Heart of a Knight (20 page)

A sudden chill went through her. What if Alice was not only skilled in the arts of healing, but in the darker arts, as well, those arts of glamour and love spells and curses? What if Alice—

Lyssa heard her thoughts, and laughed aloud. Foolishness. Alice was no witch. Lyssa only sought an excuse to explain her overwhelming desire for the knight. With a rueful grin, she picked up her spinning again. It would be pleasant to blame magic for it, but in truth, she had simply been smitten for the first time in her life.

And yet, there
was
some warning low in her belly. Some part of her noticed things that were not what they seemed. Just as her instincts told her Alice was no witch, they also insisted there was something not quite right about the strangers from the north.

She pursed her lips, thinking. Alice was simple enough; though uncommonly handsome, she was no more or less than the village healer she proclaimed herself to be. Her herbs and potions were renowned only because she was as skilled in her arts as Lyssa was with her loom. Though Lyssa suspected Alice practiced the old religion, even that was no uncommon thing. Here at Woodell, there oft burned fires on full moons that were best ignored.

But Thomas. Thomas.

He was not so simple to pin down, and she tried to decide just what was not quite right about him. 'Twas more than his speech. More than one single thing. As Tall Mary had said, he was not a knight like others they had known, not at all. Everything he did, and the ways he did them, were his alone.

There was no crime in that. Lyssa had oft been named eccentric for her own habits. Perhaps that was all that nagged at her—he was a law unto himself, seemingly unbound by law or lord.

But at the feast last night, Lyssa vowed it seemed he stayed close to the shadows. As if he feared recognition? Could he be a bandit or an outlaw, come to Woodell to hide?

A small voice in her heart cried out at the thought. What if she discovered he truly was a bandit? Would she banish him, or hang him, or simply keep her eyes averted when he indulged his thievery?

Frightening that she could even consider such a thing.

With a sigh, she vowed to observe him more closely. Again she smiled ruefully, for she watched him more close than she ought as it was; 'twas near impossible to think on anything else when Thomas was about. His very presence intoxicated her; even now 'twas far too easy to imagine simply inviting him to her bed tonight, where at last she might learn the secrets of bedsport that he'd no doubt mastered, and would be happy enough to share.

But she feared that, too. The turmoil in the past days had shown her that passion was no simple thing for a woman. It wounded women more than it healed. Men seemed not as deeply moved, or perchance 'twas only that they were easily distracted by another, more willing subject. Men did not pine.

Men did not sigh. Men strode and took and captured.

Some men. She thought of Stephen, and his expression when he gazed on Isobel. But then, Isobel was a female cut of the same cloth as Thomas. Alluringly beautiful, eyes and lips and hands and chest and thighs all aligned to make a body think of hot pursuits.

She thought suddenly of a naked Thomas, his back gilded with firelight. That long, sculpted, lean back that she had touched last night.

She had never tried to imagine a man nude before, but she could not seem to stop thinking of what Thomas might look like below his clothes. Thomas, so big and male, with his tawny skin and his hair falling—

With a small, dismayed cry, she closed her eyes as if to blot away the vision.

As if her longing had conjured him, the low rich voice of that very man broke her solitude. "Did you prick yourself, my lady?"

Lyssa, startled, choked back a snort of laughter. "Nay, sir," she said, and then could think of no reason to account for her pained cry. She scowled as he ducked under the arched doorway, a brace of flickering tallows in his hand. He yet wore the red velvet tunic she had known would suit him, with a belt nipping in at his narrow waist. The texture of the velvet, clinging to his wide shoulders and broad chest, made her ache to rub both fabric and flesh with the flat of her hand.

Quickly she recovered herself. "I did not expect company here tonight."

"Aye, you fled us." He put the candles on a table and only then did Lyssa realize how smoky gray the air had grown, the land beyond her unshuttered windows faded to colorless shadows. "But I wished to speak in private with ye, and knew not how else to do so."

He stood, hands clasped behind his back, and Lyssa made an impatient sound. "I vow, sir, you stand on much formality. Please sit as you speak, for looking up so far gives me a pain in my neck."

Humor glinted in his eyes, eyes that seemed too dark for mere blue now, but shone almost black. His mouth quirked at the corners. "Do I disturb you, my lady?"

The words hinted his understanding of her attraction to him, and she answered rather more vehemently than she intended. "Nay," she said, "but I am weary tonight. Will not your concern wait till the morrow?" Busily, she picked up the wool and began to spin. "I am loathe to think on any new trouble."

"'Tis no trouble." He settled nearby her on the bench, in the place where Tall Mary had so often sat. But as ever, he seemed to take up thrice the area as any other person, his thighs big and hard as the ceiling beams, the curve of his arms straining the fabric of the tunic, his shoulders wide as the river. His black hair fell in glossy locks down his back, all the darker against the red. Only the long, raw cut below his eye marred the perfection of him.

He made her feel breathless, and she spun more busily, caring not if the thread was spun smooth or rough. He watched her. "So this is how you find your peace?" he asked. "Spinning wool, like some busy spider?"

"Aye," she said, and smiled in spite of herself. "It has ever been so. I remember my mother putting the spindle in my hand the first time, when I was four, and it pleased me so much I came with her every day after that. My sister had shown no love for it, so my mother was glad enough to have me."

"Your sister? Where does she dwell?"

Lyssa sobered. "With the queen."

His gaze sharpened, but he said nothing. Gesturing toward the frame in the center of the room, he said, "This, too, is yours?"

"Aye. You may look at it, if you wish. 'Tis a hunt scene. Perchance you will have some advice for me."

Thomas lifted the brace of candles to examine her work, and Lyssa saw the greens and blues shimmer against the light, making the forest seem alive and moving. Sparks of red shot from the forest floor and darker rusts from the coats of the dogs, and even bits of thread of silver and gold illuminated harnesses and swords and the sleeves of the men. A burly huntsman lead the group, powerful and alert, the dogs looking to him for direction.

"This is all your work?" he asked.

"Every stitch."

He lifted his head. "'Tis as if you stole a moment of time, and captured it here."

A glow lit in her heart, and she swallowed her prideful smile. "Thank you, sir."

He gestured toward the forward section. "Methinks the huntsman the finest of the men," he said with a glint in his eye. "Did you have a handsome man in that position when you were a child?"

Lyssa grinned. "We did. He saved me sweets in his pockets, too. His name was John and I thought him the finest man in all the land."

"Finer than your cousin?"

"Oh, much! Edward came only once or twice a year, but John was there all year-round." She sighed, thinking of childhood with longing. "Oh, those were happy, golden days, when I knew so little of the world." She lifted a shoulder. "Perhaps it is ever thus. Childhood is golden for us all."

"Not all." The words were soft, with hints of remembered pain, and Lyssa watched him touch the figure of the huntsman with one finger.

"Was yours painful, Thomas?"

He roused himself from some far-off place. "Aye."

But though she waited, he added nothing. She inclined her head. "Will you say no more?"

"What point in living old pains?" He moved away from the tapestry frame and again sat down next to her. "I should like so fine a thing to hang in my hall one day. Have you some small weaving that I might take with me when I go?"

It pleased her. "None so fine as that. But mayhap I do have some small thing." She put the bundle of wool aside and briskly moved to a trunk. "There are many here that I have worked through the years. Come find one you like."

"All these?" he asked, bending to grasp a handful of woven goods.

"Aye."

He admired the stack of them, one by one, commenting on the arrangement of grapes in one, the expression on a dog's muzzle in another. Lyssa fair beamed, for none had ever given the work of her heart so much attention. Thomas picked out things she liked best in each, the glimmer of hidden water in the forest, the detail work on a spur, the embroidery on a woman's sleeve. She found herself leaning close over his arm, pointing to a shadow or a detail or a bit of work that had been difficult, explaining how she'd solved the dilemma, or how little satisfied she was with the end work.

He paused when he came to another hunt scene, this one smaller than the one on her frame. "And this?" he asked.

Lyssa hesitated, then took it from him. "I have not looked upon this in many years," she said quietly. "There was much I had yet to master." She brushed her fingers over a knotted tangle of primrose, nestled against the trunk of an oak. The knot-work was yet uneven and showed the impatience of youth.

Still, there was much she did like. The scene was gilded with dappled, bright gold light, and through the shadows were scattered the jeweled tones of spring flowers. There were ladies astride in vividly colored gowns and flowing hair. She smiled. "The hair pleased me."

Holding the fabric, she found herself awash with memories of the girl she had been when she'd labored over it: a curious, exuberant girl who was soon to be married though she had not known it. The tapestry burned with the youthful joy she had felt in those days. It reeked of hope and delight. "I wove it when I was fourteen," she said, and felt a plucking melancholy over the loss of that girl, over the passage of time that had gone since then.

"Fourteen," he repeated, and took it gently from her hands. "A happy fourteen." He held it loosely, then looked at Lyssa. "What thing came to steal the joy from you, Lyssa? From these bright flowers, to those dark colors there?"

She looked at him, thinking of the events the years had wrought. "My parents died, and I was married, and the plague came. There is not so much light in the world now as there was then."

"So much." He lifted a hand, hesitated, and brushed her cheek with his fingers. "Would that I could light the world again for you."

Standing before the tall knight in his red tunic, his hair so black against the yellow candle flame behind him, Lyssa was bemused. "If I were to weave this moment, there would be light aplenty in it. You have brought color back to my world."

He stroked her cheekbone, his eyes piercing. "You did not say your husband's dying, only your marrying."

Lyssa felt herself being drawn into his spell. In panic, she ducked her head and turned away. "A husband, sir, steals the joy from any maiden's eye."

"All husbands?" he asked, and she felt him behind her, close but not quite touching her.

She took a breath. "Aye. In this world, 'tis a husband who rules and a wife who serves. I find I have no liking for service."

"Ah. But do we not all serve some master? Even the king must pay homage to God."

Lyssa whirled, and found him far, far too close. She stepped back and nearly stumbled over the stool by her loom. Thomas snagged her arm to keep her from falling, and somehow, then, she found herself next to him, held close to his body.

"Let me go," she said, but the word came out on a ragged whimper, one that sounded of desperation.

He slid an arm around her waist, hauling her tightly against him. Lyssa bent backward, but Thomas only leaned forward with her. Her head began to spin.

"What do you fight when I touch you, my lady?" he asked in that black silk voice. "Is it the fire that burned in you when you were fourteen, and was killed by a cold husband's touch?"

She struggled a little. "What do you know of my husband?"

"That he was too old for you."

Lyssa kept her hands on his chest, fighting the allure he cast. The scent of his skin enveloped her like smoke, that dark forest smell, that leaf and seasons scent that was all things pleasant in her mind. With her eyes on his mouth, she said quietly, "I did not please him."

"He did not please you, I think."

When he would have come closer, Lyssa put a hand between them, put her hand over his mouth. "Do not, Lord Thomas. I do not wish to ache for things I do not have. Please."

"Ah, Lyssa," he said quietly, but eased his hold on her. She would have bolted, most likely falling in her haste, but he steadied her on her feet before he let her go. He straightened. "That do I understand. 'Tis better not to wish."

Inclining her head, she asked, "What could you have longed for that you do not have?"

His eyes hardened, and she caught a hint of that brooding darkness before he shrugged. "To be a king's cousin. To have lands that do not lie fallow. Many things." He looked at her, and drew himself tall. "In this moment, I burn for you."

It was nearly as bold as if he touched her. Lyssa felt the tips of her breasts pearl, and wondered if he saw. The weakness made her angry. Sharply she said, "'Tis only that I do not tumble into your bed like all the rest that makes you wish for me, Thomas. That I have will enough to resist your charm irks you, just as Isobel throws a tantrum because you are the one man she cannot attract to her!"

He lifted one dark brow. "Ah, so there's the truth of it. You think I aim to make a conquest."

"Not
think
. 'Tis plain as the sun in the sky!" She turned away from him. "I should have given Isobel her way and let her wed you instead. You could have tortured each other all the years."