Lois Greiman (2 page)

Her eyes narrowed slightly. It did nothing to distract either from her stunning good looks or her resemblance to Sedonia’s sovereign ruler, Princess Tatiana Octavia Linnet Rocheneau. It was uncanny really. Shocking.

She cleared her throat and moved restlessly away, but he grabbed her arm, and she started, her expression going sober.

“My apologies again,” he said and released her abruptly. “It’s simply…It’s surprising.”

“My resemblance to a princess.”

He grinned, hoping it looked sheepish and harmless. Her
similarity to Tatiana did not make her less desirable. Hardly that. For there were those who thought him in love with her.

“Dine with me,” he insisted, though he had not meant to speak.

She raised her brows at him.

“At the Cup and Loaf,” he suggested.

“Have y’ a wish to die young?” she asked.

He shook his head, still a bit bewildered by her appearance.

“Then I suggest y’ eat elsewhere,” she continued, and he couldn’t help but watch her lips move. Couldn’t help but think of what it would be like to hold her in his arms, to feel her bare skin against his.

“And what of their accommodations?”

“Not quite as ’igh-quality as the food.”

He smiled. She was, without a doubt, the most interesting woman he had met for some time, for while her face and figure reminded him of Anna, her bold demeanor and earthy charm were entirely her own. Like the flip side of the princess she was, touchable and seductive and lovely. He took a step toward her. “And what of you, lass? Will you be there?”

She had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze, but there was no longer fear in her expression. “I ’ave a small room at the Cup.”

She was drawing him into her eyes, into her cleavage, into her world. “Is there room for two?” he asked, and, bending slightly, kissed her lips. They were full and soft and hopelessly alluring, but she drew back abruptly.

“I told you the rumors was false,” she murmured, breathless now.

Reaching up, he skimmed his knuckles along the sharp line of her jaw. She was amazing, incredible. So like Anna, and yet not. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

Her back was braced against the canvas wall. “Like a princess?” she asked, skepticism heavy in her tone.

“Yes.” Perhaps it would be wise to deny it, to tell her she was unique and special, but the blood was rushing to his head and other places, and he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he might. “Beautiful yet touchable.”

“Unlike a princess.”

“Yes.” He was mildly surprised by her insight, but not surprised enough to refrain from kissing her again.

Placing a hand against his chest, she pushed him gently away. “I ’ave to go.”

“No. Please.” He caught her arm. It was dim and cool in the shelter of the merchant’s stall. “Spend the night with me.” He was surprised by his own words. After all, he was no bumbling boy, hot-cheeked with the thought of his first woman, but she did things to him. Seductive, darkling things.

Her expression was tense now, her eyes sharply focused on his face. “Because she won’t.”

“What?”

“Your princess,” she said. “She won’t sleep with you. But of course I will, since I’m not ’ighborn.”

He skimmed his fingers down the fine slope of her throat. “Believe me, lass, I am hardly in a position to look down upon those of your station.”

“Truly?” Did she bat her eyes at him? “’Tis good of y’, sir.” Was there sarcasm in her tone? For a moment he wished he had not drunk quite so much, that he was just a bit more discerning. “And you a…what?”

Her skin was as soft as a dream.

“Pardon?”

“Your title,” she said. “What is it?”

“Viscount.” Perhaps he made the statement with some pride, but at times it was still an amazement to him, the second son of a penniless baron who had come into wealth and power. “Come with me, lass,” he urged.

She shook her head and scooted sideways, but he skimmed
his fingers around the back of her neck, stopping her movement. Her hair felt heavy and warm against his knuckles. Luxurious and soft and erotic. “You’ll not regret it,” he said.

“Because you’re a viscount or because you’re rich?”

He grinned, then kissed her again and felt her weaken. “There might be other reasons.”

She pressed her palm to his chest again. Her hand felt ridiculously right there.

“So you’re not offering me coin?” Perhaps there was tension in her voice, but he was past caring.

“Is that what it would take, lass?”

She definitely stiffened now. “Being a commoner don’t make me a ’ore.”

“I didn’t say it did, lass. I simply…” Her bosom was rising and falling only inches from his face, distracting him. “Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you. We can both win.”

“Really?” she breathed.

He slipped his hand down her arm to her waist and very gently kissed the high portion of her breast. “Yes.”

She jerked away, and in that moment he saw the wine bottle swing toward his head. Indeed, he almost had time to duck, but it caught him just above the ear. He stumbled sideways. The world spun crazily. Her pretty face tilted, then he hit the earth with a muffled thud, spilling darkness around him.

“Sorry, Govner,” she said. “Looks like I’m the only winner ’ere today.”

Somershire, nestled in the southern hills of Teleere

M
egan was tired. Her fingers ached as she tucked them into the opposite sleeves of her tattered coat, and her blackened eye still felt tender. She’d never been overly fond of stitchery. It was tedious, and she had to travel through a rough side of Somershire to deliver the garments, but it was a job, and she took any honest work she could find. She also took a good deal of dishonest work. It wasn’t something she was proud of, but she could live with her lack of pride. She couldn’t live on an empty stomach. And she would live. That’s what she did. She survived. A tough ’un. That’s what Mum had called her.
“You’ll be all right,”
she’d rasped into the darkness of their tumbledown cottage.
“You’ll be all right, love, ’cause, you’re a tough ’un.”
Her voice had cracked.
“My little acorn. So strong. So smart. Like your da.”
She’d touched Meg’s face. There were tears in her eyes. Even in the pre-death blackness, Megan could see them glisten in
some errant shaft of light that had found its way onto her face.
“You’ll be all right,”
she’d said again, then she had died, quietly and without complaint, just as she had lived.

Megan cleared her throat. She’d best hurry or she’d be late for work at the inn. Hard work. Time on her feet, which already ached from her hurried trip across town. The cobbles echoed softly beneath her footfalls. Her breath curled smoky fronds in the winter air, and her belly rumbled ominously, but she ignored both the bite of the season and the pang of her hunger, concentrating instead on the coins she’d earned. Perhaps she shouldn’t skip supper. She’d already lost weight since her ribs had been cracked, but if she didn’t eat, she could save every one of her lovely new coins. She’d wrapped them in a cloth and shoved them into her shoe, having learned early on not to keep them in a pocket. Pockets could be lost. Or stolen. A few abrasions and a day’s lost income had taught her that years ago. But she’d not been more than twelve then and had healed rapidly. Her last run-in hadn’t been as pleasant, but at least her tormentors had been better dressed. She glanced nervously sideways and winced. Oh yes, she’d learned that a woman alone could not afford to trust men, be he a prince or be he a pauper. The price of a man’s clothing rarely told the state of his soul. But she had nearly reached the Lion’s Share, where she worked and kept a room. She had nearly beaten the odds once again.

The back door of the inn groaned open as she scuttled inside. A chill draft of air curled in behind her, clashing with the moist heat of the kitchen.

“’Bout time.” Cate glanced up from where she slopped stew into a wooden bowl, her bright eyes hard on Megan’s bruised cheek. “You look like ’ell. Apt to scare the customers.”

“They’ll be too drunk to scare, and it ain’t so bright in the common room. We busy?” Megan shed her coat quickly, then donned a stained apron with fingers still numb from the cold.

“Some lordly fellow rode in from Ports’aven.”

Megan spared her a quick glance. “Alone?”

Cate barked a laugh. Her face was as round as the soup bowl, her arms as beefy as twin hams. “Them lords ever come alone? Nay. They needs an ’oly army just to ’elp ’em lift their mugs. Fig’s near to splittin’ a gut.”

Megan relaxed a smidgen. She’d left Portshaven six months before, and no one had come looking for her yet. “Is that beef?”

“Mutton with lemon,” Cate corrected, then sniffed the concoction and winced. “’Ope I caught it ’fore it turned bad.”

A voice raised from the common room.

Cate scowled. “Got some hot pot what’s good though.”

Someone yelled again, and Cate motioned toward the noise. Megs hurried across the kitchen just as Fig Duevel came through the door.

“Where the hell you been, girl?” He was only a hair taller than she, but he had a mean mouth and a meaner fist. Or so she’d been told, though thus far she’d managed to stay clear of the latter.

She glanced through the open doorway to the common room beyond. “Place is packed tight as a oyster,” she said, and fiddled busily with her apron strings, though they were already secured in place. “Last autumn’s brew was a right hummer, aye?”

He glared at her, but harrumphed in something akin to good nature. He took pride in his beer, which he made himself. Fig might be as mean as an adder and a skinflint to boot, but he had a way of brewing that kept his patrons coming back. It was one of the reasons Megs had taken this job, for although Fig kept his secrets to himself, she was certain she could learn them. Secrets could only last so long. She knew that as truth. A truth that kept her mobile. Never stay in one place too long. Never be who they think you are.

“Take care of them gents,” Fig ordered, and she hurried to do just that.

The common room wasn’t as busy as she had implied, but it was crowded enough. She squeezed past a pair of farmers who argued boisterously about the weight of a
gargantuan
boar and found the table with the laughing lords from Portshaven. They were easy enough to spot in the rough room. Like pansies set amidst a field of sweet thistle.

“What’ll y’ be ’avin’ this eve, gents?” she asked.

There were five of them. Dressed to kill in cutaway coats and pantaloons, they turned to her one by one, but they saw what she wanted them to see, and tonight she wanted them to see naught but a much-abused maid in a brown woolen gown, two sizes too large and buttoned up tight to her chin. The garment had gone out of fashion sometime around Attila the Hun’s era, and as far as she knew her droopy mobcap had never exactly been the rage. But the costume served her purposes well enough—generally. Just now, however, the gentlemen were eyeing her breasts like hounds might watch mutton chops, though the gown hung like a gunnysack from her shoulders. She couldn’t help but wonder how they could even tell if she had breasts. Perhaps they were more imaginative than she’d thought. But she rather doubted it.

“Gentlemen?” she said again.

A gawky fellow with huge ears whispered something to his chum, and they snickered together. She refrained from reaching across the table and knocking their heads together, but she did not refrain from noticing that his vest pocket bulged the slightest amount. Neither did she stop herself from storing that information away for later consideration.

“What’s tasty?” asked the fellow nearest her, and flicked an elegant hand in her direction. “Besides you?”

The sniggers grew louder. Apparently they’d tested someone else’s brew before coming to the Lion. Either that or they
were just irresistibly witty and not averse to haggard women with black eyes.

“The beer’s good,” she said, then smiled. “And the mutton.”

They placed their orders without undue resistance and settled back to their foolish banter, leaving Megan to hurry into the kitchen with their orders. She delivered their meals in a moment and pressed on to the table nearest the door.

The man there was alone. He was dressed in a rough woolen shirt and a smithy’s leather apron. One shoulder rested wearily against the wall. A weathered hat shadowed his face, giving little clues to his thoughts, but he had the large, sun-darkened hands of a working man.

Megan offered a smile, not as bright as the one for the gentlemen, but honest. “What’ll y’ be ’avin’ tonight, love?”

He glanced up as if disturbed from his reverie. “’Ow’s your Scotch?” His voice was deep and burred. She liked the sound of it. An honest man’s voice.

“Watered down,” she said. “And overpriced.”

Even from beneath the hat, she thought she sensed his surprise. And there was something about the way he moved that little bit that made her wonder if he weren’t perhaps, a bit younger than she’d suspected.

“What do you suggest then, lass?”

“The beer. It’s fresh, and it’s quenchin’.”

“I ’eard the mutton’s good,” he said, and nodded toward where the five gentlemen dined.

“It’s gone bad.”

She was sure of his surprise now and widened her smile. Aye, she needed the wages Fig doled out with miserly greed, but there was no harm in having a little fun now and again. “They’re gonna drink until they vomit anyhow,” she said, and shrugged. “The ’ot pot’s good though.”

Perhaps he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her, but he ordered the beef stew finally, and she hurried off with his request.

Despite the work, the night went by quickly. The gentlemen tormented her as best they could, but they were inebriated and slow, both in hand and wit, and she avoided them with ease. The pig farmers settled into sulky agreement over the apparently
middle-sized
boar, and the smithy remained, nursing his second beer and seeming nearly asleep in his chair.

But finally the evening was past and the patrons shambled out. Cate had already left for the night. Megan locked the door and gathered up the crockery. She would wash it in the morning, then deliver Mistress Bea’s newly sewn spencer. The little jacket would earn her a few more coins to stash away.

The stairs creaked beneath her feet. When she’d first arrived in Somershire, Fig had offered to share his room with her. In fact, he had been drunk and rather insistent. She, however, had been firm and well armed. Later, as sober and chagrined as an undersized Frenchman can be, he had offered her a chamber in the attic in lieu of half of her pay, but she’d opted for a room in the cellar. It was the approximate size of a dinner plate and boasted only a tiny window, but it had a solid wood floor and it was all but free, putting her that much closer to her goal.

Stepping into her cramped quarters, Megan set her candle on a nearby trunk and straightened.

She felt the intruder’s presence immediately. She tried to spin toward the door, but a hand covered her mouth. It pulled her backward. Struggling madly, she opened her mouth to scream, but the sound was muffled against the man’s palm. She rolled her eyes, attempting to see behind her, but she was already pulled tight against a solid chest. Her money! Had he found it, hidden away in its hole beneath the floor?

But his grip tightened, cutting off her air and squeezing her thoughts down to nothing but her own survival.

“Don’t scream.”

His voice was low and quiet. She couldn’t place it, but lack of air made thinking difficult.

“If I let you go, do you promise not to scream?”

She nodded, wondering wildly what kind of dolt would be honest in this situation? And what kind of dolt would expect her to be?

Nevertheless, he eased his hand from her mouth, but in a moment it was at her throat, nearly enveloping it. Big hands. Who was he? One of the gentlemen? But no, their hands had been soft and narrow.

“What’s your name, girl?”

“My name?” She didn’t know if she was stalling. But that might be a clever idea. She wished she could think clearly, could plan.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

Who was
he
? Most rapists she’d met didn’t insist on being on a first-name basis. Did that mean he was after her money? And would that be better or worse?

“They call me Sparrow.” Her voice only shook the slightest amount.

There was a moment’s pause. “What?”

“It’s…” She felt breathless and slow-witted, and neither characteristic was likely to prolong her life. “Because of me small size,” she explained, trying to catch her wind.

“What’s your Christian name?”

Who the devil was this bloke? “I don’t rightly know,” she said, her head still tilted away from the pressure of his hand. “Mum’s been gone since I were a wee bairn and Da…” She shook her head just to see if she could. His hand eased off her throat the slightest degree. “’E weren’t never around what I knew of.”

He drew his hand away from her throat, and she refrained from screaming, not certain she could even if she tried. Any
way, he stood between her and the door, and she had no reason to believe he wouldn’t kill her before she’d managed more than a squeak.

“Go sit down.”

There was nowhere but the trunk and the bed, and the bed was farther from him, so she shuffled toward it, her legs wooden, her feet heavy. She turned just as stiffly, glanced up, and gasped.

“You’re the smithy,” she hissed.

Even from beneath the brim of his leather hat, she could see his mouth quirk. His hands were still dark and sun-darkened, but he no longer seemed like the salt of the earth. Apparently even smithies could be bastards.

“What do y’ want?” she asked.

“There’s no need to fear. I just have a few questions.” He had lost his brogue. Indeed, he spoke now like a London lord. Holy damn!

“Questions?” It seemed unlikely. Mostly men didn’t force their way into her room to converse, but life was full of surprises and she was still alive. “What do y’ want to know?”

“Take off your cap.”

“That’s um…” She drew an unsteady breath. She didn’t like men to see her face unimpaired, but at least the room was dim, lit only by that one wavering candle. “That’s not a question.”

“Take if off, lass.”

She did so slowly, not disturbing a hair. She’d pinned it securely beneath her cap. If hair was greasy enough, it would stay almost anywhere you put it, and she liked it greasy. It kept the patrons at bay. Mostly. She dragged the cap forward, covering her face as long as possible before holding the thing in both hands on her lap.

He winced when he caught his first full glimpse of her blackened eye.

She tightened her mouth. “The streets of Somershire ain’t ’ardly fit for a lady no more,” she said.

She thought she heard him curse, but she wasn’t sure. “Who did that to you?” he asked.

She almost smiled. She’d thought her eye was looking better. Barely purple at all, and her ribs were healing fine. When she could afford her own inn she was going to hire herself a full-time bodyguard. He’d follow her about like a wolfhound on a string and growl at anyone who dared glance her way.

“Some blokes come on me sudden-like,” she said. “When I was ’eadin’ ’cross the river.”

This time she was certain he cursed, and he was a fair hand at it. One fist tightened against the battered leather of his apron, but his voice was steady when next he spoke. “What do you do across the river?”