Rose of the Mists

by Parker, Laura

  Sir Richard gazed at John, his affront diverted by his own ponderings. “I have wondered at this journey myself. A military man, a man of God, a fop, and the earl of Ormond’s favorite nephew, a strange assortment, indeed.”

  John remained silent. For his part, he would scarcely have refused any offer that freed him from his cell. Yet, the command to map the Irish countryside was no job for a man of his worth. The Butler whelp was a fair hand at drawing. Still, his production of maps grew steadily less, and a man had to wonder if there were reasons for the ebbing of work other than the lack of visibility caused by the mists. Butler was an Irishman.

  Though the family was Anglo-Irish, his father had married a daughter of a clan chieftain against the dictates of English law. One never knew where one’s loyalties would come to roost until swords were drawn.

  “Did Butler possess a single sketch when you met him on the road?”

  Sir Richard shook his head. “He said nothing of maps. Butler’s dog led them to that chance encounter with the women. I refused to follow, of course. While I abhor violence,” he shuddered, “I did not see cause to interfere in matters we know nothing of. ’Twas Butler who insisted that the girl be brought into camp. The sooner we’re rid of her, the better.”

  John smirked. Though he had seen a little of the girl as Butler carried her into camp, her slim legs and tangled cloud of black hair had attracted him.

  “Perhaps her company will prove a distraction. Who is to say that she will not be eager to show her gratitude to us?” John’s gusty laughter underscored the lustful gleam in his eyes.

  “Sinful creature!” Atholl intoned righteously. “Even Sir Robin felt the impurity of her presence. He would not ride with Butler, nor would I. You would do well to remove her, Reade, before we are all infected.”

  John watched Atholl retreat with open disgust. The skinny-shanked man had the heart of a gelding. No doubt he lacked a man’s proclivities even with the most willing of partners. Neither the parson nor the dandy was a man he would choose to trust.

  “M’lord?”

  John looked up as the throaty whisper called to him from behind a nearby tree. A lusty grin stretched his face. In the controversy of the moment he had nearly forgotten the assignation. “Flora.”

  Minutes later John gazed up into the woman’s passion-heated face as he lay in the damp grass. As she rode him he gripped her naked waist, forcing her down as he thrust up deep and hard into her. Atholl and Butler had been against hiring a servant, fearing betrayal. John smiled. He had hired her not to tend them but to assuage his appetite for female flesh. He knew himself as a man with two weaknesses: temper and lust. Most men took what they could and shrugged off the rest. He burned with constant need, the gnawing ache always just below the surface of his skin like the itch of stinging nettle.

  Flora was no beauty. With her teeth bared in a mindless grimace and her fair skin reddened by carnal delight, she repelled him. John shut his eyes, the slam, slam of their loins inviting vivid memories of other whores and other places.

  Other whores, John mused, his mind drifting back to the glimpse of Butler’s girl with her slim legs and blue-black hair. Now, she was a beauty. He would enjoy watching her lick his genitals and ride his shaft. He could not decide which attracted him the most, the thought of riding the girl or outmaneuvering Butler. Either case was a delightful prospect.

  He dug his nails into Flora’s flesh, heedless of her whimper of pain, and rolled her beneath him. Quickly now, on the avalanche of his body’s urging he slammed her against the ground, harder and harder until he seemed to burst…falling…dying…and with it, finding momentary peace.

  *

  Revelin scowled as he traversed the short distance from his tent to the place where he had left his horse tethered the night before. He had been made uneasy by the lass’s unnatural quiet, and so had spent the night and all of this day at her side. Now the pervading purple shadows wrapped the day in twilight, and he could not tell if she slept or was unconscious. He needed advice, but who was to give it?

  He glanced toward the main enclosure, where lantern light threw in sharp relief the silhouettes of the three men who were dining. As if on cue, the aromas of mutton stew and ale wafted past him, and a rumbling of his stomach reminded him that he had missed the contentment of a warm meal during the week of his search. That would be easily amended, he thought, as soon as he was certain the girl would recover.

  For the first time in years, he was at a loss. He was not a lady’s maid or a nanny. He was more at home with currying and ministering to the needs of a horse. He knew little of medicines and the healing art. What if she became feverish? Dear God, spare us that! he prayed hastily. What if she died? The thought appalled him.

  He was jarred by a sudden memory of another time, ten years earlier, when he had sat by his mother’s bedside and watched her slip away on the fevered breath of disease. He hated sickrooms, always had.

  “Hail and well met, foolish knight,” he admonished himself. If he had minded his own business he would not now be in such a predicament. The mission that he had undertaken in Ireland had yet to bear fruit. His uncle expected him to have learned the queen’s plans for Ireland before he returned to Dublin. Yet, he had seen nothing and heard nothing to give him even a clue.

  Revelin groaned. He could well imagine the pointed remarks his kinsman would make regarding the girl if he returned empty-handed with a nursery tale of women in distress. “Black Tom” Butler would accuse him of idling his time away with his new whore.

  Revelin grimaced. The lass was passing fair, attractive enough to remind him of his celibate life of the past few months. Yet, there was Alison, and he was not so sorely pressed that he would take advantage of the situation that had presented itself.

  He had completely forgotten the old woman’s bundle until minutes ago. It was an excuse to leave the girl’s bedside for a few moments, and he longed for the exercise.

  What had the woman said to him? Ah yes, the lass was not to know about the contents, that he was not to show it to her. Revelin smirked as he loosened the leather tie. What could possibly be concealed in a damp moldy bundle that was worthy of such mystery? When the wrapping was removed, he gazed down in amazement.

  It was an Irish skean, a double-edged dagger. The jeweled hilt gathered the last of the twilight into its glittering facets, smoldering with reds and silvers and golds. The raised Celtic lettering under his fingertips could not be read in the dark, and he doubted his skills were up to an interpretation. Even so, he wrapped it up and tucked it back into his gear. It was an expensive piece of work and probably a family heirloom. Perhaps the old woman had intended that he should sell it to provide for the lass. He would know when the moment was right, she had said.

  “When the moment is right,” Revelin murmured to himself. He had more to think of than the mutterings of a dying woman. When the moment was right he would decide what to do with the skean. First he had to assure himself that the girl would live.

  *

  Meghan gazed about her through the thick fringe of her lashes. It was a trick she had developed as a child. Without appearing to, she could watch the world with no one the wiser. The light hanging on a post claimed her attention. She had never seen anything like it. Encased in glass, tiny hisses and spurts accompanying the winking of its tongue of flame, it looked like a captured star.

  She nearly smiled. She would have liked to capture a star to keep beside her on winter nights when darkness was so long. Una would think her foolish, but Una…

  Meghan closed her eyes against the rush of salty tears. She would never again have Una to share her comfort or her joys. Una was dead. Meghan was completely alone.

  At the sound of footsteps, Meghan feigned the stillness of death. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes a slit and saw that the golden-haired stranger had entered the tent.

  He came to stand over her, and when he bent low she held her breath. He was scowling at her as though she had done so
mething wrong. The next instant her eyes popped open as icy cold water splashed her cheeks.

  “Thank God!” Revelin said and smiled as she stirred under the droplets of water he had flicked into her face. “You’ve been a long time awakening.”

  Meghan gazed up at him in perfect calm, wondering why she found the sound of his voice so pleasant.

  “How is your head?” At her wince of pain Revelin instantly removed his hand from the bruise at her temple. “I apologize. Stupid of me to think the pain would go away so quickly.”

  Meghan watched with delight as he spoke. His upper lip was straight and firm, the bow sensitively and deftly molded; the lower lip was fuller, with a slight indentation at the center. It was a fine mouth, a lovely mouth, she decided.

  “Are you hurt elsewhere?” Revelin asked with more calm than he felt, for her wide-eyed, wordless mien was beginning to unnerve him. More lightly this time he touched her temple. His hand moved to her shoulder and then down her arm as he spoke. “Is there pain here…or here…or here?”

  No one had ever touched her but Una, and even she had seldom done so since Meghan had been old enough to wash and dress herself. And Una’s touch had never affected her as his did. Wherever his fingers strayed her skin tingled beneath the covering of her leine.

  The last touch, between and just below her breasts, was the lightest of all, but Meghan felt as though a hundred-pound weight had suddenly been dropped in her middle, and she gasped, recoiling instinctively.

  Seeing her face flood with color, Revelin realized what he had done. Beneath his fingers was the shape of a breast, full and soft and womanly. He snatched his hand away thinking, Fool!

  Meghan watched his face but could not deduce from his frown exactly what was on his mind. He had seemed worried, then embarrassed, and now angry. Perhaps he was hurt because she had withdrawn from him. Inexplicably, she longed to comfort him, to press the lines from between his bronze brows and smooth away his frown.

  Before she had time to think better of the gesture, she reached up to the clean square line of his chin and her fingers curled against his warm flesh. The rough drag of the golden stubble on his chin pleasantly abraded her palm. As her gaze strayed to his mouth, the memory of his kiss moved through her. That had been his way of comforting her. She sat up, wrapped her arms about his neck to bring his head down within reach of her mouth, and put into her kiss all the tenderness for which she had no words of explanation.

  Revelin did not move; he could not. He had seen the change in her eyes only an instant before she reached for him, but he could not say that it was a wanton’s invitation he saw there. A hundred thoughts collided in his brain: She’s a child. Mercy’s Grace! My vow of fosterage makes me her guardian. She is a stranger, a wretched little creature with no knowledge of what she is doing. He held himself rigid, applauding his strength of character in not taking advantage of her a second time until—thank the saints—she broke away.

  Only a moment passed before Meghan became aware that, unlike the first time, there was no answering warmth from him. The muscles of his neck were rigid, his mouth a firm closed line. He does not want this. With disappointment she released him.

  For a moment each looked deeply into the other’s eyes, wary green meeting enormous pools of shocked blue, and Revelin wondered how any creature could look so vulnerable and miserable. Aware that it was somehow his fault, he moved uneasily away from the bed, his step made awkward by the rise of his desire. So much for strength of character, he noted grimly. He was as randy as a young buck entering a brothel for the first time.

  A sigh from her that sounded like a sob registered uneasily within him. Her inexperience at kissing was pitifully apparent.

  She would not know what effect she had on him. And he, in his clumsy experience with young girls, had spurned her because he could not keep control of his response.

  Revelin lifted the tent flap and stepped out, feeling like seven kinds of a fool.

  “Made her cry already?” Robin stood just outside, his arms folded casually across his chest. He shrugged carelessly as Revelin glowered at him. “I had wondered if I should intrude upon the cozy quiet, but now I see that you’ve handled things admirably.”

  Revelin swore under his breath. Was it his fault that one moment she kissed him in a gesture fraught with delightful possibilities and the next dissolved into tears? Annoyed to discover that he felt he was to blame, he absolved himself with the observation, “She’s simply being stubborn.”

  “A challenge!” Robin announced. “Reade awaits a glimpse of her. If he can coax a smile from her, will you yield her to his greater persuasion?”

  For an instant Revelin remembered the sweet fire of her lips upon his. His memory fed him images of her black-velvet hair, from which the lamplight struck blue sparks. “I yield nothing,” he replied. “There’s nothing to yield,” he added over his shoulder as he walked away.

  Robin chuckled. He had answered none of John’s questions about the girl. His own unease about the girl was not laid to rest, but he did not relish the idea of her encountering John’s wrath. “Mayhaps she’s already found herself a true and knightly protector,” he murmured.

  *

  The sun’s golden warmth had begun to penetrate into the mists when Revelin turned over and met the unexpected bulk of his bed partner. Ualter, who slept at his master’s side, stretched out his paws, arched his spine, and groaned in shameless abandon.

  “Give over, you great clown!” Revelin muttered as he realized that his “bed” was nothing more than a blanket on the ground. “Be off! You’ve snored like a hearth bellows the night long and your breath has all but suffocated me!”

  Ualter obediently rolled over and sat up, his serious expression belying the happy thump of his tail on the grass.

  Revelin’s every bone ached with cold. He eyed his damp-spotted trunk hose and canions in disgust. The mantle in which he had slept was as soggy as the ground beneath it. Although he had spent other nights in the open, he had never before been in such misery, because he had been better prepared.

  After his companions had retired for the night, he had left the girl to sleep alone. His mistakes were so many that he no longer trusted himself near her. As if that were not bad enough, he had had physically to drag Ualter from her side.

  He glowered at his pet. “Ten years’ loyalty cast away for a pair of innocent blue eyes. I swear fidelity is dead when a man’s own beast is lost to a fair face.” He directed the dog toward his tent with a pointing finger. “Well? Go wake her.”

  Ualter jumped up and disappeared into the tent. Revelin half-expected to hear a cry of fright from the roused girl. Instead, Ualter poked his head back through the opening after a few seconds and lightly sniffed the morning breeze.

  Revelin was on his feet in an instant. One look was enough. He dropped the flap with a curse. There was only one conclusion to be drawn, and it was something he had not considered. “The daft lass has run away!”

  Ualter’s ears pricked forward at his master’s muttering, but he did not abandon tracking her scent. He paced back and forth a few times, sneezed to rid his nostrils of mud and grass, and then his whole body went stiff as the girl’s scent wafted up from a shallow footprint in the boggy ground. The hair on his back rose, his huge body began to tremble and he whimpered to be set loose.

  With relief Revelin recognized the cause of the dog’s excitement. “Why do you linger? ’Tis your fault she got away.” He motioned with a hand and commanded, “Go!” and the dog galloped off to the forest with a yelp.

  Revelin hurried after him, cursing roundly as his boots made squishy noises with every step.

  Meghan paid no attention to the distant barking as she sat in the tree that she had climbed. The pattern of leaf and shadow was comforting because it was familiar, the only familiar thing left in her world. She had come to the forest to be alone to think about what she should do next, but she had found no answers. Instead, she saw a world of loneliness stretching
out before her, and it frightened her.

  Una was gone. Her home was destroyed. There was no one else on earth who cared whether she lived or died.

  She closed her eyes. Those were selfish thoughts, thoughts unworthy of the grieving she felt. She wished Una alive again not only because she was lonely; even if Una could not be with her, she would still wish her alive.

  “Meg-han! Meg-han!”

  The sound of her name was a shock. Never in all their years together had Una shouted her name, for fear that the cries would attract unwelcome visitors. As the sound of barking neared, Meghan looked down through the foliage to see Ualter break from the underbrush into the open ground beneath her tree. Moments later, his master appeared. She drew back behind the tree trunk, afraid that he would look up and see her.

  After a moment the barks ceased and the footfalls died. Her curiosity pricked by the silence, she leaned out until she could see. Revelin had paused beneath the huge elm, a hand on each hip, his dog obediently at his side.

  “Meghan?” he called more softly this time. “Meghan, lass, where are you?”

  The sound of her name was vaguely disturbing, and Meghan clutched the tree trunk as though his voice had the power to lure her down to the ground against her will.

  “Meghan?” Revelin questioned again. The rustle of leaves was his only answer. “Ualter, fetch!” he ordered.

  Ualter sprang up, circled the base of the elm, then jumped up against the trunk and barked twice.

  Revelin looked up with eyes narrowed against the greenness, but he could detect nothing but the sway of leafy branches in the wind.

  In hiding once more, Meghan listened to the crunch of twigs beneath his boots as he walked about. When they began to die away, dismay swamped her suddenly, for she knew she did not want to be alone.