“Home again, old fellow,” he said softly. “I’m back.”
He gazed at the picture a moment. Nemo whined, and S.T. turned abruptly away, leaning down to give the wolf a hard shake. Nemo pressed against his leg, shameless, basking and groveling and groaning with ecstasy at the attention.
Dinner was short and simple, a pot of rabbit stew shared with Nemo, who’d brought the rabbit, and the last of Marc’s good red wine. S.T. sat before the kitchen fire, tilted back against the table on two legs of a three-legged stool, wondering vaguely if he ought to try to plant some grapevines and asking himself if he wanted to paint badly enough to light the torches in the hall.
He decided that he didn’t, and went back to pondering the mysterious process of making wine, which according to Marc was complex beyond reason. God only knew what kind of pampering the vines would require. Weeding garlic was bad enough. And something always ate his peppers in their helpless infancy if he didn’t bleeding get down on the ground and sleep with them all night.
He sighed. The firelight flickered off plaster busts and pots of pigment, casting shadows that made it seem as if the room were filled with a silent crowd of people instead of books and canvas and smudgy charcoal sketches.
He clasped his hands behind his head and gazed at the disordered sum of his life for the past three years. Half-finished paintings, roughed-out sculpture: he threw himself into each new effort with fierce energy, but the only thing he’d completed since he’d come here was the painting in the armory.
In one dark corner an unsheathed sword lay askew against the wall. He’d let it go to rust, along with the brace of pistols wrapped in their dusty rags. But the saddle and bridle he kept clean and oiled, hanging neatly from their pegs, just as if he were going to use them.
He rubbed Nemo’s head with his boot. The wolf sighed in heavy pleasure, but didn’t bother to bestir himself from his long-limbed sprawl against S.T.’s feet.
Chapter Two
It took Monsieur Leigh Strachan until late afternoon the next day to produce herself at Col du Noir. S.T. was a little surprised; he’d expected her by mid morning at the latest. He’d moved his work out into the courtyard as he usually did to catch the north light on these clear October afternoons, breathing the scents of linseed oil and tarragon and lavender and dust that clung to his paint rags and his hands. Nemo panted softly in a shady spot, his solemn yellow eyes following S.T.’s short perambulations back and forth to get a perspective on the canvas. But when the wolf lifted his head and looked toward the gate, S.T. put his brush in a terra-cotta pot full of oil, wiped his hands, and sat down on a sun-baked stone to wait.
Nemo heaved himself to his feet. A soft word from S.T. kept the wolf still. He heard the ducks break into disturbed muttering—a noise which seemed to him to come from somewhere off to the left where there was nothing beyond the wall but a sheer cliff. He turned his head to catch more of the sound with his good ear, then realized what he’d done and faced the gate directly with a little frisson of self-annoyance. He’d yet to become accustomed to the disorienting effects of his one-sided deafness. Even with Nemo’s alert gaze trained on the obvious direction of approach, S.T. had a difficult time convincing his brain that their visitor wasn’t somehow advancing on thin air across the canyon from the left. And worse, if he closed his eyes or turned his head too quickly, the whole world seemed to go into a tumbling spin around him.
Wisely, she created plenty of deliberate noise as she came. A clever greenling, this. She knew better than to try to sneak up on a desperate and dangerous highwayman with a king’s ransom on his head.
The thought made S.T. smile. Once upon a time, he’d considered himself quite a perilous character.
He leaned over, tugged at some weedy bushes within reach, and sat back armed to the teeth with a fragrant little bouquet of lavender and chamomile. After a moment, he added a few trailing stems of rockrose for color and composition. While he turned the nosegay in his hand, idly inspecting the arrangement, she appeared beneath the crumbling gateway.
She paused just inside the shadow. He waited. Nemo stood still, growling.
S.T. could see her eyeing the wolf warily. Nemo was something to see: huge, with his coat of black and cream and silver, his teeth bared and a light afternoon breeze ruffling his handsome markings. He was very clearly what he was—no chance of mistaking him for a mere oversized watchdog.
Ignoring S.T., she took a step toward the animal. Nemo’s hackles rose. She took another, and then began to walk steadily straight at the wolf. Nemo’s growl became an open snarl. He crouched, his splendid tail waving slowly, his yellow eyes fixed on the slender figure. She kept walking. Nemo took a step forward, his whole body rigid with the savagery of his warning. The courtyard echoed to the sound.
But she kept walking.
She was three feet away when Nemo’s courage evaporated. The snarl gave out, his tail flagged, and he turned in a little circle. His great head lowered and his ears flattened in dismay as he slunk across the open space and crept into a safe place behind S.T.’s back.
“I know,” S.T. said soothingly. “Terrifying creatures, these females.”
She stood silent, frowning at them.
“Watch this,” S.T. said to Nemo. “I’m going to walk right up to her. No… don’t whine, old chap—you can’t stop me. It’s a bloody awful risk, I know. I don’t fancy my chances above half.” He stood up, looking down at the wolf. “But mind you, pal, if I don’t come back—” he gave Nemo a shake “—I want you to have my share of the cheese.”
Nemo prostrated himself in abject humility, yelping faintly and trying to lick S.T.’s hand. S.T. pushed him over onto his side, scratched his belly, and left him lolling on his back in exuberant disgrace.
She watched S.T. as he approached, her dark, slanted brows drawn down with far more doubt than when she’d eyed the wolf. He offered the flowers silently.
For a long moment, she stared down at the little bouquet in his hand, and then looked up into his eyes. He smiled. “Bienvenue, mon enfant, he said softly.
Her lower lip twitched. Suddenly those superb blue eyes were glazed with tears. She whacked his hand away with a hard fist. Flowers went flying, and the scent of crushed lavender drifted on the air. “Don’t do that,” she snarled, fierce as Nemo. “Don’t look at me that way.”
S.T. took a startled step back, nursing his hand. She possessed a dashed convincing right punch. “As you please,” he said wryly, and then added with deliberation, “monsieur.”
The glisten in her eyes was gone as quickly as it had come. Her jaw grew stiff and belligerent. She shook back her head and gave him a cold stare. “When did you realize?”
“That you’re a girl?” He shrugged. “Yesterday.” He held up one broken stem of rockrose and examined it ruefully. “When you smiled.”
She scowled. “I’ll take care to frown.”
He flicked the rose into the dirt. “That ought to answer. You certainly unnerve Nemo and me.”
She glanced past him at the wolf. S.T. imagined running his finger along the smooth plane of her cheek, warming to the color that burned there.
“That’s Nemo?” She gave a little decisive jerk of her head. “You’ve trained him well. I never saw you call him off.,
S.T. turned toward the wolf. “Did you hear that? Well-trained. Come here and prove it, then.” He whistled a command.
Nemo bounded forward. He stopped a yard away.
“Come along.” S.T. whistled again, pointing at his feet.
The wolf trotted to one side, then turned and loped to the other, making an arc around them. When S.T. called him a third time, he crouched down and began to whine.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you were quivering in terror at this spectacle,” S.T. said.
She seemed slow to understand, watching Nemo with her back stiff and her lower lip set in a vaguely scandalized fullness. “He’s really afraid?”
“It’s women. Females petrify him.” He nudged h
is boot at one of the flowers in the dirt. “No doubt he has his reasons.”
A faint curve appeared at the corner of her mouth. She stared at Nemo with that little half smile but said nothing. On his side, S.T. stared at her. Her lips, her skin, the curve of her throat. He felt somewhat scarce of breath.
“I thought it was a test,” she said.
He lifted his eyes to hers with a wrench of focus. “What?”
“I thought—you meant to test me. To see how I would face him.”
“Oh, quite. And you passed. You’re heroically stupid, I can see that. God knows I wouldn’t have had the pluck to walk up to the snarling brute.” He tilted his head, lost in the amazing depth of her eyes. “Of course, he’d tear the throat out of a man who made that mistake.”
Nemo gave a long moan and rolled over in the dirt, wriggling and snorting as he tried to scratch his back. Then he relaxed belly-up, paws limp, looking toward S.T. with his tongue lolling in a canine grin.
“Well, you would, y’know.” S.T. flicked his hand, signaling abruptly. “Get up, you great boor; there’s a lady present. Go on with you. Hunt us up a pheasant.”
Instantly, Nemo flipped over and scrambled to his feet. He sprang into his long lope and headed for the gate, already lowering his nose to cast for scent. As he disappeared, the ducks outside broke into a raucous quacking and then subsided. Nemo knew better than to raid them without permission.
“That’s truly wonderful,” she said, looking after the wolf. “The way you’ve schooled him.”
S.T. rubbed behind his ear. “Well, most probably he won’t get a pheasant,” he admitted. “Perhaps a hare.” He glanced at her sideways. “Will you… could I ask you—to stay? For dinner?”
Her brows drew together, and he felt something inside him sink. But she said stiffly, “Yes.”
He let out a breath, trying to keep his smile from growing too inanely pleased. He felt as tentative as Nemo with her. It had been a long time… a very long time. It wouldn’t be so remarkable to find he’d lost his touch entirely.
If only she weren’t so damnably gorgeous. It made the base of his throat feel hot and funny just to look at her.
“You’re not at all what I expected,” she said suddenly. The scowl became a suspicious arch. “You are really the Seigneur?”
S.T.’s smile flattened. He didn’t answer, but simply turned away and went back to his easel, setting the canvas carefully against a rock while he took down the framework and gathered his jars of pigment. He carried them inside and came back for the canvas, not looking at her. As he passed inside the door, he saw her long afternoon shadow trail slowly behind him.
She stopped in the armory. S.T. went on to the kitchen alone. He kicked an empty barley sack under the table, set the painting down, and stoked the fire to warm the chill stone walls. When he went back to the armory, she was standing in front of the portrait of Charon.
S.T. crossed his arms, leaning back against the doorjamb. He looked at her and then at the toe of his boot.
“I’m sorry,” she said, with a trace of defiance.
“What for? I don’t blame you for wondering. I don’t much resemble Robin Hood these days, do I?”
Those blue eyes raked him coolly. She turned back to the painting of Charon. “Is he stabled here?”
“He’s dead.” S.T. hiked himself away from the door and left her. He went back to the kitchen, shoved aside some paint rags and books on the table, grabbed an onion, and started to hack at it with a dull cleaver.
He heard her come in; his good ear was to the door. He glanced up at her and wanted bitterly to see something less alluring. But she was beautiful, slim and straight, black lashes and fine, high cheekbones, running her fingers over a plaster cast and slanting a look toward him that held all the old fatal power of destruction.
And she didn’t even mean it, that was obvious enough. She was dissatisfied; she thought he was a disappointment, not living up to his own legend. The other, the ache in his chest and his loins and his heart… that was his own affliction. His weakness.
Women. He whacked at the onion. No wonder they terrified Nemo.
Three bloody years alone. He wanted to go down on his knees and press his face against her body and beg her to let him make love to her.
He thought of Charon, of dumb animal devotion: a warm blow in his ear, when he could still hear with both of them; the reassuring thud of a hoof while S.T. slept on the damp English ground, all safe, all quiet, the watch kept by senses sharper than his own had ever been—by an honest, simple mind that knew no better than to trust in human wisdom.
The onion made his eyes blur. He set his jaw and tossed the ragged pieces into a pot. He could feel her, though he didn’t look; she was like a bright flame in the cold clutter of his life. He wondered what blind folly this particular temptress might beguile him to commit, what he had left that she could take away.
His painting, Nemo. His life.
The list was longer than he would have thought.
“What do you want with me?” he demanded abruptly.
She looked up from a half-finished painting tilted against the bread chest. “I told you.”
“You want lessons in swordsmanship?”
She nodded.
He gestured toward a corner with the cleaver. “There’s a sword. A pair of pistols. You’re welcome to ’em.” He drove the cleaver into the table. “That’s all I’ve got to teach you.”
She regarded him steadily. S.T. decided to ignore her. He took the leather bucket outside, filled it at the stone well, came back and hefted it over the pot. Water rang inside the iron kettle with a crystalline splatter.
“Is it because I’m not a man?”
He didn’t answer. He was busy peeling garlic. The papery skin crackled in his fingers; the familiar smell filled his nose. He concentrated on that. On simple things. He could see her feet from the corner of his eye, the buckled shoes worn down at the heels, the stockings darned meticulously with mismatched thread. Her legs were slender and strong, her calves delicately shaped. Female. He bit down on his tongue.
“That’s going to taste terrible,” she said.
He laid his hand over his heart. “And to think I was so confident that I gave my chef the afternoon free.”
“I could prepare it better.”
He set the garlic down. “How?”
She shrugged. “I know how.”
“Do tell me.”
She looked at him beneath her lashes. Her hands worked, open and closed, very slowly. “Will you teach me?”
He snorted. “I’m always interested in a new recipe for boiled onion, but frankly, no.”
“I’ve a talent for cooking. And extensive training. I’m an accomplished housekeeper.” She flicked an aloof glance around the chaotic cavern of his kitchen. “I can organize all your business affairs—keep your accounts. By next spring, I could have your garden producing enough to set an excellent table, with plenty left over to sell. I could outfit you properly… I have a gift for design and sewing.”
“And so modest.”
“I could make this place into a decent home for you.”
He tilted his head, glancing sideways at her. She stood very straight, clearly prepared to launch into a list of further accomplishments should he prove stubborn. With a little ironic smile, he said, “Don’t suppose you know how to make wine?”
“Certainly. I’ve been used to put up berry wine every year. And mint cordials. And beer.”
Her voice was cultured, her manner high-bred, but it sounded as if she’d been a household servant. The borrowed male clothes she wore had belonged to an aristocrat, that was certain. He allowed himself the indulgence of imagining her young body, slim and lithe and naked, and blew out a soft, private breath of desire.
His glance traveled upward. He met her eyes. She didn’t blink.
“I’ll do anything, “she said. “I’ll sleep with you.”
S.T. brought the cleaver down with a savage
chop, sending garlic flying in two directions.
Curse her.
Curse her, curse her, curse her, the perceptive little bitch.
He wanted to say something vicious, something that would hurt her as much as that flat business offer injured him. But when he looked up at her, the high flush on her cheeks and rigid set of her mouth made her seem so young and mock-tough and defenseless that his words stuck in his throat.
All he said was: “No thanks.”
Just perceptibly, her shoulders relaxed. S.T. busied himself with another garlic clove. He could feel blood mounting in his own neck at that tiny indication of her vast relief. He tossed the garlic in the pot, parchment and all, spread his hands on the table, and looked down at them. Ten fingers, slightly paint stained. Two arms, one face… had he changed so much? No female had ever complained of him, looks or performance either. He’d never, never had to buy one.
He asked himself if he’d sunk that low, that he would do it now. He stood there, insulted and aroused, painfully aware of her presence in his kitchen, though he didn’t dare look at her. For three years he’d put this into his art: when the urge for a woman came on him, he worked, painting thunderstorms and sleek greyhounds, nudes and horses, shaping curves in lumps of clay until he could stand on his feet no longer and fell asleep in a chair with the modeling knife still in his hand.
He never finished them. He could never decide if they were his best work or his worst.
“May I sit down?” she asked in a queer voice.
“For God’s sake, of course you can—” S.T. turned… and she was falling, before he could gather his wits enough to lift his hand or take a step—she’d collapsed, sinking from the knees into a boneless sprawl on the dirt floor.
For an instant he just stood there, astonished. Then he moved, his body making the decision before his mind. She opened her eyes as he threw himself onto his knees beside her. The deep blue was hazy with stress, the burning flush on her cheeks gone to paleness. She tried to push herself up.