Entreat Me (40 page)

Ambrose gave her quick nod and strode past.  “Gavin’s in the kitchens with your father and Cinnia,” he tossed over his shoulder before disappearing into his chambers.

The three hailed her appearance with offers to sit and inquiries about Ballard.  She uttered only half of Ballard’s request before Gavin bolted out of the kitchen.

“He’s been worried and frightened for his father.”  Cinnia patted the space next to her on the bench.  “I don’t think he quite yet believes they’re no longer curse-bound.”

Louvaen dropped down beside her.  “I hardly believe it myself.”

Mercer slid a pitcher of almond milk to her and Cinnia brought her a cup.  “He’s mending?”

She emptied her cup and poured another dram.  “Yes, though I sent Ambrose to him.  That leg will be an agony while he heals, but at least he’s healing.”

Her father glanced at Cinnia before settling a steely gaze on her.  “That’s good to know, because we need to talk.”

Louvaen paused with the cup halfway to her mouth.  Mercer and Cinnia watched her like hawks on the hunt.  Her skin prickled and she set the cup down with a thump.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”  Cinnia’s candied smile boded ill.  “Papa just doesn’t want you living with him anymore.”

Mercer scowled at his younger daughter while Louvaen’s jaw dropped.  “You’ve obviously been spending far too much time in your sister’s company,” he said in a voice guaranteed to wither flowers.

Cinnia blushed.  “Sorry.”

He patted Louvaen’s hand and gave her a sheepish look.  “What Cinnia is trying to say—in a surprisingly Louvaenish way—is when I return home, you don’t need to accompany me.”  He coughed as her eyes widened even more.  “You’re a capable woman, Louvaen.  More than capable.”

“Overbearing.”  Cinnia shrugged at the twin glares she received.

“You’ve taken care of your sister and me for a long time, and while Cinnia has rebelled against it, I came to expect the coddling—relied on it even.”  Mercer’s gaze fell away, and he stared hard at the scarred tabletop.  “I’m a weak man made stronger by the women I keep close, but that weakness has robbed you of a life these past years.  Except for the short time you were married to Thomas, you devote your days to caring for me and playing mother to your sister.”

Stung by her father’s rejection, Louvaen took a steadying breath.  “I tried to be a good daughter,” she said in a thick voice.

He flashed her a startled look, and his face softened at her distress.  “My beautiful, ferocious child,” he said softly.  “You are the best of daughters and always will be.  But it’s long past time for me let you go.  I’ll be fine on my own in Monteblanco.”

“With the Widow Cooper next door,” Cinnia added.

Mercer lowered his head into his hands.  The heavy weight in Louvaen’s chest evaporated in an instant, replaced by a slow burn.  Her eyes narrowed on her father.  “Wait a moment.  Are you throwing me over for Niamh Cooper?”  She stood to loom over him, outraged.  “Well?”  She whirled away from the table.  “You’re tossing me out of the house—my house, mind you—so you can diddle Niamh Cooper in the parlor?”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Louvaen.”  Mercer rose from his chair as well and exchanged glare for glare with his indignant daughter.  “I’m still your father.  Show some respect.”  He gestured to the seat she vacated.  “Now sit down, be quiet and let me finish.”  He pointed a finger at Cinnia who leaned away.  “You do the same.”

Louvaen sat, still affronted but also shocked into obedience by her father’s uncharacteristic dominance.  She wasn’t the only one.  Cinnia gaped at him, slack-jawed.

Mercer took a breath, struggling to regain his customary mild manner.  “I’m too old to be diddling anyone anywhere other than a comfortable bed.  Your parlor’s sanctity will remain intact.”  Louvaen couldn’t help herself.  She sputtered with laughter, and Mercer smiled in return.  Their amusement dispelled the tension between them, and he continued in an easy voice.  “It is your house—a comfortable one I’ve grown to like.  With Cinnia and Gavin’s help, I’ll be more than glad to purchase it from you.  If you don’t want to sell, I’ll search for another house.”

Cinnia nodded.  “With Jimenin dead, Papa doesn’t need to leave Monteblanco.  Gavin and I decided to stay in Monteblanco for a while.  I’ll be close enough to make sure Papa doesn’t beggar himself with another bad trading scheme.”  A sly grin curved her mouth.  “Plus, he’ll be close enough to help Niamh if she needs without getting in her way.  The neighborly thing to do of course.”

Louvaen cut her a look.  “Of course.”  She turned her attention back to Mercer.  “I’ll give you the house, Papa, but there’s a question of some importance here—at least to me.  Where will I live now that you and Cinnia have evicted me?”  She was still reeling from his announcement that he didn’t need her anymore.

He sat silent, considering her question.  “There is a man upstairs for whom I wholeheartedly believe you’d fight to the death.  Cinnia told me of de Sauveterre and your relationship with him.”  Cinnia raised her chin in challenge at her sister’s accusing scowl.  “Don’t admonish her,” he continued.  “She didn’t volunteer the information until I asked.”  His lined face drew down into deeper ruts, and sorrow bowed his mouth.  “Louvaen, I lost two wives I loved very much.  As you know from your own widowhood such a grief never dies.  I suffered the heartache because for a short time Gull and Abigail were mine.  Not everyone is as fortunate as I was—as Cinnia is and as you are.  The only things for you in Monteblanco are a house and memories of the dead man who once lived there.  Are you willing to walk away from de Sauveterre just to play nursemaid to me?”

She sat nailed to the bench, made speechless by her father’s words and the bleak picture he painted of her days if she returned to Monteblanco.  She licked dry lips.  “De Sauveterre hasn’t offered for me.”

Beside her Cinnia shrugged.  “So?  That didn’t stop me.  I offered for Gavin, and anyone with a pair of eyes can see his lordship is sprung on you.  I’d wonder if you actually shot him in the head instead of the leg if you offered and he said no.”

Mercer choked into his cup.  “You never cease to surprise me, Cinnia,” he said once he caught his breath.

Not nearly as surprised by Cinnia’s remarks as Mercer, Louvaen stared into space.  For one brief, glorious moment—in the warmth of the stables—Ballard had leaned his forehead against hers and asked her to stay.  They both knew she’d refuse, but he would have married her that night if she’d said yes.  There was no reason to believe his feelings for her had lessened.  Hers for him were just as strong.  Only the expectations of tradition made her pause, and those were poor reasons at best.

“If there’s to be a wedding, will you stay long enough to witness it?”

Mercer coaxed her up from her seat and drew her into an embrace.  He felt fragile in her arms.  “I missed Cinnia’s.  I won’t miss this one.”

They embraced a second time before Louvaen strode toward the great hall.  Cinnia called to her.  “Are you doing the deed now?”

She paused and shrugged.  “Why not?  He’s probably stewed to the eyebrows from one of Ambrose’s vials of swill.  No time like the present.”  She left the kitchen, the sound of her family’s laughter following her.

Ambrose’s bedchamber had become a crowded meeting hall.  Gavin commandeered the stool by the bed as Ambrose argued with Magda over who should brew the next tincture.  Joan and Clarimond stood sentry on either side of the bed, one fluffing the bolster and pillows while the other smoothed the bedcovers over Ballard.  The master of this domain reclined against the pillows, glassy eyes and a vacant smile sure signs that he was indeed stewed to his eyebrows.

They all turned to stare at Louvaen.  Her bravado in the kitchen faded.  She had once rejected Ballard’s request to stay with him at Ketach Tor because of her father.  What if he rejected her?  Did she gather the tatters of her dignity around her and walk away?  She frowned.  He better not reject her or she’d smother him with one of his pillows!  “May we have a moment?”

Magda exchanged a telling look with Ambrose before shooing Gavin and the girls out of the room.  The sorcerer followed last.  He paused beside her, eyeing her grave countenance.  “Whatever grim news you’re about to drop on his head, can’t it wait?”

“No.”

“Louvaen...”

“Ambrose,” she said in a harsh whisper.  “If you must know, I’m plighting my troth.”  Her cheeks went hot at his rounding eyes and climbing eyebrows.  “Now go away.”

The wizard’s lips thinned to a tight line—one made from smothered laughter instead of anger.  His shoulders started to shake and his eyes glinted.  He finally resorted to covering his mouth with his hand to muffle his laughter.  He was still chuckling when she bodily shoved him out of the bedchamber and slammed the door behind him.  She snapped her skirts straight, turned and glared at Ballard.

He simply smiled at her.  “You came back, my beauty.”  He turned the blankets back.  “I’ve saved a place for you.”

Louvaen skirted a basket of bandages and a tray of ointment to stand at the foot of the bed.  “I wish to say something.”

He lost his easy smile, and the dreamy-eyed look vanished, replaced by a stare sharp as a bird of prey.  His shoulders tensed and his gaunt features thinned a little more.  “What is it?”

She clasped her hands behind her back to hide their trembling.  Her words tumbled out of her mouth in a breathless rush.  “I’ve no wish to leave Ketach Tor again, Ballard.  I want to be your wife and bear your children.  Will you wed me?”

The ensuing silence threatened to suffocate her.  Louvaen clenched her teeth so hard her ears throbbed.

Ballard stared at her for an additional century until a wide grin stretched across his face.  “Queen uncrowned,” he said.  “I thought you’d never ask.”

She shrieked when he tried to rise and leapt across the bed, tackling him into the pillows.  He fell back with an “umpf!”

“Are you mad?  You can’t just jump out of bed like that.”

He trapped her against his chest with a heavy arm across her hips.  “In case you didn’t notice, my lovely shrew, I’m not the one leaping about.”  He eased her to his side.  “I knew I could lure you back one way or another.”

He tilted her chin and kissed her.  Louvaen sighed into his mouth, tasting warmth and softness and a cloying sweetness.  A conversation teased the edge of her memory, and she broke the kiss with a frown.  “Ambrose said only his poisons tasted sweet.”

Ballard winced.  “He lied.”

She reared up.  “I’ll kill him.”  The memory of that foul tasting brew he gave her after she almost drowned still made her tongue curl back into her throat.

“No you won’t.”  He dragged her back down.  “You’ll stay here with me.  If I have to be trapped in this bed, so do you.”

She tugged on the ends of his hair.  “Not until you answer my question.”  He’d stripped away any doubt that plagued her with his reaction to her proposal, but she still wanted to hear a definitive “yes.”

He tapped his lip with his finger as if pondering the most profound of questions.  “Surely there are men in Monteblanco far more suited to you than a scarred lord of diminished lands and no recognition.  What about the butcher?”

“Married, with thirteen children.”

He whistled.  “Impressive.  The baker?”

“Widowed.  Four times in six years.”

Frown lines furrowed his brow.  “That’s either suspicious or unlucky.”

“Very.”  Delighted by the game but impatient for it to end, she took up where he left off.  “The candlestick maker is a woman who, wisely I might add, has chosen not to marry or bear children but to only take the occasional lover.  I don’t wish to be an occasional lover.”

Ballard chuckled.  “You realize any children I might sire won’t look like Gavin?”

“You realize any children I bear won’t look like Cinnia?”

“If I cared about such a thing I would have married Cinnia.”  He kissed her right eyelid and then the bruised left, a butterfly’s touch along her lashes.  “You’re a bold one, Louvaen Duenda.”

“I’d challenge gods and queens to make you mine, Ballard.  Conquer a kingdom or two if necessary.”

He didn’t smile at her declaration.  His fingers followed her scalp line, passed through the locks that had come loose from her haphazard braid.  “You’d find me outside the kingdom gates, my belongings at my feet and a note pinned to my cloak for you that read ‘Better you than us.’  They’d be wrong.  Far better for
me
.  The answer is yes.  You didn’t even need to ask.”

Louvaen grinned, her heart pounding joyously under her breastbone.  “I wasn’t planning to.  I intended to
tell
you that you were going to marry me, but I thought I should at least be courteous considering your delicate state.”

Ballard gaped at her for a moment before chuckling.  He tucked her against his side.  When the laughter stopped, he bent his head to steal another kiss from her.  “Kiss me, you bloodthirsty scold.  And don’t bite my lip.”

She was gentle as a lamb.

EPILOGUE

From the highest window in the keep, Ballard gazed upon the forests and fields of his expanding demesne and waited for his wife to summon him.  A westerly breeze blew in the green scent of clover, along with the peppery musk of pine and ash that heralded the coming summer.

Summer was Louvaen’s favorite season.  She blissfully ignored the heat, the swarms of midges and the pungent scent of rotting flax that sometimes wafted across Ketach Tor from the nearby sodden fields.

“It’s the earth’s gift to a spinner,” she once told him.  “I’ll take the perfume of wet flax over the stench of roses any day.”

The air hadn’t smelled of roses in almost four years.  Those in the bailey had died with the curse.  None had bloomed again once he and Gavin brought Isabeau’s shrouded bones out of the family crypt and buried her on her old dower lands in a field of pasque flowers.  They had stood over her newly covered grave, wished her spirit a long overdue peace and walked away.  Neither he nor Gavin visited the grave, though he’d heard his softhearted daughter-in-law sometimes traveled from de Lovet lands to his and laid white roses over her resting place.

The creak of an opening door behind him marked the arrival of his sorcerer and brought him out of his musings.  Ambrose’s robes whispered dusty spells as they brushed against the floorboards.  He paused before he reached the window.  “
Dominus
.”

Ballard’s pulsed raced.  “Is it finished?”

“More or less.”  Ambrose’s voice took on a worried note.  “She’s asking for you.”

He abandoned his view of the land and faced his magician.  The man wore a look of dread.  “She’s still raging then?”

Ambrose shook his head.  “No.  Quite calm—for a viper.  Be careful.”

A pointless warning.  Three years of marriage and he’d learned to be wary of his wife.  He gestured to the nurse in one corner of the room.  “Give him to me.”

She rose at his command, carefully cradling a swaddled bundle that twitched and snuffled.  He lifted the baby from her arms and gently unwound the blankets to reveal a pink-skinned creature with curled fists, a cap of fine black hair and bright infant blue eyes which would soon change to gray or darkest brown.  Ballard’s hands, dark and battle-scarred, spread over the boy’s small body as he turned him enough to view his back.

For countless generations, children of Ketach blood bore a sickle-shaped mark above their buttocks.  Ballard had it, as had his father and grandfather before him.  Smooth but not unblemished, this child’s back revealed the truth of his paternal heritage.  The rosy mark stretched between the two tiny indentations on his lower back.  Most definitely his son—not that he’d reiterate it to the boy’s mother.  Ballard valued his head.

“You can give him to Gavin to foster when he’s older.  I don’t like these new traditions of the boys staying with their parents.  Spoils them.  Gavin was fostered until the curse struck.  He can foster his brother and do a good job of it.”

Ballard disregarded Ambrose’s suggestion, bewitched by the infant’s fine features and the tiny hand that clenched one of his fingers and held tight.  Unlike Ambrose, he didn’t miss the old fostering tradition.  Gavin would make an excellent mentor, but he and Cinnia had children of their own now.  He doubted Cinnia would be any more willing to send them to Ketach Tor fostering than he was to send this child away from home.  Louvaen’s flat refusal was a certainty.

The baby’s eyes blinked and slowly focused, catching Ballard’s gaze and holding it for one eternal moment, stripping him down to the bare essence of his spirit.  For the second time in his memory something extraordinary moved within him, awakened and stirred—that ferocious instinct to claim and protect.  The instinct went far beyond the powerful compulsion to guard Louvaen from harm.

He bent and brushed his lips across the baby’s forehead.  This child was his by blood and spirit; not the heir of Ketach Tor and its lands but still part of its legacy.  He would thank Louvaen on his knees for giving him so gracious a gift.

He looked to Ambrose who watched him with an inscrutable gaze and then to the nurse who smiled.  “This is Thomas de Sauveterre,” he proclaimed in a soft voice.  “Son of Ballard; son of Dwennon; son of Udolf; brother of Gavin de Lovet; child of Ketach Tor.”

“Proclaimed and recognized.”  Ambrose bowed.  The nurse curtsied.

Ballard swaddled his son once more and tucked him into the crook of his arm.  He was eager to leave this chamber and carry the boy to the woman who had labored to bring him into the world.

The bower where Gavin had been born and where Cinnia once slept smelled of soap and newly laundered sheets sprinkled with dried lavender and pennyroyal.  During her pregnancy, Louvaen had been in the bloom of health, even in the early weeks when she woke him each morning to the serenade of retching in a basin.

As the nausea passed and her belly swelled, he’d been like a man possessed—lusting after her until Magda threatened to drown him in the fish pond if he didn’t quit interrupting Louvaen at her work and dragging her off to their bed.

He’d been grim and sick with fear when her pains struck, and he carried her to the bower.  She’d panted and stiffened, digging her fingers into his clothes with each cramp.  He’d kissed the top of her head.  “What can I do, Louvaen?”

Her gravid belly had tightened before his eyes, and she bared her teeth in a white-lipped smile.  “Bring me my spinning wheel.  I’ll spin you a mail hauberk.”

He stood sentry in the corridor after Magda chased him out of the chamber with her abrupt “Woman’s work.  Get out.”  Ambrose had managed to lure him to the solar where Ballard proceeded to worry himself into a sweat from the litany of agonized groans echoing down the hall and memories of Isabeau’s fatal blood loss.

When the groans changed to screams, he raced for the bower.  Ambrose and two retainers barely stopped him from kicking the door down.  Louvaen’s screeching oaths to deal him several forms of excruciating death made him blanch.  He shook off his captors and cracked the door open enough to peek inside.  Something slammed into the wood, sending shards of broken pottery through the opening.  He shut the door and spun to face the other men.  Ambrose stood before him, arms akimbo, an “I-warned-you” expression on his face.  The two retainers grinned.

One offered a bit of sage advice that lessened some of Ballard’s terror.  “It’s a good sign when they’re threatening to rip your entrails out and feed them to the hounds.  You worry when they’re praying or quiet.”

Now, wan and tired, Louvaen reclined in the bed, propped up by pillows and swathed in a gown big enough to swallow her whole.  Dark circles ringed her eyes, and damp tendrils of hair stuck to her temples and neck.  Ballard thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Her eyes, a cool slate instead of the hot ash he’d glimpsed earlier in the day, glittered with excitement.  She wore a wide smile as Ballard limped to her beside, little Thomas cradled against his chest.

“Your son, Louvaen.”  He eased the baby into her waiting arms.

She peeled back the swaddling and glided her fingers over his round belly and limbs.  She counted his toes and laughed when he pursed his lips and blew spit bubbles.  “You sire lovely children, Ballard.”

He chuckled.  “We’ll see.  He’ll sport an impressive nose no doubt.”

Louvaen sniffed.  “A face with character, my lord.  The most interesting kind.”  She pressed the tip of her finger to the baby’s lips.  “Magda said he’d want to eat soon.  I haven’t the first idea how to go about nursing him.”

Ballard floundered.  Unless his son could gum a chicken leg or a slice of mutton, he had no idea what to do either.  “Should I get Magda?”

Louvaen shook her head.  “Not yet.  She says we’ll know when he’s hungry and she’ll help me then.  I’m guessing that means he’ll howl the roof down around our heads.”  She patted the empty space beside her.  Ballard sat gingerly, ready to dodge a blow.  She gave him a puzzled look.  “What’s wrong?”

He found it difficult to reconcile the peaceful woman beside him with the screaming, wailing, pitcher-hurling demon of a few hours ago.  “Do you remember what you said earlier?”

She eyed him as if he were a touch dim-witted.  “Ballard, all I remember was trying to shove a cannon ball out of my body while Magda pinned my ears back with the order to push.”  Her brow furrowed at his relieved exhalation.  “What did I say?”

He stroked Thomas’s crown, admiring the soft hair.  “Nothing horrible.  Only that you were going to castrate me, decapitate me, dismember me, drench me in boiling oil, douse me in hot pitch, and set me alight.”

Louvaen gaped at him.  “I didn’t say those things.”

The door opened and Magda strode in, a stack of blankets in her arms.  She set them on a nearby table.  “No, you bellowed them.  Everyone three provinces south of here heard you.”  She approached the bed and gazed at the baby.  “Much handsomer now that he doesn’t look like someone tried to squash him in a haystack.”  She reached for him and grinned when Louvaen instinctively clutched him closer.  “Hand him over, Louvaen.  He needs a sponging.  I’ll take him to the kitchen.  The fire is built high; he won’t get cold.  I’ll bring him right back.  You can use the time to extract gifts, promises, and apologies from his father.”

Louvaen held Thomas out to her.  “I think he’s beautiful.”

Magda set the baby against her shoulder and patted his back.   “He’ll be even more so when I return him to you.  I’ll send Clarimond up with bread and broth.  You need to eat and get your strength up.”  She left the bower with a frowning Louvaen staring after her.

“Why is it I do all the work, and everyone else gets to hold him?”  She turned her scowl on Ballard and promptly ruined its forbidding cast with a wide yawn.  He was willing to wager half his treasury she’d be asleep before Clarimond returned with the food or Magda with the baby.  She blinked sleepily at him.  “What did you name him?”

The week prior to her taking to childbed, they had agreed he would choose the name if she bore a boy, and she would choose it if she bore a girl.

“I don’t trust you not to call her something silly like Aurora or Buttercup or Snowdrop,” she told him.  “And if you named her Briar Rose, I’d have to kill you.”

When Magda came to tell him Louvaen had birthed a son, he’d already chosen a name.  He carried no jealousy for Louvaen’s first husband.  She’d spoken fondly of him and with great respect.  He trusted his wife’s judge of character, and by all accounts Thomas Duenda had been an exceptional man.  After all, he’d chosen Louvaen for his wife.  Ballard could think of no better name for her son.

“Thomas,” he said.  “His name is Thomas.”

The silence grew as she stared at him for long moments, the gray of her eyes deepening to charcoal.  She finally spoke.  ‘You must live another four centuries, Ballard, as must I.  Any less and I’ll feel cheated of loving the finest man I’ve ever known.”

Ballard dragged her into his arms and buried his face in her hair.  “My beauty,” he whispered in her ear.  “If we lived a thousand years I’d still feel cheated.”

Louvaen pulled back far enough to cup his jaw.  One slender black eyebrow arched.  ‘I will be a shrew until the day I die.”

“Just promise me you won’t curse me once you expire.”

She swatted him on the arm.  “Of course not.  My ghost will just nag you into eternity.”

He’d happily accept that fate.  He ran a thumb over her soft lips, watching as her eyelids drooped lower and lower.  “Kiss me, shrew, before you close your eyes and dream of a handsome prince.”

They exchanged several drugging kisses before Louvaen slid down in the bed and laid her head on Ballard’s shoulder.  “Ballard,” she said in a groggy voice.

“Hmm?”

“Princes are dull.  I’d be bored to death traipsing off to royal balls and in a foul mood because I would be cinched into a scratchy gown and wearing the latest fashionable shoes—something ungodly painful and foolish like glass slippers.  I’d rather dream of a Green Man with horns or a margrave with pretty scars and a lovely body.”

Ballard grinned and kissed the top of her head.  “And if you wake up to find one in your bed?  Will you run screaming for help?”

She gave an indelicate snort.  “Hardly.  I know a good thing when I see it.  I’d swive him cross-eyed.”

His shoulders shook with silent laughter.  He gathered her close as he could without crushing her.  “I love you, Louvaen de Sauveterre.”