Heart of a Knight (21 page)

He grabbed her arm and spun her round to face him. "Do not class me with that girl," he said in a dangerous voice, the cadence of his words blurring deeply. "She cost me my pride and humiliated me before the world. I d'na take any unwilling to me bed, nor shame them, nor wound them. They came to me and I pleased them. Tha's all."

Lyssa went still, taken aback by his fury. She had forgiven Isobel, and had not considered that it would not be so simple for Thomas.

But anger rose from him in dark waves, and she saw his pride was most grievously wounded. She thought of him standing with his hands bound like a common criminal, and remembered that he'd spent a night in the dank dungeon, bound and jailed. "Forgive me," she whispered, and touched his beautiful face, touched the raw cut on his cheekbone that Isobel had left on him. "God's heart, Thomas, I did not think."

He made a soft sound and captured her head in his huge hand, and before Lyssa could protest, he kissed her. And this was not like the kisses of the night before, gentle and controlled. This was a dark, deep kiss, hungry and hard, and Lyssa found herself crying out at the welcome taste of his need.

His
need
. She tasted bitter pride and old pain and almost unbearable yearning on his lips. He hauled her close, half-lifting her into the brace of his arms, and Lyssa could only grasp blindly for him before she tumbled out of balance.

And all else disappeared but the taste of Thomas on her tongue, the feel of Thomas holding her with such fierce heat, kissing her with such fierce desire. When he lifted his head at last, his eyes were black and hard.

"I burn for you," he said again, and the need wound through his voice, making it raw and husky. "But I am my own man. And I have my pride. Do not forget that, my lady."

"Thomas," she whispered, unsure of what she meant to say.

It mattered not. He shook his head, putting one finger against her lips to halt her words, then put her on her feet. "Good even, my lady."

He left her, closing the door behind him so Lyssa was alone again, and bewildered. She stood where he'd left her, her hand to her tender mouth, and realized he never had said why he'd come.

 12

An air of taut expectation
seemed to hang in the air over the next few days. Lyssa felt it along the back of her neck, and down her spine, a sense of waiting that put her eternally on guard.

In part, she blamed the weather. Nary a drop of rain had fallen in a fortnight. Crops drooped in the fields, their colors no longer a verdant lush green, but a limp, dull shade. Daily the sun rose in a clear blue sky, and burned all the day with no hint of cloud. The heat made tempers short; worry made them impatient. Lyssa slept with the windows unshuttered, lying naked on her bed, hoping for any hint of breeze from the river. By day, she bound her hair into a tight braid, and wore her loosest clothing, but she, too, felt the malaise, and began to fret over the possibility of fevers. There were still few rats about, but the mice seemed to crawl from every cubbyhole, from every corner.

To make matters worse, twice in the past week, a band of outlaws in the forest had made their presence felt. A prize sow was stolen away in the night, and a brace of rabbits went missing another night. Minor infractions, but Lyssa sent guardsmen to the village at night nonetheless.

One still, hot afternoon, Lyssa sat alone in the orchard, embroidering a sleeve for Isobel's wedding dress. The shade cast by apple trees overhead gave some relief from the heat, unlike the wind that blew through in annoying gusts. It felt fresh from a fire, and smelled of dry grass and dust.

Around her, the castle seemed enchanted. Not a creature stirred, no busy servant gathering onions for supper from the gardens, no guards pacing the walk, no children skittering in a game of ball through the bailey yard. The dogs slept as if dead in patches of shade close to a cool wall or in the shadows cast by the towers. Not even the birds sang. There was only heat and stillness in all the world.

It gave her a sense of melancholy, calling forth as it did the terrible days of the pestilence, the stillness echoing the emptiness of villages deserted or dead. The world had been bleak indeed, and even now, deep into summer, it was hard to believe that bleak pestilence had finally raged its last time. But it seemed it had; none had come ill with it for a year or more.

With a sigh, she looked out to the quiet yard and the open doors to the hall and kitchens. This was not the stillness of death—only the somnolence of a hot afternoon. If she listened very carefully, she could hear the faint voices of girls in the kitchen, laughing and gossiping, and beyond, from the fields, a distant shout of a man performing his boon. The guards did not walk the walls, but kept watch from the cool dimness of the tower, for the sun beat down on their heads till they were ill.

Come evening, when cool breezes blew in from the river, the place would awaken from the spell the heat had cast, and there would be music and laughter, dice and chess, and dancing in the hall. The men Stephen de Kivelsworthy had left behind had brought much new life to Woodell.

She wove her needle in and out, sewing a border of bright blue flowers on the sleeve, thinking the color would compliment the girl's eyes. Isobel—now there was a puzzle. The girl had been as dutiful and demure as any mother could have wished. Since her betrothal, she had not stirred up one breath of trouble. She prayed dutifully at Mass, and made it her business to see to the comfort of the men of her future husband—without ever behaving in an untoward or unseemly way. As if she had changed souls with another girl, she was completely transformed.

It nagged at Lyssa. She did not like to think the girl's spirit had been entirely broken. Nor did she entirely trust the transformation—it was too complete, too fast. That rebellious heart must still beat in the girl's breast, but Isobel had hidden it well. Lyssa worried what plan she might be hatching.

Which might not be fair. Lyssa had found herself looking more kindly on the girl, treating her with more sisterly affection, and it pierced her to find Isobel hungry for that comfort. Perhaps Isobel's shame over her desperate act had wrought a true change. It happened.

A sound of voices reached her. Lyssa glanced up to see Thomas and young Robert crossing the bailey yard. Thomas carried a large basket, and he looked quite pleased with himself as he walked next to the animated boy.

Lyssa eyed Thomas with a quick burst of yearning. A yearning she tamped down. Since the night he'd come to her solar, Thomas had shown naught but the most courtly manners toward her, as if the kisses they shared had never happened.

She was not sure what to make of it. Nor whether to be glad or sorry.

Hungry for companionship, Lyssa called, "What have you there, sir?"

They caught sight of her and changed direction. Thomas wore a grin, and Robert even looked happy, half-skipping in the hot afternoon, his blond curls bouncing. She smiled at the sight of him; in spite of all that had happened with his sister and the odd aftermath, Robert seemed to hold no grudge toward Thomas. In fact, under the knight's tutelage, the boy was blossoming. He was still! given to bouts of surly arrogance, but for the first time since his father died, Robert seemed to take some pleasure in life.

These children had walked a hard road the past four years. They'd lost the mother upon whom they—and their father—had doted, and been forced to travel far from their home to live with their father's second wife. Then their father had died, and the plague had come, and they'd been exiled again. With a wave of compassion, Lyssa realized, too, how terrifying those long weeks locked in the kitchens of the manor by the sea must have been for those children, for all that it had spared their lives. When Lyssa had felt herself falling ill, she had locked them in with strict orders not to leave for any reason.

Poor creatures. As the boy drew close, she smiled. "You look mischievous, Robert. Have you a secret?"

"'Tis my lord's secret, lady," he replied, and gestured toward the basket Thomas carried.

At her feet, Griselda awakened suddenly and sat up, stretching her nose toward the basket. A small noise came from within. Griselda whined. Lyssa put aside her stitchery. "Is it, now? Well, sir, what have you in there?"

Thomas settled the basket on the bench beside her and unfastened the leather buckle, pulling back the lid with a flourish. "We thought it time to put an end to yer whining," he said in his lilting accent. "And rode in to town to bring you back a present."

As soon as the lid was lifted, out popped the head of a young cat, black and white, with alert green eyes, then another, with more white, and another, in hues of gold and black and cream. This last gave a plaintive meow.

"Cats!" Lyssa exclaimed happily, reaching to pet their heads. The calico spied the dog and hissed roundly, but the other two scrambled out of the basket and nimbly landed on the bench, stretching out their noses to scent the dog. Griselda quivered, her ears perked, and whined, her tail wagging, but she didn't lunge at them.

Lyssa chuckled. "Ah, Griselda, you're a fine dog," she said, and gave her a pat. "We've been needing good mousers." She smiled at Thomas, and picked up the reluctant calico, holding it close to her chest to comfort the trembling, half-grown cat. "This one is pretty," she said, bowing her head to the soft, clean fur. That was the thing about cats. Dogs always smelled of the hunt, or some aroma the dog found pleasant to roll in. Cats tended themselves and smelled sweet. She loved their softness, too, and the way some would curl against her and purr. "I have missed having them about."

Robert and Thomas exchanged a look, and Lyssa caught Thomas winking at the boy. "Is there more to this secret?" Lyssa asked.

"Lord Thomas said you'd like as not give him a kiss for his troubles."

"Did he now?" She looked at Thomas, puzzled. Why had he kept himself aloof these past weeks, only to begin again?

In his twinkling eyes, she saw nothing of the brooding, angry man who had kissed her last. He seemed at times to be two entirely different men: one laughing and sensual, the other a brute soldier with rough manners and a dark heart. Today only Thomas the lover stood before her, a secret smile on his lips.