by Grace Draven
Her revelation rocked him. She hadn’t said it outright, but he’d be a brainless idiot not to understand what she implied. Robbed of words, he could only gape at her. She offered an apologetic shrug. “I didn’t mean to tease. The moment took me, made me foolish. I beg your forgiveness.”
Somehow she’d knocked him off his mooring and sent him flying off a precipice. Her apology only made him tumble faster. “That’s twice you’ve apologized for touching me. Why?”
Her cheeks went scarlet. “I don’t know. There’s something about you.” She spread her hands in a puzzled gesture. “Captivating yet forbidden. I feel as if I’m corrupting an anchorite but can’t help myself.”
His jaw dropped. An anchorite? Before his enforced ascetic existence, he’d lived the life of a typical warlord. Fighting, whoring and scheming for more land, more wealth, more power. The idea that she perceived him as some hermetic pilgrim in search of greater faith through deprivation was almost insulting. He scowled at her. “Woman, I’ve waded through blood up to my ankles on battlefields and tupped whores at the king’s court, including the king’s sister. Whatever purity you think I possess doesn’t exist.”
She laughed, a full throaty sound that made Ballard forget his indignation. “And did you find the king’s sister a satisfying bedmate?”
He shrugged. “Her royal blood was her greatest attraction.”
“There’s no hope for me then. I haven’t a drop of royal blood.”
“I could spend days listing those things most attractive about you, Mistress Duenda.”
Louvaen’s grin faded a little. She blinked at him, clearly baffled by his praise. “I’m not Cinnia.”
“No, you’re not.” She was as different from her dazzling sister as night was to day. Ballard found it difficult to look at the younger girl for more than a moment at a time. Beauty such as hers blinded him, like looking directly at the sun. Louvaen though—he could happily drown in the dark Louvaen.
Magda barged in a second time with strop and knife clutched in her hands. She glanced first at Ballard, then at Louvaen. “If you don’t want interruptions, lock the damn door.”
Louvaen took the strop and knife and set to work sharpening the edge. “We were discussing his lordship’s many frolics at court, including a royal sibling.”
“Oh, her.” The housekeeper rolled her eyes as she plucked the rocks out of the basin and dumped the warm water over Ballard’s head. “That woman would frig a stallion if left alone with it too long.” She soaped his hair, tugging through the tangles and scrubbing so hard he thought she might wrench his head from his shoulders.
He flattened one of her hands against his hair. “You evil bat. Quit trying to rip the hair out of my head.”
She thumped him on the top of his head with two fingers and continued with her scrubbing and diatribe. “There wasn’t a squire, stable lad or half-washed peasant safe from her.” She favored Ballard with a cunning look. His narrowed eyes warned her to watch her tongue. “Speaking of stallions, she was much impressed with the size of the dominus’s—”
“Magda.”
“Quiet.” She thumped him again and rinsed his hair with more water. “There aren’t any innocent virgins here to faint over such talk. And I doubt Louvaen ever fainted, even when she was a maiden.”
“Not a habit of mine.” Louvaen laughed as she approached him, light from the hearth making the wide, curved blade she held twinkle. “Of course this is the first time I’ve been privy to gossip about royal bed-hopping and the extra privileges accorded not only to the king but his family as well. My delicate sensibilities might be overwhelmed.”
Ballard eyed the knife, then her. “As long as your delicate hands remain unshaken, I’ll worry about your sensibilities later.”
“I promised I wouldn’t cut your throat.”
“Don’t geld me either.”
Magda lathered his face and neck before abandoning him to Louvaen’s care. She stood behind him and lifted his chin until his throat lay exposed to her mercy. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint the horse-loving princess.” Her hand glided under his soapy jaw while the other balanced the knife between her fingers. Her upper thigh pillowed his head, and he stared into her eyes, the color of ash. “Now hold still and pray.”
He hardly dared breathe for fear she’d slip and bleed him out in the bath. She had steady hands that were deft with the blade, and she held to her promise, shaving over his numerous scars as if his face was unblemished as a young boy’s. Such acknowledgement didn’t comfort him. Then again, there were worse things than dying with your head resting between a beautiful woman’s thighs. She finished sooner than he liked and wiped away the stray ribbons of lather on his cheeks and neck.
“I’ve made you handsome once more.”
Ballard swiped a hand across one cheek, feeling its smoothness. She’d done a fine job, not even the sting of a nick to mar her work. He cocked an eyebrow. “You’d need more than a sharp blade and a good grip for that, mistress. A generous helping of the magic you so despise might help.”
Louvaen frowned. “Methinks it was magic that got you a few of those interesting scars in the first place, yes?” She handed the knife to Magda. “Besides, it sounds like your lusty princess had no complaints.”
“She wasn’t looking at my face.”
Magda snorted. Louvaen wagged a finger at Ballard. “I was wrong. You would have made a terrible anchorite.”
He watched as she shrugged her frock over the damp shift and laced her bodice, wishing she’d do the reverse and allow him to help. She bowed to him. “Unless Magda needs me...” The other woman shook her head. “I’ll see you at supper.” She was gone before he could protest.
Magda stood next to the tub, gaze flitting from the door to him and back to the door. She finally snapped loose a drying towel and gestured for him to stand. “It’s a sad world when the only man doing the swiving in this castle is rickety Ambrose. You and your boy are lucky you can get your breeches on these days much less walk straight.
“Be quiet, old woman. I’ve had enough torment today, and the flux isn’t even upon us.”
CHAPTER NINE
He spent the hour before supper alone in the solar. The chamber was a bare place before the sisters’ arrival, furnished with two chairs, a table and a storage chest. The tapestries covering the walls had hung gray with dust and pockmarked with holes left by moths. Now, with the addition of two spinning wheels, a larger table and several stools, it felt almost crowded. The tapestries had been taken down, beaten free of dust and repaired. They hung in their customary places, as colorful as when his mother and her women first stitched them.
In one of their conversations Louvaen admitted she had little patience for needlework. “I sew because I must.” She’d gazed at the tapestries and winced. “Such intricate embroidery is for those with a love of needle and thread.” Ballard smiled and picked up one of the twisted hanks of linen yarn from her basket. The spun thread was softer than silk under his thumb. She might not be much of a seamstress, but she spun magic on her wheel. Even her sister had said as much at supper one evening when Magda harangued Ambrose for stealing Cinnia from her to help him bind a grimoire.
The girl shrugged. “Not my best talent. Louvaen is better and faster than most. Our papa used to say if we gave her straw, she’d spin it into gold.”
Louvaen had given a disbelieving snort. “If only that were true. I’d rule an empire with such a talent.”
“Empress Louvaen,” Ballard murmured and dropped the hank into the basket. “Fitting.”
Everyone was seated at the table in the kitchen when he arrived. Since Louvaen had shortened his claws, he ate when they did, wielding his fork with practiced ease. Cinnia no longer gawked at him before looking away. She’d grown used to his appearance, not that it mattered. She rarely had eyes for anyone except Gavin who studiously ignored Louvaen’s glare when his own admiration of Cinnia grew too heated.
Magda had kept her word to Gavin and
served a roasted cut of the boar basted in honey and herbs. There was silence at the table as everyone dug into their food until Cinnia leaned past her sister to catch Ballard’s attention.
“Dominus, we’d like permission to decorate your hall for Mother’s Evening.”
“We?” Louvaen paused with her fork halfway to her mouth.
Cinnia tilted her nose up. “Yes, we. Gavin and I discussed it.” She smiled at Ballard.
Her sister missed it, but Ballard caught the flash of hurt that flitted through Louvaen’s eyes. He could offer no comfort in this matter. Cinnia was slowly cutting the knots in the lead strings that had tied her to Louvaen for so long. Louvaen would bleed a little and then she’d heal. He’d felt something similar the first time Gavin left Ketach Tor and ventured into the world beyond his protection. “We haven’t celebrated Modrnicht at Ketach Tor in a long time. I don’t see why not.”
Cinnia clapped her hands. “Can we go into the forest tomorrow for evergreen?”
Ballard glanced at Ambrose. “Care to wager on a refusal?”
Ambrose shook his head. “I only wager on successful outcomes. I’m sure to lose this one.” He smirked at Gavin’s spellbound expression. “Boy, pay attention. You’re about to drool on yourself.”
Gavin started, almost overturning his goblet. “Sorry.” He took a swallow of wine before answering Cinnia. “I’ll have to pull the sled out and check if it needs repairs.” He addressed Ballard. “If you don’t have something for me to help with, I’ll take the women to gather branches.”
Ballard shook his head. “You’re free. I’m forging tomorrow.”
“Ooh, are you making a sword?” Cinnia couldn’t have sounded more excited at the prospect than if he announced he was melting down gold for jewelry.
“Nothing so interesting. Gavin is the swordsmith, not I. It’s just a bucket of nails for Magda.”
“Oh.”
Magda pointed her fork at a disappointed Cinnia. “Don’t sound so glum, girl. A bucket of nails is far more useful than a blade. I can’t hammer a sword into a combing board.”
After supper, they met for their usual evening gathering in the solar. Louvaen sat before her wheel to spin the hoard of flax they’d accumulated the past three years. She planned with Cinnia and Gavin for their outing the next day and what they should do for celebrating Modrnicht. Magda made one of her rare appearances in the solar and offered suggestions for what to serve for the meal and give to the goddesses venerated. Ballard sat before the fire, nursing a goblet of wine, content to simply listen to conversation and watch Louvaen at her spinning.
A few times she caught his glance and held it, and he wondered if she thought of that ephemeral moment when she’d kissed the honey from his mouth. He certainly did—in vivid detail—and it was enough to make him shift restlessly in his chair. As the evening waned, his family and guests each said goodnight and departed for their rooms. Louvaen was the last to leave. She paused at the side of his chair, staring at a point behind him.
“I’ve only been a wife, never a leman.”
Ballard reeled at her words. His heart missed several beats before he could inhale enough air to speak. “I’ve only had a wife, never a leman.” He’d considered it. Every lord he knew had kept a mistress somewhere on his demesne, sometimes even within his castle. His father Dwennon had one, a gentle creature named Adela . Ballard’s mother had been fond of her and grieved more than Dwennon did when she died.
Louvaen was not Adela. Neither passive nor sweet-natured, she would clash with any wife until the lord put her aside, or she cowed the poor wife enough to supplant her authority and become lady of the keep in all but name. Ballard hid a smile. Were he still married and suggested she be his concubine, she’d knock his teeth down his throat.
“Are you sincere in your proposition?” She kept her gaze on the far wall.
“Aye.” He captured her hand and kissed the pale skin of her wrist, relishing its suppleness against his mouth. “A poor jest at first, but only a jest for the moment after I uttered it.” His lips fluttered across her palm. “I’ve wanted you since I first saw you.”
Her hand curved over his cheek, fingertips drifting softly through his hair. “I’m still undecided.”
“I await your answer.” He prayed with everything inside him she’d say yes and soon.
“If I say yes, it will only be until winter’s end. I won’t stay even if Cinnia does.”
Ballard refused to dwell on such a thing. He’d allowed this woman into his home for the sole purpose of enjoying her company, prickly as it often was. He’d never expected or even dared hope of having her share his bed. He’d take what she might offer and thank the gods for giving him such a fine a gift before the curse overwhelmed him, and he was irrevocably changed.
He pressed his face into her palm. “I don’t make prisoners of my lovers, Louvaen. I’d have you stay, but you are free to leave when you wish.”
He’d be tempted—oh, dear gods he’d be tempted—to force her to stay, anything to keep her by his side. He’d done it once, using extortion and bribery. It had earned him the everlasting enmity of his wife and a curse that would destroy him and probably his son. He’d learned a hard lesson, one he wouldn’t repeat, especially with Louvaen whom he wanted more fiercely than anything he’d known in centuries.
She stepped away from his chair, hand caressing his chin then clasping his fingers before she gently freed herself from his grasp. “Good night, Ballard. Sleep well.”
He didn’t reply, only stared into the fire until she left. He scrubbed his hands over his face and slumped in his seat. “Good gods, woman. I don’t know what will take me first: the curse or you saying no.”
Despite her farewell words, he spent the rest of the night tossing and turning in his lonely bed, gut churning with both anticipation and dread of her answer. He skipped breakfast the next morning and went straight to the forge in the hopes that hammering away at hot metal would sweat out the lust coursing through him. Magda wanted nails? He’d give her a wagonload of nails by the end of the day.
He was breaking off a nail in the nail header when the creak of the smithy door made him pause. Gavin slipped inside. Ballard raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing here? Finished gathering branches already?”
Gavin shook his head. “Plowfoot came up lame. Stone lodged near his frog. I got it out, but he’s bruised.”
“He’ll need to rest a few days.”
“Aye. He’s in his stall now. I’ll use Sparrow to pull the sled back.”
Ballard looked past Gavin’s shoulder. “Where are the women?”
“By the pond. Cinnia found a clutch of holly she wanted to gather.”
Foreboding tickled the base of Ballard’s spine. “You left them there?”
Gavin shrugged. “They’re safe. We’re still within Ambrose’s barrier. They know not to venture beyond it.”
Ballard abandoned the nail header. “Get Magnus and Sparrow. I’ll meet you in the bailey.”
Gavin sighed. “Father, they’re fine...”
“Just do it, boy.” He turned to bank the coals in the firepot and stripped off his apron and gloves. That tickle of unease was turning into an outright itch. He met Gavin coming out of the stables, leading the two horses. Both had been bridled but not saddled.
“I guessed you wouldn’t want to wait.”
Ballard swung onto Magnus’s bare back and turned him toward the back gate. “Lead on.”
They kept their mounts to a brisk walk, picking their way through leafless brush powdered in snow. Sunlight filtered through bare tree limbs in watery gray bands. The forest hush seemed a living thing, muffling the horses’ gait. Ballard wondered if he’d worried for nothing. Gavin was neither careless nor irresponsible. If he’d left the women by the pond, he’d made certain they were safe. Still...
A high, trilling sound drifted on the cold air. Both horses halted, ears swiveling forward. They heard nothing more for a moment before it came again, and t
his time the sound was unmistakable—Cinnia screaming Gavin’s name.
They tore through the forest, weaving amongst stands of white birch and green firs until they reached a large pond. Cinnia stood on the shore next to the sled, crying out Gavin’s and Louvaen’s name.
“Cinnia, are you hurt?” Gavin raced to her where she fell in his arms sobbing.
Ballard scanned the pond, terror exploding inside him at the sight of a dark head just above a hole in the ice an eternity from the shore. “Gavin, I need rope and Sparrow’s bridle.” He unbridled Magnus, knotting the reins to Sparrow’s. The rope Gavin brought to tie branches to the sled wasn’t long enough to reach Louvaen, and the sled was too heavy to risk falling through the ice. Knotted with the reins, the rope might reach if he crawled to her. Gavin secured the rope’s other end around Magnus’s neck and urged the horse into the shallow edge of the pond. Ice cracked under his hooves, sinking him into the frigid water to his fetlocks. He pranced but stayed in place.
Cinnia’s hiccupping explanation buzzed in Ballard’s ears. “We thought it solid enough and skated across. Louvaen heard the crack first and shoved me toward shore. She sobbed. “Oh dear gods, Gavin. She went under! I thought she’d drowned!”
Gavin patted her back and pushed her gently toward the sled. “We’ll get her, Cinnia. Just stay here for now.” He motioned to Ballard. “Give me the line. I’ll crawl out to her.”
Ballard shook his head. “I’ll do it. I’m lighter than you. When I say so, back Magnus up to pull us across the ice.”
He stepped gingerly atop the pond’s unbroken surface. “Louvaen.” She floated, unresponsive. “Look at me, Louvaen.” He was close enough to see the sleeves of her dress had frozen to the ice, helping her stay afloat.
She raised her head at his command. Newly formed ice frosted her wet hair, and her lips were blue with cold. “Cinnia. Where’s Cinnia?” She stuttered the words through chattering teeth.
“Safe on the shore with Gavin.” Ballard dropped to his belly and crawled to the broken ice. He clenched his teeth against the burn on his torso as the wet ice soaked through his shirt. “Louvaen, give me your arm. I’m going to knot the rope around your wrist and pull you free. Do you understand?” She lowered her head, taking shallow breaths and didn’t answer. “Louvaen, do you understand?”
