He tugged on her hand a second time, forcing her to lean into his back once more as he wrapped her arm snugly around his middle. Her other arm soon joined, and she embraced him fully. “Your companionship is my greatest comfort, mistress.”
“I’ll remind you of that the next time I dive naked into that ice pit you call a bed.”
He rewarded her jesting with a soft chuckle, and relaxed in the saddle. “You accuse me unjustly now, Louvaen. The bed’s been warm these past nights.”
She couldn’t argue that one. He’d wielded the warming pan as enthusiastically as he did a sword, telling her several times that his reward for the effort far outweighed the humbleness of the task. Louvaen made sure she rewarded him as often as possible for the kindness.
They continued their journey along the boundaries of his diminished demesne, riding beside fenced pasture land that held the flock of wooly sheep Ambrose both guarded and despised and passing fields sleeping fallow for winter. Ballard pointed to the ones closest to where they rode.
“When the flax blooms, the earth mirrors the sky. Fields of blue as far as the eye can see.”
Her fingers twitched with the urge to twist into Ballard’s tunic. Cinnia would see the flax bloom; Louvaen would be in Monteblanco caring for their father and trying not to think too much about the master of Ketach Tor. Then again, she might be kept busy lying to all and sundry about where she and Cinnia had wintered if her sister ended up returning home with her.
“Ballard,” she said. “I have a question, and I want you to answer me honestly.”
He tensed, obviously bracing himself for more questioning about the flux and why it changed him. “Ask,” he said. She noted he didn’t promise her the honest answer.
She intended to do exactly as he suggested earlier and, at the risk of being turned into a toad, interrogate Ambrose about the oddities of the flux. For now, other things weighed heavily on her mind. “Will Gavin ask for Cinnia’s hand?”
Ballard caressed her arm. “You can put your fears to rest. I’ve no doubts he’ll do so within a sennight.”
She almost wilted with relief before another worry plagued her. While everyone knew Cinnia didn’t have two silvers to rub together, Louvaen felt she needed to remind Ballard of the fact. “My father’s remaining wealth and influence went down with his ships. Cinnia will come to this marriage without a dowry or family connections. She has only a loving heart and great beauty to offer your son, and beauty doesn’t last.”
Ballard brought Magnus to a halt. He twisted around to meet Louvaen’s eyes, his gaze flitting to the top of her head, to her lips and chin before returning to her eyes. The somber set of his mouth deepened. “The only dowry he wants from her is a return of his love. As for her beauty: the Cinnia Gavin sees now will be the Cinnia he sees when she’s as withered as a dried fig and clutching a walking stick.”
A bubble of emotion swelled in her chest and rose to her throat, almost choking her. How fortunate her sister would be, married to a man raised by such a father. “Thank you, Ballard,” she whispered.
He inclined his head, straightened in his seat and set Magnus in motion. Louvaen hugged his middle hard enough to make him grunt. “What other questions can I answer to earn such affection from you, mistress?” His voice took on a teasing note.
She pressed her cheek into his back. “That’ll do for now, my lord.”
They returned to the fortress by mid afternoon when the sky had faded to gray, and snow drifted lazily on a rising breeze. Louvaen’s teeth chattered, and she patted her nose with one hand, certain she’d find an icicle hanging from the tip. She was grateful when they rode into the stable’s relative warmth, eager to thaw her bones. The horse and Ballard’s body heat had kept her chest and back of her legs warm. The rest of her shivered and shuddered under the layers of wool and fur she wore.
Ballard dismounted first, swinging his leg over Magnus’s neck to drop lightly to the ground. He held his arms up and motioned to Louvaen. She slid into his embrace and wrapped her arms around his neck. He clasped her to him, his face pale from the cold, enigmatic in the stable’s feeble light.
She raised a hand to trace her thumb over one of his prominent cheekbones. “I wish I could be here when the flax blooms.”
He searched her face, his dark eyes turning even blacker. “Stay then.” His arms tightened on her back, and his voice deepened even more. “Stay with me at Ketach Tor.”
Oh, how badly she wanted to say yes; scream it to the nearby mountains over and over until they heard the echo all the way back in Monteblanco. The word stuck in her throat. Her allegiance belonged to her father. Even without the threat of the scheming Gabrilla Jimenin, Mercer Hallis needed his eldest child if for nothing more than to act as caretaker and keep him from falling into any more harebrained financial schemes.
Louvaen leaned her forehead against Ballard’s. “I can’t.”
He closed his eyes, giving her a view of his thick lashes and the delicate skin of his eyelids. “I know,” he said in the same low voice, though now it resonated bleak instead of impassioned.
She had the oddest sense that while he knew her reasons for not remaining at Ketach Tor, his agreement with her refusal sprang from something else entirely. She brushed her lips across his closed lids, over his brows and the bridge of his nose. Magnus interrupted them with an impatient snort. Louvaen grinned as the animal leveled a look on Ballard that conveyed his displeasure at being left standing in the stables still bridled and saddled.
Ballard grinned. “All right, lad, I’m getting to you.” He captured Louvaen’s hand and kissed her palm. “Go inside and get warm. I’ll tend to his majesty and join you soon.”
The snow fell faster, dusting everything white as she crossed the bailey. She skirted the portion of wall covered in the twisted mat of vermillion roses, so vibrant amidst surroundings washed in gray. So malignant and fetid. The vines rustled as she passed, their serpentine slide along the wall making the hair on her nape stand up.
Magda halted her at the door leading into the kitchen. “I just swept the floors. If you want inside and something to eat, you’ll leave those muddy boots on the stoop.”
Louvaen did as ordered and hurried to the fire to shed her cloak and gloves and warm her feet. She hid her smile behind her goblet of ale when the housekeeper barred Ballard from entering with the same command. After a few muttered epithets and the remark that a conquest of his fortress by a domina shouldn’t have been so easy, he toed off his boots and joined Louvaen at the fire.
“Wretched old hag,” he groused and took the goblet Louvaen offered him. “One of these days I’ll toss her skinny arse out into the snow.”
Magda sniffed as she strode by them on her way to the pantry. “Will never happen. You’d marry me if I’d have you—which I won’t—and you know it.”
Ballard glared at her back for a moment before joining Louvaen in her laughter. “She’s right you know.” He leered at Louvaen. “I’d still keep you as my leman.”
She harrumphed. “Then you’d be dead because one of us would kill you for even entertaining the idea. I don’t share easily, especially husbands. I doubt Magda does either.”
She yelped when he suddenly yanked her against him, almost spilling her ale. His easy smile faded. “Nothing to hide from Cinnia now, and you claim you trust her to do as you ask. Come to my chambers. Give me the remainder of the day and all of the night.” His eyebrows rose when a sudden gurgling noise rose between them.
Louvaen grimaced. “We’ve kissed the hare’s foot, and I’m hungry.”
Her statement that they’d missed dinner didn’t deter him from his plan. He simply handed her his goblet, plucked the leftover bread, cheese and dried apples Magda had left for them and ushered her from the kitchen, through the great hall and up the stairs to his chamber.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The door’s slam reverberated in the room. Louvaen chuckled and deposited their goblets on the table set between the two chairs bef
ore the fire. She took the food from his arms and put it with the goblets. “Will you lock me in now, my lord?”
He eyed her with a mock scowl. “Do I need to?”
“Hardly. There’s food here, and I’m starved enough to gnaw on this table.” She offered a suggestive smile. “I should warn you though; your virtue is now in jeopardy.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. Instead, he scooped her into his arms and settled into one of the chairs with her in his lap. “No matter. Either one will be pleasurable.”
Louvaen twirled a lock of his hair around her finger. “We’ll miss our supper as well if we stay in here too long. What delicacy will you nibble on then?”
Ballard buried his face in her neck, and she laughed as he snuffled, nipping at her earlobe and the skin under her jaw. “You,” he growled in her ear. “Sweeter than a damson.” He nibbled his way toward her shoulder. “Soft on the tongue like a tipsycake.” His fingers danced along her ribs. She chortled and swatted at his hands. “More delicate than a roasted haunch of venison.”
“What?” Louvaen thrust her hands into his hair, using the leverage to tug his face away from her neck. She met his grin with a scowl. “Ballard, there’s nothing delicate about a haunch of anything.”
The hand tickling her side slipped nimbly under her skirts to stroke her leg from knee to hip. One of his eyebrows winged upward. “I disagree. This one is.” He bent to nuzzle her cleavage but paused when her stomach protested with an even louder growl than before.
Louvaen shrugged. “What do you expect, talking of tipsycakes and plums and such?”
His frustrated chuff dusted her collarbones. “My horse, my cook, your belly.” He pushed her gently off his lap and toward the other chair. “I’m a vassal to you all.”
They shared the simple meal between them, teasing each other as they consumed the food. Even though she’d spend the evening with Ballard and share his bed through the night, she found herself wishing the day might never end—not because she’d discarded the day’s toil but because she’d devoted those hours to the master of the house and reveled in his companionship. That he felt a great affection for her, she had no doubt. He was reserved with her around others but generous in his passion and tenderness when they were alone. The hours spent riding along his land borders together had merely strengthened the bonds that tethered her to him.
Cinnia had asked earlier if she loved him. Now, Louvaen would say yes, unequivocally. She was deeply in love with Ballard de Sauveterre, as much if not more so than she’d been with Thomas Duenda. That epiphany—its utter futility—stunned her, and for a moment she forgot how to breathe. The apple she held fell to the floor, and she swayed in her chair.
Ballard shot from his seat, twin lines furrowed between his eyebrows in a harsh frown. He knelt in front of her and took her hand. “What’s wrong? You’ve gone pale as the dead.”
She reached for her goblet with a hand that remained blessedly steady. “Just thirsty. And full.”
He gazed at her, his frown lingering while he drew circles on her knee with his thumb. Louvaen stared into his dark eyes, wondering if he could see the emotions roiling through her, hear the declaration of devotion hovering on her tongue.
“Come to bed,” he said abruptly and rose to his feet with a hand outstretched.
Startled, she glanced at the shuttered window through which tendrils of insipid light unfurled, then back at him. “A little early for slumber, don’t you think?”
Ballard grasped her fingers, pulled her up from the chair and relieved her of her goblet. “I never said anything about sleeping.”
This time she didn’t complain about cold sheets or worry that Cinnia would come hunting for her. A growing sense of dread consumed her, along with a desperation to hoard every minute with Ballard. For some reason, the moment she’d acknowledged to herself she loved him an hourglass had turned on its end, and the sands ran fine and fast. Spring was still weeks away, yet she felt as if it hovered outside the door, a harbinger not only of rebirth but finality. She shivered in Ballard’s arms and kissed him hard enough to taste blood.
He made love to her as afternoon gave way to twilight and then to night. In the quieter moments when they rested, Louvaen entangled her legs with his and clutched him close.
“Tell me what troubles you, Louvaen,” he said, his voice easy and deep. They reclined together and he stroked her back and shoulders while she lay docile in arms.
“I’m well.” She lied. She wasn’t well. She despaired and raged at the knowledge she’d soon return home and never see him again. “What could possibly trouble me right now?” She nestled into him and contented herself with carding his hair through her fingers, hoping to distract him from more questions. He grew heavier against her, and his breathing deepened, signaling he’d fallen asleep.
Louvaen stared into the darkness. A week. She had a week, maybe a fortnight if Cinnia wanted a wedding ceremony more elaborate than Ambrose binding her hand to Gavin’s with golden cord and giving the ritual blessing of unification. After that, Louvaen had no more reason to stay. The weather would be fair enough to travel. She might even catch the first blooming daffodils as she rode Plowfoot over the drawbridge and onto the land opposite Ketach Tor.
“I wish I could stay, Ballard,” she whispered. “I do love you.”
The words had barely left her lips when the air around her compressed, and her ears popped. Beside her, Ballard jerked and muttered in his sleep. She couldn’t discern anything in the shadows swallowing the curtained bed. Dizziness overwhelmed her, as if a great hand had grabbed the bed and launched it into a spin. The sickening motion stopped almost as soon as it began, and Louvaen clutched Ballard to her, gasping. He didn’t awaken—a strange thing itself as she’d learned he was a light sleeper and sensitive to her slightest movements.
Her skin prickled, and the fine hairs on her arms rose; the air smelled of magic—sharp and cool like the first breeze before the coming of a downpour. She lay still, waiting for the dizziness to return. She half expected the tell-tale blue sparks to make an appearance. The scent of rain dissipated; the bed didn’t spin, and no fae lights appeared. Whatever sorcery had surged through the chamber was gone, leaving nothing more than a light draft on the bed curtains. Louvaen lay rigid in the bed long afterwards, only relaxing—one wary muscle at a time—as the room remained steeped in quiet. Her eyelids grew heavy. Ketach Tor convulsed within a tide—this flux Ballard and Gavin mentioned but never expanded on—and she wanted answers. Tomorrow she’d track down Ambrose and demand them. She draped an arm across her lover’s waist and fell asleep to the sound of his gentle snores.
She woke to a thing far less soothing. During the night she’d engaged in her customary act of cocooning herself in the blankets for warmth. Ballard, impervious to the chamber’s frigid temperatures, slept peacefully beside her, his back pressed against hers. Louvaen wrinkled her nose at an odor both familiar and repulsive—roses and dead bodies. In the four years she’d been married to an undertaker, she’d gotten a nose full of those two smells combined. She opened one eye to the predawn darkness and made to untangle herself from the covers. A sudden, sharp pain shot through her thigh and radiated down her leg to her knee.
“Ow!” She wrestled with the blankets, trying to reach her leg and whatever was gnawing on it.
Ballard jolted beside her. “Louvaen,” he slurred. “What...” He swore on a pained gasp, and this time his voice was clear, enraged. “Evil-minded bitch! Why can’t you just die?”
The mattress shifted beneath them with his movements. Louvaen, stunned by Ballard’s hostile response, screeched as whatever had crawled into the blankets with her took additional bites out of her leg, side and shoulder. “Sweet gods, Ballard! Stop moving! You’re making it bite me!”
He ignored her command and jostled the bed even harder, low growls reverberating in the suffocating black. Her skin did its best to dance its way off her bones at the though
t of what might be sharing the covers, and Louvaen yanked her uninjured arm free. She’d get no help from Ballard who seemed intent on making the bed bounce across the room. If she unwrapped the blankets, she could wiggle out without further disturbing whatever crawling horror lurked in the bed with them. Her plan, along with the last vestiges of any calm, died a quick death when something slithered along her pillow and wrapped itself around her arm in a constricting grip.
“Snake!” she shrieked and thrashed out of the blankets, flinching at the vicious jabs peppering her from shoulder to wrist, as if someone punctured her flesh with a handful of sewing needles. She fought her way toward the bed’s edge, kicking and flailing when a pair of powerful arms grasped her around the waist.
“For the love of gods, Louvaen,” Ballard bellowed. “Keep still!”
Caught in the grip of hysteria that made her ears ring and her heart beat hard enough to crack her ribs, she barely heard him. Snakes. There were snakes in the bed. As if her jumbled thoughts conjured another serpent to join its mates, a whipping hiss penetrated the darkness. Louvaen hurled herself away from the sound, slamming into Ballard as her unseen tormentor struck her cheek with a pair of fangs. The audible snap of teeth sounded behind her, followed by a garbled “Blessed fuck!”
Some small part of her mind still functioning properly acknowledged she’d head-butted him in the face. The rest of her screamed inwardly to bolt from the bed, even if that meant stomping Ballard into the mattress.
His arms tightened around her in a vise, and she was lifted clear of the bed for a moment before he dropped her back down like a sack of grain. He collapsed on her, his weight crushing her into the mattress.
“HOLD STILL, WOMAN!”
Louvaen froze. Whether it was from him blasting her ears to her head or smashing her chest flat, his command punched through her panic. She blinked, seeing nothing in the thick shadows except Ballard’s eyes, lambent and fierce.
“No snakes, Louvaen,” he said between harsh pants that blew strands of her hair across her forehead. “Roses.”