Lois Greiman (21 page)

“Surely it can wait till morning,” she argued, but he was already shaking his head.

“Nay, Your Majesty. Nay. I shall not risk you again,” he vowed, and departed.

Nicol watched her in silence. His mind was spinning like a dervish. What had made her ill? She couldn’t possibly be affected by the same malady as Anna. He had seen her eat her weight in almonds while at Woodlea. So what…But in that moment she canted her head and caught his gaze. The truth stormed over him like a tidal wave. She had faked the entire episode. She had remembered his casual mention of Anna’s reaction to edible nuts and, when exposed to them, had acted accordingly. God’s bones. He was in the presence of a wit greater than his own, and he had no idea if he should be grateful or frightened.

Aye, she had won another match.

T
hey rode on the following day, and true to simple good fortune, it was Paqual who begged the seemingly recovered princess to ride one of her more docile mounts. After the previous day’s terrors, he didn’t think his heart could risk another trauma, he said. Thus, Megan acquiesced with royal graciousness, thanking her lucky stars and God that she would not have to mount the devilish gray favored by the princess. Instead, she rode a placid bay, following a pack of hounds at some distance and thrilled to find that she and the aging gelding got on quite well. Lords and ladies dashed past, perched precariously atop four-legged imbeciles, but the bay trotted on at a sedate pace.

Nicol, who had been one of the few to stay behind her, finally rode up on her right.

“’Tis a fine day,” he said, eyeing the countryside. It rolled away in awakening signs of spring, bursting with delicate stalks and lacy fronds. The leaves on the hawthorn trees were just peeking out, and high above, on a gnarled, still-bare limb
of a wych elm, a warbler sang with heart-wrenching optimism.

“Yes,” she agreed, as two young fools galloped past. Nicol’s chestnut shook his head and pranced at the restraint, but Megan’s remained steady, perfectly content to meander along at its own pace. “’Tis my own opinion that there is nowhere as lovely as Sedonia in the springtime.”

She could feel his attention turn from the impetuous lords, feel him focus on her, feel his mood change. He was a master at hiding his true thoughts.

“A wondrous performance,” he said. His voice was casual, unconcerned that they might be overheard, and yet she knew he was referring to the almond incident. So perhaps it was naught but her contrary nature that made her slant him a baffled glance out of the corner of her eye.

“Whatever are you talking about, my lord?”

He gave her a look that suggested he understood her game and was willing to play along. “It seems a bit unlikely that you and Anna share the same aversion to almonds,” he said, “especially after consuming a barge of them while at Woodlea.”

“Indeed, ’tis strange. Perhaps I ate too many and developed some sort of strange reaction. But it’s just as well. Coincidentally, the chef’s apprentice wanted to leave the palace anyway. And hiring a tester will give Paqual something to occupy his time,” she said, and, seeing a skittish hare poke its head from a nearby hole, drew Nicol’s attention to it.

He glanced at the animal without much fascination and turned back to the path before them. “When this first began I didn’t expect you to make such a fine politician,” he said.

She shrugged. “Perhaps my former occupations have trained me better than you would have suspected.”

“So you’re admitting you were a thief?”

She gave him a wry glance. “As a
barmaid
I spent a good deal of time pacifying sodden fools and pompous asses.”

He flashed a rare smile. Beneath him, his mount pranced
dramatically, but the viscount sat the horse easily. His dark hair gleamed in the sunlight, his capable hands were steady on the reins, and in that moment Megan realized the vast chasm of difference that lay between them. Perhaps to Princess Tatiana he was a lowly underling, but to a bastard lass with no home…She turned her face resolutely away.

“Tell me, lass, what will you do when you leave Sedonian shores?”

The thought of her fantasy inn rose mistily in her mind, but she kept the images to herself. He might look like a demigod with the sun in his hair and his sparkling steed prancing beneath him, but he was only a man, and as fallible as any. She would keep her dreams to herself, but suddenly those carefully aged fantasies seemed oddly lacking. “I hope you will not miss me overmuch, my lord,” she said, pushing away the disturbing thought.

She felt him turn toward her, felt the warmth of his attention on her face. “Life at court won’t be the same without you,” he said, and she turned, stunned by the sincerity in his voice.

Their gazes met and melded, but finally he spoke again. “What other irresistible lady is likely to bash me on the head with a wine bottle?”

Irresistible. Her mind twittered, but she kept her expression carefully cool. “I assumed there would be endless applicants, my lord.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up the slightest degree. “So you admit you stole my watch, lass?”

“Of course not.” Her tone was precisely nonchalant, though in truth, he had caught her unawares. The realization made her feel slightly unbalanced, nervous. She was never unawares. That was how she had survived this long. “Only that I wish to. Strike you, that is.”

“Still?” he asked, and there was something in his tone, a seriousness, almost a longing.

But she could afford neither. “More often than not,” she assured him.

“I suppose it is just as well then that Anna will be returning tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” How had she lost track of time? She had been anticipating the princess’s return. Indeed, she had been looking forward to it, but now that the time had almost arrived, she felt strangely at odds.

“Aye,” he said. “She was to send word if she would be delayed. I’ve received no message.”

Megan turned back to the open countryside. A crofter’s cottage sent a silvery stream of smoke wending into the mercurial sky. “Good then,” she said. “Our agreement comes to a close.”

His gaze remained fixed on her. “You will leave Sedonia quite wealthy.”

“Yes,” she agreed, and offered no more.

“Perhaps you owe me the courtesy of revealing what you plan to do after leaving the palace.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps I will become a princess.”

She expected him to laugh, but his tone was serious when he spoke. “The title suits you.”

She tried to be flippant, tried to keep her attention on the hills ahead, or on her mount’s hirsute crest, or on her own uncertain hands, but finally she skimmed her gaze back to him. “Another compliment, my lord?” she asked.

That smile again, as alluring as a satyr’s. “Surely you must have become accustomed to them by now.”

“Not from you.”

Several furlongs ahead a young buck raced for a fence. The horse maneuvered the obstacle perfectly, but the rider left his mount well before the animal launched from the ground. Nicol seemed entirely nonplussed.

“Would you have me compliment you more, lass?”

She could feel his attention turn back to her, but now did not seem the time to look at him, for she could feel his presence like a tangible object, like a hard force of nature, and try as she might she could think of nothing to say, no witty comeback, no acid set-down. What a poor failure as a noble lady.

“You are incredibly beautiful,” he said.

She turned in utter surprise, and the shock must have shown on her face, for he laughed. The low sound rumbled like a stroke of thunder through her belly.

“Surely that cannot surprise you.”

“No.” She felt breathless and concentrated for a moment on her seat, keeping her back perfectly straight, her legs bent just so. “I suppose it should not, since you went to such pains to make me look exactly like another.”

There was a moment’s pause, then, “Yes, I did that. I only wonder how I failed so completely.”

“Failed?”

“Sometimes…now, for instance, you look nothing like Anna.”

She wasn’t sure why she was angry, but she felt the emotion boil inside her like an evil brew. “I have fooled every one of them.”

He canted his head. “Paqual is obviously suspicious of—”

“If I told Paqual I was a turnip, he would prepare the soil and plant me in the kitchen garden,” she gritted, and he grinned again, that seductive expression that made her head spin.

“Aye, lass,” he agreed finally. His teeth looked ungodly white against the dark skin of his face. “Your beauty is only surpassed by your cleverness. I should have said that
I
see the differences very clearly.”

She scowled at him for a moment, feeling her heart pound in her chest, then pulled her gaze carefully from him and
concentrated on hauteur. “Be careful, my lord,” she said. “I am a surprisingly fragile creature and may very well fall clear from this horse if you startle me with such compliments again.”

“Aye,” he said, and there was something in his tone that made her turn unwillingly toward him, something that made her chest feel tight. “There have been many surprises, lass. Not the least of which is that I shall miss you when you are gone.”

She never knew how she intended to respond, for at that moment a trio of riders galloped up from behind, enveloping them in their group and not allowing her another moment alone with the viscount.

He waited until well past the stroke of two to enter the princess’s royal bedchamber. When Anna returned he would have to insist that she keep guards at her door, he thought, and stepped silently into her room.

She slept on her side, facing him, and though he sat upon the mattress for some time watching her serene expression, she did not awaken. Finally, he reached out. Her cheek looked irresistibly soft, but he veered off at the last moment, and touched her shoulder.

“Lass.”

She sighed in her sleep.

“Megan,” he said, and she awoke with a start.

“No!” she gasped, but he covered her mouth and whispered a reassurance. In a moment he felt her relax and removed his hand.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked, and scooted into a sitting position. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes half-closed.

“This will be the last time I wake you,” he said.

“Promise?” She sounded more than irritable.

“Anna returns today.”

“Yes. I remember.” He no longer could guess what her tone implied.

“We’ll have to be very careful during the exchange, lest Paqual become suspicious.”

“I thought I had resolved that problem.”

“He seems mollified now, but he’s a suspicious man by nature. I should have foreseen the fact that he would plan a test for you. I’m sure it was no great difficulty planting the almonds in the flour.”

She scowled and fiddled with the lace on the bedsheet’s edge.

He watched her atypical fidgeting for a moment, then scowled. “What is it?” he asked.

“Perhaps there is something I should tell you.”

Nervousness cranked up. “What?”

She cleared her throat. “’Twas I who put the nuts in the flour.”

“You! Why?”

She shrugged, looking defensive and ridiculously small. “Paqual was watching me.”

“Watching—You are the princess. Everyone watches you.”

“It was different,” she argued. “Since the episode with Jack, he never seemed to turn his eyes away.”

“So you brought almonds into the palace? What kind of idiotic stunt was that? What if someone found out? How could you—”

She shot to her feet. “I am the princess,” she said, stabbing her forefinger toward his nose. “There is nothing I cannot do.” And in that moment, even with her hair disheveled and her nightgown askew, none could argue.

So he calmed himself. Regardless of what she had done, all seemed well, though he would watch Paqual more closely.

“Besides,” she murmured, “I had brought some from Woodlea.”

“So he assumes you must be Anna, since you suffer her unusual malady.”

She shrugged.

“And that it was the miller’s mistake.”

She began pacing. “Or that someone else dislikes me enough to cause me distress.”

He shook his head, watching her, assuring himself that she was well. She glanced back at him, seeming nervous under his scrutiny. “’Tis little wonder you were able to survive alone on the streets of Teleere, lass.’

“The isle is not such a dangerous place. Indeed, I found it far safer than Sedonia when first—” She stopped in her tracks, seeming to stumble both physically and mentally.

“You lived here? In Sedonia?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. In the years to come, when she was long gone, this would be how he would remember her, shrouded in shadow with the firelight dancing on her hair and the curve of her cheek strangely alluring. “I lived here for a time.”

“When?”

She exhaled softly. “I was born here.”

“Your parents were Sedonian?” It amazed him that even now, after all they had been through, he knew so little about her. For a time it had seemed that he knew all he needed to know. She resembled Tatiana, she was poor, and she was not above a bribe or even blackmail. But now there were a thousand questions that nagged at him. A thousand minute details he wished to know.

She delayed a moment before answering. “I believe my father was a native of this country.”

“You said you didn’t know your sire.”

“I lied.”

He rose to his feet. “Didn’t your mother tell you that lying is a sin?”

Her expression was all but inscrutable in the shifting light, much like her personality. “She said it was a sin to take one’s own life.”

He watched her.

“And surely putting my welfare in the hands of others would be tantamount to suicide.”

“An interesting theory and one that demonstrates very little trust, lass.”

“Trust.” She canted her head at him. “I think you will agree that there are those who would use me for their own purposes and discard me out of hand.”

He watched her in silence. Silhouetted by the firelight, he could see every delicate curve. She stood with her back absolutely straight, her hands clasped in front of her.

“Is that how you see me?” he asked.

“Forgive me if I don’t think you had my best interests in mind when first you arrived at the inn,” she said.

Was that guilt that he felt? Guilt? What a worthless emotion and one he thought he had done away with years ago. “I am paying you well for your time, lass.”

She nodded. “Else I would not be here.”

“As simple as that, is it?”

She shrugged. “As I have said, my mother taught me to care for meself as I am sure the princess’s mother taught her. But perhaps we have different methods.”

“Actually, you are much alike.”

“My lord,” she said, and glanced up at him through her lashes. “I am breathlessly flattered.”

It was a bit disconcerting that one minute she could seem so sincere and the next so deceptive. “Aye, you are much alike,” he said. “Except Anna is not the type to flirt.”