shadow and lace (18 page)

"The lad resembles a chessboard," Alise said. "Pray tell, is he your mysterious guest of honor?" Her nose was tilted so high in the air Rowena could see little but her flared nostrils.

Gareth shrugged. "Perhaps Bartholemew the Bear will take the seat of honor."

"Bartholemew is a fine fellow, is he not?" Rowena chimed in. "When I first came down the stairs, I thought he was Marlys, but his melancholy eyes made me realize I was mistaken. My heart goes out to him. A fine fellow like he must be mortified to be wearing that ridiculous wimple." She giggled. "I would cower under the stairs myself if I had to wear such a silly structure on my head."

There was a beat of silence. Too late Rowena realized the flowing tower perched on Alise's head was identical to the one Bartholemew wore. Alise's nostrils flared large enough to swallow her. Blaine cleared his throat.

Gareth lifted a strand of Rowena's hair. It flowed through his fingers like liquid gold. "Very observant of you, dear. Bartholemew is a fine fellow. He eats far fewer guests than Blaine's fish."

Rowena bowed her -head, wishing the bear would trundle over and eat her. A florid man in a feathered cap paused to exchange pleasantries with Gareth. As the glib conversation went on above her, Rowena tired of studying Alise's slippers and began to arrange her own skirt in neat folds. She had the soft camlet laid out in a perfect fan when the door swept open and a line of colorless shapes slumped into the hall. Rowena's heart lurched into an uneven rhythm.

"What might this be?" Blaine murmured. "A peasant revolt?"

"Revolting indeed," Alise said.

The new guests slunk around the fringes of the hall as if their drab rags might allow them to fade into the stone. But at the end of their unobtrusive parade walked a slender figure whose straight shoulders and cap of silver-blond hair would not let him melt away like the others.

Rowena had half risen when Gareth's hand slipped beneath her hair and tightened on her neck. She shot him an agonized look. His face revealed nothing, but the subtle bite of his fingers forced her back down.

Lindsey Fordyce, Baron of Revelwood, strutted into the hall behind his seven sons and one nephew, his plum chausses and yellow tunic making him look like a garish peacock following a flock of sparrows. His eyes darted from side to side. His hands twisted one against another. When Mortimer broke into the violent chorus of a
chanson de geste
, he jumped straight into the air. Little Freddie's gray eyes searched the crowd. It was he who spotted Rowena sitting at Gareth's feet. His nudge went down the line, rocking his brothers like a wave until it exploded against Fordyce with a thump on the skull from Big Freddie.

Papa's eyes lit with benevolent welcome. Before she could raise her trembling hand, Gareth tilted her chin between thumb and forefinger, forcing a bewildered Rowena to stare up at him. He leaned over and touched his mouth to hers. His moustache tickled her nose as his lips brushed the corner of her mouth in a teasing caress. Too surprised to resist, her lips parted beneath his. He turned his head from side to side, drawing a feathery threat with his tongue until he felt the tiny, white ramparts of her teeth part to draw him into her moist, sweet mouth.

A shudder twisted Gareth's gut. He tried to pull away, but a powerful thread of longing held him fast. When he finally freed her, it was he who had to look away. Sinking back in the chair, he snatched a goblet off the tray Dunnla offered, drained it, then took another.

Rowena plucked the last goblet off the tray to occupy her shaking hands, splashing ale heedlessly on her skirt. Blaine led Alise away, his smile as fixed as her grimace. Papa stood frozen by the door. Rowena waited for him to cross the hall to her, to come and bid his only daughter a greeting. He glanced over his shoulder at the arrow slits set high on the walls as if expecting a feathered plume to embed itself in his back. Rowena watched in amazement as he shooed the boys toward the overflowing tables and bowed to a plump woman sitting along the wall. They joined the dance, the woman's cheeks pinkening at his flowery prattle.

Rowena's brothers cleared three tables of all but bones in a matter of minutes. Dunnla shuffled in, shook her head in exasperation and went back for more food. Gareth's dark eyes brooded over the hall. He stroked his beard with one hand, ever conscious of the blond head at his knee and the faded gold of her Papa's bobbing across his hall.

It took Papa two flagons of ale, six galloping turns at the dance, and a bawdy ditty to gather his courage and three of his kin and approach Gareth's chair.

Rowena watched Little Freddie as if his shining head were a beacon. She would have risen again had Gareth not chosen that moment to gently cup her cheek with one hand in a proprietary gesture that reminded her oddly of the way he handled Folio.

The crowd cleared before Papa's strut. The foot he dragged behind him only served to put more bounce in his step. The ladies murmured behind their sleeves at the hulking creature that followed him.

Behind Big Freddie trailed Irwin with a nervous chorus of, "Pardon me. Pardon me. Do pardon me. I beg your forgiveness, milady. 'Twas not my intention to trod upon your train. Do forgive me." He kept this up until he stumbled into Big Freddie's back and Little Freddie stomped his shin.

Fordyce honored Gareth with a sweeping bow. Irwin stared down at Rowena from a height she did not remember. From this angle, his legs looked less like sausages. But his rapt gaze held the familiar adoration that still turned her stomach.

Papa ignored her. "My dear Sir Gareth," he began, his voice cracking. He coughed, spat on the floor, and continued. "I cannot begin to express our delight at your kind invitation. We feared the snow would detain us, but God has been merciful and brought us unscathed to Caerleon."

"I always said He had a wicked sense of humor," Gareth replied. His fingers stroked Rowena's cheek with the expertise of a diabolical minstrel. Her heart skipped more beats than it hit.

Papa tittered and wiped spittle from his moist lips with the back of his hand. "Not as wicked as yours, kind sir."

By poking her foot out from under her skirt, Rowena was able to touch Little Freddie's ankle with her toe. Her kid shoe was as white as snow against the bound rags that served as his excuse for shoes. A quick, bright glance was his only betrayal of her touch.

"Do you still find Caerleon to your liking, Fordyce?" Gareth drained his goblet and let it fall to the stones with a thump.

Rowena's father peered around with the jaundiced eye of a potential buyer. "A bit large for my tastes. I prefer a more cozy abode for my lads. Keep 'em humble, I say."

Big Freddie shuffled his feet as if pondering the charms of humility.

"Do you find Caerleon as you remember it?" Gareth added.

Fordyce cleared his throat. " 'Twas many years ago I served your father. My memory fails me."

Rowena frowned quizzically. "You served Gareth's fath—"

Gareth's fingers tightened imperceptibly on her cheek. He turned his hand, and the back of it glided down her throat. Papa's gaze dropped for an instant to the provocative motion. Rowena stared into her lap. Little Freddie swallowed hard.

Gareth leaned forward, impaling Papa with his dark gaze. His other hand caressed the silver hilt of his sword. Irwin took an involuntary step backward.

"Mayhaps there is need I refresh your memory," Gareth said.

Papa looked wildly behind him, as if a horde of knights was going to rush out of the crowd and skewer him. Mortimer's lute fell silent for the first time that night. The minstrel pretended to tune it, watching Gareth through a curtain of hair.

Fordyce rubbed his head, fluffing his scant hair into tufts. "Before my unfortunate accident, I sold my services to many men. Your father was only one of them. I cannot be expected to remember everything, can I? Caerleon is but the shadow of a memory to me. What difference does it make? Did I mention our gift? We've brought you a gift to honor you." He clapped his hands together. "Gifts, Freddie, bring on the gifts!"

Big Freddie and Little Freddie struggled over a burlap sack. Papa boxed Irwin's ears for standing there with his mouth open and snatched the bag. He waved it with a flourish. The rusty goblet from the mantel at Revelwood rolled into the folds of Rowena's skirt. In her embarrassment, she forgot the havoc Gareth was wreaking with her heartbeat. She reached to throw a corner of her kirtle over the goblet, but Gareth's boot came down neatly beside her fingers.

"Charming," he said dryly, nudging the relic with his foot. "But not nearly as charming as the other gift you provided me.

Before Rowena could do more than gasp, Gareth's hand slid into the bodice of her kirtle. She reeled beneath the shock of his warm hand cupping her bare breast, his fingers fondling her with crass familiarity. Papa's eyes widened. Irwin's face went as plum as Papa's chausses. But worst of all was the steady motion of Little Freddie's fists clenching and unclenching.

Rowena flushed scarlet as her hand came up in an instinctive gesture of outrage. She intended to strike Gareth but had forgotten the goblet in her hand. As it passed in front of her eyes, she hurled its contents straight into his face. He blinked stupidly at her, ale dripping from his brow to his chin. Then his lips tightened and he snatched her up by the hair, dragging her between his knees until all she could see were eyes darkened to jet by burning rage. Her jaw was set in an anger as deep as his own.

Someone coughed. The sound echoed clearly in the silence of drawn-and-held breaths. Gareth tore his gaze from Rowena's to find a hall of eyes filled with sly satisfaction. They had waited for this moment for almost twenty years. Waited for his iron control to snap. Waited for a glimpse of the man who had murdered Elayne of Touraine in her bed. And Rowena had given it to them.

His hand slowly relaxed its grip on her hair.

"Begone," he said between clenched teeth. "To your chamber."

She held herself rigidly against his knees to keep from falling. For a moment, he thought she would defy him, then she bowed her head and said softly, "As you wish, milord."

Every neck in the hall craned to follow her path through the crowd and up the stairs. Her head was modestly bent, but her back was painfully straight.

It was Marlys who broke the silence with a round of mocking applause. "Now, Mortimer. Can you give us any entertainment as grand as that?"

"I think not. Perhaps you'd best turn to Bartholemew the Bear. He is a better man than I."

"Marlys is a better man than you," someone called out to the delighted hoots of the crowd.

No one dared look at Gareth as he wiped away the last traces of ale with his sleeve. Lindsey Fordyce backed into the crowd, dragging Irwin and Little Freddie by their hoods. As the dwarf led Bartholemew into the center of the floor, Gareth took the goblet Blaine offered him and drained it. He knew he should be following Fordyce's blundering path through the hall, but instead found his burning gaze drawn to the top of the stairs.

«
^
»

Gareth stumbled past the door of the chamber he had occupied since he was a boy, then backed up. He groped for the handle. His head rapped the door frame as he ducked through the door. Groaning, he kicked the door shut then stood with head down like an ox ready to charge. The ale he had consumed to blunt his anger might as well have been water. His fury churned anew at the sight before him.

Rowena did not pace before the fire wringing her hands. Nor did she cower at the window, her brow darkened with distress. Instead she lay sleeping, nestled in the center of the vast bed like an angel in a cloud of fur. Her golden hair roamed untrammeled across his pillow. Her brow was smooth and sweet, untroubled by even the hint of fretful dreams. The sheer audacity of it dragged a growl from deep in Gareth's throat.

With one hand, he grasped the edge of the furs beneath her and jerked. Rowena rolled rudely onto the floor.

"Ha!" Gareth hoisted the pelts like a flag of triumph.

Rowena sat up, blinking and rubbing her elbow. The sight of Gareth would have quelled his staunchest adversary. He stood with feet slightly apart, his usually impeccable garments rumpled and stained. His hair stood out in wild tufts, untamed by fingers or comb. The scent of danger rolled off him with the scent of ale.

"My bed," he snarled through bared teeth.

He drew his surcoat and tunic over his head before tossing the pelts back toward the bed. Without removing his hose, he threw himself after them. The bed rocked with his weight.

Rowena sat in wide-eyed silence for a moment, pondering his timely disappearance. She shrugged and curled up on the stones with no pelts to cushion or cover her. Shivering, she rolled to her back. She had never realized how many sharp edges the stones possessed. A solid lump poked at the base of her spine. Despite her discomfort, a perverse calm claimed her.

"You had no right," she said softly.

She was hardly aware she had spoken aloud until Gareth's incredulous face appeared over the edge of the bed. "What did you say?"

She met his gaze with perfect serenity. "I said you had no right. To touch me that way in front of my papa."