The Smoke-Scented Girl (32 page)

“I’ll take care of the horse. Why don’t you
see if you can turn that into bedding of some kind?” Evon said.
Kerensa nodded and gingerly climbed the ladder, careful of her
footing in the near dark. Evon found a scrap of old blanket and
rubbed the horse down, then led it into one of the empty stalls far
away from the mule, which looked at him with a vicious eye. He
could hear Kerensa up above, and the rustling of hay being shifted.
“Would you push some of that over the edge for the horse?” he
called up to her, and moments later large clumps rained down. He
put the hay into a convenient trough, then scooped up several
armfuls of snow into another trough and cast a furtive
forva
to melt the snow and warm the resulting water. He repeated the
action, awkwardly, to fill the canteen hanging off the horse’s
harness. They didn’t have any food, so water would have to do until
the storm blew itself out. He tried not to think about what he
would do if the storm lasted more than a day or so. He might become
desperate enough to invade that woman’s home and raid her
larder.

He clambered up the ladder, hauling their
bags with him, to find that Kerensa had piled some of the hay into
two large heaps and was sitting on one of them, her cloak wrapped
around herself. She was shivering hard now and looked miserable.
Evon swiftly removed her cloak, spread it on the haystack, and sat
on it, then pulled her down to sit with her back against his chest
and wrapped his own cloak around them both. He held her tightly as
she shook and only then realized what he’d done.
It made
sense
, he told himself,
she wouldn’t have gotten warm on her
own, and I promised I wouldn’t light a fire. I should have started
a fire anyway. This is madness, holding her like this
. Her
shivering body felt good against his, and he had to quell the
impulse to kiss her hair, to turn her so he could cradle her
against him and be filled with her wonderful smoky scent. As she
gradually became still and warm, he desperately tried to think of
reasons not to let her go. Shared warmth against the frigid barn?
They could still freeze to death, on their own. He couldn’t come up
with anything that wouldn’t make his true motives obvious. He ought
to let her go, call up a light so they could see more clearly to
settle into their separate hay piles, and try to sleep the storm,
and his desires, out.

“More comfortable?” he said, hoping he
sounded casual.

She sat silent for a moment, then turned
sideways, put her arms around his neck and leaned against his
chest, her head on his shoulder and her fingers brushing the hair
at the nape of his neck. “I am now,” she said.

At first he didn’t understand. Kerensa’s dark
dress made her nearly invisible in the dim light; he could see only
her hair and the lighter oval of her face, which she now turned up
toward his. She seemed to be waiting for something, and suddenly he
registered the feel of her body pressed against his, how her arms
tightly circled his neck, and he thought he might have wandered
into a dream, because what was happening was impossible. He laid
his hand along her cheek and felt her lean into his touch, shifting
so his fingers trailed across the smooth skin of her face. A
million questions rose up in his mind, but then his lips found
hers, and he forgot every one of them.

Her lips were still cold, but warmed with his
kiss, parting a little in response. She drew him closer despite her
awkward position, half in his lap and half on the floor, so he put
an arm low around her waist and hitched her up to a more secure
position, and felt her smile against his mouth. This was nothing
like the chaste kisses he’d exchanged with certain young women of
his acquaintance, proper and socially acceptable; nothing in his
experience had prepared him for holding the woman he loved and
feeling her heart beat faster with desire for him. She was
beautiful and he was kissing her and, even better, she was kissing
him with a wonderful eagerness, and that told him this was not a
dream because it was something he had never dared dream of. He put
his free hand to the back of her head and began pulling pins out of
her hair until it fell in one glorious sweep to her waist, and he
ran his fingers through it and shivered with joy. “Kerensa,” he
murmured, and she kissed him so fiercely that it burned all the way
down his spine.

When they finally separated, Kerensa laid her
head on his shoulder and sighed with such pleasure that another
white-hot wave went through him, and he held her close and felt
again the rapid beating of her heart. He ran his hand down her
silky hair again, but paused when a horrible thought occurred to
him. Surely she wouldn’t...? He was trying to frame the words
Did you only do that because I was available?
as a more
delicate question when she said, “Did you only kiss me because I
was forward, or did it mean something more?”

He felt the fist around his heart relax.
“Shouldn’t I be asking
you
that question, since you were the
forward one?”

“I was so afraid of making a fool of myself,
but I couldn’t bear it any longer, not showing you how I feel. I
figured if it was dark, at least I wouldn’t have to see you when
you rejected me.”

Evon laughed and stroked her hair. “I would
never have had the courage to do what you did. I intended to take
my love for you to my grave.”

She drew in an astonished breath. “You say
that as though...Evon, how long have you felt this way?”

“According to Piercy, practically from the
moment I first saw you. I was just too dense to realize the truth
until you were kidnapped.”

“That’s still a long time for you to carry
those feelings around. You couldn’t have told me?”

“Not while you might think you should return
those feelings out of gratitude.”

“Oh. I suppose that makes sense.” She
shifted. “You were good at hiding your feelings. I thought you
cared for me only as a sister.”

“I thought you cared for me only as a
brother.”

“I’m glad you’re not my brother.”

“So am I, because this would be illegal.”

“Immoral, certainly.” She intertwined her
fingers with his. “You came into the bar and started telling that
story to those men that made me sound either crazy or whorish, I
wasn’t sure which, and I thought, He really is going to follow me
anywhere, and I knew I never wanted to be without you again. And I
hoped it meant you might feel something more for me than
friendship.”

“I had no idea how you felt. I nearly went
mad when Speculatus had you. I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since
then, and run my fingers through your hair, and hold your hand—”
Evon lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of hers. She
laughed, and the sound made his heart beat faster, so he bent and
kissed her again, over and over until, laughing, she pretended to
push him away and said, “Now I wish I’d said something sooner.”

“I intend to make up for that lost time, so
don’t feel too much regret.”

“I could think of it as being even gladder
that I didn’t wait longer.”

“I agree.” He kissed her once more, just
because he could and because she loved him. In the darkness, with
the snow howling around the barn outside, it was hard to believe it
was real. He conjured a light and Kerensa winced against the sudden
brightness. “What did you do that for?” she asked.

“Proving to myself that you are really here.
It seems so unlikely, someone like you deciding to fall in love
with me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She leaned
away to look at him more fully.

“Well, because I’m stubborn, and difficult,
and I say stupid things because I become absorbed in my work—”

“And you’re kind, and smart, and you’ve never
let me down, and you are so handsome I can’t stop looking at
you.”

“I am?”

“Of course. You’re much better looking than
Piercy, for one. You have those blue eyes, and that square
jaw—”

“And yet Piercy is the one all the girls
follow around.”

“That’s because Piercy is satisfied with
flirtations, and you have been waiting for the right girl, and I
imagine all of them knew that girl was me, so they didn’t bother
trying to attract you.” Kerensa snuggled close again. “Evon?” She
sounded unexpectedly shy.

“Mmm?”

“Do you think...would it be wrong for you to
hold me while I sleep tonight? Because I would really like
that.”

“Wrong as in, we’re not married, or wrong as
in, we might do something only married people are supposed to
do?”

“Either one.” She ducked her head lower
against his chest. “Evon, I have been alone for so long, and I
trust that you will find a way to keep me alive, but I am still so
afraid. I would just like to have that comfort for one night. And
it is really cold in here. But I understand if you think it would
be a bad idea.”

He tightened his arms around her. “Kerensa,”
he said, “you would have far more trouble convincing me to let you
go.”

They shoved the two piles of hay together and
made a bed from their cloaks, then nestled together, Kerensa
falling asleep almost immediately. Evon lay wakeful for a while,
surprised that he was untroubled by the impulses that had tormented
him ever since he discovered he loved the woman in his arms.
Perhaps the overwhelming surprise and relief at learning she felt
the same way had satisfied him—for the moment, anyway. He kissed
her beautiful hair, then turned his face so he didn’t have to
breathe through it. She loved him. It was like a miracle.
Now,
he thought as he drifted off to sleep,
I just have
to perform a miracle for her.

Evon woke the next morning to find the storm
had not abated, that the barn in the daytime was only slightly less
dark than it had been the night before, and that he was starving.
Kerensa lay peacefully asleep beside him, her hair tangled and a
line across her poreless cheek where she had slept on a crease of
the cloak. He gently shook her awake and saw her expression go from
momentary confusion to awareness of where she was and then,
wonderfully, such happiness when she saw him that it was impossible
for him not to kiss her. She made a pleased sound when he did, and
when he drew back, said, “I didn’t say it last night, but I love
you, Evon Lorantis, and I hope you’ll always kiss me the way you
did just now.”

That, and the look in her shining eyes, made
more kissing essential, until Evon had to release her because the
desire that had been banked the night before was rising up in him
again, and it seemed to him that Kerensa felt the same way. He was
determined not to press his attentions on her, however willing she
was, on a makeshift bed in a hayloft in the middle of a blizzard.
So he kissed her one last time and retreated to arm’s length while
she sat and picked hay out of her tangled hair. “I never understood
why you braided it at night,” Evon said.

“This is why. Though usually there’s less
hay. Would you hand me my brush? By the Gods, but I’m hungry.”

“The storm hasn’t let up. I was thinking of
approaching our unwilling landlady. I don’t want to starve to death
in this barn.”

They bundled up and went over to the house
and knocked on the door. When the suspicious eye appeared, Evon
said, “Thank you so much for the shelter, ma’am, you’ve saved our
lives. We were wondering if we could buy some food from you. We
were planning to eat at the next village we came to, but you know
we never made it that far. My wife would certainly appreciate
it.”

Kerensa jerked a little when he came to
“wife,” but said, “We really are very hungry. Don’t you have
anything you can spare?”

The eye examined her. “Show me your coin
first,” the woman said.

Evon pulled a handful of coins from his
trousers pocket. The door opened a little more, a plump wrinkled
hand reached out and scooped up all the coins from Evon’s palm,
then the door closed with a loud thump. Evon and Kerensa looked at
each other. “She’s worried about
us
robbing
her
?”
Kerensa said in a low voice.

“I can break this door down. It would be
easy.”

“I’m beginning to think you might have
to.”

The door opened again. “Ain’t got more to
spare,” the woman said, handing them a sack, then a keg the size of
Kerensa’s head. “And no fires. Don’t need that barn burnin’
down.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Evon said, not daring to
waste time opening the sack for fear she might change her mind.
They retreated to the barn and discovered their reluctant
benefactor had given them two round loaves of barely stale bread, a
chunk of cheese as big as Evon’s doubled fists, half a dozen
slightly wizened apples, and a jar of preserves. The keg turned out
to contain fresh cider, only a little hard. Evon found his pen
knife and hacked off chunks of bread, which they smeared with the
preserves and ate until Evon felt he could never eat again.
Kerensa’s appetite was better than his, and she finished off her
meal with half the cheese, two of the apples, and a long draught of
cider. “I’ve never known anyone to eat quite so much,” he said,
teasing.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand
and said, “I’ve never been so hungry in my whole life. I’m going to
give one of these apples to the horse. Poor thing.”

“I’m going to study, if you don’t mind,” Evon
said, pouring a little of the cold water from the canteen over his
sticky fingers and rubbing them dry on his trousers.

“I wish I had something to do other than
watch you study and groom the horse,” Kerensa complained. “Not that
I don’t enjoy watching you do things. You get this furrow to your
brow when you’re studying that makes you look fierce, like a
warrior out of Alvorian myth.”

Evon grinned. “No one’s ever mentioned that
before.”