Dream of Me/Believe in Me (70 page)

He was straightening up when he saw Krysta. At once, his smile faded. Her stomach plummeted to see it
go. For a moment she considered trying to lose herself in the crowd, but pride made her hesitate and then it was too late. Hawk walked to her with deliberate speed. As though he had sensed her intention, he put a hand to her elbow before he spoke.

“My lady,” he said gravely, “my thanks for all you have done. I can't remember a more splendid harvest feast.”

To her dismay, Krysta found herself blushing and unable to meet his eyes. “It is Edvard you should thank, my lord, and all the others. I did little but help.”

“That is not what Edvard and the others say.” His manner was lightening now that he was reasonably assured she would not elude him. He tucked her arm into the crook of his and led her deeper into the crowd before she could object. Quickly, they were surrounded by townsfolk and peasants alike, who smiled to see them together and in apparent harmony.

He led Krysta to the high table and seated her before taking his place beside her. Their arrival was the signal for the feasting to begin. Amid the parade of dishes, the flow of ale and mead, and the clamor of the guests, Krysta struggled to get her bearings. Everyone wanted to speak with Hawk and did so unhindered, calling out to him from other tables. He was involved in several conversations at once, juggling them all with gracious ease. High good humor abounded, and any barriers of formality that might usually exist dissolved in the spirit of the moment.

Cheers erupted as a young man and woman from the town came forward shyly to present Hawk and Krysta with poppets made from the last gleanings of the harvest. This was a custom with which she was not familiar and she was uncertain what to do until Hawk rose, taking her hand, and led her to an old oak tree that stood at the edge of the field. Following him, she placed her poppet together with his high on a branch of the tree as the watching
crowd cheered. The sun was setting and torches had been lit. By their dancing flames, the world seemed cast in ancient shadows.

“King and queen of the harvest,” he explained, gesturing to the poppets. “Some folk still believe honoring them assures the fertility of the land.”

“Do you believe it?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged. “I don't see that it does any harm.”

Holding her hand high in his, he led her back to the table. As they resumed their seats, a line of young men garbed all in white with their faces blackened ran out into the open space before the diners. From their costumes dangled hundreds of brightly polished bits of metal that reflected the firelight over and over, making them seem as though they moved in the midst of tiny suns. They carried sticks that they began to bang together rhythmically as they moved in the patterns of a dance so old it seemed etched in their blood and sinew.

Krysta watched with delight, she who loved to dance, for here at last was something familiar. She had seen such dances, performed by Vestfold folk.

Hawk watched her watching the dancers and smiled to see her greater ease. He still had no notion of what troubled her but he was determined to set it to rights, whatever it might be. The business of getting to know each other had surely gone on long enough. He meant to tell her so but not here, not now in the midst of such revelry. It needed a private moment, that rarest of gifts but one he intended to give them both, soon.

He looked out toward the sea and smiled, knowing what the morrow would bring.

K
RYSTA PAUSED AND LOOKED AROUND CAUTIOUSLY
before descending the last few steps into the hall. There was no sign of either Daria or Father Elbert, for which she gave silent thanks. She had no doubt that having been made to endure the spectacle of the harvest feast, albeit from the distance of her quarters, Daria would be in even worse humor this day than was usual. She would be looking to take back her own in any and all ways available to her, with Krysta her most likely target. Therefore was it Krysta's notion to see what she could do to absent herself for at least some little time. She was thinking over that, and munching on an apple, when Hawk strode into the hall, saw her, and smiled.

“I was in search of you, my lady. Did you sleep well?” How she had or, more to the point, had not slept was not a subject she cared to discuss with him. Toward the end of the harvest feast, when ale and mead flowed in abundance, couples took to going off hand-in-hand to find their pleasure. Even staid Edvard was nowhere to be seen by the time the feast was over, nor was Aelfgyth.

Envy was a petty emotion yet Krysta could not elude it. It had kept her restless throughout the night.

“Why in search, my lord?” she asked, dodging the question.

“I wondered if you might like to go sailing.”

“Sailing … with you?”

“I was not suggesting you go alone.” He spoke with gentle chiding.

“No, of course not, I only meant …” Flustered, she took a breath and tried again despite the sudden racing of her heart. “Yes, thank you, I would like to go sailing.”

He grinned at her formality but looked relieved in the bargain. “Come then, before a host of well-intentioned folk appear with dozens of matters requiring our immediate attention.”

Our.
A sudden carefree spirit seized her. She laughed and took the hand he offered. They slipped away down back lanes to the pier where Hawk kept his boat. He helped her into it, untied the mooring rope, and jumped down to join her. A cat prowling among barrels of salted fish watched them go.

Hawk raised the single mast and unfurled the sail. The wind filled it, skimming them lightly over the water. He put a hand to the rudder and guided the boat out into the bay. Seated beside him in the stern, Krysta breathed deeply of the salt air and turned her face toward the sun. She had been too long without this and had missed it sorely. With each moment, she felt her emotions become less frayed. She looked out toward the white-gold curve of the shore and smiled.

“Your lands looked marvelous from the back of a horse, my lord, but I must tell you, they look even more beautiful seen this way.”

He laughed, pleased by her spirit. “Should I conclude you prefer sailing to riding?”

“You would be safe thinking so.”

“Then perhaps you would like to try your hand at it.” The day was clear, the wind mild. He saw no harm in letting her take the rudder.

She glanced at him in surprise. “You would not mind?”

“So long as you don't capsize us,” he said with a smile. “Here, let me show you how—”

As he spoke, Krysta took hold of the rudder. She laughed with sheer delight to feel the power of the wind and sea in her hair. Without hesitation, she turned the boat so that the wind was directly astern. In response, they seemed to leap forward. At Hawk's startled look, she grinned, tacked smoothly to port, and brought them across the wind so that their speed slowed.

“You know how to sail,” he said, looking just a little grumpy about it.

“When I wasn't swimming, I was doing this,” Krysta confessed. She wondered if she had overstepped herself but as she made to turn the rudder over to Hawk, he shook his head.

“Oh, no, my lady, if you can sail, then by all means do so. I'll sit back and enjoy myself.”

She glanced at him doubtfully but he insisted, going so far as to lean back with his arms stretched out on either side along the boat railing, looking as though he had not a care in the world. He even made a show of closing his eyes although she noticed he opened them frequently to check on her progress.

“There are rocks over that way,” he said finally, a moment before Krysta spotted the telltale roiling of water over submerged stone. She steered easily around them and continued north along the coast. It was dotted with bays and inlets, all smaller than Vestfold's, but lovely just the same. Beyond them came mainly dense forest almost to the water's edge, although here and there she saw clearings that spoke of human habitation. She considered how
greatly this soft landscape contrasted to the ruggedness of Vestfold and realized for the first time that she could not remember when she had last thought of the place that had been her home.

“What troubles you?” Hawk asked suddenly.

Drawn back to the moment, she looked at him in surprise. “Nothing. I was just thinking how different this is from Vestfold.”

He hesistated, as though tempted to drop the subject, but instead said, “I didn't mean just now. I meant these last few days. Since Dragon was here, something has made you unhappy.”

She stared at him, so startled that he had made such a connection that she had no idea of what to say.

“Are you homesick?” Hawk asked. “Did his coming here remind you of the home you left?”

“No! That is, I truly did not think of it. I am not homesick.”

He sighed deeply and ran a hand through thick curls. So distracted was she by the glint of sun off them that she almost missed what he said next. “Then it is this betrothal that saddens you.”

Krysta shook her head in bewilderment. She could not fathom his thoughts, perhaps because the mere fact that he had been thinking about her feelings astounded her. That he had, in the process, come to a stunningly wrong conclusion only added to her perplexity.

“I am not sad about our betrothal. I thought you regretted it.”

It was Hawk's turn to be surprised. “Me? How did you come to think that?”

She could not meet his eyes. As he watched, her cheeks darkened. He glanced down at her slender hands on the rudder and saw that the knuckles shone white against the honey tones of her skin. Such very lovely, soft skin …

Abruptly, a memory rose. Waking the night of the storm, seeing Krysta beside him … seeing her clearly despite the darkness. Seeing because a brazier glowed beside the bed. A brazier that had not been lit when first he came into the room.

She knew.

“I see …” he said slowly. “Obviously, an apology is owed you. I should not have done as I did.”

She looked at him for all the world as though he spoke in a tongue she could not comprehend. “Do we speak of the same thing? The night of the storm, you …”

“I shared your bed. But I did you no harm and if you were frightened or offended, I am truly sorry.” He fell silent for a moment, remembering. The lit brazier. She must have done that and in the doing, seen him. Why then had she returned to the bed … unclad? A possibility teased at the edge of his mind, tempting him. Gently, going very carefully, he asked,
“Were
you frightened or offended, Krysta? Or did you by chance have other feelings I didn't recognize?”

She answered so softly that he had to strain to hear her over the song of the wind. “A lady of true worth would not have such feelings.”

The back of his neck prickled, the same way it would do on a battlefield when someone right behind him was about to split his head open with an ax. Then the appropriate response was simple and straightforward—if necessarily brutal. Now he had to go much more cautiously.

“You think a lady shouldn't have feelings?”

She darted a quick look at him before turning away. “Proper feelings, certainly, at the proper time and place. She should be … restrained.”

He thought of how she had kissed him in the stable and spared a moment's fervent thanks that such restraint was foreign to her nature.

“I think you have an odd idea of what makes a lady.”

He was beginning to smile broadly at the realization that her chagrin came not from what he had done but from what he had not. What a fool he had been not to think of that sooner, and how much more pleasant these last few days would have been for both of them if he had. But done was done. It was now that mattered.

“A lady is merely a woman of property and position,” he said. “Nothing more or less. To be a lady says naught about what is in a woman's heart.” He leaned closer and put his hand over hers on the rudder. “Nor does it say what
should
be in her heart. That is for her to decide.”

Her eyes as they met his were doe-wide. She did not protest when he turned them downwind. The sail billowed, snapping in the stiff offshore breeze. They raced over the water glinting with the captured treasure of sunlight. Gulls circled overhead and a startled porpoise raised its head to watch. Krysta gasped when she saw a small island coming up swiftly directly ahead, but Hawk's hand tightened on hers and they deftly steered around it with almost no loss of speed. The wind changed direction slightly but he seemed to sense it before it happened and maneuvered so adroitly that the sail never sagged. Quickly, she realized that he close-hauled with steely skill, something she rarely dared to do. Sailing so close to the wind brought special challenges and dangers, but he clearly thrived on both. With a start, she realized that just perhaps she did, too, for never had she enjoyed a sail more.

“Does anyone ever race you?” she asked, vividly conscious of the warmth and strength of his hand over hers.

Hawk laughed and she felt the movement of his chest against her back. “Wolf and Dragon will, no one else. They win half the time, too.” He sounded pleased, as though he relished true competition.