Cast Love Aside (12 page)

“My lady,” he said to Lilianne, “may I have
the honor of escorting you to your seat?”

“Thank you, Sir Magnus.” Her eyes were
discreetly lowered at last, allowing Magnus to breathe again. She
placed her hand on his arm while he led her to the table.

The evening meal awaiting them offered no
hint of Alice's assertion that Royce needed a chatelaine. A large
platter of roasted game birds sat in the place of honor at the
center of the table. A second platter containing slices of cold
meats, a wooden board holding a wedge of cheese, another board with
loaves of bread and a serrated knife, a basket of nuts in their
shells, and several pitchers brimming with good wine completed the
meal.

Magnus heard Lilianne sigh over the feast in
unconcealed delight. She reached for a game bird. Hungry though she
undoubtedly was, she did not gobble her food. She tore the small
roasted bird apart as daintily as would any great lady of King
Henry's court. She sucked on the bones without making rude noises,
and she licked her fingers with the care that good manners
demanded. Magnus watched her pink tongue at work and imagined it
flicking across his naked chest. And he wondered why he did not go
mad with desire and attack her right there at the table.

When the bones of the bird lay clean and
gleaming at one side of the trencher the two of them were sharing,
she ate several slices of cold beef and venison. Royce offered her
a slice of cheese and she accepted it with a smile. Braedon
refilled her wine cup. Her stomach had quieted about the same time
she finished with the bird.

Alice and William were deep in private
conversation. Royce and Braedon chatted about a new sword that
Royce had commissioned from the king's armorer. Magnus gripped the
edge of the table until his knuckles turned white. Lilianne's
fingers brushed against his hand and he feared he would shatter. He
could not stop looking at her, wanting her, wanting her to want
him.

It was madness. It was hopeless. He knew
better than to wish for what he could never have. Still, he could
not make his heart behave. Or his renegade body, either.

He was relieved when a servant approached to
tell Royce he was wanted at the gate.

“It's castle business,” Royce said, ending
the meal by rising from the table.

With Royce gone, Lilianne rather hastily
excused herself. Magnus feared she planned to retreat to her
bedchamber, where he dared not follow her. When he realized she
wasn't going to leave the solar, he expelled the breath he had been
holding. She went to stand at the trio of narrow windows, to gaze
out at the slowly fading evening light.

No longer caring what Braedon or William
might think or say, Magnus joined her. Lilianne's left hand rested
on the stone windowsill. Magnus placed his hand over hers, hoping
she wouldn't withdraw from him. Behind them Alice and William were
murmuring softly. Braedon was cracking nuts and drinking the last
of the wine. So far as Magnus could tell, none of them were paying
any attention to him, or to Lilianne.

Slowly and gently, he stroked his fingers
over the back of her hand. She caught her breath, but did not pull
her hand away. Emboldened, Magnus lifted her hand off the sill, so
he could caress her palm. Her fingers began to tremble.

“Speak to me,” Magnus whispered. “Tell me
what's in your heart.”

“My world is collapsing around me,” she said.
“I don't know what to do next. If Gilbert—”

She broke off, swallowing hard, and Magnus
guessed she was swallowing a sob as well as the rest of the
sentence.

“I know,” he said, still whispering. “If you
speak the words aloud, if you give voice to your most dreadful
fear, what you fear may come to pass. There have been times when
I've felt that way, too.”

She took a long, shuddering breath. Hearing
it, Magnus slid his free arm around her waist, though he knew she
required no physical support. In the next heartbeat she squared her
shoulders and expressed her terror in a slightly different way.

“I sorely miss my brother. Without Gilbert, I
am alone.”

Magnus thought of the brother whom he did not
miss, the twin he loved and hated, whose rash and violent games
would likely end in both their deaths, and he responded to
Lilianne's grief out of his own sorrow over lost sibling
affection.

“We will have the truth of Gilbert's
whereabouts from Erland. I swear it.”

“I trust you, Magnus.” She turned within the
circle of his arm, and Magnus lifted to his lips the hand he had
been stroking.

“I cannot kiss your mouth here,” he said
softly. “Not where others are and where Royce may return at any
moment. But if we were alone, I'd embrace you and kiss you until
your fears vanish.”

“They cannot vanish entirely until I behold
Gilbert, safe and well. Make it soon, Magnus. Please, make it
soon.”

Seeing her lips trembling and the worried
look in her eyes, he decided he would kiss her after all. The
temptation was simply too great for him to resist any longer. He
leaned toward her....

“As I expected,” Royce said, coming into the
solar, “the interruption was an unimportant matter.”

Magnus dropped his arm from Lilianne's waist
and stepped away from her. She shook her head as if to clear her
thoughts.

“By the way,” Royce said to her, “earlier
today I sent a squire to Dover, to a woman I know there, with
orders for her to select gowns and whatever other items ladies
might need. You should have them early tomorrow.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Alice said. “You are
most generous.”

“Yes, thank you,” Lilianne added, knowing she
spoke belatedly. Whenever she was close to Magnus, she seemed to
forget everything else, including her manners.

“It is my pleasure,” Royce responded. He
stood quietly, not fidgeting in the least and, after one quick
glance toward Magnus, not looking at anyone directly.

It didn't take Lilianne long to realize that
Royce would like all of them to retire. Considering the extremely
unsettled state of her emotions, she thought it was a good idea if
she left Magnus's too-alluring presence.

“With your permission, my lord Royce,” she
said, “I will bid you good night.”

“So will I,” Alice immediately added.

“I'll escort you to your room,” William
offered.

“Don't dawdle, William,” Braedon said,
grabbing a handful of nuts from the basket on the table. “Don't
forget, we have an appointment with two men-at-arms and a pair of
dice.”

“How could I forget? I intend to win back
every farthing I lost to you in our last game.”

“Not a chance, my friend. You will lose
again.” Braedon laughed as he made for the stairs to the great
hall.

“Come along, Lilianne,” Magnus ordered. “I
will conduct you to your chamber.”

Lilianne had her mouth open to protest his
commanding manner, when she saw the way he looked at Royce and
inclined his head, as if he was sending a silent message. Royce's
only response was a faint smile. Magnus gestured for Lilianne to
precede him out of the solar. It was an order not to be denied, and
she knew it. Royce and Magnus wanted everyone gone from the room.
Wondering what their reason was, she obeyed with apparent
meekness.

They approached the bedchamber she shared
with Alice in time to see William plant a chaste kiss on Alice's
cheek. With a jaunty wave to Magnus and Lilianne as he passed them,
William took himself off, whistling. He left Alice leaning against
the door frame, her eyes closed, her lips curved into a dreamy
smile. Slowly, Alice slid around the door frame, using it for
support until she was inside the room. The door closed quietly
behind her.

“I do hope William won't make her care for
him and then hurt her,” Lilianne murmured. “Will you speak to
him?”

“Why should I?” Magnus asked in a rough tone.
“William's prospects are far better than mine. Once this mission is
successfully completed, Royce intends to promote him. Then he'll
have something to offer Alice. If she accepts him, she will have a
home and a secure place at Wortham for the rest of her life.”

“How do you know?” she demanded.

“Royce told me.”

“Oh.”

“I must ask you to excuse me now. Royce is
waiting for me.”

“Yes, the two of you are up to something
secretive, aren't you?”

“We have business to transact. Good night,
Lilianne. Sleep well.”

“Magnus.” She put out her hand to catch his
sleeve before he could turn away. He paused, looking so deep into
her eyes that she was sure he read her thoughts and knew she longed
for him to kiss her. For a few breathless moments she thought he
would, prayed he would. She wanted his kiss with desperate
urgency.

“Lilianne.” He laid his forefinger on her
mouth in a tender caress.

“Magnus?”

“It's me you ought to worry about, not
William,” he said, his face suddenly hard and closed. “Unlike
William, I have nothing to offer. My only possessions are my sword
and my wits, a single horse, and one saddlebag of clothes. I don't
even have a squire. Until yesterday, that was enough.”

“It doesn't matter,” she began.

“I’ve seen enough of the world to know that
it does matter. If I hurt you by my impulsive embraces aboard the
Daisy,
I do most profoundly apologize. I promise not to
repeat the insult.”

She ached to tell him he hadn't insulted her
and that he could only hurt her if he didn’t kiss her at once. But
at the moment he looked like the harsh stranger who had treated her
so coldly during their first meeting, the man determined to abduct
her uncle. Here they were again, in another dim, stone corridor,
and he was acting the same way. She didn't understand the shift in
his mood.

“My lady.” Magnus made a formal bow, turned
on his heel, and marched away, his back rigid.

He left Lilianne torn between disappointment
and curiosity. Though innocent, she was not ignorant. Before her
father's death there had been female servants at Manoir Sainte
Inge, and she had observed how the men-at-arms and the household
knights interacted with them. She could tell when a man was
intrigued by a woman, so although Erland had repeatedly told her
she was too ugly to attract a man, she knew Magnus found her
interesting. Perhaps it was because they were almost the same
height. He towered over Alice as he must tower over other ladies;
perhaps women of ordinary height were intimidated by his size.

She decided he hadn't kissed her because he
was trying to be honorable. She recalled her father saying that
good men sometimes felt compelled to forswear what they most
desired, for the sake of honor.

Having reached that point in her ruminations,
curiosity rose anew. Magnus was obviously gently born, so why
didn't he have many possessions? And what were he and Royce doing
down in the solar, that they didn't want anyone else to
witness?

“Lilianne, why are you standing there in the
chilly corridor?” Alice asked, poking her head out of their
bedchamber.

“Don't wait up for me,” Lilianne said.
“There’s something I need to speak about with Lord Royce, something
I forgot until this moment.”

She walked quickly back along the corridor to
the solar. Reaching the open arch, she flattened herself against
the wall, then around the side. The last remains of the evening
meal had been cleared away, including the linen cloth, though the
candelabra remained and extra candlesticks had been added to shed
plenty of light on the polished wood table.

Magnus and Royce sat side by side on a bench,
studying pieces of parchment that were scattered across the
tabletop. No, not scattered; Lilianne was close enough to see how
the irregularly shaped pieces were laid out in a pattern of some
kind. An inkwell, a sand sifter, and several quills waited near
Royce's hand.

Lilianne recalled the documents that Magnus
had scooped off her uncle's desk at Manoir Sainte Inge, and
realized the men were reading what Erland had written. Was it
something to do with Gilbert? Excited by the possibility, she
ventured a step into the solar and began to pay careful attention
to the conversation.

“...approximate dates,” Royce was saying.

“I agree,” Magnus said. “But what is the
key?”

He unfolded one large document with an abrupt
snap of the parchment that sent Lilianne scurrying back into the
shadows beyond the archway.

“Patience,” Royce said. “We will break
Erland's code. See here, these three scrambled words? They appear
several times on each sheet, always in the same order.”

“May we assume they mean the same thing each
time Erland wrote them?” Magnus asked. He frowned, staring at the
spot Royce was marking with his finger. “If Erland wrote all of
these notes at the manor, which seems likely, since that’s where I
found them, perhaps those three words mean 'Manoir Sainte Inge.' If
they do...”

“If they do,” Royce said, completing the
thought, “we have a chance of deciphering Erland's writings rather
quickly. Now, look here...”

Lilianne stood fascinated, gazing at Magnus's
dark head bent close to Royce's red-gold hair. The two of them were
totally caught up in their concentration on the parchments. They
were outwardly so different, yet the absorbed expressions on their
faces were so alike.

She took full advantage of the rare
opportunity to observe Magnus without having him look back at her.
His level grey gaze, so cool and assessing, often confused her. But
now, for just a little while, she could feast her eyes on his
strong-boned face. The mouth he usually held in a taut line was
relaxed, one corner curving upward in a half smile. How straight
and handsome his nose was, how firm his clean-shaven jaw.

Warmth began to creep through Lilianne, a
heat centered somewhere far inside her. She sighed in wistful
longing for something she didn't fully understand, something beyond
her experience.