Resenting the Hero (7 page)

“Aye. That look of panic at the sight of a kitchen.” She grinned at me. “Feel lucky you weren't sent to one of the other posts, where you're stuck in your own place with nary a lesson in a kitchen to tell you how the stove works. Have a seat.”

“I was told we could rely on public fare,” I said, hiking myself up onto a stool.

“You can, but you get tired of it. And taverns aren't always open when you're wanting food.”

“And there are no staff here for that sort of thing?”

“Just Ben. He cooks well enough. But I'm not comfortable asking him to fix something for me whenever I've got the whim. Besides, it's good for you to learn for your next post.”

“Shame on you, Lee, for expecting servitude.” Karish appeared to come out of nowhere, slipping onto a stool beside me.

I chose not to answer. I didn't expect servitude. I also didn't expect to cook. No one had ever taught me nor encouraged me to learn, so obviously it wasn't considered one of my responsibilities.

We heard the outer door open, followed by masculine laughter.

“Afternoon, Van Staal,” McKenna called. “The new Pair's here.”

Looking back, I could never be sure whether my mouth actually dropped open or not. Surely I had a little more polish than that? But the man standing in the doorway was truly divine. His hair was golden, his eyes were golden, his skin was practically golden. He was long of leg and broad of shoulder and quite thoroughly delicious.

He was followed in by a slightly older man, a little less golden and a lot less dazzling but somehow still looking like his partner. Did that happen after a while? The dazzler thrust out a hand. “Van Staal,” he said, then gestured at his companion. “Stephan Rundle.”

“Mallorough,” I answered. “This is Lord Shintaro Karish.”

“Dunleavy is so impressed with my title,” Karish added smoothly. “I'm sure everyone would forget all about it if it weren't for her.”

I didn't glare at him as he shook hands with the others. I refused to feel embarrassed about introducing him by his proper legal name. If he didn't like it, he should have mentioned it earlier.

“We've heard a lot about you, Shintaro,” said Rundle.

“Taro, please.”

“And all of it good,” Van Staal said, settling onto another stool.

“You're lucky you're here in time for the Star Festival,” McKenna said to me. “I take it you can dance the benches?”

Of course.
“I'm a Shield, aren't I?”

“Are you any good?”

I was excellent. “I've never broken anything.” Which should tell them enough about my skill without my having to brag.

The outer door opened again, and three more people entered the kitchen. Shield Ogawa, a tall, skeletal woman with her blond hair cropped close to her scalp. Source Bet Farin, a small woman with dark hair and eyes and a lot of curves. She was McKenna's partner, and from the way the older woman tensed, it was obvious that the two did not get along. And Source Val Tenneson, Ogawa's partner, a plain, thin man with merry eyes.

“Febray and Heiner are on duty in the observation post right now,” McKenna told us. “The others are helping set up for the festival. You'll meet them tonight.” She said to Ogawa, “Mallorough's going to dance.”

“Excellent.” Ogawa smiled. “I like a challenge.”

“Uh.” Time to nip that in the bud. “I actually won't be dancing tonight. I'm exhausted. I'll just get some sleep.”

“You can't do that,” Ogawa objected. “It's the Star Festival. You can't miss that because of a few aches and pains. You're too young to let one day of riding wipe you out.”

“I'm really very tired.”

“So take a nap. A couple hours' sleep, a bath, and a good meal will put you back in fine form and give me the chance to beat you on the benches.”

“Really, I wouldn't be a challenge.”

“Really,” Karish interrupted sharply, “she's very sensitive to music, and she doesn't trust me to guide her through it.”

Well. That stopped everything.

Van Staal took a quick sip from his mug for something to do and hit his teeth against the rim so hard we could all hear it in the sudden silence.

No one had anything to say. I could have smacked Karish for making everyone so uncomfortable. I wondered how he knew about my unusual sensitivity to music. I didn't remember talking about it.

“I never said that.” Ugh. It was the first thing out of my mouth, and it was weak. But I let it stand. Adding anything would only make it worse.

He was watching me, his face blank. Perhaps he thought to intimidate me. I looked right back at him. I had nothing else to say. He had made his accusation, and I had denied it. Sort of. His turn.

He rose to his feet. “Let's take a walk, Lee.”

Now he wanted privacy. Excellent timing. And quite the perfect example of the magnanimous lord escorting the errant servant out for a well-bred chastisement.

I could refuse to go with him. Then he would ask me again, and again, becoming ever more patient as I appeared increasingly childish. Or he could just say whatever he had to say in front of everyone else. That wouldn't look terribly professional, either. So against my better judgment I tilted my head in acquiescence and set my mug on the table. “If you will excuse us,” I said to our audience, then I followed my irritating Source.

He strode down the sidewalk. I glared at him, for I needed two steps to his one. I probably looked like some little rat-dog scampering along beside him.

“Have I ever insinuated you couldn't do your job?” he asked sharply.

“You insinuated I wasn't doing it.”

He stopped so suddenly my own momentum carried me a couple of steps beyond him. “When?” he demanded.

Back at the first tavern in Over Leap. “What difference does it make?”

“I certainly never did it in front of other people.”

“Neither did I. You're the one who felt like dragging the true reason out back there. They were believing the exhaustion excuse.”

He couldn't reasonably deny that. He pushed a hand through his hair. “What the hell did I do, anyway?”

“Sorry?”

“You were friendly with the blond fellow back in Over Leap, and the innkeepers and shopkeepers and strangers on the street, and everyone back at the residence, but with me you have this chilly, polite facade going.”

So? Why couldn't he just leave it? We were getting along well enough. So what if I didn't adore him? By tomorrow morning he would have a hundred admirers tagging his heels.

“So what did I do?” he asked impatiently. “Tell me. My hair isn't blond? I'm not tall enough?”

Prat. Did he really think I cared about such trivial things? “I am a simple girl, Karish,” I said. He snorted in disbelief, which surprised me. “And I never anticipated being bonded to the Stallion of the Triple S.”

“You may stop referring to me in that manner any time now,” he instructed me coolly. “I asked you to call me Taro.”

“Hey, if the horseshoe fits.” And he ordered me to call him Taro. Big difference. “I wanted to be Paired with someone discreet.”

“And of course I'm not.”

“You're too”—I gestured vaguely as I tried to think of a suitable word—“legendary. You have all this dash and flair, running hither and yon saving the world. Everyone knows who you are, and everyone loves you.”

He smiled crookedly. It wasn't a happy expression. “Do they?”

“Well, look around.” At all the people who turned heads to take another look at him. He was honestly that beautiful. He didn't look, so he didn't see, but he probably didn't need to. No doubt he had seen it all before. “I didn't want to work with a legend. I wanted a quiet life, do my job without anyone much noticing.” I let myself sigh. “No chance of that, now. Certainly, you'll be the focus of all the attention, but some of it is bound to splash onto me. Lord Shintaro Karish's Shield, easiest road to his favor.” Oh, he didn't like that at all, and he scowled to prove it. Well, too bad. He'd asked for it. “You've got no right to complain about my behavior. I've been polite.”

“Barely.”

Completely.
“Right back at you.”

He stiffened his jaw before saying, “I have guarded Shields before.”

It shot out of the mouth before the brain had time to kick in. “When?”

“During my training,” he gritted out through his teeth. “When do you think?”

“We
are
trained.”

“I know that.” Not as much as we were, but they got some smattering of discipline, I knew.

“We are not these uncontrollable forces of nature unleashed on the unsuspecting world with nothing more than one frail Shield standing between us and chaos.”

“I know.” I supposed.

“And believe me, we're made well aware of our obligations to the regulars and to our Shields.”

I knew that. Still, this was a social event. Why would he want to be saddled with any responsibility at a festival? Any normal person would resent that, never mind someone of Karish's ilk.

Karish swore. Under his breath. Very prettily. The refined accent gave the oaths a certain venom I had never heard before.

“Listen, I just think it's a little early in the schedule to be asking you to guard me for something like this.”

“It wasn't too early for you to Shield me in Over Leap,” he pointed out, as though he honestly thought the two situations were comparable. “But that's different, isn't it? You're a Shield. Sober and responsible and disciplined. Unshakable in your duty. Whereas Sources are nothing more than a horde of irresponsible perpetual adolescents. We'd be dangerous if we didn't have you Shields to keep us under control, wouldn't we?”

That was an exaggeration, and I knew it. Yes, Sources were a tad overemotional, but so were lots of regulars. So were some Shields. I didn't think it made them dangerous, just harder to work with.

But all right. Perhaps it was time to do a little bending. I was no longer the free and independent entity who could be as stubborn as necessary. Whether I liked it or not I was bound to this man, and I had to give his feelings some consideration, especially when I hadn't yet proven they weren't valid. I didn't trust him to watch me well when I needed it, but I couldn't afford to force that point until he actually failed.

Theoretically, music could move me to kill someone. In reality, there was almost no chance of that actually happening. The braid identified me as a Shield. People, complete strangers, would be keeping their eye on me, and the minstrels would be careful with their selections. There would be plenty of people to stop me in the unlikely event that I went berserk.

I would let Karish guard me that night. He would be distracted by some fine young thing and lured away. I might have a crying fit or sleep with something that had slithered out from under a rock, but I could live with that. And the next time we had this sort of discussion I would have the evidence to back up my argument, and Karish would just have to stew. “All right.”

He wasn't appeased. “Pulling teeth takes less time.”

“I said yes, didn't I?”

“With images of humiliation dancing through your head. Or maybe you're just worried about being proved wrong. What, has that never happened to you?”

I was regretting my answer already.

He studied me a moment longer than I liked, then he smiled. My stomach clenched. He surprised me by tapping my cheek, and I pulled away. “Poor little Lee,” he taunted. “The philosophy's undreamed of, isn't it?” He punctuated that bit of nonsense with a wink before he wheeled away and deserted me. I could hear him whistling as he walked.

Chapter Five

Karish was no fop, and that night he wore only two colors. Black and red, far more subdued than customary festival wear. The trousers were not too tight, the soft black shoes were really rather unremarkable. The black vest did show off the hard chest and flat stomach, though. The shirt under the vest was dark, dark red, the sleeves flaring, the collar unlaced and revealing a strong, masculine throat. Unruly black hair had been temporarily tamed by a red ribbon at his nape. A red stone twinkled in his left earlobe.

Every eye lingered, which was, I was sure, the point. He was certainly setting himself up to fail our little challenge. He would get a thousand invitations that night. There was no way he was going to be able to resist every single one of them.

But I was engaging in countermeasures. No beauty to begin with, it took artful dressing and plenty of paint for me to attract much sexual interest. Not short enough to be pleasantly petite, neither lean nor voluptuous, it was too easy for me to escape notice. Especially when I was dressed as I was that night, in a loose-fitting shirt and trousers of a pale green. Not my usual garb for a party, but under Karish's uncertain care I wanted as little attention as possible.

Well, I would be dancing the benches, and that would get me a lot of attention, but that was different.

Everyone was out for the festival. The streets were packed, and the noise was deafening. Dogs and cats and children skirted through the legs of people dressed in their best. Bright colors, high hats, flowers weaved into hair and shirt lacings. Merchant stalls competed for space with magicians and miracle healers.

“Zaire, Lee, the moon's not going to be envious tonight,” was Karish's sweet comment. “Could you look any more drab?”

“You'd be surprised.”

“Aye, I would.”