by Sue Wilson
How little reassurance was Mildthryth's promise-"'Tis the fashion, lamb, and you with the form to wear it"-or the overtunic, sheer silvered white like pale moonlight, cut deeper still.
Thea tried to rein in her dismay as Mildthryth wound silver cord through thick plaits and covered her head with a translucent wisp of a veil held in place by a silver circlet across her forehead. The woman hummed, of all things, while she-she was being offered up as the beast Nottingham's main course!
Of course, she told herself, the Sheriff did not want her, only some image of her, vague and obscure, coifed and perfumed, no doubt speaking conversationally in French while they shared dinner of glazed swan and whispering whatever gutter language he preferred into his ear as she arched beneath him in his bed. What he would get-
Thea's heart stopped, and all thought with it, for she did not recognize her own reflection in the shiny metal plate held up for her. The vision, the Sheriff's imagined fantasy, stared back at her.
She nearly broke from the armed guards who came to escort her. The serpentine tunnels left her claustrophobic, and the chaos of soldiers coming and going, of unleashed hounds underfoot, of all manner of people going about the business of maintaining Nottingham's fortress, made her feel superfluous. What was the title of surgeon, of castle physician, but a ruse? She was not here for her herbal knowledge, but for the Sheriff's gratification. The cluster of household girls with their shared, knowing looks confirmed her every suspicion.
Thea stood outside his door, and the guards stepped aside. The lance-bearing soldier standing sentry announced her presence.
"My Lord Sheriff, your surgeon has arrived."
Thea wiped her hands along the length of her thighs and drew a deep breath. She would need to prove the castle talebearers, Aelwynn, and the Lord High Sheriff himself wrong. It promised to be a formidable task.
A single word response resonated from within the chamber. "Come."
The soldier pushed the oaken door open on silent hinges and raised his lance to permit her entry. Alarm pricked her skin with apprehension.
The room within was dark. Dancing circles of candlelight and the darker, scarlet blaze from the hearth threw a dizzying display of fiery color into the blackness. Thea stepped inside, waiting to be swallowed up by the hellish depths.
She tried to remember the precise arrangement of the furniture, for she could see nothing but candles and flames and slender spirals of smoke that wafted upward. The darkness had obscured everything familiar to her save the faint odor of the strange, smoldering spice he burned. That she remembered.
And him. Suddenly him.
She remembered the closeness of him, hidden fragility and outward strength coexisting, how his touch made her heart race, her blood run thick and hot, as it did now on memory alone. Why remember that when there was so much else, so much evil with which to purge that transient pleasure from her mind?
She took a step backward, every fiber of her being screaming to flee, and reached blindly for the door, when he stepped out of the shadows.
"Close the door," he said, his voice a low and melodious drone.
She felt the solid oak beneath her fingertips, and curled her hand around the thick plank of the door's edge. She could run, maybe put enough distance between them before he would reach out to grab her, maybe even make it past the armed guard and into the hall before he called for his troops. She should try, at least, make some show of resistance, let him know that his power ended with what he could force her to do.
In the moment she hesitated, he closed the distance between them, his steps the fluid motion of a stalking cat, careful, intentional, the very grace and slowness cleverly disguising intent. He stood only a hand's breadth away, looking down at her without expression, unhurriedly gathering in the sight and presence of her. Then he raised his hand above her head and sent the door shuddering into its timbered frame.
Thea heard the iron latch fall into place.
It was a long moment before she could raise her gaze to his, and when she did, she was not prepared for what she saw. Wounded, bloody, and covered with the grime of his brief forest battle; feverish, delirium compelling him to grope for her comfort; standing, ashen-faced and grim in the great hall-that was how she remembered him, the substance of all the fleeting images that had crossed her mind in the days since he had dismissed her.
For a moment, she stood transfixed, unable to move or breathe. Her mind raced to reconcile the differences, and could not. She had but one cogent thought: that the man she had tended in her cottage and even here, in this very room, was an impostor. The man of villagers' tales, the dragon lord of this castle, the powerful tyrant who had earned a reputation for swift, brutal action, the true Sheriff of Nottingham was this dark demon.
He stood head and shoulders above her, his bearing erect and elegant, with the careless insolence of one sure of himself and his position. The long, narrow face had been shaved along the angled planes of his cheeks so that all that remained of his beard was a carefully sculpted swath of blue-black edging his jaw and chin, and the sweep of mustache above the bow of his lip.
For days, she had gazed upon this face, mopped the high forehead, and looked only for telltale marks of lucidity or fevered madness. No slackness of feature betrayed him now. His dark eyes regarded her with a fierce and knowing intensity, and the air about him vibrated with unseen energy that lay coiled at his command.
He did not speak or move, but held her in a hypnotic trance that chased away all thought and anointed her with a warm weakness that spread through her limbs. She felt far too aware of him, of herself, of the unseen current weaving between them, and with a start of panic, she knew she must resist the current, or be pulled under.
She fought the sensation with sheer will, forcing her lungs to take in air, forcing herself to regard him with a fire of her own. To her surprise, she discovered that his eyes were not the devil's black at all, but darkest gray, the color of unpredictable thunderclouds or ice frozen over winter rivers.
"Come," he said again, holding out his hand to her. His black cloak rustled away from his arms in a silken hiss. Underneath, he wore a knee-length tunic, carelessly belted, the garment a weave of metallic threads through dark linen that shimmered in the candlelight like streaks of gold in black ink.
Thea had never encountered such cruel and brutal beauty. She laid her hand in his, and every memory she'd driven away rushed back to her at his touch. This was the man who had forced her from her home, yet the same man who held her safely in his arms as they rode through the gates of Nottingham Castle, the man who had kissed her hand with such bold tenderness, but had banished her to an inhuman fate in the most miserable of conditions. Prevented from leaving him, she had been left cold and hungry one day, showered with extravagances the next.
She could not reconcile these differences any more than she could the change in the Sheriff's appearance. She could only think that the conflict was purposeful, a contradiction designed to torment her with confusion and uncertainty.
His hand closed over hers as he drew her nearer. Suddenly, Thea was not at all sure that whatever faculties had enabled her to deal with the Sheriff as a weak and wounded man would be sufficient to carry her through an evening with him returned to full health.
"A fortnight," he murmured. The breath of the word was both curse and exaltation, as warm against the backs of her fingers as his lips, which followed, and lingered. "We parted in less than congenial fashion," he said softly, not letting go of her hand.
It was no apology, but certainly as close as he would ever come to one. She lifted her gaze to his, wary, wanting to believe in his sincerity, but not believing, wanting him to draw her closer, until she could feel his silk-clad arms around her, and needing desperately to be gone from him and this place. He had infected her with conflict of her own, a strange, complicated dichotomy of mind that left her unable to move or speak lest she betray herself.
She shivered, and quickly fled the piercing slate-gray stare with w
hich he held her. There were a thousand ways she could betray herself. Somehow she was certain the Sheriff of Nottingham knew them all.
Too late, she saw her silence had tried Nottingham's demeanor of charm. A puzzled frown wrinkled his brow. Abruptly, he dropped her hand and turned away, walking from the light of the candles toward the darker edge of the room.
"I am well, thank you," he said when it became clear she would not inquire after his health. His voice rang out from the shadows, followed by another silent interval. He spun around and looked at her quizzically, black brows slanting low over storm-ridden eyes. "I gave my men explicit instructions not to remove your tongue, woman, no matter how it plagued them. My orders have not been disobeyed, have they?"
His mocking words washed over her like cold water, restoring her senses. His moods were as fleeting as quicksilver, but invariably he returned to the dry humor that could so easily have been derision-and maybe was. Thea strengthened her resolve to be unaffected by the Sheriff's tactics.
"No, my lord," she replied in a carefully neutral tone.
"That is fortunate. I was concerned. I've never known you to be so long without an opinion."
He walked across the room in long strides, his cloak dragging the rush-strewn floor behind him, and stopped beside the long dining table. Lit candles flickered over an ornately carved goblet, and steam rose from recently sliced venison, piled high upon a single bread trencher.
"My plans were for dinner...and conversation." With an outstretched arm, he gestured to a chair alongside the table. "Will you join me?"
"Have I a choice?"
The words were out before she knew it, and Thea felt a sudden lurch in her stomach. How was it that the few words she did say could have been so ill-advised? Nottingham bristled slightly, as if he had not expected her retort or its vehemence.
Quickly, he erased his reaction with a shrug. "Of course, you have a choice," he said smoothly, assuming an air of indifference to her total lapse of social grace. When Thea did not move toward the chair, the Sheriff lowered his arm to his side.
"Have I abused you in some way, Thea? What have I done to warrant such hesitancy, such suspicion from you? Have I not provided for your every need, for the very clothes you wear, which, I might add, are a considerable improvement over your previous attire? That veil will have to go, of course. Fashion or not, it is unbecoming, and as I remember, your hair is quite lovely."
Absently, Thea touched the hem of the veil at her shoulder, then quickly withdrew her hand. How adroitly he had asked about her grievances, then in the next breath shifted the conversation to a personal topic she had no wish to pursue. Nottingham possessed the devil's own knack for deception.
How dare he ask with such guile the nature of the wrongs she'd suffered at his hands! The man's memory had not been lost to the fever; he certainly remembered her uncovered hair well enough! She lifted her chin and looked him squarely in the eye.
"I gave you aid when you needed it, and you repaid my charity by keeping me here. I'm innocent of wrongdoing, yet you prevent me from returning to my home and restrict my movement here in the castle as if I were suspect of the most hideous crime. For all your twisted purposes, Lord Sheriff, whatever they may be, you have detained me in nothing more than a prison cell-"
"Spoken like someone who's had no occasion to see the gaol." His soft murmur cut dangerously into her defiant speech.
"I am here against my will," she said more forcefully, "your prisoner."
"That is somewhat dramatic, don't you think? I have removed your from a wretched life in utterly wretched conditions."
"I prefer my wretched life!"
"I prefer you here."
His voice sliced through her, treacherously soft, and with an edge of insistence she could not ignore.
"Your...incarceration has left you somewhat brittle of temperament, Thea. I remember a kinder, more agreeable woman-someone who was not averse to sitting on my bed with dinner spread between us, someone not opposed to entertaining me with lively banter and favoring me with an occasional smile."
Thea's cheeks burned. She, too, recalled those days, and with too warm, too unsteady a response than she could ever permit the Sheriff to know. "I was kinder and more agreeable when I thought I'd be returning home after you were healed," she said, eyes downcast.
"Ah, I see. The kindness and gentle feelings you displayed were because you were soon to be rid of me-"
"There were no 'gentle feelings,'" she demurred.
"-And now I have earned your wrath because I long to have you at my side."
She opened her mouth to protest his mockery of her, when he held up his hand to prevent her from speaking.
"Don't apologize for an honest sentiment, Thea. It isn't the first time a woman's affections have waxed or waned depending on how quickly she believed she could quit this chamber. It's a response with which I'm altogether too familiar."
With a sigh of feigned despair, he dismissed the rare disclosure as if it were of only minimal importance. "On the other hand, it is only dinner." He touched the back of the chair. "Can I not offer you food and drink and the dubious pleasure of my company for the evening? Perhaps as a small token of...apology for having been so taken with you that I have kept you chained to the castle walls these last weeks. Perhaps as a respite from your work."
"My work?" she asked, incredulous. "Were I less readily deceived, I would say all the inhabitants of Nottingham Castle are of robust health, my lord. Not once have I been summoned, nor has anyone come to my door seeking help."
"You are being argumentative."
"I am being truthful. One would think you intend to keep me all to yourself."
The Sheriff cleared his throat. "A tempting idea. But, no. I merely intended to have dinner...in more private surroundings than the great hall and with a less contentious woman. Now, will...you...sit?" He meted out each word with precise firmness, then hastened to add, "Your choice, of course."
She stole a sideways glance at him, a host of reasons why she should not share his meal coming to her mind, then considered the table and the food laid out on it. The aroma of venison called attention to the hollow feeling in her stomach. If only his sole purpose were dinner. Guardedly, she moved toward the chair he held out for her.
"Surely not the king's deer, my lord," she whispered to him over her shoulder as she took her seat.
"Lovely gown," he returned, ignoring her softly sarcastic barb. "I thought I remembered the color darker...and bluer."
She did not need to meet his eyes to know they were on her, absorbing her show of defiance at once with the slender curves her peasant garb had hidden. She was suddenly very aware of the way the kirtle fit snug to her, like second skin, skimming over breasts and ribs and reed-thin waist to the girdle of silver links slung low over her hips. Compared with her loose, nubby-textured tunics, this dress seemed too tight, too constricting, and though it covered her more fully, too revealing.
It was not made with her comfort in mind, she realized, but his. Somehow, in wearing it, she felt she had compromised herself.
"It is not very practical," she said, trying to salvage some of her pride.
He laid his hand across her shoulder, his touch warm, solid, and disturbing. Long, lean fingers toyed absently with the delicate trim along the exposed edging of her shift. "Must one be practical when enjoying dinner?"
Thea reached up, covered his hand with hers, and laced her fingers through his to stay their movement. Deliberately, she glanced back at him, met the slow-burning fire in his dark eyes, and lifted his hand from the slight swell of her breast. "No, my lord. Merely prudent."
He permitted her rebuff with seeming nonchalance, as if it were but a small, expected part of the sport. A half-smile lighting his lips, he took a flagon of wine from the sideboard, poured the fruity red liquid into the goblet, and extended it to her.
Thea studied the cup for a moment, then glanced uneasily at the table for a second goblet. There was none, nor
was there a companion to the single platter of meat. "Is there naught for you, Sheriff?"
He grinned, white teeth parting black beard, full lips giving in to a smile of rare delight. "While it would be enough to feast upon the sight of you, it is customary in noble houses, at formal dinners, for man and woman to share cup and trencher. I assured the cook this was plenty for two, unless you possess a voracious appetite-" his voice trailed off as he slid into the chair at the end of the table, to Thea's right, and placed the flask of wine between them, "-or object to drinking after your gaoler." He offered the goblet again.
Thea had a great many objections, far too numerous and discourteous to voice aloud. What ill-devised intimacy was this, and which devious, barbaric mind had spawned it? She looked at the Sheriff with due skepticism.
Nottingham waited another moment, and when Thea did not answer or avail herself of the cup, he drew a deep breath. "Very well. We will dispense with custom. Doubtless, you would be just as offended to learn that custom dictates that I offer you the best cuts of this venison-quite legally procured, I assure you-that, in fact, I serve you and feed you bites of meat and bread if you wish."
"I don't wish," she said pointedly. "I am not helpless."
"I would never be so foolish as to suggest you were. You have an armory of unusual weapons at your disposal, not the least of which is a certain bravado you brandish when caution would serve you better."
He speared a slice of venison with his dagger.
"That intrigues me, Thea, I must confess," he continued, eating the slice of meat with obvious relish. "You are never what I expect."
He leaned forward, elbows braced on the table, dagger dangling carelessly between his fingers. When he spoke, it was in a lowered tone, as if he were betraying some confidence. "Now there is a certain danger in that."
"My lord?"
"After all, I have made you one of my personal staff, made you responsible for my well-being, and it occurs to me, as it must, that I may have been foolhardy."
Thea forced herself to look directly at the Sheriff, but his face revealed nothing more than smooth and practiced dissembling-a man making dinner conversation around suspicions he had not altogether quieted. Her lips curved up slightly, and she forced a lightness she did not feel. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, my lord. If I have not proved myself, you are free to release me whenever you wish."
