From This Moment On

  “You’re here,” he said blankly.

  “I escaped,” she said, with a small smile.

  “You escaped?” he echoed.

  “Aye. Quite a tedious bunch inside.”

  He stared at her and couldn’t believe she had sought him out. “But your family—”

  “All my brothers wanted were tales of you. I thought you’d do more justice to your escapades than I could, so I promised them your full attention later. Besides, François was beginning to look at me suspiciously, so I thought I should make my exit whilst I could.”

  “Very wise.”

  She nodded with a smile, then suddenly her smile faltered and she looked away.

  “I brought my sword,” she said quietly. “Just in case—”

  Well, it wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was something. Colin rose without hesitation.

  “Of course,” he said. “Let us work. You’ll not want to lose your skills.”

  “Should I need to defend myself,” she muttered.

  He looked at her with one eyebrow raised, but said nothing. She obviously had something to say, but perhaps it would take a bit of swordplay to pry it from her. He was, after all, a very patient man. He could wait for her to spew out what troubled her.

  He sincerely hoped it wasn’t that she didn’t want him.

  Though why she would, perhaps, should have been a mystery to him.

  She drew her sword and he followed suit. And when she did nothing else, offered no offense, he took up the cause and mounted a very gentle, very easily defended attack. She countered each stroke just as he’d taught her, with skill and precision.

  And, apparently, growing irritation.

  Finally, she dropped her sword and glared at him. “Well?” she demanded.

  “What?” he asked in surprise.

  “If you’re going to do me in, will you please just be about the bloody business and be finished with it!”

  He blinked. “Do you in?”

  “Slay me!” She ground her teeth in frustration. “You vowed you would. I’ve given you ample opportunity in the past half hour. Why do you delay?”

  He put his sword down in front of him and rested both hands on the hilt. “I don’t want to slay you.”

  “You vowed you did.”

  He shrugged. “That was before. I spoke it in anger.”

  “You could have said as much,” she snapped.

  “To whom?” he asked. “To the lad Henri?”

  “To anyone who would have listened.”

  “Would that have changed your mind two years ago about me?” he asked.

  She pursed her lips, but apparently didn’t find the question worth answering. “Well, if you don’t wish to slay me, and you certainly haven’t asked me to wed with you, just what is it you intend to do? I vow I’ve no patience for womanly hesitation in this matter.”

  Womanly hesitation? He mouthed the words as well, for ’twas a certainty he couldn’t voice them. Then he cleared his throat and retrieved his jaw from where it had fallen to his chest.

  “Womanly hesitation?” he bellowed. “I do not hesitate like a woman!”

  She sheathed her sword with a curse, then folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “What would you call it, then?”

  He tried to wrap his mouth around several words, but none of them seemed very complimentary, or polite, so he merely gritted his teeth and scowled back at her.

  “I was,” he said tightly, “being patient.”

  “And when did your patience think it would end? After I’d worried myself sick that you truly intended to finish me?”

  “Nay,” he retorted. “After you decided if you wanted to wed with me or not, that’s when. And not a bloody moment before!”

  Her hands fell down by her sides and she looked at him in complete surprise. “I have a choice?”

  “Aye, damn you,” he snarled.

  “But,” she said slowly, “you could lose everything if I said you nay. All your lands. Your inheritance.”

  “’Tis but land.” There was no conceivable way this side of Heaven or Hell that his father would pass him over as his heir, but he didn’t say as much. For even if he inherited all his father’s wealth, it would have been an empty thing indeed without a woman at his side who wanted him.

  This woman at his side.

  Wanting him freely.

  He stole a look at her and found that her eyes were full of tears. Damnation, what had he said this time? Was the thought of taking him as a husband so desperately unpleasant that it reduced her to tears?

  “Of course, you needn’t say me aye,” he said heavily. “None have so far.”

  She was silent for so long what he wondered if she were racking her brain for a polite way to tell him that she found the thought of him as a husband completely abhorrent. He resheathed his sword with a deep sigh.

  “I would understand, of course,” he said, “for I am old.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Old, damn you. A score and twelve.”

  She scratched absently at her cheek. “Well, that is ancient,” she agreed.

  “And you’ve met my family,” he said. “Detriment enough, I suppose.”

  “Actually—”

  “And my hall. Far from the ocean. Nothing but fields. Hot in the summer. Frozen in the winter.”

  “Well,” she said, “I loathe the sea, actually.”

  He blinked in surprise. She loathed the sea? Was this possible?

  “Too wet,” she added. “I like fields. I’d like a large garden.”

  Suddenly, a very small, very faint breeze blew across his soul. It smelled, oddly enough, of earth.

  Orchards.

  A garden in the fullness of summer.

  He cleared his throat. “I have a large garden.”

  “Do you indeed?” she asked.

  “Aye,” he said. “But my foul reputation might make up for its size. And I have horrible table manners.”

  He looked at her from under his eyebrows, but she said nothing else. No more agreement seemed to be forthcoming. No ah, but Colin, you needn’t worry about manners when you have your own fine self to offer in the bargain. Damn the woman, could she give him not one small concession?

  “Is it possible,” he asked with growing irritation, “that you might speak? I’ve given you my list—an ample list, I might add—of why you might wish to flee, and yet you remain silent. Have you nothing to say, or must I dredge up more confessions?”

  She only looked at him blankly, as if she couldn’t for the life of her understand what he was babbling about.

  He cursed. He supposed he might have neglected a flaw or two—such as his visage, his propensity to slay those who annoyed him, and the fact that he could bear no music that didn’t have the recurring themes of war, bloodshed, and victory—but who could fault him for that? By the saints, he’d laid out his very soul and all she could do was gape at him like a half-wit!

  He wondered if he’d sorely overestimated her intelligence.

  “I’ve given you all the reasons I could think of why you wouldn’t want me,” he growled. “Either agree with them and hie yourself off to your sire, or tell me that they don’t mean anything.”

  He scowled at her, watched her consider his good and bad qualities, and couldn’t for the life of him tell whether they mattered to her or not.

  And then, quite suddenly, he found himself with a woman in his arms.

  Now, that was certainly nothing he’d coerced from her.

  He very hesitantly put his arms around her and fought the urge to squeeze her. The saints only knew what kind of damage might have resulted from that.

  “Thank you for the choice,” she said, her voice muffled against his surcoat.

  Was that what this was about? She was grateful he was giving her the damned choice to refuse him? He took her by the shoulders, her mail-covered shoulders, and pushed her back.

  “You’re very welcome for the choice, but what in the
bloody hell is it? Have me or not?”

  She smiled, a true smile that fair felled him where he stood. By the saints, ’twas a good thing she hadn’t smiled like that when she’d been a boy. He would have discovered her straightway.

  “I suppose,” she said, her eyes alight with something, either humor or happiness, “that since you’re not going to slay me, you’ll have to wed me.”

  He suppressed the urge to stick his fingers in his ears to make certain they were functioning as they should. Best make certain she meant what she said. He looked at her seriously. “Is that what you want?”

  “Aye,” she said simply. “’Tis what I want.”

  And then something extraordinary happened.

  He felt as if the sun had shone for the first time on the face of the earth. Something began inside him, something very like that same sun rising slowly in the east. It grew, then grew some more until he could scarce contain whatever it was that struggled to force its way out of him.

  A goodly belch?

  He waited, breathless, as whatever it was erupted from him with an accompanying feeling he was certain he’d never experienced before.

  “By the saints.” Aliénore breathed. “You smiled.”

  Colin reached up and felt his mouth in alarm. Aye, that seemed to be the case. And this wasn’t the kind of grin that came when he faced a score of men and was well on his way to sending them all speedily to the afterlife. This was a smile of, well, something he couldn’t quite identify.

  Joy?

  “Colin,” she said with a laugh, “you have a mark.”

  The joy immediately disappeared back the way it had come. “I do not,” he said stiffly.

  “You do, too. A dimple. Right there.”

  “I have no flaw on my visage that doesn’t come from its sheer ugliness.”

  “I don’t find you ugly.”

  Well, now either the wench was beginning to go blind, or too much swordplay had ruined her wits.

  “Let us remove you from the sun,” he said briskly. “’Tis obvious the orb begins to blind you.”

  “I can think you tolerable to look on,” she said. “If I want to.”

  Colin sighed deeply. If she wanted to continue in her madness, who was he to stop her?

  “Well, how do you find me?” she asked. “My aspect, I mean.”

  “Breathtaking,” he said promptly. “Pray our children take after you.”

  She grinned up at him. “Perhaps that would be best.”

  Well, now that that was settled, there was no sense in not seeing to getting on with things right away. Colin patted her on the back and stepped away.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Priest,” he said. “Then home. Harvest soon. Plenty of time to kick my father’s sorry arse out of the keep and make ourselves comfortable.”

  He strode back toward the hall, then realized he didn’t hear anyone striding after him. He stopped and looked behind him to see Aliénore standing much where he’d left her. He frowned and returned to see what ailed her.

  “Are you unwell?”

  She looked up at him in surprise. “Well, it seemed as if ... well, we should ... um ... at least—”

  He held out his hand. “Clasp hands on the bargain?”

  She looked at him blankly for a moment or two, then smiled a smile he understood not at all and put her hand in his.

  “Of course,” she said. “That’s what I meant.”

  As he took her hand, he suspected that he’d missed something important. But as he clutched her hand in his own, belatedly remembering that he could quite easily crush her fingers were he not careful, he looked down into her beautiful—and it was very beautiful—face and felt something else inside him shift.

  More joy?

  Damned if he knew.

  But whatever it was, it made him feel quite pleasant in the vicinity of his heart and he supposed it might be some sort of affection growing in him. Not that he hadn’t had vast quantities of admiration and esteem for the wench already. But this, this was something entirely different.

  Softer.

  More tender.

  Definitely more terrifying.

  “All right then,” he said, dropping her hand and backing away before he did something to embarrass himself. “Let us be about this business. Where’s the priest?”

  “Somewhere here about, I imagine.”

  He caught himself before he merely trotted off across the lists again. Grasping her hand and pulling her after him was definitely more efficient and would save him any further descents into those petrifying emotions that seemed to overwhelm him lately.

  He was obviously not sleeping enough.

  “Will your father not wish to be here?” she asked as she trotted after him breathlessly.

  Colin shrugged. “Damned if I know. He can rot in Hell for all I care.”

  She nodded, then fell silent. Colin stared at her, but her well of verbosity seemed to have run dry. He frowned. What was she about now? Was there something else he was missing?

  “Aliénore?”

  She looked up quickly, a brief smile on her face. “Aye?”

  “Something else troubles you?”

  She shifted. “Well ...”

  “Spew it forth in your most manly fashion.”

  “Well, don’t you think we should perhaps ...”

  He hesitated. That tone ... those words ... It wasn’t a tone he’d ever heard used in connection with his own poor name, but he’d heard it quite a bit when applied to the exploits and courting practices of Jason of Artane.

  And that could only mean one thing.

  “What?” he asked, with a goodly amount of dread.

  “Well, this is a bit sudden. The wedding and such. Do you think we should perhaps, well ...”

  He steeled himself for the worst. “Aye?”

  “Well ... first ...”

  He put his hand on his sword hilt to reassure himself. He was a man unafraid, a warrior uncowed, a lord of unparalleled reputation. He was not frightened of a word that could strike fear into the hearts of lesser men, not being a lesser man himself.

  “Aye?” he asked, through gritted teeth.

  “Well,” Aliénore said, looking unsettled, “perhaps we should ... woo.”

  The saints preserve him, the word gave him all the chills he’d suspected it would.

  “Woo?” he asked grimly.

  “Aye.”

  He suspected that she didn’t mean by wooing merely passing a few healthy hours in the lists.

  “Well,” he said, “I suppose so.”

  “Unless, of course, you don’t want to,” she added. “And I could understand that, of course. Given what I’ve put you through already.”

  He eyed her narrowly, but realized immediately that she wasn’t wielding the sword of guilt on him. She didn’t have that look about her that Ermengarde was wont to have when using her favorite tool of coercion. And he realized with equal swiftness that it would behoove him to start his marriage off on the right foot.

  Who deserved wooing more than this woman? After all, she had passed countless hours in the lists with him. How could he refuse her this simple request?

  But how was he to woo without some Artane lad at his elbow, giving him suggestions?

  Nay, he needed no aid. After all, how hard could it possibly be? Jason seemed to do it without a second thought, dragging out that bloody lute of his and screeching out all sorts of foul things. Women seemed to fall at his feet because of it, something Colin couldn’t understand in the least. Surely he, with his more astute sense of the appropriate and sensible, could invent a better style of wooing.

  “Very well,” he said gruffly, taking Aliénore by the hand again and starting toward the hall. “We’ll woo. Just realize that it won’t be any of that vacuous, empty-headed business those Artane lads engage in. This will be ... um ... manly wooing.”

  “I’m merely flattered you think me worth the effort.” br />
  He stopped suddenly, turned her to him, and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked down into her face, past the shorn hair and the dirt, into those fathomless green eyes, and marveled that she didn’t just demand wooing as her right. It certainly should have been. She deserved that, and more, and he would give it to her.

  In his most manly fashion, of course.

  “You are worth more effort than you know,” he said. “I could do nothing less for a woman who has shown your courage and wit. I might even concede that in those two qualities, you are my equal.” Then he looked at her to see how she would take that.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  Well, she didn’t look overly impressed by that concession, but perhaps he could expect no more of her at present. She was obviously quite overwhelmed by his offer to see her properly courted.

  So he grunted at her, just so she would know that he was still fully in charge of his normal, warriorly mien, then took her hand again and pulled her toward the hall. It was, he had to admit, a very nice hand. And he supposed he would at some distant point in the future accustom himself to the holding of that hand.

  And holding that hand led him to other quite satisfying thoughts. So he’d managed to saddle himself a wife—after he’d wooed and wed her, of course—who would enjoy his land as much as he. He could already see himself lazing beneath a fruit tree with her at his side, sleeping in the summer sun.

  After having successfully and with great pleasure sent his father off to live out his remaining years in his most rundown and uncomfortable keep of course.

  Colin quickened his pace. The sooner Aliénore was wooed, the sooner she would be won, and the sooner they could be home.

  Hopefully whilst there was still fruit on the trees for them to pick.

  Chapter 33

  Ali opened her eyes and had a brief moment of panic. She heard no snores and felt no hard floor beneath her back. Where was she? In her father’s pit, in the soft earth crawling with vermin?

  She patted about her frantically and was vastly relieved to find sheets and blankets covering her and a soft, goosefeather mattress beneath her back. Memory flooded back to her and she closed her eyes with a relieved sigh.