a
good arm, son.” She tossed it up and caught it. “Come here and I’ll teach you to aim.”
Lionel trotted forward, giving Marian a chance to embrace him. She kept it brisk, then turned him in the circle of her arm and fulfilled her promise. As he pitched to Art, she asked, “Did he climb the stairs by himself?”
“Aye, that he did.”
Marian’s teeth nearly chattered at the thought of her baby climbing those steep, dark, stone stairs. “Only two,” she murmured. “By the saints, he’s only two.” As she hugged him once more, he wiggled free impatiently and toddled to Art.
“Now, lass, ’tis not so bad,” Art soothed. “Except for his fright, he came through all right. I found him hiding in the bed when I came back from visiting the laundry. A wee scrap of a boy, all eyes and hair. He liked me not at first, not until I told him I lived in this room and had this ball just for him.”
For the first time since she’d entered the room, Marian noticed her surroundings. No dust lingered on the surfaces. The windows glistened in the late afternoon sunlight. A fire burned in the large fireplace, and the tapestries looked clean and alive. “Oh, Art,” she said, “you’ve done a lovely job in here.”
“’Tis a comely room, and yer servants needed only a bit of a nudge to clean it.” Art grinned. “Only a bit of a nudge, and I provided it.”
“Art’s good at nudging.” Griffith didn’t mean it as a compliment.
“Ye don’t have to make me sound like an alewife.” Art rolled the silver orb across the carpet toward Lionel.
“If the boot fits…”
Her mind on days gone by, Marian said, “I think I remember playing up here when I was a child, as he is. Hearing the bell as it jingled. Smelling the scent of summer roses and seeing a smile.”
“Yer mother,” Art said. “She’s a sweet woman.”
At the door, Cecily shrieked. Everyone turned to stare at her, and Marian surveyed her cousin unfavorably. “What’s wrong, Cecily?”
Cecily held on to the door frame and pointed at Art. “Have you seen the ghost of the countess of Wenthaven?”
Art cupped his hand and blew his nose into it—because he had no kerchief or as a commentary about Cecily, Marian did not know. She only knew Cecily annoyed her, and she ordered, “Come and sit down. Tell us what happened.”
Disheveled and breathless from the climb, Cecily collapsed onto the nearest bench. “A blond man came and knocked on the door and said through the window he had to come inside. I told him no, but he frightened me, so I took Lionel from his bed and ran out the back.”
Griffith put his foot on the bench beside her and leaned forward. “Why didn’t you get help?”
Cecily’s vague air vanished. “From who? Almost everyone was gone, and I didn’t know but the stranger had instructions from—”
“You did well, Cecily,” Marian said.
“Why?” Griffith demanded.
Lionel accidentally kicked the ball, then scrambled after it. Ignoring Griffith, Marian watched her son with a steadfast interest, but Griffith came to Marian, planted his boots where she could see them, and demanded again, “Why? What do you suspect, that your maid shouldn’t seek help from your father’s men?”
Marian looked up until her neck bent back, resenting his height and his unfair use of it. “Some questions are best left unasked in this castle. Some questions I don’t want answered. But I do want to know”—she craned her head to see Cecily—“have you ever seen this blond man before?”
Griffith paced away until he stood before the fire.
Cecily plucked at the veil connected to her steeple headdress. “I couldn’t see him exactly. I didn’t wait for him to come through the door. But something about him looked familiar.”
“Familiar?” Marian prompted.
“He was tall and handsome, with broad shoulders”—Cecily showed the span with her hands—“like a knight.”
Griffith jumped to a conclusion he knew was false. “Harbottle.”
“Aye!” At the name, Cecily sat up as alert as a land spaniel prepared to flush a woodcock. “It looked like Harbottle.”
“Not unless he has a twin brother,” Marian said. “Harbottle was with me.”
Griffith asked, “All the time?”
“Nay, but he was with the hunt and saw me leave,” Marian said.
“You didn’t notice him in the hunt?”
Griffith sounded like the clerk in a church court, and his tone rankled Marian. “Why would I?”
He strode to the fire and stretched out his hands before he answered. “Because I doubt he would admit to you he’d been robbing your cottage.”
She couldn’t argue with Griffith, although she longed to dispute his right to interfere. Men never helped unless they wanted something; she could never depend on their strength, for her disappointment was all the greater when they demanded their reward.
“Lady Marian, you talked to him?” Cecily sighed. “Oh.”
Marian almost grinned at Cecily’s disappointment. “Aye, Harbottle’s convenient, isn’t he? He has a reason for wishing me ill.”
“There are others who wish you ill.” Cecily clasped her hands while tears trickled down her cheeks. “Oh, my lady, I am so frightened.”
“As you are meant to be.” Griffith sat on a chair before the flames. “Did the knave steal anything?”
“How would I know?” Bending over her skirt, Cecily picked at a thread. “I didn’t go in afterward.”
Lionel’s ball jiggled as he walked to stand in front of Griffith, and Griffith held out his hands. “Do you want to sit here, lad?”
Lionel examined Griffith, then thumped his head into Griffith’s lap.
“Lionel!” Marian cried, and half rose to her feet.
“Fret not.” Griffith waved a restraining hand at her, but he sounded strained and his face paled. “He’s just being affectionate.”
“Affection like that could kill a man,” Art said, and Marian covered her mouth with her hand.
Laughing would be bad form, even sympathetic laughter.
Art continued, “Still and all, ye might as well slam yer jingleberries around. Ye don’t make use of ’em.”
Cecily giggled. “Jingleberries?”
But all of Marian’s amusement fled. Griffith had been planning to use his jingleberries not an hour ago, and with her.
If Griffith remembered, he gave no indication. Instead he took a restorative breath and hoisted Lionel onto one leg, making sure the boy’s feet kicked away from him. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he said, “Cecily, you saw him leave, you said. Was he carrying anything?”
“I didn’t say I saw him leave.”