Authors: Julia Keaton
Alex flung herself
onto the bed, thankful he had developed a sense of humor instead of being ...
of wanting.... She shook her head, swearing to think of it no more. Now if
she could only have him wield it in another direction....
Closing her eyes
against the fire’s dim light, she went to sleep, the soft image of Bronson
leaning close for a kiss teasing her mind.
* * * *
Alex was driveling
happily into her pillow when her warm blanket was torn from her body.
She drew her legs
up to her chest and shivered in the cold air, wondering when her fire had gone
out. Mind enshrouded in the fog of sleep, she had only enough fortitude to
recover her warm bedcovers. Groaning, eyes closed, she groped for the covers
to pull them back on. Fingers straining, searching, she encountered the bane
of her existence instead of soft, comforting cloth.
“Get up, boy. ‘Tis
time for the training I promised you last even’.” He sounded decidedly
cheerful. ‘Twas unnatural. She would rattle his brains for disturbing her
slumber.
Alex mumbled
something unintelligible, words too much a trial to speak, and buried her head
in her down pillow, her arms clutched around it in protection. Her peace
lasted but a moment when two massive hands encircled her ankles and pulled.
Alex came up with a
godawful shriek, kicking her legs and swinging her arms in retaliation, teeth
bared to strike as she growled at her assailant.
The hands released
her abruptly, and she slid to the floor on her arse with a loud thump. She
blinked sleep from her eyes and looked at hose covered calves, up past that
disturbingly large codpiece and stomach and chest, all the way up to Bronson’s
crooked grin, his face gray in the half darkness of morning.
She glared at him.
“Wildcat in the
morning, are we, Lord Apple-Squire?”
“Be careful lest I
show you my claws. And do not call me such names.” He chortled and she kicked
at his calf, caught it with her toe, and grimaced.
“You foul
belswagger. You hurt me!” she yelled and kicked him again.
He sidestepped her
this time, a frown hovering on his face. “I hurt you? You have called the
kettle black in your idiocy.” He rubbed the hurt she caused, chuckling.
“Why have you
awakened me at this godforsaken hour? The sun has not yet arisen!” Alex
gestured at the window with a limp wrist. He arched a brow, nearly smiling to
incur detriment, and held a hand out to her. Alex ignored his proffered hand
and stood on her own, legs weak, her fury simmering below the surface. She
hated being awakened—at any hour. If she was asleep, it meant she did not want
to be awake.
“I informed you
why, whelp, now let’s be off to break our fast.”
Alex planted her
hands on her hips, stance unyielding. “Basemecu!” The word escaped her before
she’d scarce known it. When his eyes darkened, she realized she had said
something she ought not to have. She clamped a hand over her mouth as if it
would stop the word from ringing in the air.
“Kiss your arse?
You watch your tongue, whelp, lest I show you what such language entails.”
She blanched, an
image rising unbidden into her mind, one that she was certain he hadn’t meant
to project. ‘Twas best she not provoke him further this morning, leastwise
until she’d recovered some of her faculties. “A moment, if you please, my
lord. I wish to ready myself.”
Bronson looked
skeptical, hardly to blame in this instance, and ready to argue but he finally
said, “I shall see you below in the dining hall.” He left then.
She swore to
herself to get the key from him when first she could. This matter of bursting
into her room whenever he pleased was not acceptable. She was completely
vulnerable abed, and could blurt out the truth of her deception if
questioned—she’d been known to speak in her sleep of things that disturbed her.
Alex checked and
adjusted her wig and bindings, slipped a leather jerkin on over her shirt, and
untwisted her hose. Her shoes were disgusting and she could not wear them as
they were, coated in mud and other foulness. She hoped only that no misfortune
befell her poor, bare feet.
Satisfied, she went
downstairs, her procession quiet, and followed the dull roar of noise to the
dining hall. She pushed open the door and entered, then stopped. Heavy
trestle tables stretched the length of the room, filled to the brim with men
eating and cavorting amongst themselves. Their loud antics would like as soon
cause an ache in her head. She was tempted to walk back out again when Bronson
spotted her and summoned her forth with a wave of his hand.
There would be no
escaping now. The black devil had a keen eye and a wicked temper. Feet
dragging, she walked up to the head table.
Alex’s place was
beside Bronson for some reason, and when she reached him, he immediately
noticed her bare feet. His intense eyes scorched her toes. She covered one
foot with the other in embarrassment, feeling as though she’d walked out her
room naked as a babe. His talent for causing her discomfiture was paramount.
“Have you mislaid
your shoes?”
“They are ruined, my
lord. I cannot wear them.”
He spoke to a
passing servant and then pointed to her seat. “Sit, eat.” A heaping plate of
food was placed before her. She pushed it away weakly and nibbled on honeyed
bread, sipping watered wine between bites before finally setting it aside. Her
stomach had ever been queasy in the morning.
Bronson, she saw,
suffered no such drawbacks, his appetite enormous. He cleaned his plate,
looked at her untouched portion, then finished it off as well.
He was quenching
his thirst when the servant came back and presented shoes to her. She looked
at them, shocked, and turned to Bronson. “I cannot wear these, my lord. They
are ...
women’s
shoes.”
“Aye, I know it.
You have feet too small for wearing men’s. These will have to do until your
own can be cleaned properly. I shall have someone see to it tonight.”
Reluctant, she
slipped them on. They were near enough to her own that she’d not break her
neck in them, but she felt devilishly uncomfortable wearing something so
revealing of her own sex. Bronson seemed not to notice, however, so she
shrugged it off as circumstance alone.
The men seemed to
finish at the same time and they filed out for the courtyard, Bronson following
in their wake.
By the time Alex
reached out of doors, weak sunlight crept across the sky like dishwater running
over muddy earth.
“Good morrow to
you, young lord.” Gray sauntered up to her, looking as irritatingly refreshed
as his brother. She wished she’d rested as well. Sleeping in a strange house,
under watchful eyes did not agree with her. And she’d had the most disturbing
dreams, dreams of soft, romantic kisses and roaming hands.... She shook her
head, irritated at her illicit imagination.
“Good morrow, Gray.
Where has your brother gone?” She’d lost him somehow. She couldn’t see past
the throng of assembling men. Alex was not short by any means, but the men of
Derwin Hall seemed bound and determined to dwarf her. She could well believe
they only thought her a child.
“He is training the
men this morning. Rafael has gone, so he cannot see to them for him. I know
it does not look it, but we keep a full garrison of trained men here ... for
any eventuality. But enough of that. I’m to see to you until Bronson can
come, though ‘tis like to be half the day before he returns.”
Alex soon learned,
for all his ease of manner and jests, Gray was a hardened warrior who allowed
no weakness in his students, no mistakes.
Grandfather had
trained her in the use of her sword because ‘such knowledge can always be put
to use,’ but he had never been so merciless. Gray had no reason to be easy on
her, and she felt it in the fiber of her being.
By midmorning, her
arms and legs ached abominably, heavy as a broad sword, her feet like anvils,
but she’d impressed the unimpressable.
“You’ve been taught
well, young Alex.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Now ‘tis
time you learn moves you’ll need in battle, when savagery and schooling merge.
Are you up for it, lad? Think you can best me?”
“Aye, I know I
can.” Without another word, she thrust her blade at him and he parried. They
circled one another, swords darting in but making no direct hit as the blades
clashed and metal screamed against metal.
Alex was determined
to prove her worth. The irony of a
puny
female beating a monster of a
man tickled her. She only wished she could take Bronson in such a manner ...
or that he’d at least witness her victory.
Abruptly, Gray
changed his strategy, and she knew this was what he’d referred to earlier.
Gray used fists and hilt, even his legs to battle her, and she felt herself
surrounded by him. Nimbler than he, she evaded him, but she was wearing down
quickly.
Dimly, she sensed
Bronson called out behind her, but she paid him no heed, her mind concentrated
on winning. Seeing her opening, she ran at him but misjudged her opponent’s
own distracted state.
An arm came across
her vision, and before she knew what had happened, she was lying on the ground,
Gray looking concerned above her. An instant later, he disappeared as a huge,
black shape crashed into him.
Her thudding heart
eased into its normal rhythm. Catching her breath, she struggled to a seated
position. Bronson had hold of Gray ... or perhaps ‘twas the other way around.
They looked to be trying to kill one another.
“I told you be easy
on the boy today,” Bronson gritted out, his breath knocked from him as Gray hit
his stomach.
“I was,” Gray
growled.
“You damn near
knocked his head off, I hardly call that ‘going easy’.”
Alex got up on
shaky legs, rubbing her soar backside. “What goes on here?”
They stopped
abruptly, faces blank with shock, Gray half kneeling and Bronson’s beefy arms
wrapped around him.
The two men looked
so absurd, their expressions so confused, that she couldn’t help herself. She
started laughing. She held her belly and fell back onto the ground, laughing
harder. “Y-you look ... as though ... you are going ... to hug him to death.”
Bronson and Gray
came and towered over her, faces half grim, half amused. She peered up at them
with tear blurred eyes.
“I thought he’d
killed you, scamp. I see now nothing could pierce that thick head of yours.”
She grinned just as
a cry echoed through the air. They all looked to its source. Constance ran to
them, her skirts flying out in the wind, her eyes only for Alex.
“My lord! Are you
injured?” Constance helped Alex to her feet, worry wrinkling her brow as she
fretted over Alex. “Bronson, Gray, you shall be sorry if I find this has
happened ever again.”
“I shall live, dear
lady, fear not.”
Alex feigned more
weakness than she felt, and Constance glared at her brothers. ‘Twas hard for
Alex to keep straight as she saw how shame-faced they were.
‘Twas how sympathy
should be doled out for her, after all. She allowed Constance to lead her
away, clucking over her hurts, leaving two bemused men behind.
She was thankful
the girl had come, thankful to escape their rigors. As they walked away, Alex
couldn’t help but waggle her brows in mischief at the men, and their guffaws
tickled her well into the trial she would endure at Constance’s tender mercies.
* * * *
Hours dragged into
a lifetime for Alex. She had been deemed too injured to accompany the
household for the evening meal and been fed like an invalid by Constance
herself.
Eventually,
Constance left her, but her respite was brief, for a summons delivered by a
pale faced servant came from Lord Bronson to see him in his room.
Alex leaned her
back against her propped up pillows, debating on whether to venture forth or
not. Doubtless he desired to speak to her of her absence this evening. A
longing to taunt him with Constance’s attentions brought a smile to her face.
Let him think the worst. She would soon be leaving.
Alex swung her legs
over the bed and attempted to stand, falling back almost instantaneously as
fire erupted in her muscles. She groaned, wishing an early demise would come
to end her torture.