Authors: Julia Keaton
Her lip felt
strangely naked without the mustache. Alex sighed. She had spent too much
time in this masquerade.
The damned steam
from her bath must have weakened the paste. If they hadn’t flustered her--no
matter. It was done. She must fix it.
Squishing into the
meadow, she remained heedless to the roars and clanging of her comrades, her
eyes fixated on the dark ground. If she couldn’t locate it, they’d
know
.
All of them. Her heart began pounding as her fear increased.
There!
She
was near tears when she spotted it. Fluttering in a soft breeze, the mustache
clung precariously to a pile of dung like the frail petal of a blossom. ‘Twas
a pure miracle she’d found it. Alex felt a hysterical laugh bubble from her
lips, but she beat it back in submission.
Nose wrinkled, she
bent and reached for it with the tips of her fingers just as a jolt from behind
hit her, knocked her feet from under her, and immersed her in filth.
A string of curses
she hadn’t known she knew erupted from her throat. Her fury disappeared when
she saw the savage who had unbalanced her. His hair was plastered to his head
with something like mud, and hung in thick tangled locks about his shoulders.
He was half naked, his face and body painted with strange markings that shone
in the moonlight. He looked like some sort of wild creature of the forest,
mayhap a brownie. What shocked her most, however, was that he looked at her as
though faced with a ghost.
“Heather? Is it
you lass? Have you come back to us?”
‘Twas her first
time hearing the Scots brogue, having never heard her mother speak in her
lifetime, and she was surprised at his awful clarity.
She thought her
astonishment could not scale greater heights. He moved close, and she
scrambled back in the mire on her backside, watching him warily.
How had the devil
known her mother’s name? Unless....
Her mouth dropped
open. She could only be staring at one of her relations. Seeing someone she
was related to dowsed her like ice water. A small gasp tore from her.
“Here, lass, before
they come.” He speech was rushed as he stretched his hand out for her, his
look beseeching. The temptation to risk going was unbearable, but her mind
whirled with consequences should she leave now. Would she hinder him? Would
he not escape if she went along?
Thundering hooves
eating the ground grew loud in her ears.
He looked up,
startled. “I’ll get ye out of their clutches, lass, don’t worry yer pretty
head. I’ll be back.” The strange man looked as though it killed him to leave
and ran off, disappearing into the night.
“What on god’s
green earth are you doing down there?” Bronson yelled at her from behind.
Uh oh.
She remembered her
bare lip, the mustache clutched in a death grip in her hand. She slapped it on
her face before turning to him. Grimacing at the filth holding it on, she
looked at him and searched her mind for some excuse.
“I--I ... was
unseated by one of those savages. As you can see, we fought.”
“Oh, aye. I can
see something has happened.” He laughed at her. Laughed. At. Her.
His brothers rode
up, and when they clapped eyes on her, began laughing as well--deep, baritone
laughter that raised her ire. If they had better sense, they would fear her
wrath.
She reached a hand
up for help, but one look at her palm and they backed away, laughing so, that
they could not even speak. She stood with as much dignity as she could muster,
accepting no help from the ogres, which they hadn’t offered regardless. “I
don’t find what is so humorous--”
Their laughter
drowned out her words. Louder and harder. She hoped their bellies ached when
they were finished.
Bronson held his
stomach, and she strongly suspected he wiped tears from the corners of his
eyes.
She fumed silently,
waiting for their mirth to come to an end, though it showed no signs of
abating. Firedancer walked up, her only ally among enemies. She reached for
his reins, smiling. He lowered his head to nuzzle her and sniffed, then
snorted and tossed his head.
Traitor.
“Oh ho! His own
horse will have naught to do with him!” Gray said. As far as she was
concerned, she would welcome not hearing another word uttered from his mouth
the rest of her stay.
They were men full
grown, too old to act in such a way.
“Aye, he looks as
though he wrestled a dung pie and lost!” Rafael shouted. “‘Twas that which
unseated him. Shot up from the ground and attacked.”
“They’re a
dangerous lot!”
“The McPhersons
walk on two legs, boy, not hide and wait on the ground. You’ll know better
next time,” Bronson said, curbing his mirth.
Restraining her
anger, she grabbed her horse’s reins and swung into the saddle. Her toes
squished in her shoes. She probably did look as ridiculous as she felt.
“You fail to realize
the brilliance of my strategy. We fight battles in a more sophisticated manner
in Evenshire. This ... substance catches fire quite easily, why, if my horse
hadn’t unseated me, you all would have beheld a grand sight.”
Bronson smiled,
looking years younger. “If that is modern warfare, I want no part of it.”
“Oh, you’ll see
much more than that when I’m done with you. I have ways of fighting you cannot
comprehend.”
“Nor want to,” he
replied, grinning.
Alex chuckled
evilly despite herself and bowed gracefully from the saddle. “For your insult,
you may ride downwind of me.” With that, she took off and they chased her,
laughing all the way to the manor.
Perhaps they
weren’t as loathsome as she’d first supposed. Perchance she could come to like
them.
They rode into the
courtyard and dismounted, their horses led away by sleepy-eyed groomsmen.
Rafael and Gray
stripped to their hose and cod pieces and began washing off in barrels of water
left out expressly for that purpose.
Snatches of their
conversation drifted to her on the wind as they caroused and bathed.
“Ah, Rafael, you
should have seen the beauty I had to leave this night. Mayhap she still
awaits....”
“How much did you
have to drink before you saw her, Gray?”
“No more than
usual. I am not foxed. Did I look foxed out there tonight when I had hold of
that devil? Besides ’twas a damned inconvenient interruption to my wooing.”
“I was under the
impression you only wooed in the morning. Mayhap you best. Your vision is
much improved with light.”
“Oh, aye, mornings
are my forte. But takes the night to properly woo a woman, surely you think
only of your own experiences--why do you laugh?”
“‘Tis nothing. I
merely thought you preferred them unconscious, as they surely must be so early
in the day.”
She found the men
entertaining, but the smile fell from her face, and she stopped listening as
Bronson neared her. He shrugged out of his doublet and undershirt as he
approached her where she stood rooted to the ground. His hose clung to his
legs like skin, his cod piece capturing her gaze.
“We wash before we
enter the house,” Bronson said to her.
“You most of all,”
Gray shouted behind him.
Their words came to
her as though underwater. Her blood rushed in her ears, deafening her. Her
eyes were level with his chest now. She’d known men were built differently,
but she hadn’t imagined there was quite so much difference.
His chest was wide
as an oak and looked just as hard and sturdy, muscles and sinew all delineated
in perfect precision. Hair encircled his nipples and chest in an intriguing
pattern that trailed down his rippled stomach and disappeared into his hose.
She wondered where it went, and her eyes strained to follow, her body leaning
unconsciously forward.
Alex shook herself
from her waking dream and met his eyes. She’d never felt so petite in all the
years of her life. A warm, mellow heat suffused her limbs. That strange
weakness had returned, swallowing her defenses. Moist heat throbbed between
her legs, achy, pleasurable.
Alex looked up,
following the movement of his lips, fascinated as they formed words she
couldn’t decipher. She might have been deaf for all she listened. She
wondered what it would feel like to have those lips brush against hers…. She
blushed at the direction of her thoughts, struggling to maintain her composure.
His words finally
caught her wayward thoughts, thrusting her into the present. Her voice found,
she said, “I am afraid I cannot bathe. Not down here.” Of its own accord, her
gaze kept creeping down to his chest and stomach. And the cod piece! That
huge cod piece that locked the beast in its cage.
Blasted eyes!
She
rubbed them in revenge, remembered how filthy she was and stopped. She only
hoped she didn’t go blind.
Bronson studied
her, a strange look on his face, one she’d never seen before and couldn’t begin
to decipher in her limited experience. “Whyever not?”
“Pox scars.
They’re hideous. I would spare you.”
“You are most
kind.” His hand shot out and gripped her jaw, tilting her face from side to
side. “I see no scars here.”
Was his hand
lingering?
She sincerely hoped not. Never in her life did she anticipate
exposure more than now. He was so very large, his hands huge and encompassing
and deliciously rough from sword play and God only knew what else…. What was
wrong with her that she’d lost her concentration and hoped he’d reveal her for
the woman she was?
Not trusting
herself to say more, she remained silent. When she said nothing, he released
her. “Very well. Go upstairs to your room.”
She wasted no time
and scampered inside quick as a mouse, away from danger. Away from all that
hard, tempting flesh.
CHAPTER SIX
Inside, all was
dark and silent. The only sign of her passage--a trailing, redolent cloud of
odor. Apparently, Derwin Hall was used to these midnight raids, which she
found odd.
Weary beyond
belief, she climbed the stairs to her own room. She was not accustomed to the
out of doors and did not appreciate her smell. How foolish she was to think
him attracted to her. And she certainly didn’t want him to be attracted to her
as she was—a young lord. She shuddered at the thought.
Alex shut the door,
then searched about for additional barriers. Spying the chest at the foot of
the bed, she struggled and pushed until it blocked the door.
Satisfied, she
eased out of her ruined doublet and noticed her own crude reflection in the
mirror.
It was cloudy and
warped, but she laughed at the bedraggled picture she presented. She looked as
though she’d been dragged through mud by her hair. Only her face remained
virtually untouched.
Her wig would need
washing she saw. And her hair beneath. The mustache would also--she gasped
and leaned closer. It was upside down! She looked at it in horror, as one
would a third eye grown on one’s forehead.
Had they noticed?
She tried to remember and then chuckled at her own foolishness. If they had,
she would not be standing here now.
She giggled as her
hysteria eased. Thankfully, her clothes had borne the brunt of the grime.
She tried to think
of what to do. She couldn’t summon a bath, not at this hour, and she couldn’t
go back downstairs....
Alex paced the
room, going to the window and looking out at freedom. An insane thought struck
her, one she would never dare had misfortune not pressed its thumb upon her
head.
She stripped the
bedcovers back and tore off the sheets, gathering more from the chest. She was
not but on the second story. The grounds were quiet since the expected attack
had come and gone--she’d seen that outside.
She would go to the
river and bathe. If no folly befell her tonight, she would make ready and use
it as a means of escape the next.