He stepped back a pace and made her a low bow. “As my lady wishes.”
She was still too weak to be up. Jason watched her struggle for only a handful of paces before he put his arm around her and gave her little choice but to lean on him. Their pace was very slow. It gave him ample time to wonder if there was a way he could convince her to let him fetch her things. Surely she could sew just as well whilst she was abed.
When they reached the solar door, Lianna straightened. Jason let his arm fall away from her, but he did so reluctantly.
“Are you certain?” he asked softly. “Perhaps another day—”
She shook her head. “I am well enough.” Then she looked at him and smiled faintly. “Thank you, my lord. For all your kindnesses to me.”
“Jason,” he said. “My name is Jason.”
“Jason, then,” she said, after only a slight hesitation.
“I’ll wait for you here.”
“But—”
“I’ll wait for you here,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “And don’t drink any of their bloody brews.”
“Far better to drink yours?”
“The worst mine might do is make you fall in love with me,” he said, fully meaning for it to come out teasingly, but somehow the words came out of his mouth and hung in the air, still. He stared down at Lianna and couldn’t believe that he had revealed so much of his heart with a simple handful of words.
Or that such words had uncovered so much of his heart he hadn’t yet been able to face.
She only stared at him for a moment or two in complete silence, then shut her mouth and struggled visibly to look unconcerned.
Jason took a deep breath. “I will,” he said, trying desperately for a much lighter tone, “remain without should you need me.”
“I vow I won’t drink anything.”
“Very wise.”
She gave him the briefest of smiles before she turned and pushed her way unsteadily into the solar. Jason heard the conversation come to an abrupt halt. The feeling of malice that flowed from the chamber was enough to set his hair on end—and he was the one supposedly accustomed to consorting with all manner of evil-doers.
He immediately tossed aside his promise to remain out in the passageway. He pushed the door fully open, then leaned against the doorframe, where he had full view of the goings-on inside.
Maud of Harrow and her accomplices sat in a circle with their feet at a brazier like so many witches hovering over a pot of bubbling mixture destined to wreak havoc on some unsuspecting soul. Only they weren’t watching their feet or their imaginary pot. Their eyes, to a woman, were trained upon Lianna.
And their glances were not friendly ones.
Well, all except Linet of Byford, who Jason had encountered more than once hovering by Lianna’s door as if doing penance for her part in the tragedy.
“What are you doing here?” Maud said, her voice as quiet as a knife sliding between unresisting ribs.
“I came to fetch my stitchery,” Lianna said, her words steady and sure.
Jason noted her change of plans, but he had no intentions of commenting on it. Even he would have found little to recommend an afternoon in the company of these women.
“Of course,” Maud said, gesturing toward the comer with a smile an assassin would have been happy to call his own. “By all means, fetch it.”
Lianna made her way carefully across the chamber and knelt down before a small trunk. Jason watched the other women and wondered at the tangible sense of anticipation that seemed to run through them. Had they some new barb to throw at Lianna before she quit the chamber? Surely they wouldn’t dare with him standing right there.
And then he realized that Lianna was not moving. He looked over to find her kneeling before her trunk, still as stone.
A feeling of dread swept over him.
He pushed away from the wall, skirted the chairs, and crossed the little chamber to kneel down at Lianna’s side. A very hasty look revealed things that would never be useful again. He reached out and lifted up threads that were none of them a quarter the length of his smallest finger. Needles were bent double, past ever being used again for their original purpose. Cloth was torn into strips. He fingered several of those tattered strips and could see that they had once been a tapestry in the making.
And on the top of all the destruction was a charred bit of wood that he could only assume had once been her tapestry frame. The rest had no doubt gone to feed some fire or other.
He wondered why it was that Lianna didn’t break down and weep.
He watched as she gently pushed his hand aside, then dug through the ruins of her art. She pulled out a needle. It was bent, but not so thoroughly that it couldn’t be saved. Jason watched Lianna finger it for several moments in silence. Then she looked up at him.
And to his surprise, one comer of her mouth seemed to be tipping up, as if it considered beginning a smile.
“They missed something,” she remarked calmly.
Indeed, she spoke so calmly they might have been discussing something as unimportant as whether or not the garrison was exercising until past noon or before.
Jason swallowed past a very dry throat. “Did they?” he managed.
Lianna toyed with the needle for a moment or two, then held it up to the light. “Can you brew potions, Jason?”
He blinked in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”
She fixed him with a purposeful glance. “Potions, my lord. Can you brew them?”
He wondered if anything he might say could possibly lead to anything but him being carried off to some unwholesome dungeon and subsequently being put to death in an unpleasant way. But he also suspected he knew what Lianna was thinking, so he stroked his chin, as if he considered his answer.
“Aye,” he said finally. “I’ve been trained to do the like.”
Lianna stood, swayed, then steadied herself. She shuffled slowly over to where Linet sat, quivering, all amusement, however faint, gone from her expression.
“Could you brew a potion that would bring death?” Lianna asked.
“Aye, likely so.”
Lianna moved to stand behind another woman. “This is the lady Adela. Could you brew up something to ruin whatever wits might remain her?”
“Surely.”
She moved behind another woman. “Here is her sister, Janet, a woman of particular desires. Could you see to it that she rots from the inside out, that a man never wanted to lie with her again?”
He suspected Janet would acquire that particular affliction on her own soon enough, but there was no sense in ruining Lianna’s play.
“Easily done.”
Lianna moved to stand behind Maud of Harrow. Maud sat as stiff as a pillar on her chair, every muscle tensed, a look of absolute hatred on her face.
“What about,” Lianna said quietly, “something to ruin a face? To ruin beauty? To take away the visage a woman holds most dear?”
“I could have caught the pox from you and done that,” Maud snapped.
“Aye, but that would have been over and done with in a handful of weeks,” Lianna said, leaning down close to Maud’s ear. “I daresay my lord could find a way to ruin your visage over the course of months, leaving you ample time to mourn your loss.” She looked at Jason. “Your thoughts, my lord?”
He lifted his eyebrows. “It could be done. And there could be a great amount of pain with it. Would that please you, my lady?”
Lianna paused, as if she considered, then she straightened and shrugged. “Why trouble yourself? Life will do it to her in time anyway. A woman cannot be so ugly on the inside and not have it seep out eventually. What think you?”
What he thought was that she was the most amazing woman he had ever met and he would be damned lucky if he could ever call her his.
Something he was finding he wanted very much indeed.
And then Maud moved.
Jason was on his feet, across the chamber, and standing between Maud and Lianna
before Maud could get to her feet and whirl around to slap Lianna. Jason stared at Maud’s upraised hand.
“Lianna,” he said, “quit the chamber. I’ll fetch your things and follow you.”
He held Maud’s gaze in the same way he’d held countless opponents, waiting for a twitch in her face or a blink of her eye that would signal her intent to strike first.
She dropped her hand, huffed disdainfully, then spun back around and flung herself down into her chair. Jason waited until Lianna was standing outside the door before he fetched her little trunk, then walked to the door himself. He looked back at the women seated there, then held each of their gazes in turn.
“I sincerely hope,” he said quietly, “that you all reap the rewards of what you’ve sown.”
And with that, he left the chamber and closed the door behind him.
Lianna was waiting for him, trembling. He smiled down at her.
“You were extraordinary,” he said. “And I’m very sorry about your gear.”
She laughed, a choked sound that seemed to go quite well with the tears coursing down her cheeks.
“Aye, well, when compared to the pox or poison, this seems a small thing.” She paused. “I am glad you were there.”
“You just wanted me for my foul reputation.”
“It seemed a pity not to make use of it.”
“I daresay there is more to you than meets the eye.”
He was just giving thought to how he might go about discovering what that more was when he looked up and saw the very last person he wanted to see at present. He cursed under his breath. Kendrick’s ability to ruin any and all of Jason’s attempts at wooing a woman was nothing short of uncanny. Did his father have a hand in this as well? Jason glared at his brother.
“What do you want?”
Kendrick blinked innocently. “What mean you?”
“We’re busy, as you can see. Be off with you.”
Kendrick looked at him assessingly, as if he knew what Jason was planning.
“I thought,” Kendrick said slowly, as if he considered something of deep import, “that you had business to be about. Crusading or some such rot.”
Jason sensed Lianna looking up at him. He wondered what she would think if he took his fist and planted it solidly in his brother’s mouth to stop any more witless words. At least he could do so now and have it accomplish something. He remembered vividly all the years he’d wanted to but couldn’t.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Jason growled.
“Ah,” Kendrick said wisely. “You found something, well, here to change your mind, hmmm?”
“Shut up,” Jason said. “Before you force me to see to that for you.”
Kendrick looked as if he planned to say something else. Jason brushed past him, nodding to Lianna to come with him. He saw her inside her chamber and set her trunk down by the bed.
“We will seek out a fair and find you other things to stitch with. Or perhaps the king has a stitcher with thread and cloth to spare.”
“His Majesty seems to have an abundance of clothing,” she agreed.
“I will see what I can find, then return. Does that suit you?”
She sat down on the bed and looked up at him with a smile. “And I’ve no doubt you’ve business with your brother.”
“You see too clearly,” he said with a scowl. “Aye, I’ll see to him, find things for you, then return.” And I’ll find a guard for your door, he added silently. He nodded to Lianna, left the chamber, closed the door, then rewarded his brother with a blow to the belly that should have silenced him for a goodly while.
Kendrick straightened with a grunt. “What was that for?”
“I’m thinking to woo her, you fool. I do not need your aid.”
Kendrick grunted. “If she’ll have you.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“Why indeed?”
“There’s nothing amiss with me.”
To his surprise, Kendrick clapped him with a friendly hand on the shoulder.
“To be sure, brother. But don’t you realize who she is?”
“I was just in the process of trying to discover more about her,” Jason said pointedly, “when you arrived with your bothersome self.”
“Or what she’s doing in the king’s company?” Kendrick continued, as if he hadn’t heard the slur.
Jason considered briefly, then shook his head. “She’s not his lover. She couldn’t be.”
“She’s his ward, dolt.”
Jason blinked. “His ward?”
“Aye. She’s Lianna of Grasleigh. Didn’t you know?” Grasleigh. Grasleigh? Jason felt the blood drain from his face. He remembered well hearing of Grasleigh’s death, but he hadn’t stopped to consider the daughter who had been left behind after the family’s slaughter. And what a daughter—one who possessed almost as much wealth as his sire himself.
“You’ll have trouble with the king,” Kendrick said unhelpfully. “Doubt he’ll want a third son for such as she.”
Jason doubted it as well. He leaned back against the wall, wondering why he hadn’t been quick enough to have found out who she was before Kendrick did him the honor of informing him.
Kendrick punched his arm. “Cheer up. We’ll think of something.”
“Thank you,” Jason said faintly. “I think.”
Kendrick laughed. “Your lack of faith in me wounds me. And when did you fall for her? I thought you were off to pursue your noble cause in France. Though I can understand why you would want her. She is quite remarkable.”
“And she doesn’t want you.”
“You don’t know that,” Kendrick said with a glint in his eye.
Jason sensed a battle in the offing. At least that might take his mind off the devastating tidings he’d just received.
“She has two eyes,” Jason said. “And a nose.”
Well, that was enough to do it, Jason found. And as he brawled with his brother in the passageway, he considered how it was he might attain the impossible.
Such as a third son wedding with the richest heiress in England.
Seven
Lianna sat in a comfortable chair under a tree, enjoying the sunshine and poking through the basket of thread Jason had amassed for her over the past three days. At first she’d been too grateful to complain about the colors. Now, she had begun to suspect he’d chosen them with great care.
For they were mostly cheerful colors.
Not the colors of shadows.
Indeed, she suspected that fashioning a shadow or a dragon or anything else gloomy or grim with any of these things would be quite impossible. And that was enough to bring yet another smile to her lips, something that seemed to be happening with alarming regularity.
Especially since she wondered how such happiness could possibly last.
She looked at her companion, who sat on the ground with his back against the tree, plucking the strings of his filched lute and frowning over his fingerings. His blackened eye was healing nicely, and the cut on his lip had scabbed over well enough. She had thought to ask how he’d come by such injuries, but she’d already known the answer—given that she’d listened to him scuffle with his brother in the passageway. And she’d seen Kendrick’s face later that day as well.
“You must have an interesting family,” she said dryly.
Jason looked up. “Why do you say that?”
“The displays of brotherly affection I’ve seen between you and Kendrick. Remarkable, truly.”
Jason shook his head with a smile. “We love each other well enough, I suppose. What you don’t understand is that I’ve been the youngest all my life, and therefore the one least likely to come out the winner in any conflict.”
“Do you all go about bloodying each other’s noses regularly?”
“We’re wrestling, my lady,” he said solemnly. “Harmless encounters. And as I was saying, I always used to come out on the bottom of such friendly skirmishes.”
“And then you grew.”
/> “I grew,” he agreed. “And my brothers grew fat and lazy. You can imagine why the temptation to best them now at every opportunity is almost overwhelming.”
“Kendrick does not seem overplump to me. Has your other brother gone to fat?”
“Gone to seed is more like it,” Jason said with a snort. “Nay, Phillip is not fat either, though he’s become somewhat less tidy than he used to be. He used to shun wrestling for fear of mussing his clothes.” Jason strummed thoughtfully. “I suppose that he’s since worn enough of his children’s meals to no longer care about the condition of his tunics. Happily for me,” he said, looking up at her with twinkling eyes, “such slovenliness and weariness leave him ripe pickings for being vanquished. And Kendrick can be distracted with insults, leaving him vulnerable as well.”
“Not that you need to rely on such tactics, of course,” she said. “Being so intimidating yourself.”
“What with my reputation and all,” he agreed.
She nodded but found herself quite abruptly unable to speak further. Thinking on Jason and his brothers and what closeness they shared made her think on things she hadn’t in months. A horrible longing for her family rose up and washed over her, a yearning so strong that all she could do was bow her head and bury it in her threads. A tear slid down her cheek and dripped onto her hand.
She heard some part of Jason creak as he drew closer to her. Blinking rapidly revealed that he was kneeling before her. His large, strong hands came to rest over hers.
“Lianna,” he said softly, “what ails you? Are you unwell?”
She shook her head.
“The thread doesn’t please you.”
“’Tis lovely,” she managed.
“Then what?”
She blinked furiously and wanted to shout at him what ails me is that being near you gives me a sense of home for the first time in almost a year, and you’re too much a fool to notice that you’re responsible for it! She dragged her hand across her eyes to clear them, then glared at him—only to find that he was looking at her with an expression of surprise. And that made her want to slap the look straight from his face.