Never Kiss A Stranger (24 page)

“What happened?” Piers pressed.

“My daughter confessed. Came to me in tears because the lady had found out and banished her back to the village. My girl told me that she’d stood up to the woman, for two reasons: one, the lady was still in her childbed and unable to attack her, and two, my daughter was certain that the child her mistress had borne was not of her lover’s issue.”

“How could she know that?”

“While she was tending the woman in her childbed, my girl saw the babe had a mark on his chest,” Ira said bitterly. “One that neither the dam nor the lord shared. The lady bragged once that the babe’s sire might have signed him with ink, so surely was the child his issue.”

“Did the lord himself suspect that he’d been cuckolded?”

“My daughter never said. And she held her own opinion from him, not wishing to overstep her place.”

Piers winced. This tale was more painful than he had anticipated. “Go on.”

“I confronted the lord. I was mad with anger. I felt betrayed. Here was my girl, so young, so innocent, ruined by one of his station. He couldn’t have truly cared for her to have spoiled her for any other man who might have taken her for his wife.” Ira paused for a breath. “I tried to kill him. Would have probably succeeded too, had I not been drunk.”

“What did he do to you? The lord?”

“He showed me great mercy,” Ira admitted quietly. “He could have had me put to death, but he only banished me from the town. He showed me mercy, but my daughter did not. She was much aggrieved with me that I had tried to kill the man she loved, the father of her unborn babe. I begged her to leave with me, but she would not.”

“She stayed?”

Ira nodded. “She didn’t care that she had been put to the village in shame. It was enough for her to be close to him, the little fool. He gave her a cottage, sent care for her when the child came. A lad. My grandson.”

“How do you know this if you were banned from the town?” Piers asked.

Ira frowned. “I had my friends, those who would look after her and send word. She was angry at me still for what I had tried to do. Mayhap she thought that if I had only held my temper … I don’t know what she thought. The lord had her this ring made when the lad was born.” He touched his chest again. “As much as I know, she wore it until the day she died.”

“How did she die?”

Ira shrugged. “Illness. I was told the lad caught it too,
and so ‘twas the end of both of them at once. And the end to my fancy that one day I would have them both back. Likely the bitch that ruled there was mightily pleased, though.”

“I’m quite certain she was.”

Ira looked up at Piers as if just now realizing he spoke to a man in the present. His face, which had grown haggard and sad during his tale, hardened into its previously callous façade.

“So that’s my tale, although what good the telling of it is to you, I cannot say.” He stared at him. “So now, tell me the name you promised—who gave you my daughter’s ring? I would have thought she took it to her grave.”

Piers tried to take a deep breath, but he couldn’t force his lungs to fill. His chest seemed cut in two with anger, and sorrow, and longing …

And hope.

“My”—he had to clear his throat—“my father. He gave it to me.”

“Did he steal it?” Ira accused suspiciously. “Want you to sell it in London?”

Piers shook his head. “No. He gave it to me the night he died. Told me to take it to the king, to prove what was due me. What I have been wrongfully denied all the thirty years of my life.”

Ira grew still, and Piers thought the wind beyond the hut’s leather walls seemed very loud. The old man waited, waited.

Piers swallowed, but it did little to smooth the hoarseness of his next words. “My father, the man who gave me that ring …”

Ira started to shake his head.

“His name was Warin Mallory.”

Alys and Piers had been in the woodland town for six days, and in that time a thick snow had steadily fallen—more snow than even Ira said he could ever recall seeing in his long life. Piers’s health had steadily improved, almost it seemed, with each depth of snow that built on the ground and huts and tree houses. If the village had been hard to see before, now it was nearly invisible unless you looked up. The trees seemed pregnant with large, snowy nests, and smoke from the necessary braziers within the sleeping quarters seemed to mingle with the cold fog.

Alys thought it must truly be a magical place, filled with magical people. It was the only explanation for the change in Piers, both physically and mentally. He had called to her as he’d promised he would, after meeting with the old man, Ira. And although he’d had little to say about what the two had discussed, he’d held Alys’s hand for a long time, the two of them only sitting quietly together high in the tree. It had seemed to Alys to be a threshold, a turning point in her relationship with Piers, in which she had changed from an unwelcome burden to
valued companion. Alys could not lay finger to the exact moment or cause for it to happen, but happened it had and she would not question it.

As for Ira’s attitude toward her, he made no move to throw her from the town again, which was a great improvement, although he seemed to treat her with an even greater sense of distrust than before. He spent many hours with Piers, alone in the tree house during and after his treatments with Linny, but he rarely spoke directly to Alys. Sometimes she caught him watching her from across a fire or from the heights of Piers’s sleeping quarters. He stared at her intently, and with a hostility that was almost palpable.

Alys put the old man from her mind, and turned her attention fully once more to the dough she was kneading. Ella and Tiny flanked her at the narrow workbench inside of one of the ground huts, and the little shelter was humid with the musky smell of yeast and spice. Layla was occupied on a high shelf and worrying at a ball of twine Tiny had knotted into a piece of old cloth. Tonight there would be a feast—Piers would join Alys and the rest of the town in the celebration. She knew it was to be his own test, to see if he was strong enough to leave the town and carry on to London. They would have supplies this time, and be rested as they could be. Piers had guessed with Ira’s direction that they could reach the king in two days.

As if reading her mind, Ella spoke. “You’ll be leaving us on the morrow, then?”

Alys nodded and then smiled at Tiny’s sad whimper. “I shall miss you all so. I feel as if I’ve lived here for years.”

“You don’t have to go,” Tiny said. “You could stay here with us. No one would ever find you, and you’d never have to marry that ghastly lord.”

Alys reached out her arm and stroked Tiny’s cheek
with the back of her wrist—the only part of her hand not completely covered with dough and flour. “I can’t, love. Piers has something important he must do in London, and then I must return home, at least for a little while. I have worried my family terribly, I’m afraid. As much as I would love to pretend that the betrothal never happened, my sister gave her word, and I must try to help her find a solution that will please everyone involved. I only hope it does not cost her as dearly as I fear it will.”

“Will you marry Piers instead?” Tiny asked with a mischievous grin.

Alys dropped her eyes back to the workbench and shrugged, trying to contain her smile. “One can never know.”

Ella snorted. “Perhaps one who doesn’t know you’re as good as married already.”

Alys gasped and Tiny giggled.

“What?” Ella demanded, wide-eyed. “Your man told Ira the story of how the pair of you met, and Linny overheard. The whole of the village knew by your second day here.”

Alys was stunned.

“Did Piers truly come upon you in the Foxe Ring whilst you was sleeping?” Tiny asked breathlessly. “Did he awaken you with a kiss?”

Alys laughed. “Actually, no. I
was
sleeping, but I was awoken by his screams when Layla bit him.”

All three women shared a chuckle—even Layla chattered happily—and then they were quiet for a moment. Ella broke the companionable silence.

“Will you state your claim to him before the king?”

Alys borrowed time before answering by placing her round of dough in a bowl and covering it with a cloth.

“No,” she said lightly at last. “I love Piers, true. I don’t
think that is any secret here to those who have seen me with him. But I will not press my issue. If Piers wants me, wants to honor the tradition of the Foxe Ring, then I will gladly accept.”

Tiny’s small face looked worried. “But what if he doesn’t?”

“Tiny!” Ella whispered disapprovingly.

“It’s alright, Ella,” Alys said mildly. She glanced at the girl as she began to pour another hill of flour on the table before her. “If he doesn’t? Well, you can’t force someone to love you.”

“Surely he’d do no such thing,” Ella said brusquely, turning her own dough into a bowl and covering it. “After all the two of you have come through, how well you have cared for him, stayed by his side. One would have to be simple to not recognize the way he looks at you.”

Alys wanted to grab the woman by her arms and shout, “How? How exactly does he look at me? Please explain it to me, for I must be simple!”

Instead, she only shrugged and said, “We are very different.”

“Two jugs of water are only good for so many things,” Ella said enigmatically. “But, now, a jug of water and a stick of flame …? Well, those are the very things that together give life. You have water and fire, you can make a meal, a home. With two jugs of water—”

“You could have a very large drink,” Tiny finished cheekily.

“Or take a bath,” Alys added.

Tiny laughed. “I’d trade one jug for a chicken!”

“But how would you cook it if you had no fire?” Alys was warming to the girl’s play.

Tiny didn’t hesitate. “I wouldn’t eat her at all—we’d go swimming in the other jug!”

“You could use the jugs as weapons.”

“Roll them each down a hill in a race and see who’s the winner!”

“Alright, you two,” Ella laughed. “Enough jesting. We have many loaves to bake if we are to feed the feast this night.”

Alys nudged Tiny with her elbow affectionately, and the two shared a sideways glance and a smile. She realized how very much she would miss this young girl, and was saddened by the thought of leaving her and the rest of the villagers behind to their harsh lives in exile.

Her hands paused. “Ella, why don’t you and Tiny and the lads come back to Fallstowe with me?” she asked impulsively.

“Oh!” Tiny gasped. “Verily, Lady Alys? Could we, Mam?”

Ella glanced at her. “Now why would we do that?”

“I’m certain Sybilla could find a place for you, after all that you have done to help me.” She was warming to her impromptu idea, thinking it through as she spoke. “It’s difficult here for Tiny, being in the trees. You could have a real home again, an easier life.”

Ella’s voice grew almost imperceptibly cooler. “You are very kind to offer, Alys, but we have lived in a proper village before. Everyone is either better than or lesser than another person. Here, we are all equal. And I hope you’re not offended, but I do consider this a real home, although I’m sure it’s not up to your standards.”

“Mam,” Tiny said. “Lady Alys didn’t mean—”

“Ella, no!” Alys was aghast. “I was only trying to—”

“Think nothing of it,” Ella interrupted and waved a hand. “Thank you for your offer, but no. Ira has sacrificed his life to afford us all a place to live in peace. We would
not abandon him simply for the promise of more grand accommodations.”

“I’m sorry if I insulted you, Ella,” Alys said, her eyes stinging with anger at her hasty, poorly chosen words. “That wasn’t my intention. I was simply looking for some way to repay you for the kindness you’ve shown me.”

“You can thank me by not revealing our existence to other outsiders once you leave here,” Ella said mildly, still kneading the dough.

Other outsiders.
It was a reminder: you don’t belong here. Alys felt that she had committed a grave error, and she didn’t know how to correct it. “I would never,” she said solemnly. “Never. Ella, I—”

“Why do you not go and ready yourself for the feast?” Ella interrupted. “Perhaps Piers needs your assistance. Tiny and I can finish up what little is left here on our own.”

“Mam,” Tiny chastised softly. She looked up at Alys. “I’d go to Fallstowe. For certain, I would, Lady Alys. I’d go anywhere with you.”

“You hush, Tiny, and don’t be burdening the lady with your pleas. She has a man to tend to, and we have work to do yet.”

Alys’s hands froze over her mound of dough. She was being turned out once again. “Are you certain, Ella? I want to help, and—”

Her words were cut off and the woman pushed her way between Alys and the workbench. “I’m sure. Just go, Alys.”

Tiny looked over her shoulder and gave her a sad smile. “I’ll see you at the feast, Lady Alys. Can we sit together?”

“Of course, Tiny,” Alys said past the lump in her throat as she saw Ella give her daughter a discreet pinch. “I’d like that very much.”

Tiny nodded and turned reluctantly back to her work.

“It’s alright, Alys,” Ella said quietly over Tiny’s head. “I know your heart only wants good for us, and you’re used to getting what you want. But you can’t fix everything. And you shouldn’t try.”

Alys felt close to tears. Ella made it sound as if Alys was a meddler, instead of someone genuinely offering to help.

Was she a meddler?

“I’m sorry,” she said again, picking up a cloth and wiping her hands.

“Think naught of it,” Ella said, returning her attention to her chore. “It will be a grand feast to see the two of you off. I’m certain we’ll all remember this evening for many years to come.”

Alys ducked out of the hut, her brow furrowed, her confidence more shaken than it had ever been. What kind of woman was Lady Alys Foxe?

Or, perhaps more importantly, what kind of woman did she
want
to be?

Piers finished dressing in his clothes that Linny had cleaned for him. He felt almost like himself again.

At least he thought he did. He wasn’t quite sure who he was anymore. In the span of little more than one month, he’d been a motherless, half-noble bastard; orphaned; married; and then discovered he had a grandfather. A living grandfather, who was at once mean as hell on a summer’s day, sharp as any learned scholar, and generous as though he were the richest man in the land.