Once Upon a Knight (6 page)

“He whispered?”

“He dinna’ wish to disturb your dragon at his feast. I’m different. And I have great hearing.”

Sybil tilted her head to one side and peered up at him.

“What?” he asked.

“Did he say why?”

“He dinna’ say much. He does na’ appear fond of your hall. Again.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug of motion. “I canna’ fash why. I found it comfortable enough.”

“You did?”

“Aye. And warm, once my body heated the stone floor enough.”

“Liar.”

“Ah, lady. I dinna’ lie. Not in truth. I make light of circumstances that I canna’ change, and turn to it with humor to make it palatable.”

“Why?”

“It beats the other.”

“Other?” she asked.

“Dinna’ tell me you dinna’ do the same. I’ll na’ believe it.”

“You speak riddles.”

“Good. Now go. See what they request of you. And then hurry back to me.”

“I’m na’ leaving you in my chamber!” Her voice rose on the last of her words, making him look at her with one eyebrow cocked high. That look was close to sealing off her throat. He did it on purpose. He knew the effect! The man was becoming a thorn in her side, and that was the last thing she needed.

Sybil required an orderly, structured life where she controlled every moment. That’s what she’d always had. This man was already getting past that.

He’d given up the eyebrow-raised look and had pursed his lips again, narrowing his cheeks and making her heart stumble through two beats before she had it covered over. Her thoughts were scrambling, and her pulse was impossible to control, and she even had her hands fisted at her sides. This was horrid. The man was horrid.

It was wondrous, too.

“I dinna’ see that you have any option,” he finally replied.

“To what?” she asked.

“My continued presence in your rooms.”

Sybil blinked several times. She was losing in this confrontation. That never happened. It was inconceivable, impossible…. But there it was.

“Remember?” he said in the vast silence that had only the sound of her rapid breathing punctuating it.

Sybil nodded. Better to retreat and regroup. And with his continued smile, she knew the wretch was following her train of thought.

“You’re na’ to touch anything,” she said.

“You intending to send the dragon after me again, are you?”

“Nothing. I’ll na’ have my possessions touched and handled by a…”

His grin widened as her voice stopped. “I’ve been called every name, my lady. You canna’ improve upon them, nor can you inflict harm. As I already mentioned, you are up against a master.”

“I’ll ken if you touch anything.” Sybil scanned the room for the peg she always hung her cloak from. Which was odd. Of course it wouldn’t be anywhere else. The fact that she’d worried over it was another strange event in a short evening of them. She crossed the room to where he’d been standing and passed him as he made the exact same move to where she’d just been. Their eyes locked as they did so, but neither of them moved their heads to continue it. She was just reaching for her cloak when he spoke again.

“Do you have a pallet I can stretch out upon?”

Sybil forced the instant reaction away and turned, swirling the cloak about herself as she did so. Imagining him stretched out was going to be imprinted on her mind. She just wished she could overwrite her own imagination with a torture rack to stretch him out the proper amount. And then some.

She had a slight smile on her face that froze when she saw him patting the white coverlet on her own bed. With his bare hands! Sybil sucked in the shock, and then had to deal with what had to be anger.

“This might do…although ’tis short.” He said it as he stretched full-out on her bed—without even doffing his boots, which was a moot point since the bottom of him was hanging over the end of her mattress. Sybil watched as the slight, carved wood contended with his weight and used the time to wrap her cloak securely about her and tie it with a precision and tautness that was going to have to be loosened the moment she stepped from the chamber. She turned a deaf ear to his chuckle as he watched.

“You’ll na’ leave me unattended long, will you? I’ve a horrid injury. I’ll need your touch. And I’d like a bit of your gravy, too, I’m thinking.”

He was lifting his arms up, showing the tanned size of them as he looped them about pillows covered with white linen she’d embroidered with such care that it was impossible to spot the stitches. And then she had to deal with how that violation felt as well.

“’Twas terribly difficult to recover from my injury in yon hall, Lady Sybil….”

His voice had softened as if he were exhausted, and he’d even lowered it for her name. Sybil’s lips tightened as she held back what could be a shriek of rage. But that was impossible. She didn’t suffer emotions. She never had. She was an expert at wreaking havoc with others’ emotions. The man was up against more than he’d bargained for! And she didn’t know why. She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t blessed with a bountiful shape. She wasn’t wealthy. She wasn’t even legitimate.

The only thing she was, was confused.

Sybil hurried to the main hall, barely glancing at Waif as he gnawed on his bone. She had to get back before that man ensconced himself in her rooms and couldn’t be ousted without emotion.

She was still wondering what force was going to be most useful for that objective as she reached the loud gathering in the hall.

Vincent made quick work of her lock, although the hasp was difficult. He was skilled at picking locks, though, and a perfect twist from the thinnest skean he’d located had the big cabinet of hers open, exposing her treasury of bottles filled with the most obnoxious-smelling potions and ugly colored liquids.

He stoppered the fifth one after wrinkling his nose in distaste.

This is what she treasured? That woman was the strangest creature. Something about her potions was also making his skin itch oddly and his nose twitch. Vincent put the fifth bottle back before being seized with a sneezing fit that had Waif pawing at the door and whining. Then the beast was howling, making a racket that could probably be heard well beyond the tower hall.

The lass probably had arranged the locked cabinet for just such an effect. Vincent wiped at his eyes and strode to the door to let the wolf in before it alerted her to Vincent’s perfidy. He’d been told the wench needed a lesson taught to her, that she toyed with others’ emotions without end, causing heartburning and pain when it wasn’t needed. He’d been told she was smart as well, but he hadn’t been told the scope of her intelligence. He’d considered his cousin’s words of description of the lass as unlikely and exaggerated. There wasn’t a lass born that could outwit Vincent Danzel. At least, he hadn’t thought there was.

Until now. Worse yet…was the effect her nearness was having on his body, and that was just wrong. Vincent was not attracted to smallish wenches. He was too large. He liked a lass with size and volume to her, so he could play at will and not worry over giving pain and torment instead of pleasure. He also wasn’t fond of dark women. He actually found dark women had more hair covering their pleasure sites…as well as more unsavory things—like a musk odor about them. All in all, there wasn’t any reason the little lass should have him facing a mixture of roaring lust and need. That gave him pause and made him think.

Vincent wasn’t used to giving women much thought until now, actually. And that was even more wrong. Women didn’t have an effect like this on him. Women weren’t made for thinking on. They were made for pleasure, release, and play. This one, though…Damn! She was making him alert, taut, and readied with every word out of her mouth and every glint from her light silver eyes.

He didn’t know what was the matter with him. His loins were still giving him an annoying throb of wasted preparation and readiness. It was a good thing she hadn’t looked at that particular area when he’d gotten close to her. She’d have known and then used his lust as a weapon.

There was no reason for it, and that had even more wrongness about it. What was it about this lass that set his blood boiling and his heart to pounding and his mouth to saying things his mind hadn’t tested first? Worse was what she was doing to him—the fact that he was still so taut and readied for her that his loins were pushing against the wool of his kilt and making even his sporran feel erotic and hot and bothersome.

Vincent rearranged himself and grimaced and watched the wolf prowl about before it pawed at the ground right beside him in a parody of male frustration and need.

“Damn wench.” Vincent mouthed the words and headed for another of her cabinets.

Sybil didn’t need to ask why she’d been summoned. The moment she reached the bottom step and looked toward the table, she knew. Every pore in her skin alerted her, and every bit of her blood singing through her body was readied and prepared and panicked.

There was a man sitting to the right of Lady Eschon in the position of honored guest. Highlighted. And it was garishly done. Putting on display everything Sybil had already envisioned, feared, and shrunk from.

It was the man from her dream, only worse.

He really was dwarfed, looking to reach just to Lady Eschon’s shoulders. He had a tankard in his hand, and the short fat fingers showed the extent of his stunting. It was just as obvious that he was dark. Extremely so. And hairy. Smelly. Rounded. Ugly. Foul.

The newest emotion had to be panic. It was strong enough that it kept Sybil rooted in place, her feet stuck to the lowest stair and her hand gripping the end of the rail. Panic was filling her, and it was so severe it had chased away everything else. Even the heightened awareness and wellspring of heat that the blond man had brought into being. She actually felt faint.

“There you are, Sybil! Come. Closer!”

No. Dear God, no. No.
The words weren’t leaving her mouth, but her mind was echoing them. There wasn’t anything she could do about the opaque mist that seemed to be encasing her ankles other than blink until it turned back into the rush-covered floor. Then her feet were moving as requested, although every other part of her was shrinking away. The closer she got to the head of the table, the more her heart was sinking. But still her feet moved. The man’s eyebrows grew together, making one large line etching a black mark across a brow furrowed with a cross-hatching of wrinkles. He was bearded, hiding most of his face. He looked
auld,
but it was difficult to tell for certain. He looked two score or more…older even than her father had been. He could be less, however. Dwarfs aged differently. Sybil knew that from something she’d been told.

He had smallish eyes, too, deep-set in folds of flesh. They were an indeterminate color and didn’t move from an appraisal of her as she got closer. She knew what he was there for, and every bit of her cringed away from it.

Except her feet.

“I would make a proper introduction. This is Lord Caernavik’s sheriff. From the Caern Glen. I ken that they’re lowlanders…but they’re verra powerful. Isn’t it exciting? A member of the Caern clan. Here. At my table.”

What was unbelievable was that he’d managed to arrive anywhere in the vicinity without Sybil having any awareness or warning of it. And then she was cursing her own stupidity for that thought. She knew why she’d missed such a momentous thing: the man stretched out on her bed. This moment.

The instant thought of him sent warmth surging through her. She ducked her head to hide it. If she suffered such things, she’d say it was a blush. But that was unreasonable and stupid. It was more like anger that Vincent had bested her in a way and lay ensconced in safety on her bed while she faced this. She watched the floor in front of the trencher table until the warmth receded, leaving her feeling weak and ineffectual and small. That wasn’t good. She had hell to face, and yet the thought of the blond man in her bed melted through everything.

He was in her bed…?

He’d better not be! Especially not with his boots and plaide still on. Sybil didn’t have much, but what she did have, she treasured. The pure linen sheets she’d woven were one of the small luxuries she allowed herself—and if he were abusing them, he’d pay! Her lips lifted slightly. It would be worse if he’d doffed anything and was actually
in
her covers. Much worse…and much better. Sybil nearly sighed at the instant image that thought brought. What was happening to her? Sybil swallowed all of it away. She didn’t have time for pondering handsome men naked in her bed! She needed her wits for other things.

“Sir Ian Blaine? May I present my…daughter? My…eligible daughter, Sybil. Sybil!”

The second sounding of her name was hissed, since Sybil hadn’t yet looked up. She couldn’t. She was reeling with the words. Never had Lady Eschon claimed her. And never would she have suspected it to be with such warmth, and with words that were honeyed and sweet. Sybil dropped a curtsey and lifted her head to watch as the little dark man moved from his chair in order to bow formally from the other side of the table. He was shorter even than she was, and had arms that appeared furred with a thick growth of the same black hair that was bearding his chin.

It didn’t seem possible, but he was more hideous than she’d envisioned in her nightmare. It was made worse as he smiled, revealing gaps where teeth had been, while those that were still seated were stained and foul-smelling, even from across the span of the trencher table.

“I’ve just been telling Sir Ian how it is your hand behind all the comforts in the Eschoncan Keep, Sybil. While he was regaling me with the status of his own holdings. I’m quite overcome, I am.”

Her stepmother had hidden a great flair for dramatics all the years she’d been abused and mistreated by her late spouse, Lord Eschon. Now she put every bit of emphasis on the words and the wide sweep of her arms as she opened them wide to Sybil.

“Come, dear. Sir Ian was so longing to meet you. I had you fetched and a plate set for you. Just look.”

Sybil’s eyes narrowed. She’d never been called such an endearment before, nor had she been invited to the table, both signs of worse things yet to come. How was it possible to have her life upended so thoroughly—and in the span of less than a day’s time? Where no man had been in her sphere, now she must deal with two of them?

She swallowed and lifted her skirt with a hand in order to slide into position on the bench. She knew how to right everything and exactly what to do with both of these men. And exactly what potions to use. She looked up and smiled slightly at the dark, ugly, little one…watched it returned and ignored how it felt. As usual.

The wench had drawers full of mystery stuff, and not one bit of flimsy, revealing undergarments, which was what he was looking for. Not at first, and not consciously. He hadn’t an idea of what he was looking for when he’d first started, but with each drawer he opened he got more determined to find her weakness. There wasn’t a wench born that didn’t love soft, clingy, sheer underthings caressing her flesh. At least, if there was one, he hadn’t met her yet. Vincent was beginning to think he’d found the lone one, as each drawer he rifled held little more than materials, or dirt, and one held such a profusion of dried mushroom-looking things that he’d shoved it shut with a grunt of disgust.

Every wench had a soft, feminine, hidden side. He was going to find hers and use it to torment her and use against her. If she had one. And if he could find it. And with each drawer he rifled he felt nearer to failing.

Waif wasn’t helping, but he wasn’t hindering, either. In fact, he was fairly amenable to whatever Vincent did until he’d located the toad-sweat jar. The moment he’d spied it and lifted it, the animal was on its feet and putting a methodical purr of growl into sound. Vincent got the message and put the jar back.

The animal was worse than a jailer—and twice as vigilant.

Vincent went back to checking drawers and cabinets. That activity the wolf didn’t mind. In fact, Waif was at the moment lounging across a rug that positioned him directly in front of her unlocked armoire, the one holding her liquids and potions. Waif wasn’t threatening; he was actually looking sleepy. That was another oddity. It was as if being granted access and being left in the chamber cleared Vincent from the list of things to be threatened, attacked, and perhaps eaten. Vincent was free to do what he wished, as long as he stayed away from certain possessions of hers that the wolf alerted him to.

Vincent opened one of the last drawers and knew he was getting close. This one contained several folded, light tan-colored sacks that, once unfurled, looked to be dresses. Sackcloth dresses. He’d known monks to wear such stiff, scratchy cloth, but what would a noblewoman be doing with them? She hadn’t been wearing one when he’d met her. She wasn’t wearing one now.

He slammed that drawer shut, too, shoved his hair out of his eyes and opened the bottom one, and struck treasure. The lass had garments so sheer they were near invisible, and the stitching was such that it was nigh impossible to spot. He tried. It wasn’t until he took one pink-shaded garment closer to the fire and held it in front of his nose that he spotted the incredibly tiny stitches that had pieced the thing together.

And then he knew he was in trouble. The garment he held in his hand would be dangerously short on any wench—even one with the slight build of the one who was to wear it—and there wasn’t much to hold it to her body, if the little sleeves were any indication. Vincent held the thing to his chest and attempted to force the desire and ache away. He wasn’t to touch her! He wasn’t to ken her. He wasn’t to do anything his body was primed to do! Again? He was obsessed. His mind was locked on to it—and this time he’d done it to himself?

Nothing worked. Vincent breathed heavily and dropped the garment. He was left with nothing save the obvious.

Escape.

Waif stirred as Vincent walked purposefully to the window, but that was the extent of the animal’s movement. It didn’t stop Vincent. He had a reddish haze in front of his eyes, coloring everything, and a pounding from his nether regions into each thigh, and from thence to his entire body. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. He had to get as far away from her and her things as possible, or he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. And this had never happened to him before.

He didn’t bother with options. He knew her rooms were on the third level, or what would be the third level if they’d constructed their castle with an eye to measurement and quality. Vincent saw the odd striping of the grass and dirt below what looked to be a little over a two-story leap, and then he swiveled and scanned upward. The crenellated top of the tower hung out, and there were outcroppings of rocks and jutting wood where they’d put another floor above this one. Up. He was going up.

Vincent grabbed on to one of the awning rocks and swung out, putting himself into a crouch in order to spring upward the moment his boots touched stone again. He didn’t hear or feel the rip of his kilt until he was already swinging out and reaching up for a wooden floor joist.

The wolf was in deadly earnest as it leaped up again, snapping with jaws that would have reached the naked flesh of a thigh if Vincent hadn’t already caught and hung from a beam. From there it was a matter of using his arms to pull himself up. He wasn’t willing to risk any part of his body near her window until he was well above the beam and looking down. He could have sworn the wolf shook its head, too.

It didn’t matter. Vincent didn’t give her pet another thought. It was survival of the fittest now. Every living thing knew that rule. Vincent slid along the beam, garnishing slivers in the bottom flesh of his thighs and buttocks and wishing it pained more.