Claudia Dain (21 page)

"She could kiss my hand," Edward said, his sudden smile hard and bright.

"The laying of the kiss is my province," Avice said, suddenly smiling in return, her eyes glittering like glass. "I choose where to lay my lips, and I choose to meet this bargain with my mouth upon your..."

Juliane began to laugh, seeing how Avice was turning this defeat into Edward's shame. All things might be won by a clever woman who was set on winning, no matter the game. No matter the opponent.

"Upon your," Avice continued, playing with him like a cat with a rat, "throat."

Ulrich cleared his throat and sent his young, wide-eyed squire up to the hall. 'Twas rough sport for a small lad to witness. Ulrich tried to spare him the worst of it, which Juliane could not but commend.

"Bare my throat for you?" Edward said in stiff surprise. "Nay, that is no part of this bargain."

"It is now," Avice said softly, her eyes bright shards of pale blue.

"Will you renege?" Juliane asked. "The wager is broken if the terms are not met."

"I did not set these terms," Edward said, looking down at Juliane.

"My lord," Juliane said placidly, "I am ever placed in the center of wagers to which I have not set the terms. I play out the game. I understand the rules. Will you say less of yourself?"

If Ulrich looked at her longer and more thoughtfully than she liked, she ignored both him and the knowledge of his look. He was part of this because he was here, other than that, he had no part.

Edward closed his eyes. And with his right hand pulled down his tunic and bared his throat to Avice.

"Bend, that I may find the spot I seek," Avice said in crisp command.

Edward dutifully bent from the waist, his throat extended, his pulse jumping against the golden hue of his skin. The sign of his beard was not strong. His skin looked soft. All this Juliane noted as Avice leaned forward to lay her mouth upon her victim.

The very air seemed to spark, like the scent of the wind before a summer storm, like the howling in the night of a wolf pack on the hunt, like the stoop of the hawk in a cloudless sky; all tension, all expectation, all excitement. Could Avice feel it? Did she know what it was she leaned against?

Juliane looked at her dark-haired sister. Avice's eyes were wide and dilated to a twilight blue, her skin flushed, her lips reddened. She knew. She could feel the power of the man and what it was he called forth from her. Avice was no fool. She knew the trail of this beast and would protect herself against being devoured.

With careful precision, Avice feathered her lips against that beating pulse, her mouth tasting his skin. Her lips counting the beat of his blood against the shame she wrought on him. Sweet tasting, this scent of defeat.

With growing confidence, Avice laid her hands upon his shoulders, holding him to her, reaching into her kiss, letting her teeth press against his flesh. Taking him in her mouth. Claiming him.

Refusing him.

With a ragged sigh, Edward clenched his hands and held his ground. His eyes remained closed, but his heart would record this defeat beneath Avice's mouth for the remainder of his life.

A worthy wager.

A worthy winning.

With a breathy sigh, Avice released him, pulling free of the lure of him. Leaving him with a slight dampness on his skin. Smiling, she let go of his shoulders, giving him leave to stand straight and tall, unreachable again. Yet she had left her mark. Not upon his skin, but upon his pride.

"The wager is met," Ulrich said. "And is it not the hour upon which our own wager will be played out?" he said, touching Juliane on the arm. A careless, careful touch. A touch of remembrance. A touch of claiming. A touch of promise.

Juliane ignored him and moved her arm away from his touch. "The wager is met," she said to her sister. "You played your part well, Edward. Our thanks we give to you."

Avice said nothing. She looked at Edward with knowing eyes, and smiled.

"You smile at me, sparrow?" Edward said to Avice, his hazel eyes hard as granite. "You have won nothing from me. Remember that. To keep your honor and your word intact, to fulfill
your
wager, I have played my part. Of losing, I have tasted none. Think on that as you smile, little sparrow; it is you who have lost, and your sister knew well what would be bitter gall for you to taste, marking your defeat. My skin under your lips. My scent in your nostrils. That is the mark of your loss. Smile on, Avice, and I shall smile with you for knowing that in me your loss was made flesh."

And with that, he turned and left them. Avice stared after him, her eyes glittering like winter ice, her hands clenched beneath the shadow of her bell-shaped sleeves.

Ulrich smiled and turned his face to the sky, giving her what courtesy he could in that he did not laugh out loud.

"You lost the wager," Juliane said to her sister, reaching out a hand to touch her sleeve. "You lost, yet you won something from him. You know you did. Do not let him deceive you into thinking you did not."

"I lost the wager," Avice said, turning to look at Juliane, "and you made certain the paying of my debt would scald. And so it has."

"You won something from him. Can you not see it? Why else should he hunt so hard for a weapon to wound you with?"

"'Twas you who gave him the weapon," Avice said, turning from her sister, pulling herself free of her touch and free of her company. Without another look, Avice walked up the steep incline that led to the tower of Stanora. There was no shade cast from that mighty tower. 'Twas close upon the hour of Sext.

"Was it so great a loss, then?" Ulrich asked.

He had moved to Juliane's side. She did not turn to face him. His presence she felt like a sparking brand, hot and red and smoking. Never had she felt such heat from any man. No man had the fire to break her ice into sheets of submission and compliance. Such fire none in all the world possessed; the very legend of her name declared it so.

Yet from him she felt the pull of fire. The lure of heat. The danger of passion's brand.

"To her, aye, it was," she answered, her gaze on Avice's retreating back.

"Ideal terms, then," he said.

"Aye," she said. Avice had disappeared into the black maw of Stanora's tower gate. Gone.

"You sorrow at her loss," he said, coming to stand in front of her, capturing her sight so that all the world suddenly narrowed to only him. His leather tunic was old and worn and smoothly shining. The blood from the wolves had left a splattering of darkest red upon the weathered brown. "Why, then, make the wager?"

"To win," she said, looking up into his eyes. She had no fear of him or of his heat. Let him see that in her eyes. Let him read that in her heart.

Ulrich grinned, his eyes slices of happy blue. "To win is worth anything."

"Are you asking or telling?" she said, matching his grin, showing him her lack of fear.

"Confiding," he said with a wink.

"We are sparring, my lord," she said, turning from him to walk the path that Avice had just trod. "We are not so intimate as to share confidences."

"Upon the hour of Sext, I will mark you for a liar."

"Upon the hour of Sext, you will mark me not at all."

"The very foundation upon which our wager is built. A mighty fortress it is becoming," he said, following her. "The hour of Sext has ne'er held such weight as now, today, with you."

"You are not a godly man, then?" she said.

"I am grown more godly by the hour," he said.

"A righteousness fueled by desperation?"

"Nay," he said, catching her by the hand, tracing the long tine of fingertip to the sensitive curve of her thumb, "only hunger."

"Does God's holy writ speak of such hunger as yours, my lord? I think not. 'Tis not righteousness you feel; you have misnamed it."

"And do God's chosen not hunger and thirst after righteousness? Am I not chosen?"

"Chosen? Not by me," she said, pulling her hand out of his and clenching her tingling flesh into a hard and resolute fist.

"And again we come to Sext," he said, lacing a finger into a strand of her hair, coiling it, tethering her, "when all things shall be shown and all choices revealed."

"You put much upon this," she said, watching him play with her hair, wondering why they were so alone in the middle of the day in the center of the bailey. Or was it just that she could see none but Ulrich? He filled her senses, leaving all else in hazy shadow. "'Tis but a kiss."

"But what a kiss," he said, laying his lips upon the hair he had tangled in his fingers, studying her face while he seduced her.

She kept her face composed and her eyes cool. She could feel nothing upon her hair. It was with the look of his seduction that he thought to bring her down.

"As to that, the hour of Sext will come and I will judge. But I will not lose to you."

Ulrich let her hair slip from his fingers, let it fall in slippery coils back to her shoulder, where it merged with all the rest, unmarked and undisturbed by his interference, unchanged by his touch.

"And I, lady, will not lose to you," he said with an easy smile.

Yet there was nothing easy about Ulrich of Caen. She could see that now.

Chapter 12

"Can she not see that there is nothing of ease in the man? He smiles, but there is no softness in him."

"I think she sees him very well," Avice answered her aunt.

Maud stood upon the battlements, watching Juliane at tender blows with the latest of her knights errant come to lay claim upon her.

"You are angered with her," Maud said, turning from her worried observation of Juliane to search the face of her niece. "'Twas but a wager and a wagered kiss. 'Tis nothing to be—"

"I am not angry," Avice said stiffly.

"Oh," Maud said mildly, nodding, turning again to look down at Juliane. "It gives me joy to hear it."

"Aye, I can see that you are all thought, all concern for me," Avice said.

Maud shook her head and cast Avice a sidelong glance, as if she could not bear to take her gaze from Juliane, which, of a truth, she could not. "A pinprick to your pride only, Avice, if you would face the truth of it. You know 'tis so. Yet for Juliane, 'tis so much more."

"Aye, 'tis always so much more with Juliane."

"Avice, where is your heart?" Maud said, taking her hand and giving it a tug of mild reproof.

Bruised, Avice wanted to cry. Bruised and tender and near to breaking, she could have said, yet she held her tongue. Of what purpose to speak when all was ever and only of Juliane?

Juliane, the beauty. Juliane, the ice maid who could withstand the hottest pursuit, the warmest praise, the most ardent and chivalrous of men. Juliane, whom all men came to see and admire. Juliane, the legend.

Of Avice, whose eyes were the same blue, whose skin was as fair, whose hair was as lustrous, whose bosom was as high, none spoke. None came to win her. None came to praise and pet her. Of Avice, no songs were sung.

It did grow tiresome.

And that hulking, scowling, snapping Edward, who all could see was as churlish and ill-mannered as any bear, laughed at Juliane's bidding.

'Twas too much to be borne.

"Avice?" Maud said again, tugging on her hand.

"My heart," Avice said calmly, releasing her hand, "is exactly where it should be, Aunt."

"Well said," Maud replied, looking down into the bailey. "Father Matthew has come, taking Juliane with him into the chapel. It is well. I would not have Juliane spend unbroken time with Ulrich. He is too fast, too sure at this game."

That he was, thought Avice, smiling, her humor lifting. That he surely was.

* * *

"I would only ask that you search your heart, Juliane, and see where it dwells or would long to dwell in this life," the priest said softly.

"My heart dwells very firmly within my breast, Father," Juliane said pleasantly, her eyes pleasant, her manner pleasant, and her mood most pleasant now that Ulrich had been pleasantly dismissed. "Have no care for me."