shadow and lace (6 page)

As Gareth climbed the steps, the weight of Alise's hand in his felt cold and insubstantial. The melody of Mortimer's song echoed in the back of his skull, taunting him with its eerie refrain. Curiosity shone in Alise's hazel eyes. Perhaps she could hear it, too. He snatched his hand out of the web of her fine-boned fingers without explanation. There was no time for her gentle reproof. The door of a chamber lay before them.

A baby-faced squire and blushing maidservant pushed past them with knowing glances as they entered. Their giggles floated back as they fled down the stairs. Gareth slammed the door and jerked the tousled counterpane off the mattress. At the violence of the gesture, a tingle of fright shuddered down Alise's spine, deepening the sparkle of anticipation in her eyes. Gareth felt sickened.

She glided toward him, twirling like a leaf in the wind when he caught her arm and drew her into his embrace. Her lips spread hungrily, drawing him into a lake of fire. Even as his body responded in all the right ways, his mind wondered how many women bedded him out of curiosity, seeking the razor-edge thrill of danger, and hoping what others said about him was true.

Alise backed away, her eyes darkening pools of invitation. Her fingers caught like claws at his leather gauntlets, peeling them from his forearms like a second layer of skin.

A chord of memory chimed within him. He remembered the nightmares that had beset him after he had buried Elayne. He dreamed her moldering corpse would come dragging up the hall. Her skeletal claws would paw his bolted door until he would awaken, screaming and drenched in the scent of his own fear.

He pulled Alise to him, burying his face in her smooth throat to vanquish the memory. His broad fingers splayed over the ridges of her ribs through the heavy brocade.

His eyes opened of their own volition as he remembered without warning the warmth of something more solid against him—the girl sleeping in his arms on the journey to the castle. Her body, vulnerable and warm,nestled against him. Her head had fallen to the side, and her gentle breath had passed through his chain mail like a spring wind. She was so young, and he suddenly felt very old trapped in the sharp embrace of a woman he hardly knew. He could see the girl standing in the center of the hall, her golden mass of hair caught in the shapeless confines of her cap, looking more self-possessed than any of those who stumbled around her. Only her eyes had lacked certainty. They had locked on him as if his will could determine the very direction of her thoughts. The vision made him uneasy. Would she flee, or would she heed his warnings? Stumbling across her father had been a stroke of fate. He had searched for her too long to lose her now.

Alise moaned against his lips as her teasing fingertips glided over his hip and downward with practiced skill. Groaning his surrender, he dragged the wimple from her head. Her hair came spilling out in a pale cloud around their faces.

Rowena awoke with a firm hand clamped over her mouth. She struggled for consciousness through a groggy haze and reached for her knife. Her hand came up empty. A rough hand plunged inside her overtunic.

"If you are a lad, sweet squire, then I am a vestal virgin," came a hoarse whisper against her ear.

The fire had died to embers, leaving her attacker's face in shadow. His wandering hand slid downward outside the coarse braies and clamped between her legs. Panic sliced through the last vestiges of sleep, and Rowena struck out in earnest. The man's cry of triumph was cut short as her fist connected smartly with his smooth chin.

He caught her wrist and wrenched it. "Damn you, wench. You may fight like a lad, but I swear I'll make you glad you're not one before this night is done."

A heated breath of ale filled her nostrils. Wet, greedy lips closed on hers. Rowena drove her knee toward his groin but found only air as a shadow fell over them and the man's weight vanished. She sat up, struggling to catch her breath. Her cap fell off, freeing her golden hair to tumble over her face. She tossed it back from her eyes to find her host, Sir Blaine, slammed against the wall with Gareth's misericord pressed to his throat.

Blaine shrugged as well as he could in his awkward position. "What did you expect, my friend? Did you think me so drunk as to believe her a lad? That mouth may have been fashioned by heaven to service a knight, but not as a squire."

Rowena touched her lips. They felt hot and swollen.

Gareth's gauntlets were gone. The muscles of his forearm knotted beneath dark curling hairs. "The lady is not to be troubled." The small dagger in his hand did not waver.

Blaine's eyes narrowed. "If you cannot offer this…
lady
any more protection than leaving her unattended in my hall, how can you dare reproach me for offering her my protection?"

"You were offering her more than your protection. If you find my care lacking, old friend, mayhaps you would care to challenge me to a joust."

Blaine looked away from Gareth's steady gaze. A muscle in his cheek twitched.

Gareth's smile held little humor. "I thought not." He loosed Blaine and sheathed the dagger. "Now be a good drunken boy and find your bed. I fear I had to disappoint Alise. Perhaps she will consent to soothe your wounded pride."

Blaine forced a rueful smile and rubbed his chin. "I suggest you armor yourself ere you take this chit abovestairs. She tosses a nasty punch."

"I know. I saw."

Gareth pulled Rowena to her feet. She had no choice but to follow him. She glanced back to find Blaine staring after them, his smile gone and his eyes smoldering with an emotion far deeper than annoyance.

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The climb up the stairs was far too brief. Before she knew it, Rowena found herself in the middle of a modest bedchamber, twisting her cap in her hands as a heavy door slammed behind her. Would this night never end? She tried not to tremble as Gareth's knuckles trailed gently over her cheek.

"Did he hurt you?"

She shook her head, exhaustion making her honest. "Have you brought me here to paw me yourself?"

He turned away with a disparaging laugh. "God forbid. I've no taste for dirty little moor urchins."

Rowena opened her mouth to protest that she had been swimming in her clothes only that afternoon, then snapped it shut. If the sweet, pure dirt of the moor would protect her from the attentions of
honorable
knights like Sir Gareth and his friends, she would give up bathing altogether.

Gareth turned his back to her and drew his tunic over his head. A web of pale scars crisscrossed his broad shoulders. Rowena wondered which scar should have belonged to the king.

" 'Tis no wonder," she murmured. "You've challenged everyone but me to a tournament this eve."

Gareth turned on her, his eyes bright. Dark, curling hair furred his chest. His lips quirked upward in what might have seemed amusement in a less guarded man. Rowena realized she had spoken her thoughts aloud. She sank down on the woven rug beside the bed and nervously began to braid her hair.

The feather mattress shifted as he lay his solid weight on it. His dark head appeared over the edge of the bed. "No one accepted my challenge, did they?"

"Are you that good?"

He threw his weight back on the bed. She took his grunt to be one of assent. Realizing that she was tying her hair in knots, she abandoned the braids, longing for Little Freddie's competent hands. She lay back and hugged her overtunic around her, missing the musty warmth of the hound in the hall. Overwhelmed by the weight of the day, her tired eyes fluttered shut. She sensed a shadow fall over her.

Gareth loomed above, and Rowena's breath caught in her throat. She waited for his strong hand to cover her mouth, his smooth lips to clamp down on hers in demand. Instead, a coverlet fell on her chest. His misericord thumped to a halt on top of it.

"If anyone else attempts you tonight—including me—gut him."

Her unblinking blue eyes met his dark gaze. The bed creaked again. She waited in silence for the sound of steady breathing that would tell her he slept. It did not come. She curled up on her side, her hand clenched around the hilt of the tiny dagger.

Rowena awoke to a sun-warmed and empty chamber. She uncurled her stiff back and stood, rubbing her eyes. The goose-down coverlet slid around her ankles. The rumpled tick on the deserted bed was its only sign of recent occupancy. She glanced around guiltily, then threw herself on the feather mattress with a sigh. The bed frames at Revelwood had been sold long ago,leaving only moldy heaps of straw in the hall for all to share. She rolled over, burrowing her face in the luxuriant softness. Her body fit neatly into the larger imprint of the man who had slept there. She breathed in a scent of leather, deeper and more evocative than the smell of old feathers. She flopped to her back and bounced up and down, giggling with delight. The timber frame creaked a shrill complaint, but Rowena was still gleefully bouncing when the door flew open.

Gareth stood in the doorway, a pair of dripping chausses draped over one arm. Rowena froze, though the bed kept reverberating for an excruciating minute. Gareth's face revealed nothing, yet for the first time in her life, Rowena wondered what she looked like. The hand she raised to her hair found it half braided and half matted around her face.

She grinned weakly. "Good morn, sir. I was awaiting your pleasure."

He lifted an eyebrow and Rowena bit her tongue. He shut the door.

"As your squire, I meant, kind sir." She casually sidled off the bed. "I was awaiting your pleasure as your squire this morn to learn how I might best serve you." Rowena winced and pondered taking a vow of silence. She started for the coverlet, but his tall form blocked her path.

"My dagger, please." He held out a broad palm.

"I was just going to fetch it."

" 'Tis what I feared."

He stepped back a few scant inches, forcing her hip to brush against his thighs as she bent and scavenged through the blanket folds for the dagger. She slapped the hilt into his palm and stepped back. He tucked the jeweled weapon into his boot and bent to gather his scant belongings.

"You will find a tub in the chamber at the end of the corridor. The water remains from yestereve, but you're welcome to it if you desire."

Rowena shook her head with maddening complacency. "Nay, sir. There is no need. I bathed only last month."

Gareth's head jerked up. She struggled not to squirm under his frank scrutiny. Had it been only yesterday she had plunged beneath the chill, tumbling water of a stream and lain in the warmth of the noonday sun until her clothes dried crisp and hot against her skin? This tyrant would not learn of it.

He mumbled something unintelligible and laced up his leather gauntlets with swift, sure motions before holding out his arms expectantly. Rowena took another step backward, which brought the back of her legs in uncomfortable proximity to the bed frame.

Gareth cleared his throat. Leather thongs dangled from the burnished gloves. "Would you mind?" he asked, the very picture of pained patience.

Rowena crept nearer. A proper squire would help him dress, would he not? And that is what she was meant to be, was it not? Her tongue slipped out of the corner of her mouth at the effort of working the slick thongs into a proper knot. Twice she included her thumb in the tidy parcel.

On the third try, after she had tangled not only her little finger but a large strand of her hair in the endeavor, he snatched his hand back with a growl. "Unless I care to nip your fingers off or snatch you bald, I'd best find another to assist me."

Rowena shoved her hands behind her back, lacing her fingers together in a protective knot.

He slipped the woven chain mail on over his head. "Tarry here. I will seek out Blaine and thank him for his hospitality ere we take our leave."

Rowena remembered a heavy hand clamped between her legs and thought of several ways she would like to thank Blaine for his hospitality—most of them involving the blunt end of a cudgel. She hid her thoughts behind the hand that tucked her tangled hair back into her cap. Gareth left her sitting dutifully on the edge of the bed, hands folded.

A tiny spark in the pit of her stomach ignited a burning hole. After her sating last night, Rowena recognized the sting as hunger. She had lived with the ache so long it had taken on a certain normalcy.

She crossed her legs, uncrossed them, and rose to pace the chamber. She drank a bit of water, sloshed the remains out the window, and sat down again. The pit in her gut swelled, threatening to suck her in and swallow her completely.

She opened the door and peered both ways before creeping out. The hour must be earlier than she thought. Bodies still littered the stairs in various positions of sleep and stupor. She picked her way down the stairs and across the great hall. A man reached for her ankle, but she nimbly skirted his fingers, eliciting a strangled murmur before he curled back into his cloak.

The table loomed before her, no less beautiful in the harsh light of morning than in the romantic hue of torchlight.

Rowena whirled around when Gareth came plunging down the steps several moments later. He caught hold of the wall to steady himself. She knew from his expression that he had been to the empty chamber. As she imagined his confusion at her absence, a sparkle of satisfied malice touched her eyes, but it was gone before he could cross the sea of bodies. Rowena took advantage of his concentration on that task by running her palms beneath the table, then rubbing her cheeks, leaving powdery smudges of dirt wherever she touched.