Dreamspell (18 page)

He sat forward.

Kennedy wet the soap and lifted it to his back. And froze. When he had walked naked from her, she had kept her gaze low. Thus, she hadn’t seen the thin scars crossing his back in such abundance they screamed of the pain he had surely endured. Had someone taken a whip to him?

She touched a scar on his shoulder. Though he stiffened, she traced the puckered flesh downward, across his spine, and to the ribs opposite. “Who did this?”

He looked over his shoulder and, in a harsh voice, said, “The water cools.”

She shouldn’t care since he probably deserved every lash, but she couldn’t help herself. “Who?”

“’Twas war.”

No name to the hand that had disfigured him. Excepting Kennedy’s final meeting with Mac, the Gulf war vet had viewed his life-altering ordeal similarly—holding it to him, referring to all he had witnessed and all that had been done to him by the universal label of “war.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

His lids narrowed. “Are you?”

“War is ugly.” She saw again Mac in his wheelchair. “So many dead. So many crippled. I think those who survive must suffer more, don’t you?”

“How know you of war, Lady Lark?”

“I don’t, really. All I know is what I’ve been told, the little I read in school, and what I’ve seen on tele—” She shook her head. “Never mind.” She pulled her finger from his scarred flesh. “I understand you were a military advisor during the “Hundred Years War.” At least, that was what Mac’s book said.

“During the what?”

“The Hundred. . .or was it The Thousand?” She shrugged. “Maybe you call it something else.”

“You speak of the war with France?”

“I think that’s it.”

“Why would one call it the Hundred Years War?”

“Because it lasted that long?”

“’Tis not over with, and though war is not new to England and France, this one is little more than thirty years aged.”

Amazing how quickly an innocent remark hung her. “Maybe it just seems like a hundred.” She looked down. “Where did that soap go?”

Wynland turned so suddenly the water spilled over the tub and wet the front of her chemise. He captured her wrist. “Are you a witch?”

She tugged at her hand. “Surely you don’t believe in witches?”

“I do not. Just as I do not believe this is a dream as you claim.”

“Then why ask if I’m a witch?”

He drew her forward until her face was inches from his. “That I might know if I am wrong in believing as I do.”

Never would she have thought he could be moved from one side of the fence to the other. It didn’t fit the picture of him drawn by the author of
The Sins of the Earl of Sinwell
. But dreams were like that.

“I’m not a witch, but this
is
a dream. You are not real. This room is not real. The fire is not real. None of it is real.”

His eyes lowered to her mouth. “None of it?”

Reminded of their earlier encounter in this very room, she searched for an anchor and found it in his own words. “So call me mad. Mad as a hatter, a loon, a nut case. Happy?”

He released her wrist and laid a hand to her throat, causing water to trickle from his skin to hers. “Be you a dream or a witch, Lady Lark, your blood rushes at my touch.”

“You did tell me to fear you.”

His smile reached his eyes. He was hardly handsome, but when he smiled like that. . .

“Nay,” he murmured, “’tis not fear that makes your heart beat so.” He slid his hand to the back of her neck and urged her nearer. “Put your mouth to mine, Lark.”

Kennedy knew she should pull away, but something held her. She felt a strange longing to feel him, a precarious tug, a stirring from out of the depths of her illness. It was a long time since she had been aware of her body in ways other than the toll taken by chemotherapy and radiation, but as welcome as the feelings were, they were dangerous. “I can’t.”

“You want to.”

“No, I don’t. I know who you are, what you did—or are going to do. I think.”

“You
think
?” His voice tightened.

She closed her eyes and rued the mess she had made of herself.

“I am not who you believe me to be, Lark, and though you deny it, you know ‘tis true.”

Kennedy lifted her lids and saw that though his face remained near, what had shone so brightly from his eyes was gone. “I hope I’m wrong.”

He released her and stood. “My towel.”

Keeping her eyes low, she said, “What about your bath. I didn’t—”

“Had you, I would have had your mouth. And more. Now the towel.”

She swept it from the stool. His clothes lay beneath, and atop them a gold medallion suspended from a chain. Her heart almost stopped. However, it was not a two-headed wyvern stamped into the metal, but a curled feather topped by a crown.

“I wait, Lady Lark.”

She reached the towel to him. “I was admiring your. . .medallion. It’s beautiful.”

He wiped himself down and stepped from the tub.

Glimpsing muscled calves, she returned her attention to the medallion. “What does this mean?” She touched the curled feather.

“You do not recognize the king’s markings?”

Of course she didn’t. “Well, yes. I’m just curious as to why you have a medallion bearing them.”

He reached around her and lifted the medallion by its chain. As it was carried past her, it spun to reveal identical markings on the reverse. “’Twas given to me in appreciation for the retaking of lands in France. I wear it to remind me of the mistakes I made.”

Did he refer to his scarred back? She lifted her face and was grateful he had wrapped the towel around his hips. Higher, his gaze awaited hers and allowed a glimpse of what might be pain. He strode toward the bed. “Make haste, Lady Lark, the water cools.”

“I won’t be long.”

He tossed the covers back and laid down as if to stay. “Take however long you require. ‘Twill not disturb me.”

She took a step toward the bed. “Excuse me, but unlike you medieval people, we in. . .Oz, regard bathing as a private act.”

He plumped a pillow. “Unless you ask it, you need not fear I shall tend you.”

As if she would! “You’re going to lie there while I—?”

“I am going to sleep. Dawn comes soon and with it a long ride.”

“You’re sleeping in Jaspar’s room?”

“I am.” He whipped a sheet over his lower half and closed his eyes. “Good eve.”

What of Lady Jaspar? As soon as Kennedy left, would the woman crawl into bed with him?

Kennedy turned to the bath. As much as she longed to absorb the last of its heat and wash away whatever vermin crawled her skin, it was impossible to ignore Wynland. Or was it? She glanced over her shoulder. His eyes remained closed.

To bathe or not to bathe, that was the question. Or was it to itch or not to itch? She glanced around to ensure Wynland wasn’t watching, snatched up the hem of her chemise, pulled it over her head, and tossed it to the ground. As she reached to her makeshift undies, she stilled. They would just have to get wet.

She lowered into the tub and stole another peek at Wynland whose chest rose and fell evenly. Relieved, she leaned back and melted up to her chin in water. Forget that it no longer passed for hot and was cloudy. It was a bath.

She fished around for the soap, found a sliver, and soaped herself from toes to scalp. Following a quick dunk to rinse the soap from her hair, she decided a few more minutes couldn’t hurt and settled back.

She studied the fireplace. Red and gold leapt, crackled, popped, warmed her face. She relaxed further and mused how quickly something taken for granted attained luxury status. Even cold, she reveled in the feel of the water and its soapy scent that mingled with that of the man who had first tested its depths.

She glanced at the bed on which Wynland was stretched. As the fire had waned, deepening the shadows around the room, she could no longer make out his features.

She peered over the edge of the tub. No towel, Wynland having worn it away. All that was left to her was her chemise. Hating that, as squeaky clean as she was, she had to put that thing back on, she grabbed it. Holding it before her, she stood and, when Wynland didn’t stir, stepped from the tub.

F
ulke watched her as he had done the past half hour and cursed himself for things never before felt. Not that he knew what they were, so unrecognizable were they. Desire? Aye, he knew that well enough, but it was more.

How had this witch, this mad woman, slipped past his defenses? His thoughts ought to be trained on rooting out John and Harold’s abductor, not Lady Lark whose ivory shoulders were swept by dark hair, chemise clasped to her chest.

He watched her struggle to make both ends of the garment meet at her back without donning it. Did she fear his gaze? When he first lay down, sleep had been his aim, but the lapping water and her sighs of contentment had put an end to that. As the shadows settled around the bed, he had watched openly. Obviously, she suspected as much, vainly playing at modesty unbecoming a leman.

A dream, she called this, so sure of it she dared where few dared and pressed him past all patience. How he wearied of her accusations, her belief he would do his nephews harm. Yet for all that, he had taken her mouth to his. He was a fool to lie awake when he could be sleeping, a fool to seek a glimpse of eyes that pierced him each time he looked into them.

Mayhap that was it—her eyes. There was great knowing in them, especially when she spoke of what was to be. It was as if she saw the morrow and knew its secrets. Those eyes made him question himself and his beliefs, so convincingly he entertained the possibility of witches. But if not a witch, how else to explain Lark? A dream, she said, but possible only if this was
his
dream. And he knew it was not. Even mad, as she acceded, that was not all of it.

She started toward the door, then turned and approached the bed.

Vaguely aware he was in need of breath, Fulke watched.

She halted alongside him and peered into the heavy shadows thrown by the bed curtains.

Confident she could not make out his features, Fulke slowly filled his lungs with the scent of her that was not all bath and soap.

Though her own face was in shadow, the last of the firelight lit her eyes, flickered across her nose and mouth, and swept the damp strands of hair about her face.

“Did you do it?” she asked so softly, so unexpectedly, he nearly revealed himself.

She had not come to lie with him, but to ask questions a sleeping man could not answer. Did she refer to the attack on her baggage train, or the fate of his nephews as she believed it to be? Either or both, something made her doubt.

She sighed. “You’re just a figment.” With a rustle of chemise, she turned and, a moment later, closed the door behind her.

Fulke drew a deep breath and blew it above his head. Never had a woman so disturbed him. He ought to leave her at Cirque, lock her in a tower room if that was what it took to be certain she didn’t disappear again. Of course, it wasn’t that simple, especially where Jaspar was concerned.

He bunched his pillow and jammed it beneath his head. Sleep was a long time in coming, but when it arrived, he dreamed as he had not done in years—of a woman, elusive, dark-haired, knowing beyond his time.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

K
ennedy felt like a child trapped in the back seat of a car. But it was worse than that. Not only were pounding hooves a far cry from tires and shock absorbers, but Wynland was no padded seat. And for a seat belt, she had to make do with his arm curved around her ribs and a hand to her waist.

She closed her stinging eyes against the careening scenery. She was tired, her three or four hours of sleep insufficient for a day that had begun long before the sun showed itself. In the middle of some forgotten dream—strange as it seemed, a dream within a dream—Esther had bustled her out of bed and into the surcoat and undergown she must have spent the night altering. Not that it fit well.

Though Kennedy preferred jeans and basic tops to designer labels, she had hoped the dress would flatter her rediscovered figure. But at least it was itchless.

She opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder into Wynland’s face. Mouth a thin line, he trained his gaze ahead. Where was he? In the past with its faces of war, or the future that promised another kind of war—the one between him and Sir Arthur?

Next, she considered Sir Leonel who rode back and to the right of Wynland. He also seemed someplace else. Although Lady Jaspar had opposed her cousin joining the search for the children, Wynland had accepted when the man offered himself and eight of Cirque’s men-at-arms. Thus, Jaspar decided she would also accompany them. Fortunately, Wynland had vetoed her. The look she shot Kennedy before disappearing up the stairs was sweltering. And so, with the sun beating on them between clouds that hinted at rain, the day weathered on.

“You are hungry?” Wynland asked.

“I am.”

Shortly, he led his men into the bordering wood to a stream, dismounted, and reached to her.