shadow and lace (33 page)

" 'Tis a miracle my doddering steps reached you in time. My faculties are not as sharp as they used to be."

With that virulent reproach, he left her sitting on the edge of the drawbridge. She shrugged away the comforting hand Blaine laid on her shoulder. He and Alise disappeared into the castle, murmuring behind their hands. Rowena rested her head on her knee, content to watch the sun shimmer across the rippling lake.

A familiar hand cupped the back of her neck. "C'mon, pup. Unless you want to sleep in the stables with Big Freddie, we'd best find a chamber."

"Why are you only nice to me when no one else is?"

Marlys caught both of Rowena's braids in her hand and pulled her head back. "I'm a fool for a stray."

"Mayhaps you are only a fool."

Marlys let that comment pass and helped Rowena to her feet. By the time they reached the castle door, she had Rowena smiling with a ribald and very exacting description of what had happened in Blaine's boat using Latin terms Rowena could only pretend to understand.

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Although Rowena had expected her flirtation with Blaine to goad Gareth into some sort of response, she had not expected it to be total disdain. They might have been guests in separate castles for all the attention he paid her that night. Gone was the seductive charm he had wielded so well during their journey from Caer-leon. Gone the tender consideration for her comfort. Gone the growling ogre with the jealous eye. His features had hardened like a diamond hewn from some exotic rock, arresting in its attraction but devoid of all human emotion. Rowena would have preferred surly condemnation to his apathy.

Every hour seemed to transform him back to the dark lord of Caerleon who had stolen her away from Revelwood. His mood had steadily worsened since arriving at Ardendonne. The more genteel the crowd around him, the more savage he became. He answered every polite attempt at conversation with a curt reply or a sarcastic sally that left the other person bleeding before he even knew he had been cut. If offended feelings could kill, Blaine's great hall would have been littered with bodies.

At table he was seated near Blaine, above the salt cellar with the lords of the highest rank. Rowena sat at the end of the table, stuffed between a rotund lady and her leering son. She noticed miserably that Gareth was the only knight without a lady to share his trencher. The lady Alise divided her time between drinking out of Blaine's chalice and plucking sugared raisins from Gareth's manchet. When Gareth's gaze did chance to graze Rowena, his eyes would linger for a moment as if he were trying to place her. Then they would move on as if not pleased with the memory.

Rowena toyed with her honeyed pear, mashing it until the buttered honey ran into a lake in its center. When Alise rose to join the dance, Rowena was only too ready to slip into her seat.

"Good evening, Sir Gareth. I hope the partridge was to your satisfaction."

His voice was cool. "At my age, I do well to gum the wafers. I haven't found you a husband yet, if that's what you're plaguing me about. Mayhaps that pimpled lad at your side would suffice. He is probably not out of napkins yet."

Rowena's charming smile was belied by the words she hissed under her breath. "Stop being cruel. 'Twas your idea to pawn me off on another."

Gareth reclined on his elbow as if he hadn't heard her, his grace as lethal as that of a snake. Rowena felt like a dowdy mouse waiting to be swallowed. The curious glances of the others at the table pricked her skin like invisible fingers. She had approached him. They both knew it would be a crass insult if he did not offer her something from his manchet. He bit off half a sausage and held the other half out to her.

"May I tempt you?"

Rowena bit back the obvious reply as she reached for it. He pulled it back. "Allow me. A lady should not soil her dainty fingers."

He leaned forward, the sausage cradled between thumb and forefinger. The succulent scent of the meat wafted to her nostrils. Gareth was rewarded with a teasing rumble from the beast she had thought tamed in the pit of her stomach. Rowena cringed inwardly.

The beast awakened another emotion—anger. If Gareth wanted to play, then play she would.

Her lips parted in an artless smile. "How could I resist your kindness, sir?"

She took the tempting morsel between her teeth. Her lips closed around Gareth's fingers and lingered. She lapped away the juices of the meat like a lazy cat, taking his finger into her mouth all the way up to the second knuckle, tasting the tang of leather in the tiny hairs that dusted his fingers.

His own lips parted, but no words came forth. Rowena's sultry gaze was wasted. Gareth's gaze was locked on her lips, bewitched by the slaking spell of their coral softness against his flesh. A vicious triumph sang within her. Let him be caught in his own trap.

She drew back and inclined her head, granting him the flash of a dimple.

"Delicious," she murmured. "Have you any cheese, Uncle Gar—"

He lay his moist fingers on her lips. "Don't."

The trap snapped closed with a sigh of its velvety jaws. Too late, Rowena realized her head was still inside. Curious onlookers forgotten, Gareth tugged her lower lip between thumb and forefinger and lay his mouth against hers. Her resistance melted like spun sugar beneath the exquisite pressure of his lips. His victory was brief but fierce.

He freed her. Rowena dazedly put her elbow in his manchet. The wheat bread crumbled, sending honey dribbling into her lap.

Gareth rose with an impeccable bow. "Sleep well, milady." As he started for the stairs, Alise excused herself from the dance and followed him. It was impossible to miss the triumphant look she cast back at Rowena.

Well after midnight, Rowena lay on her feather mattress, listening to Marlys's broken snores. A silvery orb of a moon peeped in the narrow slit of a window.

She ached for Gareth with a physical pain that frightened her. Worse than the ache was the terrible fear that if she went to him now, she would not find him alone.

She threw back her thin coverlet. What would be worse? To lay alone in an agony of indecision? Or to pad her way to Gareth's chamber and push open his door to find him locked in a swirl of pale, blond hair? Rowena could not decide so she lay there until the ragged rhythm of Marlys's snores lulled her to an uneasy sleep. She awoke only once to find that the coverlet had been drawn over her and tucked neatly under her chin. She rolled to her side in the cocoon of warmth, believing she had dreamed the soothing touch of lips against her brow. Marlys's bed was empty.

Blaine draped one of his long legs over the arm of his chair and pasted on a benevolent smile as his villeins shuffled past, bearing the traditional offering of eggs to mark the end of the Lenten fast and the beginning of the feast that would be Easter at Ardendonne.

He hooked a woven basket on one finger and peered within. "Gads, eggs! What an original' thought! Did you come up with it yourself?"

The peasant gave a toothless grin and wagged his head in assent. Blaine reached into the leather pouch dangling from his belt. His slender fingers flicked a silver penny that went spinning through the air, catching the afternoon sunlight as it clinked to the floor and went rolling under a table. The peasant dropped to hands and knees and scrambled after it.

Blaine waited until the man had gummed the coin a few times and backed out, bowing all the way, before tossing the basket behind him to a smirking page.

"What smells worse? The peasants or the eggs?" he whispered to Gareth.

"The peasants," Gareth replied without hesitation, only half listening.

Gareth propped his foot on his chair as a bevy of giggling maidservants shoved a long table against the wall.

Their giggles grew shriller as they peered over their shoulders at him, then buried pinkened faces in their linen aprons. During his idyllic weeks with Rowena at Caerleon, he had forgotten what it was like to be feared and mocked. His fingers tightened on the carved arm of the chair.

Blaine's lips curved in a noble smile. Only the slight flaring of his nostrils betrayed him as a wizened old woman with feet wrapped in cowhide limped forward. The instant she turned away, Blaine flipped her bag of eggs over his shoulder to another page, who would doubtlessly use them to pelt the first unsuspecting squire who dared to make merry at his lower status.

A low whistle escaped Blaine's lips as a shy figure drifted toward them. Gareth sat up. The girl could not have been more than thirteen. Blond hair that had yet to lose its baby fineness hung over her face. Dirt smudged her nose. But there was still a promise of beauty in her slanted eyes and full bottom lip.

She curtsied awkwardly. Her tongue toyed with an empty tooth socket in her bottom jaw. "Eggth, Thir Blaine. Me mum them them for the Eathter featht."

Blaine caressed the girl's cheek. "God bleth her thweet thoul." From the corner of his mouth, he said, "What do you say, Gareth? Would you care to join me in taking this one abovestairs and introducing her to a real feast?"

At one time Blaine's suggestion would have only annoyed Gareth. Now he felt a knot of disgust tighten in his gut. "However debauched your guests might think me, raping children bearing Easter eggs is not among my many vices."

Blaine gave an offended sniff. "Hypocrite. The girl is not much younger than what you've been dipping into. Besides, I've never resorted to rape. I've never had to." The girl looked from one of them to the other, not understanding a word of their rapid French. Blaine licked his finger and gently wiped away the smudge of dirt on the girl's nose. "Would you like a bath, child?"

"Nay. She would not." Gareth snatched three silver coins from his own purse and thrust them into the girl's grubby paw. He gave her a gentle shove toward the door. "Go," he commanded. "And keep your silly self away next year. And the year after that," he added as an afterthought. The girl obeyed, grinning sweetly over her shoulder at Gareth with a look that said she had forgotten Blaine's existence.

Blaine flung the tiny basket behind him with enough force to crack the speckled eggs against the page's temple. "What ails you, Gareth? Picturing your own little charity child at the mercy of some lecherous liege lord? How do you expect to find a husband for her when the only wedding gift he can expect from you is a dagger across his throat?"

Gareth leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. "You've been around Mortimer too long. You are turning into a genuine bitch."

" 'Tis a fine accusation from a man in the devil's own temper. Did you only come to Ardendonne-to terrorize my guests and cast your shadow of gloom over our joy? Your brooding visage may be attractive to the ladies, but I find its dubious charms beginning to pale."

Gareth opened his eyes. The shadow of a smile touched his lips. "You are only fussy because Alise came to my chamber last night before she came to yours."

"For all the good it did her. I am not a fool, Gareth. She did not bear your scent when she crawled into my bed."

"You would not have refused her if she had."

Before the words were out, Gareth wished he had bitten them back. Blaine stood. His mouth had a pale, pinched look about it that Gareth recognized from boyhood. Blaine's eyes narrowed as Rowena came drifting down the stairs in a cloud of purple velvet. His lips thinned in a smile of ferocious joviality.

"Blaine, I—" Gareth started.

"Don't bother with an apology. I'd be cranky, too, if my leman was sleeping in my sister's chamber. Especially if my sister were Marlys."

With that parting stab, Blaine crossed the hall and offered his arm to Rowena. Gareth's knuckles whitened as he pushed himself out of his chair. His path was blocked as a ragged form came lurching into the hall, sending the page in the doorway sprawling.

The page climbed to his knees only to be knocked flat again as a bellowing figure came stumbling after the first. "Thief! Bring back me eggs, ya bloody thief!"

An ominous patch covered one eye of the pursuer. His other eye gleamed murder as he raised a hewn cudgel in a hand with only an ugly scab where his smallest two fingers should have been. Rowena took a step backward as the first man flung himself facedown at Blaine's feet, landing on the sack he was carrying with a sickening splat.

His fingers clutched at Blaine's boots. "Mercy, milord! I beg you. I sought only to honor you with gifts when this murdering miscreant fell on me outside your doors."

The second man skidded to a halt. Gareth grabbed his hairy wrist before he could bring the cudgel down and stain Rowena's skirts with the man's hapless brains.

The peasant squirmed, but after glancing over his shoulder to find a knight restraining him, he lowered the cudgel with a respectful bob. "He's a lyin' wretch, milord," he said to Blaine. "I was standin' outside awaitin' me turn to be presented when the scurvy dog snatched me sack from me hand and darted past. I've known ye since ye were a lad, Sir Blaine. I'm given to wenchin' and robbin' meself, but I'm not no liar." He raised the cudgel. "Give me leave and I'll bash his skull in."

Blaine put out a restraining hand. "Nay, Jack. Leave this to me." He deepened his voice deliberately. " 'Tis a duty of your lord to mete out justice where it is due."