“So that is what my enemies are claiming these days.” Sebastian dribbled oil onto the straps of the plate and started to work it in. Following the smooth, sure movements of his long, strong hands, Melissa wished she could be a leather strap or a bit of horse harness, under his hands and tended so thoroughly.
“I do not have to justify anything to you, Mistress Felix,” he added, long after she had stopped expecting him to respond.
It was a chance, a slim one, to repair her mistake. “You do not,” she agreed, the breath tight in her chest, the nerves fluttering in her belly as she inched her answer forward. “But since I am…with you in this tower, I would like to understand you more, and the other way about. For respect.”
“I understand you are as prejudiced as your parents.”
“And you are not? I am trying here. Can you not try?” Clenching her teeth after the reckless outburst, Melissa took a deep breath. On the edge of her sight she saw a woman on a crutch hobbling through the open doors, carrying a spindle. Behind her was a cook missing three fingers on his right hand, swinging a battered iron cooking pot. A tiny child of indeterminate sex, clad in the blue-gray robes of a leper—faded robes, a sign the disease had burned out and was gone—waddled inside with an armful of snow.
“You cannot make snow beasts here,” Sebastian said, pointing to the door. “Out, before that melts.”
The child giggled and turned about.
“What do you see?” Sebastian broke into Melissa’s thoughts. He leaned slightly against her shoulder, in a curious mirroring of Robert and Henry. Tingling sparks ran down her arms at their contact. “Do you understand what you see?” he repeated.
“I am not sure.” Dry-mouthed, Melissa wet her lips. “A haven, perhaps?”
“Indeed.”
Is he smiling? He sounds as if he is. The tension across her back unknotched itself a little.
“This tower is a place of safety for those whom the wider world would grant none. Very good. So you are learning. And to answer your earlier, impudent question, I make a study of creatures, the way the bones and sinews and muscles are fashioned together. For that I use their bodies. But I never disturb the dead, nor their resting places.”
The breastplate was cloudy with their breaths. Melissa could no longer see Sebastian. Raising her head she found deep blue eyes regarding her closely. I may be mad but I must know. “Are you a necromancer?”
A warm thumb brushed her fringe. “A little book learning does not make me a demon, Melissa. I am an alchemist, no more, no less.”
Somehow she doubted that, but she was learning and she said nothing.
The cooking pot the three-fingered cook had left needed to be scrubbed, hammered out and oiled. To Melissa’s astonishment Sebastian himself scoured and repaired the black pot, casually completing these menial tasks whilst also listening to a report from one of his men, a rider from his clothes, and replying as to how many cavalry should patrol the eastern border.
The rider saluted then vanished out into the snow and Sebastian twisted round on the bench.
“I must look to my herbs and Artos needs a run. Do you wish to stay here or go with me?”
Pleased to be given a choice, Melissa said at once, “Go with you,” and smiled at the gratifying look of astonishment that flickered briefly across her companion’s face.
Living with him, being with him is not so bad, she acknowledged, as Sebastian took her hand again and drew her to her feet. But tonight…what will happen tonight?
Chapter 3
The rest of the day was a blur to Sebastian, however much he tried to concentrate. In his mind, over and over, he saw Melissa smile at him when she asked to go with him. She had really asked for his company.
She had helped, too, without complaint, sweeping paths while he gathered rosemary, thyme, marigold and sage from a section of the tower’s kitchen garden that was not covered in drifts of snow. She cheerfully and nimbly ran up and down the tower steps for him, carrying baskets of dried and fresh herbs to the upper still room where Robert’s mother—who had been cast out by Robert’s father when her husband brought a younger mistress to his hall—made her fine cordials. Melissa ground spices as he directed, watching with nothing but interest as he and his blind steward tested and sniffed the fortified wines in the buttery on the same floor, sometimes adding more ginger, nutmeg, all-spice or pepper, sometimes the rare, costly sugar. Later she had taken turn to stir with him while be brewed a pain-killer from willow bark in his small, stone-clad alchemical workshop.
She does not demand attention and adoration as Rosemond always did. On the heels of that realization came another, more important one. It came when he was adding cinnabar to a crucible in a new assay, or alchemical test. The crucible, heated over a brazier, suddenly shattered with a loud crack, spraying sparks over the floor and glassware.
Sebastian yanked Melissa behind him, in case the whole mix exploded—or he would have done had the girl not also been attempting to haul him backwards. “No!” she was shouting, as they finished in a maze of limbs, both mercifully unhurt, save for possible cuts and bruises.
“Foolish Felix.” Feeling her tremble against him, he picked her up and carried her outside. Holding her until she had stopped shivering, he set her down again and studied her for any injuries in the bright, late afternoon sun. “All right now?”
She nodded and he stared some more. With her warm brown eyes and wonderful riot of sugar-cone colored hair, her pink little mouth half-open as she gasped back her breath, Melissa looked delectable, adorably mussed. She smelled of bluebells, spices and smoke, a potent mix.
He chuckled. “You have soot in your fringe and a smut on your nose.” He wanted to lick it off.
“You are unharmed, sir?” Melissa was patting his shoulder, then his arms, as if he might burst into flame—keep doing that and I might, my girl, but not in the way you are expecting—until her mind caught up with her busy fingers. Understanding what he had just told her, she brushed her nose and cheek and laughed, a look of mischief lighting her whole face. “You have a cobweb on your ear, just there.”
He allowed her to tease the web from his hair, savoring the stretch of her limber body against his. Her courage throughout could have been her father’s, but Baldwin would never have stirred to save Sebastian, nor would Baldwin have laughed at himself.
She is very different from her wretched parents.
That evening, and for several more evenings, two weeks of evenings in fact, Sebastian escorted Melissa up to his chamber in the tower and left her to take supper and sleep there under the guard of Robert and Artos. It was time for him to patrol the eastern borders of his land with his men, a responsibility he took seriously, however distracting his prize was proving to be. Days were another matter, entirely more pleasing. Days meant the tower, and Melissa, spending time with her, learning about Melissa.
He learned she loved music, loved gardens, loved poetry, loved books, although no one had troubled to teach her to read. I will do that. Sebastian was already looking forward to doing so. He learned, with a sadness he would not have thought possible before he had known her, that Melissa was starved of human contact, of the simplest forms of affection. Any gentle touch she leaned into, with a tiny sigh. Any sudden movement near to her and she flinched, as if expecting a blow. What had her filthy relatives done to her? Sebastian was determined to find out.
“It was more than neglect at your aunt and uncle’s, was it not?” he said that night, reading petitions and reports at his table while Melissa curled with Artos on the rug by the fire. Sebastian sensed that the girl and wolf had beguiled each other long since, achieving a sleepy relaxation together he almost envied. I will not be jealous of my pet. But to have his prize as his pet—delicious, whispered his dark, possessive side, his fingers tightening on his pen.
Melissa flinched when the quill pen snapped, but shook her head.
“Tell me,” he commanded, taking a knife from his belt to sharpen another quill.
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Defiant, her mouth as lush as raspberries, as strawberries, Melissa rolled gracefully to her feet and approached the table. “Will you have wine, sir?”
“Thank you, yes.”
She poured him a cup, not slow, not fast, her arm and wrist in a pale arc like the new moon. The flames silhouetted her dainty form and her hair tumbled across her narrow back, smooth and warm as new honey. He need only stretch out a little to wind a strand around his fist and tug, draw her closer. Stop. She is distracting you. Was that deliberate? If it is, she is not flirting, merely trying to divert from a subject which clearly makes her uneasy.
“Tell me,” he said again. “Please.”
She sighed, her eyes skittering away from his to the bed in the corner. Her hands were clenching in her new robe and she looked young, uncertain. Of course it will be our first night together again for many days.
Unfathomably, even to himself, he sought to reassure her. “The pillow will go between us tonight,” he remarked, wondering, even as he spoke, why he indulged this. He told himself it was because she was a virgin, that she was the age he had been when he had lost his virginity, and he wanted her first time to be better than his had been. It was not because she looked frightened.
The fire crackled behind her as she handed him the cup.
“I will tell you,” she said quietly, “If you will tell me why you hate my parents.”
Sebastian took a sip of wine, lay down his pen, and rubbed his stubble with the rim of the cup. Even shaving daily, by evening he had a blue haze on his cheeks and chin. Rosemond mocked me for that, too. “Hate is too strong. ‘Loathed’ might be better.”
Melissa’s eyebrows, delicately shaped as a feather, trembled in surprise or amusement. “There is a difference, sir?”
“Hatred can be clean and compelling. Loathing is more visceral.”
She nodded. “One of the head, the other of the belly.”
What did an eighteen-year-old know of such distinctions? “Your aunt and uncle?” he prompted. “Which were they?”
A shadow seeped into Melissa’s delicate features and remained. She rubbed her lips with her thumb, a nervous gesture he had spotted from her on her first night with him but one he had not seen since until tonight. She stared at the fire, at Artos, at the cup, at his hand.
Sebastian ignored the petition he was trying to read and pushed his chair back from the table. “Fetch me the footstool from under the bed.”
The darkness in her face became simple bewilderment, then she looked cunning, or the nearest approximation to suave and opaque that Melissa had in her wide range of expressions, being naturally open and sanguine. Scrambling up, she asked breathlessly, “If I talk, sir, will you? Knowledge for knowledge.”
The wench seeks a bargain with me. “Perhaps.” Quelling the amused twitch in his mouth, Sebastian waved her toward the bed. He enjoyed her pretty pink blush and the nimble way she retrieved the footstool from beneath his side of the bed. He savored her lurching forward, as if drawn by an invisible cord, and then stopping.
“Here.” He pointed at his feet.
To his astonishment she sped across the chamber, planted the footstool a finger breadth from his right leg, and sat down without prompting, leaning her back against his chair. He felt her breath ghosting along his thigh and down his calf, a soft warmth.
Sebastian softly put down the cup. Should he order her back to the rug to rejoin Artos? Should he tell her the footstool was, well, after all, a footstool and for him?
He stroked her gleaming hair. She nuzzled closer to his leg. Starved for contact, even simple affection. “Tell me.” He ran his fingers through her hair again, tracing her scalp with his nails. “Did they beat you?”
He felt her give a slight nod.
“Often?”
Another nod.
“And they denied you food?”
Her breath ghosted along his thigh a second time, almost a caress. “I ate scraps. I slept in corners. Unless sent for, I was not to be seen.”
She took a deep breath. “They never wanted me, my aunt and uncle. I am no warrior, no blonde beauty, just a useless girl, another mouth to feed.”
Sebastian continued to slowly stroke and finger-comb the ropes of Melissa’s shining hair, allowing the whisper of the fire and Artos’s sleepy growl to add to her comfort.
“My aunt and uncle make a handsome couple, fair and bright, tall and well made.”
Like Baldwin and Rosemond.
“I am, I was, a changeling to them. Small. Unlucky.” Melissa sighed, sitting on the stool with her chin resting on her knees. “So, not hated, nor loathed, sir. Despised.”
The wind moaned outside the tower and a chill rustled through his chest at that bleak statement.
“Have you always lived with them?” he asked gently.
She shook her head, twisting and looking up, her soft eyes solemn. “I will answer that, sir, when you tell me why you loathe mine…me.”
Not you, my bright jewel, never you. Suddenly it was not enough to have her huddled by his feet, basking in his warmth and offering her own.
“Up with you.” He scooped her into his arms and cradled her onto his lap. “I do not share this with people I loathe. Rest your head against me.”
She was as stiff as an iron mace but swiftly transmogrifying, flowing into the crook of his arm, leaning, her lips brushing his tunic as she inhaled his scent. Her closed eyelids trembled and her hand, first a fist, flattened onto his chest.
They both sighed, breathing together, and sat for a space in perfect quiet.
Melissa dozed. She dreamed she was supported on a swing, swaying gently to and fro to the drum of a slow, beating heart. Rose petals brushed her forehead and chin, and a firm mat of pine needles cushioned her.
A square hand, bigger, stronger, more callused than her own, stroked her flanks. The tender caress drummed beneath her eyelids, flared and heated her sides and arms and stomach. Content, she almost growled like Artos.
“Good. We may speak to each other without the distraction of sight.”
The deep voice hummed through her like a yawn, seducing her limbs into languid relaxation. She felt asleep and awake both at once. “Did you kiss my forehead?” she murmured. “I dreamed of rose petals on my face.”
Opening her heavy eyelids, Melissa had the rare experience of seeing Sebastian surprised. He must have kissed me. His pale, crook-nosed, craggy features were no longer harsh to her. She lifted a hand and traced the grim lines above his mouth, his square, stubbly chin. His eyes, so dark blue as to be almost black, regarded her intently, his habitual impassive, guarded expression in play.
“I am not much to look on, I know,” he said.
Before she could argue with that, he pressed her head back against his chest and continued to stroke her flank. In response her breasts felt fuller and more lush than they ever had and her nipples peaked.
“You have a Roman nose.” Without moving her head from the firm, broad pillow of his chest, she tried to return the touch, to caress in turn. He caught her fingers.
“Baldwin, your father was the first to call me ‘crook-nose.’ The name stuck. He was a squire and I was a page and we both loved Rosemond.”
Her mother’s name inspired no pain or memories in Melissa. Rosemond remained as distant and still to her as a beautiful embroidery. Hearing the slight drag and deepening in her captor’s voice, she braced herself. My mother hurt this man. Shame welled in her and she was glad of the steady, firm stroke of his warm, large hand. Let me ease him somehow. All she could do now was listen. “Go on.”
“Rosemond was charming, beguiling as only a blonde can be. Like you, I delivered messages, written notes, posies, tokens. Mine were between Baldwin and Rosemond. I was thrilled to serve your mother and all for a kiss, a chaste peck of my mouth onto her hand.”
Melissa pressed her lips to the taut expanse of muscle and flesh she rested against, breathing in Sebastian’s musky cent of sweat, pine and spices.
&n
bsp; “She called me her original. She promised we would always be friends. I was flattered, touched even. Baldwin taunted me mercilessly whenever I was not delivering notes or whatever, but to me that truly did not matter. I was aiding your mother.” The strong fingers gliding down her ribs and circling in slow, soothing spirals across her middle stopped. “I believed she appreciated me, liked me even. Of course, I was sadly mistaken and her promises were worthless.”
Listening, scarcely breathing, Melissa forced herself not to tense. Artos, too, had sensed the change in his master, and padded across from the fire. She waved a warning foot and the wolf trotted to guard the doorway instead. “What happened?” she whispered.
“Your mother knew that I…cared for her. I was twelve, much too young, of course, but I had dreams. Sometimes I even imagined she would wait for me to grow up. She was eighteen. Now I can understand how young she was but then, as a lanky, big-jointed lad, caught between youth and manhood, she seemed a queen.”
“You were her most loyal subject.” Melissa closed her eyes. “You do not have to say any more,” she began, imagining that solemn, young, devoted page, ardently hastening to do Rosemond’s bidding. “She should have respected your feelings.”
“She was only eighteen.”
“She was my age!” Melissa exclaimed fiercely. “She should have known and done better!”
Fine black hair tickled her flushed cheeks, and a pair of hooded blue eyes bent down to her as Sebastian glowered. “I believe you have already said something similar already, Mistress Felix. You threaten to grow tiresome.”
“Tiresome then, but still true,” Melissa shot back. “And your glaring will not make me change my opinion,” she added, even as her heart rattled in her chest like a stone in a loose shoe.
Sebastian gave a bark of laughter. “You do not even know what she did.”
Sebastian the Alchemist and His Captive [Medieval Captives 1] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 3
