tales of the latter kingdom 08 - moon dance (2 page)

Then Mayson said abruptly, “You and I have become good friends, have we not, Iselda?”

I agreed that we had.

Another pause. He was a tall, handsome man, well built and with a generally amiable aspect. Now, however, his dark eyes were stormy, his mouth a twist of dissatisfaction. This expression was so unlike him that I almost commented on it, but then decided to hold my tongue. Clearly, he had come out here to say something to me, and I thought it best for him to come to it in his own time.

And what if he wishes to make you his wife?
I thought then.
Uncle Danly and Aunt Lyselle will be dreadfully cross, even if they will do their best to hide it. And I fear that Carella will never speak to me again.

I tried to tell myself that I was ranging far ahead of anything that had actually occurred. Lord Mayson had spoken no words of love to me, had paid me no flowery compliments to win my heart. But perhaps that was simply not his way…or perhaps he thought there was no real reason for him to do so, not when he was the son of an earl and I merely the daughter of a disgraced merchant who seemed intent on drinking himself to death.

“So I believe that means we will suit very well,” Mayson went on.

My eyes widened. “Are you saying what I think you are saying, my lord?”

He flushed then, and looked away from me, toward the creek. I could see the muscles in his throat tighten as he swallowed. Then a bitter smile touched his mouth. “I am not sure what I myself am saying.” Shifting on the log where he sat, he turned back in my direction. “I thought — ” He stopped there, anguish clear in his friendly features, so ill-suited to such a look of torment.

“Please, my lord,” I said, troubled by his obvious distress. “We just agreed that we were friends, did we not? And so friends can say anything they like to one another.” Or at least, I believed that to be the truth, even though I had no close friends. My cousins were the only real family I had here in Purth, and I loved them, but even after spending years together, they did not confide in me, nor I in them. They knew they would move on and leave me behind, because no one seemed to want me.

“Yes, you are my friend, Iselda,” Lord Mayson said, his expression clearing somewhat. “What would you say if I told you that I did not wish to marry at all?”

“You don’t?” I was rather pleased with the manner in which I asked the question, for I thought I had managed to sound curious, but not discouraged. And, to tell the truth, I wasn’t disappointed. I liked Lord Mayson very much, but I knew my attachment did not go any deeper than that.

Or at least I did not think that it did.

“No.” He stopped there, as if he’d intended to say something else but decided against it.

“But….” I, too, paused as I searched for the right words. “But you were betrothed.”

“An engagement arranged when I was not yet five years old,” Mayson said. “You know that is how it is done.”

I could only nod. Younger siblings sometimes were allowed the luxury of waiting longer to find their matches, as was the case with my cousins Carella and Theranne, but Adalynn, the eldest, had been betrothed since almost the time she was born. And Mayson, being the heir to a title and a large estate, would also have had his matrimonial future decided before he was old enough to even really comprehend what marriage was.

“However,” he continued, his voice heavy, “I know that is what is expected of me. I will do my duty. But I would find it much easier if the woman at my side was a friend, rather than simply someone my father thought suitable.”

While I was glad to know Lord Mayson viewed me as a friend, I could not help but wince inwardly at his use of the word “suitable.” My cousin Carella was suitable; I, most assuredly, was not. Even if my family had not had the blot on its reputation because of what had happened to the former king, I was still only the youngest daughter of a merchant, and Mayson should be marrying someone with a far grander pedigree. “Perhaps you should merely tell your father that you need more time,” I ventured. “While I understand his wish to see you married, it is not so terribly urgent, is it? I had heard that his lordship is in good health.”

At my comment, Lord Mayson actually laughed, although his laughter had a grim edge to it, as if he knew something more about the matter than he was letting on. “Yes,” he said, “my father is in excellent health, and very robust for a man in his late forties. But I fear that is not enough to prevent him from reminding me of how I should be fulfilling my duties as the heir to the earldom.”

“If that is his desire, then I doubt very much he would be happy to learn that you had set your sights on someone as lowly as myself.” Mayson frowned then, and I added hastily, “That is, if such a thing is even your intention. I must confess that I find myself somewhat confused by what you have been trying to say to me.”

“You and I both, Iselda.” He went silent for a moment, his fingers tugging restlessly at the loose lacings of his shirt. It was quite a warm day, warmer than usual for early June, and he had undone the ties that held together the high collar of the shirt he wore. Underneath, I could catch a glimpse of smoothly tanned skin, and I swallowed. There was something strangely enticing about the sight, even though I had told myself I did not really think of Mayson in such a way. “I came down here thinking I could speak to you honestly, but now…now I am not so certain.”

“I think you have been very honest with me.”

“Have I?” A short laugh with very little humor in it. He ceased playing with the laces on his shirt and instead shifted on the log where he sat so he could once again face toward the stream. It glittered and danced in the bright sunlight, enticing.

If I had been there alone, I would have taken off my shoes and stockings, and hitched up my skirts so I might go wading in the creek and cool my feet, but of course I would never do something so unladylike in front of Lord Mayson. As it was, I pushed the heavy hair off the back of my neck and wished I had thought to pull it back with a ribbon. That hair, long and golden and reaching nearly to my waist, had won me a number of compliments, but it was also extremely warm.

As a young woman of nineteen summers, I should have begun to put it up, for girls my age only wore their hair down at grand events, but my Aunt Lyselle could be quite lax about such things when we did not have company. I supposed she did not think of Mayson as “company,” since she had known him since he was born, and because he was staying with us for such an extended period of time.

He rose to his feet and walked down to the water, then paused there. For a few seconds, I thought perhaps he was going to do the very thing I had dreamed of — take off his boots and stockings and go wading to cool his feet. Instead, he squatted on the bank and trailed his fingers in the water, staring down at the creek as if it were the most important thing in his world.

Then he turned and looked back at me, an unspoken plea in his eyes. “Would it be so very bad, to be the Countess of Bellender Rise?”

As far as I could tell, there was no guile in that question. He truly wished to know my answer. I stood as well and came down toward him, then gazed up into his face. I did not have my sister’s height, and so even though he was not overly tall, I still could not look at him completely eye to eye. “It would be if you did not love me.”

His eyebrows lifted, and his mouth twisted slightly. “I had no idea you were so romantic, Iselda.”

“I — ” 

Was I romantic? True, I did spend a good deal of my time reading stories of places and people from far away and long ago, and perhaps their tales had made me slightly less inclined to appreciate the here and now. But I knew that was not the real reason why I had given him the answer I did.

No, I supposed I could blame my sister and her husband for that. Of course they had not done anything to mislead me, or tell me the world was different from the place it truly appeared to be.

No, it was more that I had seen the way they gazed at one another. Poor Tobyn had been terribly disfigured when the former king tried to burn him at the stake because of his magical abilities, but those scars seemed to disappear when Tobyn looked at my sister, his face transformed by his devotion. True love had blazed from his eyes, just as that same passion had warmed hers when she looked back at him. She did not care what the fire had done to his face, for she loved his heart and soul and mind.

I hadn’t realized it at the time, but when I saw them looking at each other in such a way, it was as if I had made a silent vow somewhere deep within my soul. If I could not be with a man who could also gaze at me with all the strength and beauty of his heart and know me to be his — and if I could not experience the same feelings as I gazed back at him — then I would rather spend my life alone.

“Perhaps I am romantic,” I said, forcing a carelessness into my words that I did not quite feel. “But, even though I was a young girl when my mother passed away, I saw how she and my father fared together. They were not content, I fear, for theirs was a marriage arranged with no thought for their future happiness. It is better to be alone, I think, than to be with someone who cannot give you all of his heart.”

For a long moment, Mayson said nothing. Once again I saw how his mouth tightened, and a certain anguish entered his dark eyes. I could not say whence that anguish had come, only that I sensed it did not have anything to do with me.

When he spoke, however, he sounded calm enough, with no trace of anger in his tone. Rather, there was resignation, as if he had finally faced an unpleasant truth he’d been avoiding for too long and decided there was nothing else he could do.

“You are a wise young woman, Iselda Kelsden. I hope that one day I may find happiness with someone even half as wise.”

If his father and my aunt and uncle had their way, I rather feared he would not. I loved my cousin, but Carella was certainly not what anyone might call wise. Lighthearted and sweet enough, but no tragedies had ever touched her, nor anything untoward which might bar her from breezing happily through her life. She had no appreciation of the lessons learned from pain, and so, I thought, would not be able to provide any true comfort to someone in need of such a thing.

I said nothing of that, however. Mayson would have to make his own choices, whatever those might turn out to be. In the meantime, I would only try to be his friend, and hope that he might someday be able to tell me what troubled him so.

Because the air was so taut between us, I essayed a smile and said, as carelessly as I could, “As for that, I doubt my Aunt Lyselle would think me wise for venturing out of doors on a day when the sun is so fierce. No doubt I will be as brown as a hawthorn branch by the end of the summer.”

Mayson did not return my smile. “I think not. For you take care to keep in the shade, and besides, your skin is like milk. It is not the type to brown easily.”

That assessment was true enough. I had given myself a burn once or twice when I was careless, but after it faded, I was as pale as ever. Whereas my cousins had inherited their father’s somewhat deeper complexion, and did have to take care to avoid looking like a gaggle of farmer’s daughters, tanned from working in the fields all day.

“I suppose you are right,” I said. Because I knew that my aunt and uncle would be displeased if Mayson and I spent much more time alone together, I thought it best that I go back to the castle. He did not seem inclined to end the conversation, and I certainly was not rude enough to pick up my book and begin reading in front of him. “But I still think it is probably time for me to return.”

So I bent down and gathered up my basket, only to have Mayson hurry to take it from me. When I began to protest, he only shook his head and gave me the first real smile I had yet seen from him that day.

“You have quite enough work to do managing that hat, I think.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that observation. My aunt had returned from a trip to our capital of Bodenskell a month earlier armed with all sorts of insights as to the state of fashion in our fair country of Purth. Skirts were becoming more voluminous, necklines lower — although she would not allow such a trend to take hold in her household — and many of the court ladies had donned large straw hats to protect themselves from the sun.

She’d been so taken with the hats that she’d brought back several for each of her daughters, and one each for me and Janessa as well. While I did appreciate the way the hat shielded my face from the sun, it was unwieldy enough that if I didn’t keep one hand free at all times, the broad-brimmed straw would take it into its head to go sailing off if the wind was strong enough.

“Thank you, my lord,” I said sincerely.

In silence, we headed away from the stream and back toward the castle, which did not look quite so dreary in the bright sunlight as it did at most other times. The structure had been built many centuries earlier, and while I supposed it must have been formidable enough when it came to resisting a siege, it was certainly not the sort of edifice to elicit admiration because of its architectural grace.

When we were almost to the gates — which always stood open in these times of peace — Mayson gave me a quick bow and an even hastier farewell as he handed me my basket, and headed off toward the stables. It was true that he did love to ride, but in that moment I guessed he was more interested in making sure neither my aunt, nor my uncle, nor any of my cousins saw us walking together, rather than in a brisk afternoon gallop.

Or perhaps he had decided that a long ride outside the castle’s gates was what he needed to clear his head. In that moment, I wished I could go with him. It would be good to ride away, wild and free. But I sensed he wanted to be alone, and I knew I did not have the luxury of indulging in a solitary ride without a chaperone. A walk down to the creek was one thing, and indeed the farthest I was allowed to go unless accompanied by a servant or one of my cousins.

So I made no protest, and watched Mayson walk away, dark hair catching glints of warm copper and mahogany in the bright sunlight.

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