Ballard grinned as Gavin lifted a half slumbering Cinnia in his arms and took the stairs at a snail’s pace. Louvaen trailed behind them, pausing once to give Ballard a look that said she knew exactly what Gavin was doing. She winked, hugged his gift as if she were hugging him and followed his son up the stairwell.
He returned to his chamber soon after, warming pan in hand to heat the sheets. Clarimond had offered to take on the task, but he’d refused. He didn’t feel like company of any kind except Louvaen’s, and if he could muck out a stable, he could warm his bed for his lover. He’d just set the pan near the hearth when a soft knock sounded from the solar. He discovered Louvaen still in her crimson gown. She braced her hands on her hips and frowned.
“I’m trussed up worse than a stuffed goose,” she proclaimed. “You’ll have to help me out of this stupid dress. And please tell me the sheets are warm.”
She laughed when he pulled her into the solar and slammed the door. She sighed his name when he lifted her in his arms and kissed her all the way to his bed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cinnia strode into the kitchen pointing a finger at Louvaen. “You are a hypocrite!”
Magda, Clarimond and Joan stared first at a red-faced, furious Cinnia and then at Louvaen who continued to plunge the dasher up and down in the butter churn.
“So we begin,” she murmured before turning her gaze to Magda with a silent request.
The cook set down the boiled egg she was peeling and rose from the table. “Come on, lasses, to the buttery. We’ll have cyser tonight with the ale.” The two women followed her through the door leading to the buttery, leaving the sisters alone.
Louvaen maintained her rhythm on the dasher as she met her sister’s angry stare. “Why am I a hypocrite?” She knew the answer. All the sneaking about she’d been doing lately between Ballard’s chamber and hers guaranteed Cinnia would catch her at some point. She was honestly relieved to have it in the open.
Cinnia crossed her arms. “I saw you leaving the solar this morning. De Sauveterre kissed you before you left. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.” Her cheeks rosied. “You were wearing very little.”
Louvaen shrugged and continued churning the butter. “What of it?”
Cinnia’s eyes bugged and she flung her arms wide. “What of it? What of it? You’ve been ranting at me for weeks to behave! No kissing. No touching. No embracing.” She counted the restrictions off on her fingers. “I can’t even walk with Gavin across the bailey without you tracking us like a lymer, and you’re bedding his father!”
Louvaen winced as Cinnia practically screeched in her ear. She abandoned the churn and patted a place beside her on the bench. “Sit down.”
Cinnia’s mouth thinned to a mutinous line. “I don’t want to sit down. I want to know why you think it’s just fine for you to...”
“Sit. Down.”
Moments of rebellion couldn’t conquer a lifetime of obedience. Cinnia sat.
Louvaen reached for her hand. The girl snatched it out of her reach. She sighed and met Cinnia’s glare with what she hoped was a neutral expression. “We’ve already had some of this conversation, but we’ll revisit so we both know where we stand.” She’d known they’d deal with this, even if she’d never become Ballard’s lover. “I can shackle you to my leg, tie you to my wrist and sew you into my shoes, but my best efforts won’t stop you from bedding Gavin if you insist. Are you still a virgin?”
Cinnia glared. “Yes,” she hissed. “But this isn’t about me.”
“Oh, it’s very much about you. I’m a widow. Unfair I know, but my value in society isn’t based on my maidenhead. My worth as a woman is tied to the property my husband left me and my ability to bear children. I can bed as many men as I want as often as I want as long as I’m discreet. You already know where your worth lies.
Cinnia raised her chin and scowled. “Gavin doesn’t see me in that light.”
Louvaen scowled back. “So? He hasn’t offered for you yet, has he? Until he does, what he sees doesn’t matter. Others will measure differently.”
The girl jerked up from the bench and began to pace. “You’re right. It isn’t fair. I’ve a good mind and was raised to have good character. I’m more than some stupid virginity.”
“We all are, my love.” She reached for Cinnia’s hand again, and this time the girl returned the clasp.
Cinnia squeezed her fingers. “Gavin will marry me,” she proclaimed with the unshakeable fervency of a newly indoctrinated anchorite.
Louvaen heaved a weary sigh. “I want to believe; truly I do, but your faith in him is greater than mine. If he doesn’t offer for you, you have to walk out of Ketach Tor intact. Until I hear him plight you his troth, I’ll continue to act the lymer and remain the hypocrite.”
She and Cinnia stared at each other until Cinnia collapsed back on the bench with a huff, all her indignation drained away, leaving only puzzlement. “Why de Sauveterre?”
Louvaen paused. Her list of the obvious was a league long; the more subtle, short and hard to express. Ballard de Sauveterre was unlike the jocular Thomas Duenda in almost every way. Somber, weary, often taciturn, he exuded a latent power that filled whichever room he occupied. She knew little of his history, only that he was a widower and served as a Marcher lord. She’d not been surprised to learn he’d once ruled a kingdom within a kingdom. Even if he hadn’t revealed the last fact to her, she would have imagined the roles of leader and warrior for him. Louvaen respected these traits but wasn’t drawn to them. The quiet man who saved her family from ruin, laughed at her sharp-tongued quips, loved his son and protected his household: such a man drew her like iron to a lodestone. She told Cinnia none of this.
Why de Sauveterre?
She shrugged. “Why not?”
Cinnia blinked, obviously startled by the question. “Well, he’s...”
“A good man with a stalwart heart.” Louvaen grinned as Cinnia’s blinking turned to owl-eyed fascination.
“And you think him handsome? Even with his scars and claws?” Cinnia’s rounded eyes and downturned mouth spoke volumes.
“I do. Very much so.”
Louvaen continued to smile at the thought of Cinnia’s mortification if she revealed just how attracted she was to Ballard. He’d teased her and called her lusty, and he was right. She lusted after him with a ferocity that had her practically leaping on him the moment they were alone, hands sliding into every open space of his clothes while she plundered his mouth. He met her enthusiasm with equal passion, and there were many times they didn’t reach his bed or even remove all their clothing before he had her up against a wall or stretched out on the rug by the fire, deep inside her as she moaned his name.
“Do you love him?”
Cinnia’s question cooled the heat of her thoughts and turned them melancholy. She refused to ponder the possibility, though the idea had lurked in the back of her mind for several days now demanding she recognize its presence. “Your question has no bearing.” she said. “I can’t stay. Papa needs me. Leaving Ketach Tor in the spring is your question to answer.”
This interlude that had unexpectedly grown out of desperate circumstances was only temporary. She belonged at home in Monteblanco, her father’s caretaker and mistress of his household. She had no intention of remarrying. That she’d ever married at all surprised everyone, including her. She had loved Thomas, loved being his wife. He’d taken a piece of her with him when he died, and she couldn’t imagine binding herself to any man after him. Until now. Recent memories teased her—sitting with Ballard in the solar during winter nights, reading to him or playing Draughts, teasing him and being teased in return, waking before dawn wrapped in his arms with his slow breaths warm on her neck, his body curled around hers.
She gave Cinnia a severe look. “You sly minx. You made this about me after all, didn’t you?”
Cinnia’s unrepentant smile reflected in her brown eyes. “Only a little.” An anxious frown replaced the smile, and she
bent to kiss Louvaen’s knuckles. “You’ll be careful, Lou? You’re so busy watching after me, I don’t want you to forget about you. If de Sauveterre hurts you, maybe I’ll be the one to shoot someone,” she declared with a scowl and flourish of her hand.
Louvaen hugged her and gave her a peck on her forehead. “My love, I didn’t bring enough powder and shot to take down all three men, but there are crossbows and swords handy. I’m sure you’d make do.”
The two parted company, Cinnia leaving Louvaen to the thoroughly detested task of churning while she helped Clarimond dip candles.
Ballard found her later in Cinnia’s bower alone, carding from a basket of raw wool. Louvaen bade him enter at his polite knock. He stood in the doorway and leaned indolently against the frame. She stroked the teasel brushes against each other, drawing the wool into longer fibers. “What brings a handsome lord to visit a lowly spinner this cold morning?” she said.
Ballard made a show of looking over his shoulder and peering down the hall before turning back to her. “I wouldn’t know. There are no handsome lords or lowly spinners here—just me seeking the favor of a beautiful woman who happens to spin.”
“You’ve a silver tongue, Lord de Sauveterre.”
“That isn’t how you described it last night, Mistress Duenda.”
She heel-toed the two teasels too short, matting the fibers. “Ballard!” she admonished him.
He lifted his hands in a nonchalant gesture. “What? From what I hear, your virginal sister is aware you share my bed. What secrets do you have to keep now?”
Louvaen dropped the teasels into the basket and rose to join him at the doorway. “News travels fast.”
“We’re one castle and eight people. News doesn’t have far to go or many ears to reach.” He straightened from the doorframe. “I have to ride the land boundaries. Come with me. The sun is out and the sky clear.”
She recalled the list of tasks she intended to do for the day and promptly tossed them aside. Magda wouldn’t mind, and Cinnia would welcome a reprieve from her guardianship. Best of all, she’d have Ballard to herself all day instead of a few stolen dark hours. She stopped short of accepting his invitation, disappointment dampening her excitement. “I can’t. Plowfoot is frightened of you. I’d have to fight him the entire way to keep him from galloping back to the stables.”
Except for Magnus, animals feared Ballard. Plowfoot had almost kicked his stall door down once, trying to put distance between him and the master of Ketach Tor as Ballard and Gavin mucked out the stables. Gavin had to trot the horse out to the bailey and tie him to a post until they’d finished cleaning.
Ballard offered an easy solution. “You’ll ride pillion on Magnus. He can carry us both at full gallop without breathing hard.”
She gathered her cloak and mittens and changed her shoes for heavier boots. As he promised, the sky arced a clear, deep blue overhead. Louvaen squinted against the sun’s glare after so many weeks spent either outdoors with gray-washed skies or indoors under candlelight. The snow had cleared, but the air burned like cold fire in her nostrils and lungs. The stable’s warmth practically lulled her into a torpor after the bracing temperatures outside. Magnus nickered and blew at her skirts as she waited for Ballard to saddle him.
“He doesn’t mind a second person?” She and Cinnia often rode Plowfoot together, but their mild-mannered draught horse was nothing like this sleek, battle-ready courser.
Ballard adjusted the cinch strap and blanket beneath the saddle. “No. You may not recall, but he carried us both back to the castle after you fell in the pond.” He focused on her next, pulling her hood forward to shelter her face and tightening the laces at her throat. Unlike her, he was impervious to the chill and wore only a quilted surcoat over a heavy wool shirt and leather breeches. “Are you ready?” She nodded, and he sprang nimbly into the saddle without using the stirrup. She took his offered arm and swung behind him, landing neatly on Magnus’s rump amidst a flurry of skirts.
“I told you I didn’t need a stool.” She proceeded to squirm until she adjusted her dress to her satisfaction and Magnus snorted his disapproval.
Ballard looked over his shoulder. “No, but a pair of breeches instead of your dress might have worked better.”
Louvaen slid her arms around his narrow waist and nestled against his back for warmth. “Stop complaining. This ride was your idea.” She very much liked the way the low laugh vibrating along his spine made her cheek tingle.
They rode through the bailey, skirting the serpentine roses. The blooms swiveled on their stems as Magnus trotted past, the crimson petals opening and closing. They hissed their disapproval as the horse rode by, untroubled by their presence. Louvaen pressed closer to Ballard and hissed back.
They crossed the smaller bridge notched into the back of the castle. It stretched across the chasm at the narrowest point, putting them on the track leading to the pond. Louvaen shuddered at the memory of falling into that black, frozen water.
Ballard must have felt her shivers. “Too cold?” he said over his shoulder.
“Not yet.” She was grateful when he led Magnus off the path and down another that twisted and turned through a maze of trees before descending into a shallow gulley and up again to a narrow ridge that hugged the forest edge. They rode without speaking, serenaded by the creak of Ballard’s saddle and the muffled rhythm of the horse’s gait as he trod on a carpet of dead leaves layered with snow. Louvaen settled in to enjoy the ride. Her legs and back prickled from the cold, but the front of her torso stayed warm as she held Ballard close and gazed upon the bare forest locked in winter.
She straightened abruptly when a flash of blue danced in the corner of her eye and disappeared. The flash appeared again, rippling within the shadows cast by a thick stand of birches. Three more times it teased her, flitting in and out of her vision quick as a firefly in summer. She tapped Ballard’s arm. “Are we near a strong pool of magic? There’s blue light darting through the trees.”
His reply surprised her. “You can’t deny your mother’s heritage, mistress. Those of us without the gift of magery don’t see what you do. We’re following the line of Ambrose’s ward. I’m told the boundary sometimes shimmers blue.”
Louvaen peered more closely into the trees and this time noted the odd rippling effect—like a wall of clear water—passing through the undergrowth. The tingles dancing upon her skin were more than just the cold. Magic streamed off the barrier in cerulean runnels, leaving glowing tracers over tree limbs and along the snow-spackled ground. She leaned around Ballard to track the barrier’s path. It edged the ridge, continuing past her line of sight. “How far does the ward go?”
“A league in all directions.”
She gasped. Ballard had mentioned Ambrose possessed an impressive talent for sorcery. Only now did she understand the scope of his power. Erecting and maintaining a barrier so large required a conjurer of both formidable strength and decades of experienced spell-casting. Louvaen groaned into Ballard’s back. “Dear gods, Ambrose could have turned me into a toad or a slug with the snap of his fingers.”
“I believe he’s done so in the past to a few unfortunates foolish enough to cross him.”
He swept his arm across the panoramic view. “My lands once covered ten times the distance they do now, and Ketach Tor nearly burst at the seams with people. I spent my days administering court, settling disputes, reading estate reports, gathering rents and hunting. Sometimes I went to war.”
He recited his past duties as she would a list of those things she needed for market, but Louvaen caught the wistfulness in his flat description. She tightened her arms around his middle. “The flux changed everything.”
“Aye. We’re cut off from the world with only Gavin to tell us of news when he returns from his journeys.”
The manifestations caused by the flux confused her. She was no magic user, even if she could see magic at work, but fluxes were nothing more than swells of power, sometimes channeled by sorcerers for
good or evil, but neutral on their own. “I don’t understand. Wild magic isn’t malicious or vengeful; just unpredictable. Why has this pool changed you so much and imprisoned you here?”
He stiffened against her. “You’ll have to talk to Ambrose about such things. He’s the wizard, not I.” His voice had sharpened, whetted on a biting sarcasm that took her aback and signaled an end to any more conversation on the topic.
Louvaen heeded the warning and went quiet. She’d never been one to tiptoe around people, preferring a straightforward approach that was sometimes heavy-handed. It had made her more enemies than friends, but no one was ever unsure where they stood with her. She didn’t believe her question insulted Ballard, but something she said had split the scab on an old wound that still smarted, and he’d snarled in response. One part of her understood this and respected his boundary; the other part bristled, stung by his suddenly hostile manner. She swallowed a biting retort and strangled the temptation to box his ears.
A gravid silence swelled between them. Several times during her stay at Ketach Tor she’d kept wordless company with Ballard, an easy quiet with only the rhythmic tap of her foot on the spinning wheel’s treadle to mar it. This was different.
Louvaen sat up straight and pulled her hands from where they rested against Ballard’s sides. He captured one hand, pressing it hard to his ribs. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t draw away from me.” He tugged her hand upward and bent to kiss her gloved fingertips. His tone remained somber but no longer carried the earlier hostility. “There are regrets hard to ponder, even harder to speak of. I can’t answer your question, Louvaen; I won’t. I value your regard too much to lose it.”
Louvaen tilted her head, puzzled by the ominous statement, and shivered within her cloak as a chill that had nothing to do with the weather drizzled down her back. “I can be a fishwife of the worst sort, my lord, but I’m a lot more forgiving than most people think. I would hope to comfort instead of judge.”