Wicked (7 page)

They walked along, his hand over hers, her mind racing toward a goal. Neither of them spoke, which was good because she did not want any distraction when thinking was so hard. The sounds of the hawkers and the gaiety were all around them. Normal sounds that broke up her thoughts. Lively sounds. But then she had a dark moment; she had the horrid, sinking feeling that nothing would ever be truly normal again, certainly not whenever Sir Tobin de Clare was this close to her.

His scent. His breaths. His walk. She was stunned to realize that she was more in tune to the rhythm of his strides and the sounds of his breathing than she was to the loud and boisterous throng around her.

Even worse, her hand almost burned under his touch. She swallowed hard and kept up with him.

“As I remember it . . . ” he said in a thoughtful and lazy tone, “you told Lady Edith this man you sought had raven black hair.”

He had heard her describe him to Edith.
Lud! Lud! Lud
! She could feel him looking down at her. She knew if she looked at him she would see that infuriating grin of his, so she fixed her gaze on a juggler who was balancing wooden pins on his ears and nose. She waved her hand at the juggler. “I wish I could do that. Balance pins like he is doing. What amusement that would be.” She changed the subject, which usually worked for her. If you had no good answer, just confuse them.

“Interesting.”

“Aye. They are interesting the way they can balance so many objects at once. Do you suppose it takes long to learn to juggle? Probably,” she answered quickly before he could. “I do find jugglers the best of entertainments.”

“I was not speaking of jugglers.”

“Oh.” She did not ask what he was speaking of. Perhaps he would forget.

“I was talking about this man you were seeking. I find him very interesting.”

She looked at him then. “Why? Do you prefer the company of men to women, sir?”

His eyes narrowed slightly and she bit back a small smile of satisfaction.

“What I find interesting is that the man you seek should have black hair.”

“There must be a hundred men here today who have black hair.”

“True.” He paused, then added, “Even
I
have black hair.”

She kept walking as if all was well with the world and his comments were no more important to her than the dandelions that floated in the wind.

He took a few more lazy, catlike steps, then added in a pensive tone, “This man was wearing blue, you said. Aye, that was it. You said ‘blue.’ I heard you clearly.”

His sudden grip tightened on her hand before she could move. It was almost as if he could see into her mind before her thoughts were even close to complete. She had been waiting for the perfect moment to catch him off guard. And the devil knew it.

He stopped then. So suddenly it was as if they had run into a wall.

“Why are we stopping? The race is that way.”

He was frowning down at his clothing. “How amusing.” He looked up, his expression all feigned innocence and devilry. “
I
am wearing blue.” He looked at her then, waiting.

She waited longer, letting time work for her instead of against her. She blinked up at him innocently, then gave him her biggest smile. “Beg pardon, Sir Tobin. I did not hear what you were saying,” she lied beautifully, sounding as if her mind were in London instead of here.

“I was just making the observation that I am wearing blue.” He sounded as if his jaw was just a bit tighter, as if his back teeth were clamped together.

There was hope!

“Are you wearing blue?” She stepped back and gave his attire a long appraisal. “So you are.” She paused, then added, “I had not noticed.”

He said nothing more, but began to whistle slightly, a jolly and vastly annoying tune as they walked farther along.

She stared straight ahead, her eyes now locked on a scarlet pennant with a lion that flew from a standard near the drawbridge. She tried to think of some way to change the subject.

“’Tis a small world, is it not?”

She was learning to greatly dislike that casual tone of his. “A small world, sir?” She laughed. “I do not think so. I believe that more than half the court is here and there are many other noblemen who have traveled far, like yourself. I would not call this small,” she said brightly. “It seems to me that this is a huge crowd.”

He laughed softly and under his breath she could have sworn he muttered the words “stubborn witch.”

She refused to look at him. He did not yet know the word “stubborn.”

“Sofia.” He spoke her name softly and stopped walking so she could not move on. The only choice she had was to look at him.

But she did not. Instead she stood there, looking everywhere but at him.

“Look at me.” His voice was quiet, but the tone was still a command.

A command. The perfect thing for her to ignore.
Perhaps now she would annoy him the way he annoyed her. She would not obey him, even though some small part of her wanted to look up at him because even though he annoyed her terribly, he was still so very sweet on the eyes.

“Ah!” He snapped his fingers and nodded. “I remember now.”

“What?”

“You are afraid if you look at my face you will forget to breathe.”

That made her to look at him, just at the same moment she felt the color drain from her face.
Those were her exact words, her passionate confession to Edith about the man of her dreams. About him.

She felt her humiliation keenly, down to her toes, and she wanted to close her eyes so she would not have to see the look in his, the action of a coward, so instead she picked up her skirt in her free hand and took a couple of steps.

But he did not move.

She got barely two feet away when he jerked her back. She stumbled. His arm shot around her waist, catching her and pulling her against his chest.

A moment later she was staring up at him, her palms against his chest, her feet off the ground. Again.

He leaned his mouth toward her ear. “Ah, sweet Sofia . . . we must stop meeting like this.”

She jerked her head back and away from him. His breath and voice were still chilling her ear and she could not think clearly. “Then stop pulling me around. I am not a handcart!” She tried to wiggle free, but he was too strong. “Put me down, now.”

He did put her down, but her toes barely touched the ground before he was moving again, walking so fast with her plastered against his side that for every other step her feet did not touch anything but air. He was half carrying her along with him. She wished to heaven that she were a foot a taller and a few stone heavier.

Through gritted teeth she said, “Stop this! Put . . . me . . . down!”

He glanced down at her with feigned worry. Just a glance. “I would not want you to fall on your face. It is such a famously beautiful face. You might break your lovely little nose.” Then he stared straight ahead with a determined look. “Imagine that, Sweet Sofia. No suitors groveling at your feet. What would you do for amusement?”

“I demand that you put me down.”

He ignored her and walked even more swiftly.

“Do as I say, sir, or I shall scream so loud the castle walls will crack.”

“Try it and you’ll find my hand.” He looked down at her. “Or better yet, my mouth over yours. Do not forget that you still owe me those three kisses. We could always start here.”

“I still say you cheated. Now let me go!” Before she could struggle free, before she could jab a bony elbow into his belly or figure out how to twist so she could kick his shin or some other equally painful place, he turned into an archway that led into one of the guard rooms in the tower near the outside wall.

“Where are you going?” She looked off toward the direction of the lists. The opposite direction. “The races are that way!”

He shifted her under his hard arm so she could not move her body, only pedal her feet uselessly, then he shoved open a door and went inside with her hanging on his hip like a sack of oats.

The air inside was cooler, dark and dank, and a steep and narrow stone stairway led up to the outside crenels of the guard tower. She had no place to run.

He kicked the door shut; it closed with a dull thud, like a warrior dropping from battle or a jouster falling from his mount. It was the sound of defeat.

He set her on her feet and released her so suddenly she had to slap a hand on the stone wall to keep her balance. She shoved the tangled hair out of her face with her free hand and glared at up him.

Her look had no apparent effect on him.

They stood there, staring at each other, locked in a new kind of battle that was not unlike the staring contest they’d had across the lists.

Then he advanced, took a step toward her.

She retreated, just one small step. Her back hit the stone wall, her palms flat against it, pinned there. Suddenly cornered, she raised her chin because she had to look up at him to keep eye contact, to let him think she was not the least bit intimidated.

He planted his hands against the wall, on either side of her shoulders.

He was so close her traitorous breath caught. He leaned forward until he was but a few inches from her face, close enough that she could feel his warm breath when he said harshly, “Enough games.”

She gave him as unyielding a look as he was giving her. Silence stretched out between them, taut as bowstring. Soon her own breath came a little faster, and it was shorter, as if someone were stealing the air she breathed.

She should have ducked down under his arms, grabbed her skirts and run as fast as she could. She knew that, the thought was clear in her head.
Do it
!

But her feet and arms would not obey her mind. She did not move.

Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.

Tension spun its threads around them, then something else, something she could not name washed over her, kind of an excitement that was there in both her breath and her blood, a realization, and as the silence stretched onward, something else happened. Something changed. Whatever this thing was between them began to rise higher and higher, like the crescendo at the end of a madrigal, the climax to the tale being sung, the same tense moment when all in the room were on the edge of their seats, not breathing, but waiting.

They were as taut as if someone were twisting them together, forcing them closer and closer. Tighter and tighter. There was almost a sound or feel to what was between them, and it sped like fire through her, made the air between them thrum and sing in her ears, then stole her breath clean away.

It even drowned out the distant sounds of the crowd cheering on the races. It was making everything melt away like small drops of water under a hot, summer sun. The way there is suddenly nothing, just the heat beating down on you.

That was what this feeling was like. That was what she could not control. The outside world had withered away and there were only the two of them, standing in this dark niche and looking at each other as if they were trapped inside a cocoon of sudden, pounding desire.

She saw the same passion, or something like it, flicker in his eyes, and thought this must be the way of lovers, this thing that clouded her mind and her sense. He felt it, too. And she understood something of love then, of how when you looked at each other, it was as if you were looking into the same reflection. The same need. The same desire. They burned together, he and she.

She knew then and there that she would remember this moment forever, the way you remembered all the important moments that made up your life. This was love, pure and true. A grand desire and passion, things she thought she would never feel. But she felt them now, almost as if she were born with the feelings deep inside of her, where they had been waiting for him alone.

She would not run away. Not that it mattered much, for she could not have done so had she wanted to. Where she gathered the courage to do what she did next would amaze her for years to come.

But then pride was nothing compared to what she was feeling inside of her, between them, around them. Pride did not rush through your blood. Pride did not lift your heart and steal your breath. Oh-God-in-heaven-above but pride did not look like this man.

She was the first to move. She grabbed his head and pulled it down to her mouth, kissing him hard with her lips compressed and her mouth tightly closed.

And she tried to fool herself, to lie and think she was the one who started this, and she would be the one to end it

I shall give you your kiss. Your forfeit. I shall give it to you now, but on my terms. I will be the one in control.

Chapter 5

He knew the moment she lost control. It was in the way she kissed him. She thought it was her idea. It was not.

That single, tight-lipped kiss, the one she thought was paying her debt, changed the instant he ran his tongue slowly along the line of her lips. She opened her mouth and made a small, odd sound, as if all the secrets she had been keeping had just escaped.

She had no knowledge of this kind of desire. He knew that. While only three years older than she, he was years older in experience. But that was not what bothered him for that single moment in time, no longer than it took to stroke her mouth. What bothered him was something different, a strange, niggling feeling that he was losing something in this game he played. He could not name what it was, but he felt as if something were slipping away from him. Warriors were trained to respect their instinct as well as their knowledge and skill. This was pure instinct.

But he ignored it, because he could not define it. Whatever it was, it did not matter to him. It was likely a product of too many tankards of ale and too little sleep the night before.

He moved his hands from the wall and slid them under her, grasping her bottom in his hands and lifting her higher, before he slid one hand up to hold the back of her head, to keep her mouth where he wanted it, to keep in control. His tongue went deep inside her mouth, tasting those sweet secrets she spilled, and he knew the moment she was lost.