by Julia Latham
And then he restrained his wandering thoughts. Had he spent so many years longing for female companionship that even after a year of debauchery in London, he could not control his thoughts about this one woman—who happened to be the logical suspect in a murder?
She was looking up at him in confusion, her lips softly parted, her pale, freckled cheeks touched with a blush. His body’s response only strengthened. To distract himself, he launched into a vigorous dance as the beat of the music sped up.
Chapter 3
Sarah didn’t know what had happened. One moment she was calmly assessing Sir Simon, flattered by his attention, since the only man she’d been able to trust after her father’s death had been the viscount. She was logically considering that Sir Simon met her husbandly requirements of hard work, future security, and decent common sense—
And the next moment, she was in the arms of Sir Robert. She knew little about him except that just his touch jumbled her thoughts, made her feel hot and cold as if unaccustomed to the restraint of her own skin. She could feel the muscles in his arms, the very firmness of his chest when she was forced to support herself to keep from stumbling in this maddening stupor that consumed her mind.
And those chambermaids she’d thought silly when she’d watched them fall all over themselves to dance with him? She silently offered them apologies. If he affected every woman in the castle like this, little would get done until he departed.
She forced herself to focus on the dance so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself by falling. But that made her aware of the uninhibited way he moved her among the other dancers. He was so strong he could position her at will, could probably pick her up, and she wouldn’t even notice that her feet were dangling inches from the floor. To guide her, his hand occasionally touched her hip or her back, but always returned so that he could hold both her hands in his—big hands, rough with the calluses that came from holding a sword in battle.
And then he did pick her up, his hands gripping her waist, but without pain. In that suspended moment, when she was above him, her hands clutching his arms, her hair came undone from her simple ribbon. Her wild red curls cascaded down her back and forward over her shoulders.
And that wide, white smile of his faltered, but not with dismission, even as he set her back on the floor. Her unmanageable hair affected him in some way, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to self-consciously tame it back into submission. Then his smile widened again. She’d seen him bestow it on so many women in just these scant hours, yet now it seemed just for her. Men didn’t smile at her like this! And if they did, she was able to ignore it.
Not this time. Now she was caught in the spell of this stranger, her gaze locked to his bright blue eyes until she felt she could lose herself in them.
She was not a woman who lost herself, she thought, jolted back to the reality of the situation. She didn’t know Sir Robert, didn’t know his mission or why he was focusing this intensity on her. He was too free with his hands, and she’d long ago thought she was done wanting a man’s touch.
He bent over and picked up her ribbon, presenting it to her almost formally, but with a twinkle in his eye. And now he made her want to laugh! Instead she gathered her hair at the back of her neck and tied it into place.
He pressed a goblet of wine into her hands.
“Drink this,” he said, chuckling.
She did, taking several deep gulps, hoping the cool liquid would put out this hot, confusing flame inside her.
“You are a lively dancer, sir,” she said, embarrassed by the breathlessness of her voice.
“’Tis one of my favorite things to do.”
His gaze slipped briefly down her body, and she realized he meant her to think of his other favorite pastimes. Good Lord! She took another drink, then choked.
He laughed, a good-natured, merry sound.
“Where did you learn to dance like that?” she asked.
“My brothers and I were well trained.”
“How many brothers do you have?”
“Two, and I am the middle child. Sadly, we had no sisters to tease.”
She almost snorted at that.
“Did you have siblings?” he asked.
She shook her head. “’Tis a bond Francis and I share.” She paused, listening as the musicians chose a more sedate tune. Others were doing as they were, refreshing themselves, catching their breaths.
People were watching Sarah and Sir Robert with interested speculation. All those eyes made her uneasy. She didn’t even search for Sir Simon, mortified by what he might be thinking of her.
Though Sir Robert was watching her, too, it was a different sort of feeling, one she had to fight hard to ignore. She turned her thoughts back to Francis and wondered why this man paid such attention to a lad of only five years.
“You were good with Francis at dinner tonight,” she said, watching his expression. “Do you have children of your own?”
He blinked in surprise. “Nay, I do not. But there is something about the direct way a child’s mind works that fascinates me.”
“So you like people to be direct?”
She thought she saw a hint of amused wariness flash and then vanish in those deceptive cornflower blue eyes.
“Aye, it makes things simple,” he said.
She hesitated. It was not her place to question a traveler, a guest of Drayton Hall. But he’d been so forward with her…
“Are you often assigned duties by the king?” she asked.
He grinned as if he had expected her to say something else. “Not often. The king chooses the man for the assignment.”
But he wasn’t telling her the assignment, she thought, frustrated. “You must feel very proud that he has chosen you.”
He gave a self-deprecating shrug. At least he was not a boastful man.
“Do you have to be somewhere soon?” She was trying to find out if he meant to stay, which might imply that his business was here.
“Are you asking me to remain at Drayton Hall?” His voice was quiet, intimate.
She glanced up at him in surprise, only to realize that he was teasing her. She felt a blush heat her cheeks.
“Nay,” she said quickly, “I would never dream of something so forward.”
“But you would like to be forward?”
“Sir Robert, you are turning around my every word!” she cried in frustration. Suddenly, she felt a tug on her gown and looked down to see a yawning Francis regarding her with sleepy eyes.
“Mistress Sarah,” the boy said when his giant yawn had finished, “are you scolding him now, too?”
Sir Robert chuckled.
“Of course not, Francis,” she said, feeling like the evening had gotten away from her. “We were just having a silly conversation. But I can see that you have stayed up far too late this night. ’Tis time to find your bed.”
Though Francis frowned, he didn’t protest when she took his hand. He tugged back briefly as he looked up at Sir Robert. “A good night to you, sir.”
That little voice could even work magic on a large knight, for the man came down on one knee and gravely said, “And to you, Lord Drayton. May dreams not disturb you in the night.”
It annoyed Sarah that she found Sir Robert’s treatment of the boy charming and sweet. She gave the man a perfunctory smile, then led Francis down the corridor, taking the circular stairs up to the family lodgings on the next floor. Francis’s bedchamber had adjoined his parents’. He hadn’t wanted to move into the rooms that he had inherited, and she couldn’t blame him. When his mother had been ill, she’d moved Sarah into chambers that adjoined Francis’s, so that Sarah could easily move between the boy’s room and the viscountess’s bedside.
As she helped him change into his nightclothes, she remembered his father with respect and gratitude. He’d given her a life when she’d been abandoned and hopeless. Yet always her memories of him were marred by the way he’d died.
And now her life was all about h
is son. She tried to forget that in only a few years, Francis would probably go to another family to be fostered, as every child of a great family did.
Would Sarah be able to continue her role overseeing the household? Or would Lady Ramsey, wife of Francis’s guardian, have something different in mind?
In the outer chamber of their lodgings, Robert closed the door to the courtyard and watched Walter. He didn’t know his fellow Bladesman at all. Would he be an angry pacer? An arguer?
For a moment, he considered that in his future with the League—and they would grant him one—he would always have a partner who might rebuff or resist his methods. Was that worth the satisfaction he felt when he was able to be of help?
Walter poured himself another ale and sat down at the table near the hearth.
“I will make certain we are not overheard,” Robert said. He searched their bedchambers, the privy, even went downstairs to the torchlit corridor that connected all the lodgings with the main keep before closing that door behind him. He sat down across from Walter, saying, “All is secure.”
Walter’s eyes were hooded as he studied Robert. “Your methods today were…interesting.”
“A more flattering word than I thought you’d use,” he said dryly.
“Your flirtation is not something I personally would employ.” Walter arched a brow, a touch of amusement in his voice as he added, “In my younger days, I could have successfully pulled it off.”
Robert grinned. “You could flirt in your younger days?”
“Let us not go too far with this cockiness, boy,” the man responded gruffly.
Robert tamped down his amusement. “Today was a good beginning. My methods put people at ease. The men assume I’m not serious, that they have no reason to be defensive toward me. The women think I only have one thing on my mind, and that either makes them feel flattered, or dismissive.”
“I would have thought Mistress Sarah the latter, but now I’m not so certain.”
“Nor am I,” Robert said. “For a woman who’s been a wife and a mistress, she is strangely virginal in her approach to men.”
“Or so she makes it seem.”
“Then she makes it seem that way all the time, for no one thought she behaved out of the ordinary. More than one person appeared grateful that I was showing her the same interest I showed the other women.”
“This definitely makes it seem like her crime was one of emotional response, a fit of rage, rather than a calculated murder. She was Drayton’s mistress; he probably wouldn’t marry her, and she could not accept it. Unpremeditated, but still a crime.”
“A ‘fit of rage’ sounds like it would lead to a sudden crime, such as pushing him down the stairs. A slow death by poisoning is a cold, cruel anger.”
“We will discover the details about how her first husband met his death,” Walter said. “Then we’ll know.”
Facts mattered the most, and they did not have enough of them. Too much was at stake—a dead man’s justice, a child’s future.
“She is female,” Robert said, “and emotion is part of her. You have seen her with the young viscount. She holds nothing back from him.”
“Perhaps she loved him too fiercely, and the late viscount thought it inappropriate,” Walter said, looking at him from beneath his furrowed brow.
Robert relaxed back in his wooden chair. “I am not a parent, but I do not think I would be offended if someone loved my child deeply.”
“You miss my point, Robert. There is such a thing as obsessive love.”
“Nay, I understood what you were saying, but her relationship to the boy does not seem unhealthy.” He frowned briefly. “And then there is her role as mistress of this household.”
“Such a position of honor might be worth killing for.”
Robert shook his head. “She had it before the viscount was killed. Tell me why a mistress would be openly elevated to such a position of authority, especially if there were rumors she killed her first husband.”
“Respect for the viscount?” Walter mused, rubbing a hand through his cropped hair. “And we are not sure the rumors ever reached here. Either I or another Bladesman will journey to her late husband’s home for further details.”
“A good reason not to marry.” Robert smiled. “Are you married, Walter?”
The other man only arched an eyebrow.
“Of course we must never exchange anything personal. ’Tis just a shame that with the way I was raised, you know everything about me.”
“Not everything,” Walter said dubiously. “You have yet to prove yourself to me.”
Anger flared in him, but he ignored it and widened his grin. “And you have yet to prove yourself to me.”
The silence between them was momentarily tense.
“Did you notice the steward’s hesitation about Sarah’s role?” Robert asked, returning to the subject of their investigation. “There is someone who might feel threatened.”
“Yet ‘threatened’ is not exactly the word that describes his reaction,” Walter said. “He mentioned that Sarah is well-controlled in both thought and emotion. And yet she has only five and twenty years, one year beyond you.”
Another barb to his youth, Robert thought, but all he did was smile.
“In a man such control is deemed appropriate,” Walter continued. “In a woman ’tis often interpreted as cold.”
Robert only arched an eyebrow.
“I shall attempt to earn Master Frobisher’s trust and his secrets—with your permission, of course.”
Robert laughed. “You do that. Who else were you charming at supper?”
Walter harrumphed. “I do not need to charm. I question.”
He was saying that “charming” people was unnecessary. Robert relished the challenge of proving him wrong. Robert might be furious that after an entire life of service to the League, they were requiring him to prove himself, but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy showing Walter that different methods could still yield good results.
“My thanks for your making clear your interrogation methods,” Robert said flippantly. “So whom did you question?”
“My dinner companion was the Drayton treasurer, Sir Daniel.”
“The man holding the purse strings of a young viscount—under the guardianship of Sir Anthony, of course. We will see what kind of guardian the man is with his ward’s money and holdings.” It was too early to rule out the motives of others where the viscount’s death was concerned. “We will speak with the other upper servants, to gather more information.”
Even as Walter acquiesced and retired to his own chamber, Robert sat looking into the fire. At first, all he could remember was the wild red tumble of Sarah’s hair as he’d held her in the air above him. It had made him think of having her in his bed, where she could rise above him as she took him inside. He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes.
He must firmly ignore those thoughts, or he’d never be able to sleep that night. He turned instead to the next step in his own plan for Sarah, the one he had not chosen to confide to Walter.
Chapter 4
Sarah was surprised when she saw both knights, Robert and Walter, at daily mass in the chapel the next morn. She had spent a restless night worrying about them, and had hoped for a moment’s peace to pray for guidance, but even that would be denied her. She did the best she could, bowing her head and not looking at them—oh, she could not delude herself. She was only trying to avoid looking at one of them.
The handsome Sir Robert was the picture of innocent piety at mass, those blue eyes raised to the heavens when appropriate, then lowered to the stone floor with humility. If he noticed the female stares cast his way, even in the chapel, he did not show it. But he did take a moment to smile at Francis, who grinned back with happiness. The boy had an entire castle full of men to look up to, but somehow he’d chosen this stranger, a flirtatious man with a mysterious mission.
When they went to the great hall to break their fasts, Sarah made it a point
to oversee the meal rather than sit at the head table, so she could watch Francis from afar. Again, the elder knight spoke to other men at the table, but Sir Robert answered Francis’s questions with ease and grace. His kindness should please her—
It bothered her.
Margery sauntered over to her, standing at her side to look over the hall. Sarah sighed.
“Ye made a lovely dancer last night,” Margery said softly.
Sarah closed her eyes and stifled a groan.
“’Twas a good idea to make Sir Simon jealous. He watched you with no expression, but he was thinkin’ somethin’, I know for sure.”
“I would never deliberately try to make a man jealous,” Sarah said, turning her back on the room to look out the mullioned window. As if she were really looking at anything.
“’Tis sad, that is. It can be a good strategy. So ye didn’t want to dance with the stranger?”
“If you noticed, I had no choice.”
“Ooh, a bold man. I like that.”
“Then you should dance with him. Men should not make free with a woman without her permission.”
Margery’s gaze softened, but she didn’t respond to the lessons Sarah had learned in life. “If he asks me to dance, I will. Or should I be the one to ask him to dance?”
“You probably will not get the chance. I assume he is leaving today.”
“Probably? Ye do not know for certain?”
Sarah grudgingly shook her head.
“Those are not travelin’ garments they’re wearin’,” Margery mused.
Sarah looked back across the hall. Their clothes were simple tunics and breeches. And then Sarah realized why, when together all the men of the garrison gathered to leave the hall for their morning practice of arms at the tiltyard, and Sir Walter and Sir Robert mingled with them.
“They’re stayin’ at least the morn,” Margery said, covering her mouth.
“Do not laugh.” Sarah felt like grumbling.
