Suzanne Robinson (4 page)

She distracted him from his appraisal of her by suddenly jumping up from her stool as if unable to remain near him longer.

“What about another English name?” she asked as she rubbed her palms against the plain wool of her skirts.

“Pardon?”

“There’s Henry, Thomas, John, Richard, Edward, Christopher. Or mayhap you prefer Italian—Niccolò, Andrea, Leonardo, Claudio, Francesco.”

“Please.” He was drowning in names.

“And then there’s French. Like you François, or Alphonse? Georges, Michel, Henri, Jacques, Louis, Guilliaume?”

“Tristan!” He winced and covered his eyes with his hands. A wave of pain made him bite his lower lip. “Please, I beg of you, no more names.”

When he lowered his hands, she was still hovering at a distance, a wary gaze still fixed upon him.

“I understand,” she said. Her fingers worked, twisted, tangled together. “I hate my own name too. I don’t suppose you remember mine, though I’ve told it to you twice. I’m Penelope Fairfax. You may call me Pen, since I have been calling you Tristan.”

By then he would have agreed to any name to forestall more rambling chatter. He clenched his teeth and tried to take her hand for a kiss of introduction. It was then that he noticed that his arm was bare. He glanced down at himself in disbelief to find his body clothed in a few bandages, cuts, scrapes, bruises, bedcovers, and nothing else.

Slowly he looked up at her. He’d expected to meet another look of agitation. To his surprise, he found her gaze on his body. It skimmed over his bare chest and down, down, down. He followed its course as it caressed his ribs, nestled on the flesh at his hip, and then softly drifted lower. During this examination, he remained still, caught in the unexpectedness of her interest. He found himself not wanting to breathe in case he startled her out of warming him with that captivated gaze. A wince of pain defeated him.

She started, retreated a step, and flushed. Then, as if to conceal her discomfort, she put on a smile that reminded him of moonbeams and revelry and adopted a tone of confident cheerfulness.

“I blame you not for misliking your name. I hate my other name. It’s Grace. Such a rough-sounding word. Guh, guh, guh-race.”

She wrinkled her nose, which made her resemble an irritated butterfly. His misery and sickness vanished for a precious moment. He chuckled, and this time didn’t mind that he paid with a jab of pain.

“Grace,” he said. “From the Latin
gratiana
, which means kindness or divine favor, which I’m beginning
to think I have, else God wouldn’t have given me into the care of so kind and lovely a lady.”

All he got was a blank look. No smile, no blushing thanks. And yet he hadn’t imagined that look of thirst she’d given him. He’d been right. She was a changeable mystery, one more palatable than his own dilemma, and certainly more enticing.

He didn’t realize that they’d lapsed into another of those engulfing, timeless stares until the chamber door swung open and a serving woman entered the room. Jolted to his senses, he tore his gaze from Pen’s. She blinked and did another of her retreating dances as if to escape his influence and ended up with her back against a wall opposite the bed. Jesu, he was the one with no memory and yet now she acted as if she’d given succor to a murderous dragon.

The serving woman carried a tray of food and cloths to the bed, set it down at the end, and scowled at him. Since she was small and round of body, with red hair, she managed to look like a disgruntled apple.

“Still alive? Too bad.” She furrowed her brow at Pen. “Fie, mistress. You should have let me kill him.”

He gaped at the woman and began to wonder if he’d landed in Bedlam and all the inhabitants were bedeviled.

“Hush you, Twistle.” Pen shoved away from the wall. She walked stiffly over to stand a few feet from the bed, where she addressed him with that false cheerfulness. “Pay no heed to her.”

“A little fairy cap or an infusion of lily of the valley, and he’s off to the devil, where he belongs.”

At this, Pen rushed at the woman and began shoving her out of the room. “Go away, Twistle. He’s too weak to put up with your mad rantings.”

When the door shut, he tried to sit up again, and
managed to prop himself up on his forearms. Pen picked up a bowl full of rich, dark green soup. Holding a spoon, she appeared to gird herself to approach, and came to him. Before he could stop her, she stuffed a spoonful of broth in his mouth and resumed her blithe chatter as if it were a shield against his presence.

“You mustn’t attend to Twistle. Her father beat her and let her five brothers do the same. She lost a patch of hair on top of her head due to one of them. That’s why she always wears a linen wimple. She’s much better than she used to be. She does well with Erbut and Sniggs and Dibbler now.”

He choked as he tried to swallow the broth and realized that Twistle had prepared it. He shove the spoon away and pointed at the bowl.

She jumped as his hand came near hers. “What?” When he made no attempt to touch her, Pen calmed. Then she looked at the broth. “Oh.” She shook her head. “Fear not. Twistle wouldn’t poison you. Not without my permission.” She sipped from the spoon. “You see? No harm at all. It’s only jowtes with almond milk.”

He subsided against his cushions and turned his face from the proffered nourishment. His head reeled with the influx of unfamiliar perceptions. This woman confused him when he least could bear confusing. He gave up trying to make sense of her apprehension, of her unpredictable changes in temperament as weariness and discomfort gained hold of him. God, he didn’t even know his own name. The more he tried to vanquish the mists of forgetfulness, the thicker they became. The magnitude of his own helplessness made him feel so exposed and vulnerable that he cringed.

“I’ve tired you.”

That light, airy voice floated to him, wrapping him
in glittering coils and anchoring him to something tangible.

“Forgive me,” Pen said. “I’ve gabbled on and on, when you’re distressed.”

He felt her hand draw up the covers to his shoulders and pat them. At least she didn’t fear him when he was exhausted. Somehow the touch made the pain in his head and in his thoughts bearable.

“You mustn’t worry,” she continued. “Twistle says you’ll remember who you are eventually. There is a supply boat due in a few weeks.” She paused, then said as if to herself, “A long time, but it can’t be helped.

“Meanwhile, there is a difficulty,” she said. “I would send you to England, but I’m not sure you’re English. If we’re wrong, and you’re French, well, it wouldn’t do to take you where you might be arrested for a papist. But enough talk. I’ll go and let you rest.”

“No!”

He sat up suddenly and cursed at the wrenching in his head. She darted at him then, seeming to forget her own apprehension at the sight of his distress. Her hand went out and almost touched his shoulder, but stopped inches from his flesh.

Breathing heavily from the jolt in his head, he glanced at that hand, at the fingers tipped with pink nails. All at once he wanted that hand on his bare skin. He glanced up at her, not daring to move. She met his gaze, her lips slightly parted, eyes wide.

Still he waited, willing her to touch him. The hand moved closer. He could feel the heat of it. And then her fingers closed into a fist. She blinked at him as if waking from sleep. Her fist disappeared behind her back, and he almost uttered a curse. Her voice banished his frustration.

“Peace,” she said.

He lay back. “Stay until I fall asleep. Your company banishes the—the emptiness of my memory.”

She didn’t answer at once, but just when he thought she would refuse and leave him, she resumed her perch on the stool beside him.

“Rest then. Trouble yourself no more. You’ll be here but a short time. You’ll regain your memory and quit this place. Yes, soon you’ll be gone. Soon.”

The words were said softly. They washed over him, and he paid little heed to their meaning, only taking comfort in the sound of her voice. It skimmed over him, featherlike, a sea breeze in summer, and he slept.

In the next few days he waited for his memory to return, but the only blessing for which he was able to thank God was his not forgetting Penelope Grace Fairfax again. No, he didn’t forget her, but she vanished. In her place stood an old woman called Nany Boggs with a vermilion nose, who smelled of ale and possessed such bulk that she had a goose’s waddle to her walk.

From Nany he learned that he’d washed up on this island and had been deposited in Mistress Fairfax’s own chamber in the keep of Highcliffe Castle. Already he’d discovered that, except for Pen and Nany, Highcliffe was inhabited mostly by the slightly demented. There was that murderous cook, Mistress Twistle, and a pink lackwit of a youth named Erbut, and two who competed for the title of buffoon—Dibbler and Sniggs.

How one young woman could surround herself with so many crackbrains baffled Tristan. And if he’d possessed his memory, he might have been able to tolerate such a surfeit of lunacy about him. But his memory
was gone. And his only anchor in a sea of emptiness was a creature of variable and mysterious moods who seemed bent on eschewing his company. At first he was too sick to resolve this difficulty. But the longer he had to wait, the more he craved sight of Mistress Fairfax.

Was it his custom to fall prey to such cravings so suddenly? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he needed escape from the emptiness, the threat of a lost past, and he knew the path to escape. It lay in Penelope Fairfax, in her voice, in her fey moods, in her touch—and, mayhap, in her body.

On the fifth morning after Pen vanished, he woke feeling much stronger and the ache in his head much dulled. He stretched, feeling the brush of linens against his skin. He glanced up at the peacock. It leered back at him. He scowled at the plump, naked, and winged babes and felt the press of emptiness. Swearing, he thrust himself out of bed and dragged a sheet around his hips. The room’s fire had been stoked so that he didn’t suffer from the cold. Holding the sheet around him, he padded to the door and opened it.

He surveyed a bare landing and a length of winding tower stair lit by a sputtering torch mounted on a wall sconce. An icy draft whipped up the stairwell and burst upon him. He cursed again and called out.

“Mistress?”

The word echoed inside the tower only to be lost in silence. Where was she? Where was Nany? God’s blood, his mind was blank enough without having to suffer from being abandoned and stuck in a black and deserted tower. He filled his lungs and bellowed.

“Penelope Grace Fairfaaaaaaax!” The name bounced off the walls of the stairwell. He threw back his head and filled his lungs again.

“No, don’t!”

He looked down to find his hostess on the stairs below him, breathless and as skittish as ever. Her agitation grated on him. How dare she cause him to call out for her like a frightened child.

“Where have you been?” he snapped. “Jesu, woman, my stomach is shriveled with hunger.”

At last he’d reached her. Her hesitant demeanor vanished in a flare of answering temper. She marched up the steps and stood in front of him, arms folded across her chest.

“If you’re strong enough to bellow like an ox in rut, sirrah, you’re strong enough to descend to the hall and eat with the rest of us.”

Tristan narrowed his eyes and took in the rise and fall of her breasts. He hadn’t felt so stirred in—he had no idea in how long. Letting his sheet fall a little lower on his hips, he stepped close to her, so close he could feel her heat, and said on a growl, “By the cross, lady, if you’ll have me in this sheet, I’ll oblige you.”

Pen’s gaze flew from his eyes to his chest, and then down to the warm, smooth skin of his hip. She made a little sound, then stumbled backward, her color rising. Her step took her to the brink of the stairs, where she tottered and cried out. Her fragile features contorted with terror. Tristan swore and grabbed for her with both hands. The sheet fell as he grasped her by the arms and swept her against a wall and pressed against her as if to prevent her from plummeting down the black steepness with the force of his weight.

They remained pressed against each other, him panting with relief, her shivering with leftover fear. Then she gave a squawk and shoved at his chest.

“Don’t touch me!”

She writhed against him, and he felt himself stir.
Heedless of the blows with which she was now buffeting him, he set his jaw and tried not to succumb to this sudden arousal. He heard her curse him. Her body twisted. Her hip ground into his unruly part, causing it to leap and buck. He gasped. If he didn’t stop her, he would lose all chivalry and lift her skirts right there on the landing. He felt himself twitch again. Catching hold of her upper arms, he lifted her abruptly and gave her a gentle shake that bumped her head against the wall.

“Be still, damn you.”

She gaped at him, quivering. Slowly he lowered her to her feet. Their bodies slid over each other, and he gritted his teeth as the slight curve of her breasts caressed his bare shoulder and chest. Her legs slithered down his own, and his rigid sex danced into her skirt, seeking her warmth. Wordlessly she continued to stare at him in consternation.

He couldn’t help it. As she settled on her feet, he pressed against her and lowered his head and whispered hoarsely to her.

“You should take better care, Gratiana.” He moved his hips against her and elicited a quick indrawing of breath from her. “Look you what happens when you neglect me.”

She squirmed and turned her head aside, but he found her mouth anyway. She tried to keep her mouth closed. He smiled against her lips and snaked his hand up to cup her breast. When her mouth opened for a gasp, his tongue invaded. She stiffened, then caught her breath as he began to suck on her.

Tristan felt her body soften, felt her lips open to him. He was brushing his hips back and forth against her when she tore her lips from his.

“No, please.”

He heard fear. The music of her voice was drowned by it. Whatever he might be, he was certain he wasn’t a man of rapine and forced submission.

“Aye, Gratiana. A moment.”