Claire Delacroix (16 page)

Aileen spared it little more than an impatient glance, for she guessed it to be abandoned. She noted that the sun was just past zenith, seeing its glow through the clouds. She had walked all morning, yet still was not far from where she had fled the Hawk.

She must have traveled in circles, despite her caution.

Aileen resolved to be more diligent in marking her course, so that she did not make such an error again. She took a good look at the tree that she meant to use as her marker, noting the burl in the wood from a branch that had been broken. She fixed her gaze upon another silver tree, one with a gnarled branch that had grown in a low curve, as if it had been bent under the weight of a very plump bird.

That one could not be confused with another!

* * *

Nissa was slinging a bucket of slops from the kitchen when Ahearn stepped into her path. His appearance should have improved her unhappy mood, but instead she was impatient with him. She narrowly averted spilling the bucket’s contents on his shining black boots and granted him a quelling glance as a result.

Typically, he was undeterred. This rogue was as mischievous as they came and his eyes danced with wicked merriment. He was taller than she and powerfully built, cursedly handsome and just as audacious. Ahearn was well known as the trickster of Inverfyre, for he could never resist making a practical joke.

And Nissa knew that she had been his accomplice too often.

“Well?” he demanded with characteristic enthusiasm as he matched his steps to hers. “Did you tell her that old tale?”

“I did,” she admitted glumly.

Ahearn’s eyes sparkled. “And? Did she believe you? Was she frightened? No one can spin a tale as you do, Nissa!” He dropped his voice and leaned down, his breath tickling Nissa’s ear. “I heard that she insisted upon seeing the trees for herself.” He chortled. “Surely she was terrified when she spied the small one!”

“She was startled, to be sure.” She granted her companion a dark glance. “I did not know that you meant to put a young tree there.”

“Was it amusing beyond belief?” Ahearn fairly danced in his glee. “I wish I could have witnessed her response!”

“It was cruel,” Nissa said, her voice flat. Ahearn gaped at her, but she nodded with resolve. “It was a mean jest and I am ashamed that I had a part in it.”

“Nissa! My partner and cohort, my confidante and partner, how can you say these things?”

Nissa set the bucket down so abruptly that it nearly landed on Ahearn’s toe, but she did not care. She confronted him, not troubling to hide her displeasure. “I should not have done this, not at your behest. You were only seeking to make mischief.”

“Of course, I sought to make mischief! Nissa, life is too short to be grim. Should we all be so dour as the Hawk himself?” Ahearn made his sour face, which normally prompted Nissa’s laughter. On this day, she felt no urge to smile.

She hefted her bucket anew and continued on her way. “I have no time for your foolery,” she said. “I have a mind to tell my laird of your wickedness.”

“You would not!”

“I might.”

“You will not do so, or I shall condemn you, as well.” Ahearn strode after Nissa when she did not halt, seizing the bucket from her grip to slow her departure.

“Give me that!”

“I will not.” The mercenary swung the bucket behind himself, its contents swirling dangerously close to the lip as he did so.

“Spill it and I will be scolded!”

“Pledge to me that you will not tell the Hawk of this.” Ahearn grimaced. “He seems to have little humor regarding his lady wife.”

“I will not. Give me the bucket.”

“Are you not the Nissa I know and adore?” Ahearn demanded, giving her a thorough scrutiny. “Hmmmm. You have the same curly hair of same feisty hue. Same sparkling eyes. Same pert nose. Same winsome smile.” He winked devilishly. “Same delightful curves.”

“Give me that bucket,” Nissa insisted, knowing her cheeks were flushed.

“Are you not the same Nissa who stitched Alasdair’s chausses so cunningly after he collapsed drunk, ensuring that he could neither don them the next morn nor figure out why? Are you not the same Nissa who laughed herself to the point of illness with me over his confusion?”

Nissa colored with guilt. “I am. Give me that bucket.”

Ahearn swung the bucket beguilingly close to her, then beyond her grasp again. “Are you not the same Nissa who aided me to lock Reinhard in the dungeon by delivering a false missive from his lady love in the village? Are you not the maid who chortled with me at his disappointment that she was not there?”

“I am, to my eternal shame.”

“Are you not the Nissa who cut away half of Fernando’s moustache one night while he slept too deeply?”

“It was me, to be sure, for you could never have wielded the knife in your own besotted state.”

“You did it for me.” He clutched his heart in mock delight at this and his manner only infuriated Nissa all the more.

Was every matter a jest to Ahearn, even her foolish yearning for his affection?

She glared at him. “I did it because you have a gilded tongue, to be sure.”

Ahearn cast the handle of the bucket from one hand to the other, each of its leaps through the air terrifying Nissa that it would spill and she would have to answer for it. He kept it just out of her reach and just shy of spilling. “Are we not old partners, Nissa? Are we not two of a kind? Are we not comrades in making Inverfyre a more merry place?”

“No, we are not, not any longer.”

“I thought you loved me.” He teased her with this claim, making a pout of disappointment. The words made her heart clench even though she knew they meant nothing to him. “Nissa, how shall I continue without your admiration?” He pretended to be heart-broken and Nissa barely stifled the urge to slap him.

Oh, she had been smitten with Ahearn since the day she had arrived at Inverfyre, since the day he had persuaded her to aid in playing some trick upon the cook. She had fallen in love with his dancing eyes and his carefree manner, his wicked smile and merry laughter. She had even foolishly imagined that he might take romantic note of her if she helped him make mischief.

No longer. Had her lady not reminded her that a man should not be granted his desire simply because he asked for it? Nissa had granted Ahearn his every request—but one—for six years and to no avail. He would grant her nothing, save a chance to lose her chastity and be shamed forever.

It was not enough.

At least her lady vowed to teach her the skill of a proper maid. Nissa grew no younger and she had a dream of wedding a man who would give her sons and small home of her own.

Ahearn’s approving smile would no longer suffice.

“Come along,” he coaxed, his charm as thickly spread as butter on the king’s bread. “Tell me, Nissa, tell me what happened. Do you not wish to collect the kiss I promised to render to you?” He tickled her beneath the chin with one fingertip. “I know that you desire a kiss from me more than any other treasure in Christendom.” And the knave smiled with cursed confidence.

Nissa folded her arms across her chest. “I told my lady the tale as you requested. I do not think she believed it.” She took a deep breath, well aware that she had never questioned Ahearn’s humor afore. “And I do not think it was amusing to tease her thus. This was wrong, Ahearn.”

“What?” The mercenary gasped in mock dismay, then clutched his heart as if she had dealt him a lethal wound. “Say this is not so! Say that you do not doubt my schemes!”

“I like her,” Nissa declared and took advantage of his astonishment to reclaim her bucket with a savage gesture. “I will not make mischief upon my lady again.” She turned her back upon this handsome rogue who had so oft and so readily cajoled her aid, and marched away. “And I will tell my laird of your deed, if it suits me to do so.”

“But Nissa!” Ahearn cried. “You have not collected the kiss that was your due!”

Nissa glanced back, hardening her heart to Ahearn’s appeal. Just a day past she had yearned for a kiss from him, however mockingly bestowed, but she did not like how she felt after teasing the Lady Aileen with that dark tale. She did not like how the lady had paled when she spied that small tree, planted with cunning by Ahearn.

“I have no interest in your kisses,” she said haughtily. “Perhaps another maid will welcome the boon owed to me.”

She savored Ahearn’s shock for a heady moment, then lifted her chin and turned away.

“Such mastery in the courtship of a woman,” Sebastien declared from further back in the corridor, his words brimming with laughter. “You must tell me, Ahearn, how you so readily coax a reluctant maiden to your view. Indeed, I can see that I have desperate need of your expertise and counsel.”

“Shut your mouth, fool,” Ahearn growled.

The sound of Sebastien’s merry laughter made Nissa smile herself, though this time, Ahearn did not share in the jest. Indeed, she heard him swear as she never had before. His boots echoed on the stones, fading to silence as he strode hastily in the opposite direction. Nissa glanced back, fearing she had spurned him too harshly.

But Sebastien winked encouragingly from where he leaned in the shadows and his whisper carried to Nissa’s ears. “Well done, little Nissa. He will think of you more this night than ever he has before. Indeed, he may be haunted by that kiss he did not claim.”

Though that had not been her intention, it was a marvel for Nissa to think of Ahearn haunted by her. The very prospect put a bounce in her step. “I doubt as much, Sebastien,” she said gaily. “Ahearn’s memory for women is short indeed.”

Sebastien did not reply, though his smile broadened. Nissa continued on her way, her heart lighter than it had been.

Perhaps her lady would aid her to find a good husband. She had heard that ladies oft ensured good matches for their maids and it seemed to Nissa that the Lady Aileen would show such concern for a maid she favored. Had she not been worried for Gunna’s unbaptized niece?

Nissa had best learn promptly all the lady tried to teach her and thus earn the lady’s favor. She could ask the laird if all those fine kirtles that his mother had brought should be lengthened for his lady wife.

There was naught more pleasing for a lady than to have garb that fit and flattered, Nissa was certain, and the Lady Evangeline had an eye for a beauteous kirtle. Lady Aileen had been so pleased with merely one garment this morning, that she would be speechless when she saw them all.

She was clever with a needle, Nissa was. Indeed, there were few who turned a seam as artfully as she. She could aid her lady in that and perhaps, oh perhaps, earn Lady Aileen’s favor.

Nissa would not consider, not for a moment, what Ahearn would say when she wed another man. Doubtless, he would not care.

She blinked back tears and shifted the bucket to her other hand. Just as she would not care what Ahearn thought.

* * *

The sky was darkening and large flakes of snow had begun to fall when Aileen halted next. She was breathing heavily and had perspired mightily in her haste to reach Inverfyre’s neighbor, though there was yet no sign of its sentries in the woods. Was the distant keep so poorly guarded as that?

She heard dogs in the woods behind her, and the hoof beats of horses, as well as the shouts of men. Aileen laid her hand upon her target tree when she stood alongside it, then circled it, anxiously seeking her next mark.

The next silver tree upon her course had a distinctive branch, bent low. It looked as if it had grown beneath a heavy burden.

Aileen’s heart clenched. She glanced to the tree upon which she rested her hand and saw the scar upon it, the burl from a lost branch.

Its pulse thumped beneath her hand.

Aileen stepped back in dismay, and heard the gurgle of the river. This could not be! She quickly spied the strange hut again and her heart sank to her toes.

She had made no progress.

She had trodden two circles in the forest.

Aileen buried her face in her hands, felt the fullness of her exhaustion, then looked again. Her eyes did not deceive her. She was returned to precisely the same locale.

Worse, night was falling with a vengeance. Dread touched her heart. What folly it would be to find herself lost in the woods at night! She had slept beneath the pelts of wolves the night before and did not believe that they were the last of their kind hereabouts. No woods in Scotland had been purged of all its wolves, and these woods were wild indeed.

Aileen heard the mournful howl of just such a predator in the distance and shivered at her own recklessness. She was not far enough on her course to be certain that she would make that other keep afore nightfall. She had not escaped her husband, yet she was outside Inverfyre’s walls and might not survive the night.

Unless she retraced her steps and begged for leniency.

Aileen’s lips set. She would not surrender to the Hawk’s will so readily as that. If she was a falcon being trained to savor the lead, she would fight that training for as long as she had the strength to do so.

But how could this have happened? How could she have made such an error in orientation, not just once but twice? How could her father’s counsel have so betrayed her? Aileen looked up into the thick swirl of falling snow, fought her frustrated tears, and understood a simple truth.

Her grandmother had had the Sight. Her mother had been said to be mad, but Aileen remembered how her mother had known things she had no means to know. Aileen herself had been born to the caul and her grandmother had watched her avidly in her early years for some hint that she too bore this blessing and curse. But she had never had the slightest foreknowledge of any event.

Until the Hawk had kissed her.

What if the Hawk’s touch had only awakened what already lay dormant within Aileen?

The prospect made her mouth go dry. Aileen would have preferred that the Sight had never awakened in her, for she had seen the toll it could demand. She was her mother’s daughter, though, so knew better than to spit in the eye of the Fates. Some enchantment guided her path this day. She had been forced back to this hut, time and again, because she was being fed some morsel of which she had need.