Lois Greiman (19 page)

Safe. The two of them, far away. The hope was almost painful in its intensity. “But…there are guards.”

He narrowed his eyes. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “That I noticed.”

“And Poke’s no fool.” She could barely hear her own voice as she leaned against his mammoth chest.

“I’ll see ye safe from Darktowne,” he growled, and beneath her hand, his muscles tightened like cords. “Then ye’ve but to hie yourself back to Teleere. Once on the isle, ye shall be safe.”

“Hie myself…” Reality shifted back in, steeped in loneliness, heavy with fear. “You won’t be with me?”

He shifted his gaze, sideways and back. “I may be delayed a spell, but it matters naught.” He gripped her arm harder. “Get yourself safe to the castle. Demand to speak to the lad. He’ll hear ye—”

“A spell?” she whispered.

“I’m still strong, lass,” he said. “Do not doubt that. But it might take me a bit to catch up to ye.”

She scowled, as though she couldn’t quite understand his meaning, as though she didn’t know he planned to die, to see her safe and fall like a martyr in her bloody trail. Her throat tightened and burned, but she wouldn’t let him know. “So I’ll be going without you,” she whispered.

“Aye, but ye needn’t worry, lass.” His face was intense, and his hand shook as it circled her arm. She felt the weakness now. The weakness and the desperation. “I’ll keep them well occupied. That I vow.”

“Aye.” She nodded. It seemed almost as if she were in some horrid dream. In that odd place just before waking
when there was almost hope. But not quite. “I am certain you could keep them busy, Viking.” In her mind, she saw him in a pool of his own blood. But whether it was the future or the past was impossible to say. It would all end up the same. “But Poke…” She shook her head and maybe she smiled, for she felt eerily out of her mind. “’E ’as awful power. And ’e’s clever.” She shook her head. “Don’t forget ’ow—”

“So ye…” The muscle in his jaw jumped violently this time, and his fingers, blunt and powerful, dug into her arm. “You harbor feelings for him?”

“Poke?” she asked, her voice strangely dreamy.

“Aye,” he growled.

“’E keeps me fed.”

“And safe? Does he keep you safe, lass?” He glared at her from his battered face.

“I keep myself safe.”

“You’re naught but a child!” he gritted. “Without enough sense to—”

“I’m not a child.”

He shook her with a snarl. “You’re little more than a bairn, without the sense to stay where you’re protected.”

“And what about you?” She was breathing hard, and her heart ached in her chest as she leaned forward to hiss into his face. “You were safe. Why the ’ell did you ’ave to come ’ere?”

The room fell silent but for their panting breath. His eyes bore into hers like angry agates. “Because every wee bairn needs looking after.”

“I’m no bairn,” she spat. “I’m a woman well grown, and I can look after myself.”

“Oh aye,” he snarled. “And I can see you’re doing a fine job of it thus far.”

“I was,” she said, “until you stumbled in here, wreak-
ing ’avoc.” She nodded violently, almost weeping at the memory. Almost breaking down, but she lifted her chin and strengthened her resolve. He would leave and he would leave whole, regardless of the consequences. “Poke trusted me. Valued my talents. But now, since you come—”

“What talents?” His tone had been dark before, but now it growled like a feral beast from his chest.

She knew what he meant immediately, and something inside her sparked and flared, but she narrowed her eyes and held her ground. “My talents are my own, Viking, and have naught to do with the likes of you.”

“What talents did you share with him, lass?” he asked again.

“You’re not me da!”

“And thank the gods for that!” he snarled. “But until the bastard shows his face, it looks as if the task is left to me.”

She actually laughed. “So that’s it then. You see yourself as me dear old da?”

His face reddened, almost as if he were embarrassed, almost as if he were thinking things that shamed him, but he held her gaze for several seconds, then shifted his fretfully toward the wall. “Aye,” he said. “And as such I’ll see you safely gone from here.”

Her heart crunched in her chest. “Will you now?” she asked.

“Ye have me solemn vow.”

She leaned closer until their faces were only inches apart. Was he holding his breath. “But Da,” she whispered, “Poke is so very strong. So clever.” Reaching out with her free hand, she laid her palm against his brawny chest. “So alluring. Indeed—”

“Lass,” he growled, and beneath her hand, his muscles strained like leashed tigers.

“Yes, Viking?” she murmured, breathing the words against his skin.

His breath was coming hard, his heart beating fast beneath her fingertips. Beating. Still beating. Tears gathered behind her lids, but they would not fall.

“I…” He paused, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes against some internal struggle. “I failed ye before. But I’ll not do so again. Ye have me word.”

Her heart cried even as her resolve hardened. He would not die. Not here. Not now, and God damn it, not for her.

“You don’t wish to fail me?” she asked.

He raised his gaze from her lips and nodded. She smiled.

“Good,” she said, and, straightening quickly, ripped her arm from his grasp. “Then get the ’ell out of my ’ome.”

“W
ine?”

The maid who held the bottle was buxom and comely, but Will barely noticed. Wine. How long had it been? And what would it hurt? One drink. Surely he deserved that much. Needed that much.

But he felt Shandria’s gaze on him. Felt the heat of it. The question in it. He moistened his lips, then, unable to avoid her gaze a moment longer, turned toward her.

Her eyes were the color of Sedonian mists, slanted and intense and as deep as eternity. He jerked his gaze away.

“No,” he said, addressing the maid, though he couldn’t quite look at her. “Thank you.” He gritted his teeth. “None for me.”

“Your Grace?”

She didn’t answer, and he turned to find her attention locked on his face. Questions were there, yes, but there was more.

Something stirred violently in his soul.

“Your Grace,” the maid repeated. “Wine?”

“Oh.” She turned away, flustered. “No.” Glancing at her hands, she fiddled with a fold in her skirt. “Not this evening,” she said and skimmed her gaze back to his.

“Just a meal then.”

She was beauty itself, but what was she thinking? There was something in her face, something he couldn’t quite identify. It almost looked like…admiration.

The maid cleared her throat. “The…ahhh cook has prepared an excellent gooseberry capon.”

Could it be that she cared for him? That despite all his hideous shortcomings she…But no. Why would she? She could hardly afford to be so foolish. He was there for his own reasons after all. But he hadn’t planned to meet her, had he? He hadn’t been prepared for her at all. Who could be? She was like sunlight on raindrops, like music in the dark. So melancholy that when she smiled you thought you would surely die to feel that joy just a moment longer.

The maid shifted uncomfortably.

“My apologies,” Shandria murmured, snapping her gaze from his.

“The capon,” Will said, though for one cockeyed moment he couldn’t quite remember what the words meant. “The fowl will be fine. And soup, if you have it.”

“Very good, my lord,” she said, and, with one last glance, hurried away.

Shandria cleared her throat. It was a beautiful throat, smooth and pale and as elegant as a swan’s.

He felt his body tighten with desire. When, he wondered, had he become fixated on throats?

“I—”

“I hope,” he began simultaneously, then shook his head and waved toward her. “My apologies. Please, speak.”

“I just…” She glanced at her lap again. “As I said earlier, I’ve not enough funds for such a meal.”

She thought him a pauper. A thief. And that was as it should be, of course, for that was what he needed her to
believe, and yet that knowledge grated at the very core of his being.

There was nothing he could do but make light of it.

“Are you thinking I will tell you to grab the chicken and make a dash for the door?”

She smiled just a little. “I admit I was rather hoping you might have a more sophisticated plan in mind.”

“I thought I might simply pay for it.” He shrugged. “Not terribly exciting, I know, but effective…I’m told.”

She scowled a little. “Is that why you think I do it?” Her tone was sober, her expression the same. Honesty hovered like magic, threatening to break the mood. But knowledge loomed there too, as seductive as old Scotch. “Do you believe I steal for the thrill?”

“I was hoping it wasn’t simply to please your master.” His tone revealed feelings unspoken, but she merely nodded.

“Poke,” she said. “He will know we ate here.”

“Is that a concern? Surely we must eat.”

She raised her elegant chin. “He doesn’t like men to”—she shifted her mercurial gaze off to the side—“to toy with his possessions.”

His muscles cramped up tight. “Is that what you are to him?” he asked, though he had already warned himself not to. “A possession? A thing?”

She met his eyes with level intensity but said nothing. And there was nothing he could guess, for she was an eternal enigma. A will-o’-the-wisp. A dream.

“If that’s the case…” He carefully unclenched his fists. “If he doesn’t want others with you, why would he send us out together?”

Worry twitched her irresistible lips. “Is it the truth you want…William?”

There was something about the way she said his Chris-
tian name that made him feel all turned about. Disoriented. Giddy.

“I think it’s the truth I need,” he said.

Her nod was shallow, her lips pursed. “I believe Poke wants us to…share a bed.”

“God yes.” The words sprinted out before he could stop them. He dropped his eyes closed and cleared his throat. “My apologies. I never—” When had he become so idiotically loose-lipped. He’d been a more predictable drunk. He was like a fucking cannon, loosed on the quarterdeck of life.

Her eyes were lowered again but the glimmer of a smile flitted around her lips. “You never what?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. Couldn’t. For she was there, so close he could reach out and touch her if he so chose, or if he could no longer resist. And in the light of his newfound lack of control, that could very well happen. And now he was staring at her like a daft half-wit when he should be answering…

“I never lose control,” he said.

She flitted her silvery gaze to his.

“With women,” he added, and winced when she raised a brow at him. “Not that I do with men either. I’m not that sort. But women haven’t moved me…I didn’t mean that as it sounded. I’m moved, physically. It’s just…Emotionally…” He closed his eyes and exhaled carefully, lest he spew out any more idiocy. “I’m sorry.”

She was staring at him when he opened his eyes, but she dropped her gaze in a moment, her expression an impish meld of perplexity and humor. “You needn’t apologize,” she said. “Not to me.”

Why? Because she was a thief? Because she didn’t deserve it or…Oh God, could it be because she felt the same baffling emotions he did? His heart slapped against
his ribs and his hands trembled anew. Fuck wine. This was far more intoxicating, far more deadly, but he steadied himself. “Why shouldn’t I apologize?”

“I’ve heard far worse,” she said. “From men.” She cleared her throat again and fiddled quietly with something in her lap. “And far less charming.”

“I’m not charming. I’m cold and reserved. Always have been.”

“Cold,” she said, then laughed a little. “Perhaps I’ve been associating with the wrong sort.”

Poke. The conversation kept returning to him regardless of Will’s better intentions. But there it was again. “Almost certainly,” he said, then shifted the topic, made fretful by his own weaknesses. “Why would he want us to sleep together?”

“I believe he always half hopes for treason.”

“Treason. You make him sound like royalty.”

Her gaze held his, then flickered away, but it was too late. He had seen something inscrutable in her eyes.

“Who is he?” he asked.

But she was already gone, emotionally, honestly. “It doesn’t matter who he is,” she said. “Only who he thinks he is, and he will see any disloyalty as treason…against him.”

“Then why—”

“He doesn’t need a reason to kill,” she said quickly. “But sometimes it entertains him to have one.”

Even the murmur of the other patrons seemed to dim in the ensuing quiet. “Why are you with him?” he asked finally.

She stared. “’Twould be a difficult thing to explain.”

“Perhaps I could understand it, if you speak slowly.”

She smiled a little but remained silent.

He shrugged. “I’ve been sober for some time.”

She lifted that ghost of a smile to him, and his heart twisted in agony. But he soothed it as best he could, binding it with banter.

“How did you meet him?”

“I was an orphan,” she said, then laughed at his stricken expression. “It wasn’t like that. I was just a wee thing. Too young to remember when I was taken in. They were Rom. A young man and his wife. Gypsies, you might call them. They traveled, entertained, taught me…” She shrugged. “Many skills.”

“Theft?’

“No.” Her answer was fire-rapid. “No,” she repeated, and lowered her gaze. “They were…are…good people. Honest. Though others are loath to believe it. After all, they are nomads, well out of the circle of what is acceptable.”

He nodded as if he understood, though, of course, he did not. Just a fortnight ago he would have been one of those who were unable to accept. “We were in London, performing.” She looked away, across the inn, though he doubted if she saw the other patrons, for her expression was distant and wistful. “I was young. And wild, I suppose. It seems, now, like a thousand years ago.”

He let the pause lengthen, not bothering to remind her that she was still young, and so beautiful it hurt to look at her.

She glanced down. “I met a man.”

He crunched his hands in his lap and refused to let the feelings show in his face. How could any man think of her with another and not feel this aching jealousy. If for no other reason, he was certain Poke was mad.

“He was wealthy. Handsome. Charming I suppose. My father didn’t approve. We were Rom. Shouldn’t mix
with his sort. There could only be trouble. But…” She smiled. His heart was becoming accustomed to the pain. “We met secretly. It was terribly exciting. We planned to marry.”

Dammit to hell.

“But…” She cleared her throat. “He needed his inheritance. His stepfather held it for him. Jonathan knew just where it was kept, and the old man knew little of me. In fact, he was growing feebleminded and hardly recognized his own kin anymore. He had a score of maids, none of whom he knew by name. It would be so simple for me to slip into the house and get what was rightfully my betrothed’s.”

Will felt sick, defiled and disgusted by his own kind. “And was it?”

“What?”

“Simple.”

She laughed, but it sounded brittle. “Hardly that. I was apprehended, but…” She paused.

The server approached, carrying a wooden tray. The food was distributed quickly and efficiently, and they were left alone.

“But?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I was imprisoned for a time,” she said simply, and tasted her soup. Barley in a dark broth.

He watched her. “And the young man?”

She smiled. “As it turns out, he was more interested in his inheritance than in a Rom lass with little funds and no title.”

“But you were released.”

“Eventually,” she said.

“Did you return to your family?”

She skirted her gaze away. “They had moved on.”

“You couldn’t find them?”

“He…” She paused and shrugged, but it was stiff and ill at ease. “Things had changed.”

“What things?”

“Perhaps I was too ashamed to go back.”

“Perhaps?”

“I was foolish and weak.” She studied her soup. “Mistakes I don’t mean to repeat.”

“So you do not steal because of weakness?”

“What do you think?”

“I believe everyone deserves to have one weakness.”

“Not I. Not anymore.”

“Why do you continue to steal?”

“Your soup is cooling.”

“Why?” he asked.

“What else would I do?”

Marry me.
The thought blazed in his head, stunning him. He doused it with icy reality. With facts. With logic. Was he mad?

“What of your family?”

“They are gone. Far away.”

A thousand arguments slammed through his brain, but he stilled them, for there was something missing, something amiss. Something almost there. He forced himself to take a bite of capon smothered in sauce, but he failed to taste it.

“Perhaps they miss you,” he said finally.

She didn’t answer.

“Do they know where you are?”

“No.”

“Don’t they deserve that much?”

Her eyes flared at him. “No!”

“Were they cruel to you, then?”

Her mouth tightened the smallest amount. “They
called me
Yonnen.
It means ‘kitten’ in the ancient tongue.”

He stared at her, mesmerized. “Because of your eyes?” he asked, and realized they seemed strangely bright.

She cleared her throat and shrugged. “It’s long past now.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“Yes.” Her tone was sharp. A man glanced up from a nearby table, but who could resist looking at her. She was like the sun. “It does,” she added. “Let it be.”

“I don’t understand.”

She broke a piece from her bread. “I don’t believe I asked you to.”

“Were they cruel?” he asked again.

“No,” she said and though the answer sounded final, she continued eventually. “’Twas I who betrayed their trust.”

“People have been known to forgive.”

“Have they?”

“So I’m told.”

She shrugged. “They have other children. Other daughters to take my place.”

He tried to hold back the words, but it couldn’t be done. Truth will out. “No one could take your place,” he said.

Her eyes lifted. They were as bright as midnight stars. With tears? If she cried, he would die. “You don’t know me,” she whispered.

“I’d like to.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you know?”

She swallowed. “You must leave,” she said. “Go back to where you came from. Before it’s too late.”

“I have nothing to go back to,” he said, and suddenly
it seemed so true. The manse, the parties, the snobbish elite. None of it could match her ragged charm.

“You lie,” she said. “You have a great deal, but not here. You don’t belong here.”

“Where then?”

She studied him in silence. “In a country house somewhere. With servants.” Her voice was ultrasoft. “Perhaps a wife?”

His heart cranked up tight. “Are you asking if I am wed, lass?”

“No. I’ve no wish to know about you. I can’t afford to. I just—” She halted, seeming lost.

“I’m not. Married. Not anymore.”

Her expression crumbled into relief for the briefest second. Or did he imagine it? “I was,” he said. “once, as I told you. But no longer.”

She drew a careful breath through her perfect nose. “She was lucky.”

“No.” It hurt to say the truth out loud, but maybe it was not so difficult as keeping silent. “I made a poor husband, and a worse father.” He hadn’t even managed to make a decent brother.

“I’m sure you’re wrong.”