Never Kiss A Stranger (16 page)

“No. He gave it to me the night he died.”

Interesting.
“So you have his blessing.”

“I’d not call what I must do a blessing.”

Alys reached behind her for her bag and dragged it to her side, between her and Piers. She leaned her upper body on it, toward him, and propped her chin on her palm. She felt sated, relaxed, in the glow of the fire and with her belly full. Layla crouched in the curve of her hip and thigh, searching methodically for abandoned morsels in the folds of Alys’s skirt.

“Speaking to the king to claim your birthright is not a blessing?”

Piers shook his head. “It’s more of a dangerous riddle, actually.”

“Why?”

“You are better off not knowing.”

Alys hummed noncommittally. He would tell her eventually. “Does solving this dangerous riddle require facial hair?”

He looked askance at her. “No.”

“Then continue to shave. You’re too handsome by far to cover your face in prickly bristles. I rather enjoy looking at you, Piers.”

He stilled and looked into her eyes. “‘Tis a bold and dangerous game you play at yourself, young Alys.”

“Bold, yes. Dangerous?” She shrugged. “Mayhap. But ‘tis no game. I am most sincere.”

“I am a grown man. You are—”

“A grown woman,” she interrupted.

“A
young
woman, with no experience outside of her sheltered and pampering home,” he continued.

“Does my youth make me undesirable?” she challenged. “Or my wealth? Most men are attracted to me for both.”

He frowned and turned his gaze quickly back to the fire. His poking stick had become engulfed in flame and
he whisked it sharply through the air with a surprised curse that made Alys smile.

“If you had so many suitors, why is it that you are now being forced to marry the likes of Clement Cobb?” he goaded, avoiding the subject she’d raised.

“That is a fair question, I suppose. I didn’t even like—much less love—any of the men who offered for me,” she said honestly. “I certainly am not in love with Clement Cobb. Sybilla is only impatient to be rid of me.”

“Why?” He turned his face back to her.

Alys frowned. “I suppose because she doesn’t like me very much. Sybilla and I—we are very different from each other.”

“That is no reason for her to be desperate to be rid of you,” Piers argued. “It’s not as if you are an infant that demands her constant care, or Fallstowe Castle some lowly hut where the two of you are forced to sit in each other’s laps.”

“True. If I’m very, very lucky, days pass when Sybilla and I don’t catch sight of each other.”

“Then there must be some other reason,” Piers insisted. “You have another sister, also older than you?”

“Cecily claims that she will take vows. She has no desire to marry.”

“Then why do you not do the same?”

Alys laughed. “Think you a convent would have me? Any matter, it’s not as though I don’t want a husband and children. And I have a husband now, so we must work straight away on a family.”

Piers gave her a warning frown. “Alys.”

She smiled in reply. “You never answered me: do you find me unattractive, Piers?”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

“Why? Are you worried that I might assault your person in a fit of passion?”

“Yes.”

Alys dropped her flushed face to her bag for a moment and laughed, and to her surprise, Piers chuckled. She raised her head, still smiling, and her desire was out of her mouth before she had time to consider the repercussions of it. “Will you kiss me, Piers?”

He stared at her, the smile falling away from his mouth slowly, his eyes drawn to her lips. She licked them, encouraging him without words.

“I shouldn’t,” he said quietly.

“But will you?” She sat up again, leaning toward him, her eyes searching his face. “I want you to, very much.”

“Why?” he asked, as if the question pained him.

She leaned farther, slowly, as if trying not to frighten him away. “Because you are handsome. And courageous. And witty. And I think”—she licked her lips again, as the warmth of his face reached her—“I think I’m falling in love with you, husband.”

His head was still turned toward her, her mouth a finger’s width from his. She could smell the scent of him, his maleness perfumed with woodsmoke and autumn air.

“Alys,” he whispered. “Don’t.”

“Why?” She let the question sigh from her lips and then closed her eyes.

A rude gust of cold air was all that kissed her mouth. Her eyes snapped open and she saw Piers already walking away from the fire.

“Where are you going?” she called, sitting up quickly.

“To get more wood.” Then he disappeared into the dark as the sound of tumbling rocks announced his hasty descent down the ravine.

Layla scrambled up onto Alys’s shoulder and began to
pick through her hair. Alys dropped her chin onto her fist with a deep frown and let the monkey have her way.

“Dammit,” she said softly. Her eyes searched the dark beyond the fire.

But he had let her get closer, still. She was making progress, and that was encouraging. She knew he’d wanted to kiss her, she just hadn’t been quick enough. And they still had a handful of days until they reached London. Perhaps three more nights, if she was lucky. It wasn’t a lot of time, but it was all she had.

She let her mind settle on the problem, much like Layla continued to worry and pick through her tresses. By the time Piers returned, announcing his arrival by tossing a small bundle of dead wood near the fire, she had failed to work out a plan. It frustrated her, as she couldn’t help but feel that the answer she sought should be painfully obvious.

She smiled up at him, hoping that kindness would gain her some ground. “Welcome back.”

He stood there staring at her for several moments, his brows drawn down in his signature scowl, his long arms at his sides. The fire lit half of his face to golden, flickering brilliance, but even in that glow, Alys thought he looked paler than when he’d left.

“Don’t do that again, Alys.”

Her eyes went wide as she tried to feign innocence, difficult with a monkey huffing little breaths into her ear. “Do what?”

“You know what.” He crouched down by the fire and turned his attention to arranging the wood fuel. He was clearly in no mood at the moment for sport.

“Oh! You mean try to kiss you?”

He threw her a glare from the corner of his eye.

“Why is it so wrong for a woman to be forthright in her
desires?” Alys demanded. “The Foxe Ring decreed that we are man and wife, and if you are attracted to me, then I see no reason—”

“Alys, we are
not
married.”

“That is debatable.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Since we are debating it even now, I would say that it is, in fact, debatable. You are unlike anyone I have ever met, Piers.”

He threw the last chunk of wood into the fire, causing an explosion of sparks. “You’ve never met anyone like me because you don’t spend your social time with the servants!”

“Actually, I do. Quite a lot, really. Drives Sybilla mad.”

He was very obviously unimpressed by her candor. “Here is why I will not kiss you, Alys, and why we will most certainly never—” He broke off and waved one hand between the two of them. “Your entire life, you have gotten everything you want. Me? I get nothing that I want. We are two different animals.”

“I don’t agree with that at all.”

“No?” he challenged. “Look at your gown—even though it looks as though it belongs on a kitchen maid, it is still better than what I now wear. And this is my
only
suit of clothes, save the ruined monk’s costume that was given me out of charity. You bade me cut up a dress for rags that would support me for five years!”

Alys simply shrugged.

He gaped at her. “See? You care nothing for the ruination of such a costly item.”

“Why should I? I didn’t pay for it or even
ask
for it—it was all Sybilla’s doing. If you fancy it so much,
you
may have it.”

“Do you blame everything on your sister?”

That stung. “Go to hell, Piers.”

“Oh, poor Lady Alys,” he mocked. “Forced to live as royalty, her every whim attended to. Who must run away with a commoner to have a bit of excitement. Don’t think for a moment I don’t know what will happen once we reach London.”

“And what exactly is that?” Alys demanded.

“After your little adventure, you’ll beg Edward for haven until you can be carried back to Fallstowe. You’ll recuperate from your time in the wild with such an uncouth commoner and live out the rest of your days as a well tended, married lady in pampered decadence.”

“The only haven the king would likely see me to is a cell should I dare step foot in his court,” Alys argued. “He would hold me ransom in Sybilla’s place.”

“And she would come running to your rescue, no doubt,” Piers sneered.

“Not bloody likely. Sybilla would not give herself up to Edward for the likes of me, I assure you.”

“No? No, of course not,” Piers said sarcastically. “She only sees that you live like a fucking princess. She very clearly hates you.”

“She’s marrying me to Clement Cobb!”

“After she gave you your choice of men and you refused them all! If she hated you, she would have married you to the first one who didn’t run away screaming!”

“Oh! What’s
your
excuse?” Alys went on the attack. “Why is it that you didn’t claim your rightful place as one of your father’s heirs before now, hmm? It’s not a secret that you’re Warin Mallory’s son, is it?”

“No,” he gritted through his teeth, and Alys suspected she was pushing in just the right area. “But before he died, I was nothing more than an embarrassing mistake
to him. Bevan was his sole, legitimate heir. That was made very clear.”

“So why challenge that now? Why not years ago, when you could have avoided such poverty, such humiliation, such cruelty from Bevan and his mother?”

“Because I didn’t know I could!” he shouted. “My own father didn’t even know!”

“He didn’t know for certain that you were his son?”

“He didn’t know that Bevan was not!”

There it was—the truth, at last. The crackle of the fire and the shush of the river were the only sounds filling the rock overhang. The air seemed to tremble in the wake of Piers’s announcement.

He walked to the edge of the shelter and stared into the night, his back to Alys.

“Judith Angwedd cuckolded your father?” she asked quietly.

He nodded jerkily, but did not turn.

“Then who is Bevan’s sire?”

“My father didn’t know to tell me. He only overheard Judith Angwedd and Bevan talking when the pair of them thought him asleep. The day he died. He had just enough time to send for me, and give me his ring. He told me to carry it to the king, and to ‘seek my blood’ on my journey. He said that would lead me to the answer that would save Gillwick and myself. I still do not know what he meant. Perhaps the king will.” Piers paused. “Once Bevan inherits Gillwick, he and Judith Angwedd plan for his true father to also claim him as heir.”

“Uniting the lands for Bevan,” Alys surmised.

“More likely for that greedy viper Judith Angwedd. She’s always aspired to a greater station than she’s ever deserved. Gillwick—and my father—were naught but
stepping stones to her. And Bevan has never cared about more than his drink and his cruel perversions.”

“What of your own mother? Other family members? Did they not know?”

“My mother died when I was six years old. I have no idea what she knew or didn’t know. Her father—my grandfather—abandoned her in shame, shortly before I was born. He never returned to Gillwick, and my mother never spoke of him. I presume he is dead. Anyone I ever had blood ties to is dead. That is why my father’s final words to me are such a riddle.”

Alys’s heart clenched. “And up until the day he died, your father never acknowledged you.”

Piers was quiet for a long time. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore Alys. It … it’s in the past now. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I correct this mistake with the king. Judith Angwedd will not dishonor my father’s memory with this treachery—announcing to all the land that she deceived him so when he is unable to accuse her of wrong.”

“You’re going to Edward to defend his honor?” Alys said, shocked. “What of your own honor, Piers? Of what they have stolen from you—Judith Angwedd and Bevan and—yes—your own father?”

“I will have my justice,” Piers said quietly. “And it is naught that Gillwick’s lands or the title of its lord can gain me.”

“What better revenge could there be?” Alys asked.

But Piers never answered the question. Instead he began banking the fire, piling up the sandy soil in a ridge, causing the flames to hiss petulantly.

“So now you see how we are so different.”

Alys nodded slowly. “Yes, we are different, but we are also very much alike.”

He looked to her, the question clear in his expression. Alys obliged him.

“We are both on this journey to gain what we desire. You are going to gain Gillwick.”

“And you are going to escape marriage to Clement Cobb.” Piers shook his head at the fire.

“That was my intent the night I left Fallstowe, yes. But now my desire has changed. Grown bigger than I ever could have dreamed.” He looked at her and she swallowed, gathered her courage. “I go to London with you, for you. For
you,
Piers.
You
are my desire.”

“Stop,” he said curtly and turned his gaze back to the flames.

This time it was Alys who shook her head. “No. Piers, I can help you in London, I feel it.”

He sighed and sat down near her, his arms wrapped around one wide, drawn-up knee. “How? By getting yourself thrown in the dungeon? I don’t even know myself how I will convince Edward of the truth—all I have is hearsay from a dying man, told by his common bastard son, and a ring my father never wore, which Judith Angwedd will surely say that I stole, any matter.”

“That
is
a problem,” Alys admitted. “But I know that we are stronger together than apart. Our unlikely union has—” She broke off as the answer came to her with such blinding surety that for a moment, Alys’s head throbbed.