The Alleluia Files (42 page)

He continued talking for a few more minutes, but Tamar’s mind had disengaged.
Angelo? Angela?
Were angels coming to Isabella Cartera’s? That had not previously occurred to her, although she should not be surprised; Isabella’s wealth was such that she undoubtedly moved in the highest circles of Samarian society. Which was composed mostly of angels.

Well, but angels never rode horses. They were notoriously inept in the saddle, their great wings creating all sorts of problems for themselves and their beasts. None of them would have any reason to come to the stables. She was safe.

Nonetheless, the days leading up to the wedding at Cartabella were filled with other disagreeable incidents. For instance, the visiting nobility were not always as noble as their lineage might suggest. And some of them found it quite curious—and intriguing—that a woman would be employed in the stables.

Tamar had her first taste of this only two days after the guests began arriving. Three young bloods—from southern Jordana,
she guessed by their accents—found her alone in the stables and began pressing for her personal history.

“Say! Last time I went to fetch a horse, the groom was old, ugly, smelled of tobacco, and fondled himself with his free hand while he held my bridle in the other,” said the tallest one, dressed in clothes that were perfumed like money. “I much prefer a pretty girl like you.”

She schooled her features into neutral stiffness. “Which are your horses, sirs? I will bring them from the stalls for you.”

“And will you ride with us if we ask you nicely?” said one of the others, a small blond with a handsome face but close-set, narrow eyes. “We’re unfamiliar with the land around Isabella’s farm. We might get lost.”

“I have been instructed only to ride with the ladies,” she said woodenly. It was not true, of course, but she suspected Gene would back her up.

“Ah! And were you imported just to service the ladies?” the tall one said, unmistakably stressing the word “service.” “For I do not recall you being here the last time I visited Isabella.”

“No,” she said baldly.

“And how long have you been a groom?” he asked. He seemed to be the leader of the group; in any case, he was the one who kept edging closer to her no matter how she attempted to sidestep him.

“Long enough. Which are your horses, sirs? I will bring them out for you.”

“I’m afraid my mare may have pulled her right foreleg,” her tormentor continued in a soft, silky voice. “Will you put her through her paces for me so I can see how she handles? I’m sure you’ve got a gentle touch that she’ll respond to, though normally she only allows me to ride her.”

“Perhaps one of your friends can oblige you,” Tamar replied. “I have work of my own to attend to.”

He was beginning to get testy. “I assure you, I am asking what I would ask of any groom,” he said coldly. His other companion, the one who had not yet spoken, touched him gently on the arm.

“Oh, let it be, Devon,” he said in a calm voice. “Let the girl go to her work, and let’s get on with the ride.”

Devon jerked his arm away and stalked across the stable to where a restive, high-strung palomino pranced nervously in her
stall. “Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll take care of my mare myself.”

Tamar nodded gravely and turned to the other two noblemen, who appeared slightly embarrassed by their friend’s fit of temper. “Sirs?” she repeated.

“The black is mine,” said the third man, pointing. “And Alan’s is the bay with the white nose. We’ll await you outside.”

That was the most chilling of the incidents, but more than one of the other visitors expressed a great deal of interest in her presence, her appearance, and her ability to perform her job. She treated them all with a noncommittal courtesy, rarely made eye contact, and never allowed herself to come close enough to be touched.

She mentioned none of this to Gene until the skirmish with Devon, and then she felt it best to speak up before one of the noble lords complained to the head groom. “If I behaved wrong, tell me,” she finished. “I’ll do what you say.”

But she had gambled correctly. He frowned, and nodded thoughtfully. “Hadn’t thought about it before,” he said. “You hear stories about how lads like that treat the maids and the upper servants, but as I haven’t had too many women working for me in the stables, it didn’t occur to me….” His voice trailed off. He studied the pattern of halters hanging on nails in the far wall. “Well, we’ll take you off the night shift. There’s one worry done away with. Could make you point person at the front door all day—you might get a few comments still, but there’d be too many people about for anyone to corner you and try a mischief.”

Yes, but at the front door she’d be highly visible to anyone who happened to drop by Cartabella—angels, noblemen, anyone. “You could put me in charge of exercising the estate horses,” she said. “That way, I’d mostly be out of the stables but I’d still be working.”

He nodded slowly. “That’s fine with me. Still might run into a few hotheads now and then who think any woman is fair prey.”

She gave him a quick, demure smile. “But if I’m exercising the horses,” she murmured, “I can just ride away.”

He grinned back. “Fine. Your call. Something else comes up, let me know, and we’ll work it out. But don’t be afraid to tell me about it. I know the gentlefolk. Not so gentle.”

So that comforted her, though she wondered if her coworkers
might resent her for getting preferential treatment. If they did, they did not say so. Gregor did comment on her new duties (“Better you than me. I’d rather feed them than take them out for exercise”), hut didn’t seem to feel she’d received any privileges. All in all, she felt she was surviving Isabella Cartera’s influx of visitors relatively well.

Although, the next day, she was not so sanguine.

She had risen early to give special attention to Lunacy, a two-year-old filly that Gene had recently acquired. The horse had picked up some bad habits from her previous trainer and didn’t like to be handled by women, though she was small-boned and delicate and clearly destined to be a lady’s mount. Tamar wanted to accustom the filly to a woman’s voice and touch before she attempted to take her on a long ride—or turned her over to Isabella Cartera.

Lunacy backed from Tamar’s hand before she had even opened the stall door, and whickered plaintively as if to call for help. “You have no idea how this hurts my feelings,” Tamar told her in a low, steady voice. She always talked incessant nonsense to the nervous horses; it usually calmed them. “To have you reject me in this way. I’ll have you know I’ve never abused a horse. Never will. You’re completely safe in my hands.”

The dainty ears flicked forward, and the big, intelligent eyes watched her warily. Tamar could not help smiling. Lunacy was irritating, no question, but Tamar felt a certain kinship with her. Just so she pictured her own reaction—to anyone, male or female—if she was suddenly transmogrified into a horse.

“Now, I know you’ve been fed already. Come out with me to the corral. We’re going to see how you take the saddle and bridle this time. Don’t you want to learn how to behave prettily enough to have Isabella choose you as her favorite mount? She’s quite the most important person on the farm, you know. Everyone will admire you if she’s your rider.”

Eventually, Lunacy allowed herself to be bridled and led from the stall. Once outside in the golden spring morning, she pranced a little—nerves, maybe, but Tamar thought it might be a small celebration of her delight in the lovely day. She smiled.

“All right. Let’s walk once around the corral. I’ll just hold the bridle, like this, and you can walk beside me, and you can see how easy it is, just walking, just having a nice little chat.”

They circled the corral twice, Tamar talking all the while, and Lunacy’s initial skittishness quickly evaporated. Tamar considered trying to mount for a brief ride, but thought she’d wait a day or two, till the horse was used to her voice and her presence. Then she’d see how Lunacy reacted to a saddle and a rider.

“See. Wasn’t that easy?” she said, coming to a halt and patting the filly’s nose. “Would you like a little sugar? Would that make you like me better?”

“Doesn’t take sugar to make
me
like you better,” said a smooth voice behind her, and she whirled so suddenly that the horse whinnied and tried to jerk the lead rope from her hand. It was Devon and his blond companion Alan, and they were both smiling at her in a menacing fashion.

“She’s a beauty, now, isn’t she,” Devon said, coming closer to run his manicured hand down the horse’s nose. Tamar tried to step away, but she didn’t want to let go of the bridle. She kept thinking there must be some way to spin around, leap onto the horse’s back, and gallop away. “Not too well trained, though. Is that your task—to break her in?”

“My favorite kind of work,” the towhead drawled. “Breaking in a new filly.”

Both men laughed. Devon was already as close to Tamar as he could get; now the blond stepped forward, crowding her against the horse. Lunacy neighed and backed away, but Devon’s hand was on the halter, and his iron grip forced her to a standstill.

“I like them spirited,” the tall man observed, “but not so stubborn they can’t be taught.”

No way to get on the horse and ride off. Tamar stood frozen in place for five seconds, then lunged forward and ducked under Devon’s arm. There was a flurry of motion as the horse reared backward, both men yelled, and someone dove after Tamar. She felt hands close on her arm and jerk her back; she whirled around with the motion and lashed out with her free hand, making solid contact with someone’s chest. Alan’s. She heard his small grunt of surprise, and his clutch on her arm loosened. But before she could do more than think of running away, Devon’s arms snaked around her from behind, and he crushed her to his chest. She could feel his heart pounding, hear his sudden ragged breathing, smell his mixed scent of cologne, leather, and finely starched linen.

“I think we deserve a little more courtesy than that,” he murmured in her ear, drawing her even closer. She felt her ribs protesting the strain, and there was a terrific pain building up in her right arm. Perhaps Alan had bruised her when he grabbed her. “Alan, show the young lady how we prefer to be treated.”

She could not back up but she whipped her head from side to side as the blond leaned closer, clearly intent on kissing her. “Feisty,” he said with a laugh, and placed his hands on either side of her face, holding her still. She kicked out furiously, missing his groin but connecting with his knee, causing him to howl and hop backward. Devon was laughing; she could feel his chest shake. As soon as Alan regained his balance, he rushed forward and slapped her viciously across the cheek.

“Stupid bitch!” he exclaimed. “Would you like to see what we could really do to you if we wanted?”

She pursed her mouth to spit at him. But before she could act, before either man could speak again, the air around them suddenly changed. It grew both shadowed and iridescent, as if the sun were filtered suddenly through a vibrant, translucent awning. The air ruffled around them; a rapid, muffled rhythm seemed to offer up the heartbeat of the wind itself. All three of them gaped upward. All three of them grew loose and stupid in a moment’s quick shock.

It was an angel hovering barely ten feet above them, looking like Jovah’s wrath personified. He blocked the light with his outstretched wings; his arm was extended in an accusatory gesture. The bracelets on his wrists glittered with baleful emerald light, and just below his shoulder, the Kiss in his arm blazed like a miniature sun.

“And this is what noblemen consider a fitting pastime for their idle hours! Devon Malpasson and Alan Parlair—I recognize both of you. Who are you troubling now with your ugly faces and your ill-bred desires?”

Not until the angel spoke their names did Tamar’s attackers actually release her. “Let’s get back to the house,” she heard Alan mutter. Devon snarled, “What mix is it of his?” but she could feel him slinking past her with much less of his usual arrogance. For herself, she could not move a muscle, not to retrieve the drifted horse, not to run to the stables, not to cover her face in mortification. For the angel could just as well have
called out her name—he knew it. She knew his. The angel Jared, leader of the host at Monteverde.

He waited till the other two had stalked away, then canted his wings and came down for a noiseless landing. He looked not at his feet or the terrain beneath him, but straight at her; and while he watched her she could not turn her eyes away.

She had remembered the tangled brown hair, the shape of his face, even the timbre of his voice. She had forgotten the color of his eyes, gray and stern as a father’s reproach. She had to force herself not to open the conversation with an apology. He came a step closer, still staring at her, and she stiffened her backbone and stared right back.

“So. You made it safely from Ileah, I see,” he said, the sarcastic edge very faint in his voice.

“I did,” she said. “How was Peter when you left him?”

“In good hands. I did not linger to watch his recovery. I wanted to hurry back. In case I was needed.”

She winced a little; but she would not be cowed. “You did not rush back because you feared for my safety,” she retorted. “You wanted information—secrets about my friends. I left before you could try to force that information from me.”

“Wrong on all counts,” he said, and now his voice showed a certain grimness. “I wanted—I still want—to help you, and possibly help your friends. And even if I was after information, I never would have resorted to the tactics those two fellows tried. You were safer with me than you have been at any time since.”

Tamar did not exactly sniff, but the sound she produced was fairly close. “I have been in no danger.”

“Well, you will be,” he said soberly, and reached inside a pocket on his leather vest. It had not escaped Tamar’s notice that he was very casually dressed, in tight leather leggings and a sleeveless vest; and he was, by any standard, more appealing than the last two men she had just viewed. Not that it mattered, not that she cared. “The Archangel—who, as you know, is not fond of Jacobites—has managed somehow to come up with a portrait that resembles you. And this he has passed along to all the Jansai and any other mercenary souls who might be willing to make an easy dollar by bringing you to the Eyrie. Not a great likeness, but a passable one, don’t you think?”