Columbine (22 page)

“The pie’s squirrel,” she explained, her voice still merry, “and there are pickled onions in the little jug, and a carrot sallet and cornbread wrapped in the cloth, and the little brindle, there, has a slip of honeycomb.”

“You are a marvel, Dianna, an angel to a starving man,” proclaimed Kit as he stuck his knife deep into the pie.

“I did not tarry at the house when Hester said I might find you here, but she should have told me, too, that she’d provisioned you, as well.”

“She didn’t, Kit,” said Dianna proudly, sitting back on her heels with her hands at her waist.

“Like it or not, ‘tis all of my own making.”

He cocked one eyebrow doubtfully, balancing a -slice of the pie on the blade of his knife as the sauce dripped and the pastry began to flake before he slid the entire piece into his mouth at once. He groaned with contentment that was not entirely due to the pie.

Not a quarter of an hour had he been with her, and already he felt happier than the entire lime he’d been away.

“I’ll take that as well meant,” Dianna said as he cut himself another piece. That there would be little, if any, left for her or Mercy mattered not. She would have given him anything he desired, anything at all.

“I made the cornbread!” declared Mercy jealously.

She pushed herself closer to Kit, practically sitting in his lap to get the attention she felt she was missing.

“Then I must try that next,” said Kit with his mouth full. With a great flourish, he cut into the yellow cake while Mercy waited expectantly, her hands clasped, for his verdict.

“Wait, you’ll want honey.” Carefully Dianna unwrapped the comb and trickled the honey onto the cornbread he held before him. Some trickled onto her fingers, and before she could wipe them in the cloth, Kit lifted her hand to his lips and licked them clean himself, sensuously tracing the length of each of her fingers. The touch of his tongue, soft and wet, on her fingers made Dianna shiver, and her thoughts flew back to how she and Kit had parted in the barn, each breathless with unfulfilled longing. She felt herself being drawn back to that moment, her gaze locked by the power of Kit’s eyes and her own desire, and she leaned closer toward him, her lips parted.

“Oh, fah, Kit, how can you do that?” exclaimed Mercy, her turned-up nose wrinkled with disgust.

“To lick another’s fingers!”

Embarrassed that she’d so forgotten Mercy, Dianna tried to pull her hand away, but Kit held it fast.

“Mercy, sweeting,” he said, his eyes not straying from Dianna’s.

“Where’s Mistress Lily? I can’t believe you’d let that fine little catkin stray.”

With a stricken look, Mercy’s head whipped around, searching for the cat. She bounded to her feet, calling the cat’s name, and scurried off to search for her pet.

Kit’s smile was slow and lazy as he lifted Dianna’s hand to kiss the pulse of her wrist.

“I missed you.”

“And I you,” said Dianna softly, reaching forward to stroke his cheek.

“To have you back is like the spring after winter’s cold.”

“You would turn poetess on me?”

“Poetess or fool, more like.” Dianna’s cheeks pinked.

“Mayhap I am too much alone, with only Mercy and the beauty of the land for my companions.”

“NAY, my love, never a fool,” he said, chuckling, as his hands slid down around her waist to pull her closer.

“But last you swor you hated this land, and all of us in it.”

Dianna winced, hoping this was only more of his teasing.

“Words I did not mean,” she said quickly, “spoken in passion.”

Their faces were nearly touching now, his voice so low that only she could hear. His easy, jesting manner had vanished, and to her surprise, she saw his eyes grow guarded.

Kit tried to swallow his rising doubt. Was she perhaps speaking in riddles to save his feelings? He knew well that often women, and men, too, mistook passion for love and used the words interchangeably.

Could it be that the first time he truly cared about a woman, she did not care about him in return?

“Tell me true, Dianna,” he asked quietly.

“Were there other words you did not mean, too, words spoken in passion?”

“Other words?” she repeated slowly, searching his face for some clue as to what he asked.

“Damn it, Diauna, do you love me?” he demanded.

“Because I love you, and if you don’t love me back—” He broke off abruptly and looked away, unwilling to let her see the raw emotion her hesitancy raised.

“Oh, Kit,” she murmured, her smile tremulous.

She took his jaw in both her hands, cradling his face as her fingers sank into the rough bristles of his new beard.

“I loved you before and I love you now, and I believe in my heart that I always will.”

She kissed him lightly at first, her lips barely brushing their sweetness across his until, with a possessive growl, his mouth came down hard on hers, wild and rough with passion. Fearlessly she surrendered to him and the rising desires within herself as her fingers tightened on the hard muscles of his shoulders.

“Dianna, love, how you tempt me,” he said roughly, his breathing harsh.

“But not here, not now.” Yet even as he protested, he was pushing her back against the grass, tugging the linen cap from her hair to tangle his fingers in the rich, dark strands.

“Mercy will be back—” / “Mercy!” Awkwardly Dianna pushed Kit back and struggled to sit upright. She had once again, to her chagrin, completely forgotten the little girl. With fingers clumsy from interrupted desire, she tried to comb her hair back to neatness beneath her cap.

“To find us thus would hurt the child to no end, and I’ll -not have her lose her trust in me because of you!”

Sprawled on his back, Kit watched and listened before the laughter erupted from deep inside him.

Dianna had switched so completely from a woman abandoning herself to lovemaking to a prim, concerned goodwife that he couldn’t help it. Yet he loved her all the more for putting the little girl’s feelings first. Perhaps now, if he were wed to Dianna, Asa would at last let him adopt Mercy. Happily he realized he might have both a wife and daughter with him at Plumstead before the first snowfall.

“Dianna,” he said softly, reaching out to rest his hand on her thigh.

“I have so many things I wish to say to you. Tomorrow is training day in Wickhamton—’ “I know, and Asa is taking Mercy and me to the supper afterward.”

“Then meet me at dusk on the rise behind the burying ground. I would have you alone, with no 4’ others to spy or listen.,”

Behind him Dianna saw Mercy skipping toward them, the cat swinging from her arms. Quickly Dianna touched her fingers to Kit’s lips.

“Tomorrow, then,” she whispered.

“And I swear I’ll listen to every pretty word you wish to tell me.”

“You’re sure she is Sparhawk’s woman?” demanded Hertel de Rouville skeptically.

“A serving wench?”

“Je le tiens pour certain,” replied Robillard confidently.

“Though it is strange. In the village, they say he brought her with him from London, and yet she lives in a wretched house with an old man and a child.”

Hertel de Rouville shrugged.

“It sounds to me that this woman is merely a convenience for Sparhawk.

Otherwise why would he bother with a creature so low-bred?”

“Ah, but Lieutenant, one look at her and you would see that she is not common.” Eagerly Robillard leaned across the table.

“She is a little goddess, mon ami, a beauty with the manner and the temper of a noble lady.”

“So you would have her for yourself, is that it?”

Hertel de Rouville asked with a weary sigh.

Robillard’s dark eyes glittered in the candlelight.

It had been long since he’d had a white woman, even longer for one so young who spoke his language.

And how he would doubly enjoy her knowing he had robbed the Englishman!

“She would be a small prize to share if you capture Sparhawk.”

The lieutenant downed the last of his brandy and tapped his fingers on the empty glass.

“If, as you promise, she is the right bait to draw Sparhawk to us and if we succeed in capturing him, and if the woman herself survives, then, Robillard, then you may consider her a gift.” His smile was cold as a frozen river.

“But if you have promised wrong and she is of no more use to us than any other Anglaise drab, then you shall watch the Abenakis kill her.

Slowly, painfully, however they choose to amuse themselves. And you, mort ami, will be next.”

“Five, six, seven, eight—ouch” Dianna jerked her hand out of the brick-lined oven, shaking her fingers to cool them. At las she judged the oven hot enough to bake the six pies waiting on the table.

She’d begun the fire before dawn, raking out the coals twice until she was satisfied that the heat was right to crisp and brown the pastry. The other women in Wickhamton would be harsh critics, and Dianna’s pride wouldn’t permit her first offerings to them to have soggy crusts or under baked apples. And then there was the special pie they’d never see, the one fancifully trimmed with pastry hearts, that was reserved for Kit alone.

She smiled happily to herself. He was home and he was safe, and he loved her. He loved her! He might tell her times beyond counting and still she’d never tire of hearing it. All night she’d stayed awake, anticipating today. As leader of the militia, he would be much in demand on tta—ining day, and for him to arrange to see her alone showed how much he, too, longed to be alone. She chuckled, remembering how he’d sent Mercy scurrying away yesterday in the orchard. Perhaps he’d be as eager to kiss sweet apple from her lips as honey from her fingertips.

Quickly she shook off her daydreaming and with care, slid the first two pies off the long wooden peel and into the oven. Her pies would be done, but unless she wanted to greet Kit with a face shiny from the kitchen’s heat and clothes blotched with flour, she’d have to hurry to be ready when Asa came to take them to the village.

Together she and Mercy bathed in the stream down the hill from their house, shrieking as the icy, spring-fed water puckered their bare skin with goose bumps. Dianna rinsed her hair first with vinegar for shine, then crushed lavender for fragrance, and sat in the sun before the house to comb it dry.

At Mercy’s request, Dianna braided the girl’s hair in sevens and bound the thick tail with red yarn. Her own hair Dianna left un plaited and drawn back loosely from her face so the dark chestnut waves tumbled freely down her back. Today, too, she refused to hide it beneath a cap or kerchief. Oh, there’d be talk enough among the older people about her immodesty, but she remembered how Kit liked to tangle his fingers in her hair when it was loose, the way it had been the first time they’d made love, and she was determined to wear it like that again today, for him.

Likely, too, there’d be gossip about how she was dressed. What Dianna lacked in skill as a seamstress she had more than made up for with ingenuity. She’d stood through enough fittings for gowns to absorb the tricks even quality dressmakers used by turning a facing here, adding a cuff there. Beginning with a plain grey bodice of Lucy’s, Dianna had lowered the neckline and narrowed the waist to flatter her own smaller figure. The tattered remains of her black silk gown had been ruthlessly torn into narrow strips that Dianna had braided and appliqued along the seams and neckline. Finally, she’d found an old pair of Torn Wing’s breeches, faded from maroon to pink, and from these she had fashioned the rosettes that crowned her shoulders and were scattered across her skirt. The final effect was not haft as stylish as what she’d worn in London, but still considerably more frivolous than any other woman in Wickhamton would choose, certainly any other servant. But as she dressed, Dianna worried that perhaps she’d gone too far. Nervously she tugged at her neckline, wishing she had a mirror to see just how much of her breasts showed. She’d sewn every stitch with Kit in mind, and if he hadn’t returnein time, she would have worn something else. But what if Asa found her dress too worldly and made her change before Kit had had the chance to see her?

“Oh, Dianna, but ye do look grand!” said Mercy proudly, hugging her knees as she sat on the bed.

“Like the Queen of’ Faeries again.”

Dianna plucked at one of the rosettes on her skirt.

“You don’t think your grandfather will judge me too bold?”

“Aye, he will,” agreed Mercy amiably.

“But he’ll be too ‘shamed t’tell ye so.”

Dianna chewed on her lower lip, considering, “Perhaps I should tuck a kerchief in the front.”

“Nay, don’t change it!” declared Mercy.

“This way you’ll make Kit blind tall th’ other lasses, see if ye don’t!”

Dianna looked quickly at the girl, wondering how much she’d guessed about her relationship with Kit.

She considered telling her the truth, at least as much of it as she herself knew, but Mercy’s face was full of admiration and nothing else, and Dianna relaxed.

“He’ll be so busy with training and telling everyone about his journey that he’ll have little time to spare for any of us lasses.”

Unconvinced, Mercy reached across the coverlet to pull Lily into her lap.

“Kit always has time for his friends. Ye know that. Else he wouldn’t have come t’see us yesterday.”

Friends or not, Dianna decided it was time to change the subject.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave Lily here. She’d be lost among all the people, and the guns might frighten her.”

Mercy sighed heavily and let the cat climb from her lap back up the bed to the pillow. The front of the girl’s dark blue skirt was covered with white cat fur, but Dianna kept her reproof to herself.

“Say farewell to her now, Mercy, and then join me below,” she said instead as she climbed down the ladder.

“Your grandfather should be back soon, and we don’t want to keep him waiting.”

Taking care to keep her clothes clean, Dianna slid the last pie from the oven and balanced it on the open windowsill to cool. The long-handled peel was still in her hand when she heard the door swing open behind her.

“We’re ready to leave whenever you wish, Asa,” she called gaily.