Mathis, Jolie (19 page)

In the far corner, upon his woven pallet, the skald sang Kol's praises.
Kol the Fearless. Thorleksson the Brave.

Legs tensed, Kol prepared to stand, yet several kitchen maids appeared with large trenchers, piled high with berry tarts. He growled low in his throat, frustrated by the delay. Yet he would wait until there were no distractions.

Beside him, Isabel bent her head. "Might I return to my chamber?" Her hands twisted spasmodically in the skirt of her gunna.

"You have eaten nothing. Art thou ill?"

She whispered, "Mayhap."

He could not allow her to leave. A maid placed a trencher before them. The tarts' berried centers glistened dark and sweet. Isabel paled. Devon reached across, jostling her roughly, to grasp a tart in each of his pudgy-fingered hands. Both disappeared simultaneously between his plump, shining lips.

"Delicious," he pronounced. Purple juice streamed over his chin to disappear into the folds of his neck. "I shall have another."

The princess stared at her cousin with an expression very akin to horror. To Kol, she murmured, "Verily, I wish to leave."

She truly looked ill. Kol softened. "Perhaps thou art merely fatigued? Last eventide, thou hadst little sleep in the cave."

Isabel's cheeks flushed deeply.

"I intended no jibe, Isabel. Prithee, remain here beside me for a short while longer."

"I have no wish to hear your announcement, whatever it might be."

Kol breathed evenly. He would not allow her to undermine his confidence in what he intended to do. All around, the gathered Saxons and Danes enjoyed the tarts. Kol selected one for himself, and lifted it toward his lips. The skald plucked his harp and sang of Kol, the Destroyer of the Wicked.

Beside him, Isabel grumbled, "I might suggest a few different verses. Why not Kol the Betrayer of Women and Children? Or better yet, Kol the Big Norse Louse."

Kol exhaled through his nose, and lowered the tart to the table. Lord, how she provoked him—in all the right ways. Rather than inciting his anger, her words—spoken low and from wine-red lips—enticed. His entire being buzzed with pride and pleasure simply because she sat at his side.

Now was as good a time as any, he supposed. He nodded to Vekell. The warrior set down his tart, and wiped his mouth. Standing, and with raised arms, he shouted, "Silence. Our lord wishes to speak."

Anticipation charged Kol's veins. He stood, knowing that in the coming moments, Isabel would know his heart, and he would know hers. He closed his eyes, and recalled their closeness in the cave the night before. Isabel's love would be a much sweeter and more meaningful gift than vengeance could ever be. Finally, he understood he displayed no weakness in accepting such a gift.

There came the sound of someone retching.

Kol's eyes flew open.

Devon groaned loudly.

Everywhere he looked, grown men and women began to rise from their benches. They doubled over and clasped their stomachs. Some ran from the hall, while others became ill where they stood. Beside him, Isabel pushed up from the bench. Something in her wide-eyed expression compelled him to take hold of her wrist. Her hands—the hands she had buried in her gunna, bore purple stains.

In that instant, he knew.
The tarts.

Between clenched teeth, he ground out the words. "What did you put in them?"

Isabel's eyes narrowed. "Baneberries. Toadroot. Bug-bane. I know not the exact mix of things. I only know 'tis what the cooks used to use to warn the hounds away from the kitchens."

Incredulous, Kol looked out over the writhing multitude of the hall. A sour-sweet scent permeated the air. "You sought to poison them all?"

"Aye," she cried. "You, my cousin, and all who support you."

Fury torched his cheeks. Could she not have given him one chance? One chance to set things right, for all concerned? Did she believe so little in him?

On a nearby bench Vekell held his head in his hands. He groaned loudly. At his feet lay one of the tarts, half-eaten. Kol thought he saw a glimmer of regret in Isabel's features. In a quiet voice, she said, "'Twill not kill them."

Ah, but in this moment he wished to kill
her.
Kol grasped her arm, and pushed her toward the door. "Get thee to your chamber.
Now.
Do not show yourself until I come for you."

"Nay." Isabel dragged her feet. The regret now lay plain upon her face. "I will stay and help."

She started toward Vekell. Kol intercepted her before she could touch the warrior.

"Do you truly believe anyone will want your help once they know it was you who poisoned them?" With his eyes, he shot her a black warning. "Now do as I say. Get thee away from us."

Chapter 18

Isabel fled beneath the archway, but instead of going to her chamber, she pushed out the doors, and ran down the stairs into the courtyard. The cold air did nothing to cool the fire in her veins.

She should feel triumph. Instead she felt guilty and
angry
all at once. But why should she be condemned for attempting to thwart an enemy's claim on her brother's kingdom? For seeking to escape her captor? As if she had betrayed a trust.

"Isabel!" Kol's voice rang, raw with fury. For a moment, Isabel stood frozen. If he dragged her inside and punished her in front of everyone, she would likely scream like a fool, or worse, burst into tears. Her emotions had never felt so out of control.

There could be no turning back. She would flee into the darkness and make her way to the forest, where she prayed Ranulf waited as he had said he would.

Several outbuildings dotted the inner face of the rampart. Rather than take her chances in the open, she could hide behind the structures as she made her way to the garden, where her bundle waited. She caught up her skirts and ran.

"Isabel!"
Kol's roar shattered the tranquility of the courtyard. Startled from their nightly perch, a flock of birds took flight from an evergreen near the steps.

Let him shout. Let him curse her. She would not feel regret for what she had done. Her only lament was that he had escaped the sickness. She took refuge in the darker shadows alongside a narrow hut, and quickly found the doorway. Over her shoulder, she saw the shadow of a man ascend in gigantic proportions against the moonlit side of the keep's wall. If she ran across the clearing, he would see her.

She pushed inside, intending to hide until he passed. For a moment, darkness disoriented her. A pungent scent tightened her throat. She stood motionless, her back against the door, until her eyes adjusted.

From just outside came the crunch of gravel. Her heart pounded faster.

In search of a better hiding place, she took one step inward, her hands outstretched. Something crunched beneath her slipper. She froze. Had the sound been loud enough to hear from outside? With one hand she smothered a sneeze. The smell. What
was
that smell? She heard no further footsteps.

She bent forward to touch the floor. Walnut shells? And the scent—yes, 'twas alum. With this knowledge, and the adjustment of her eyes to the darkness, Isabel recognized her sanctuary. Along the wall, there would be narrow clay vessels, standing in orderly rows, filled with the dye master's precious madder, leaves of woad, and, yes, bowls and baskets full of crushed nutshells, all used to dye the keep's textiles.

Behind her the door opened and she felt a hard smack to her bottom. She pitched to the floor.

"Ow!" Shells stabbed into her palms. Her head thumped a copper dye vat.

She whirled around, her hand pressed to her brow. Kol stood in the doorway, the night a blue black eternity beyond his shoulders. He carried a small torch.

"You—" She rubbed her forehead. Now that he had found her, how would she escape? The thought of remaining in his presence even one more day was unbearable. "Trough slime!"

"You... poisoned... my... men,"
he gritted. He lunged through the portal.

"Oh!" Isabel scurried behind a waist-high copper kettle.

Kol tossed the torch onto a small fire grate in the center of the room, then walked toward her, weaving between several dying hooks, which swung to and fro from the ceiling.

"Not only my men, but a goodly number of thine own Saxon people." He sidestepped as if to come around.

"Devon's men? Traitors! All of them." Isabel sidled away, in the opposite direction.

"Why do you flee, Princess?" He grasped the edge of the pot. "Art thou frightened?"

Isabel lied, working through the limited possibilities for escape. "Not of you, Norseman."

He leered. "You should be."

Before she could blink, he tipped the vat onto its side. Isabel gasped and jumped back. Liquid splashed her hem and surged over the tips of her slippers. Kol circled the overturned kettle, his boots crushing the scattered shells and sloshing through the dye.

Isabel snatched a bowl of walnuts from the windowsill. "I warn you."

"Warn all you like."

She flung the bowl. Kol swatted it. Nuts hailed down, and then, with a thunk, the bowl. Isabel scrambled beneath a linen-draped drying frame. Spilled dye moistened her palms and knees. Heart pounding, she crawled toward the door, but instantly the cloth evaporated. With a creak, the frame flew up and away and crashed against a wall. Cold air bathed her skin. For a moment she sat as still as a cornered mouse, her eyes on the barely visible tips of two large boots.

Her hair spilled wildly over her shoulders. Forcing calm on her overwrought heart, she smoothed the errant tresses behind her ears. Surely Kol would not murder the very woman he'd made love to the night before, even if he had set her aside immediately thereafter.

Emboldened, she stood. "You have no right to terrorize me." She jabbed a finger at the center of his chest, in the exact place where she'd placed her lips the night before. She blinked away the thought and continued her declaration. "You and your men deserved to be poisoned, just as they have poisoned Norsex with their presence!"

She shook her fist in the air, cursing providence. "If only you had eaten a tart like the rest." Wide-eyed and with affected voice, she cooed, "But I suppose you have been too busy plotting with my oaf of a cousin to feel any sort of hunger."

Kol leaned forward, placing himself in such proximity to her face she could have kissed him—if she had so wished. Her entire body tensed.

"Dearest Isabel," he murmured, his voice as smooth as summer-warmed honey. "I was prepared to kick thine cousin's loathsome ass back to Wyfordon before you took matters into your own hands."

At his words, shock numbed Isabel's limbs. She turned her face aside. "I want only for you to leave this kingdom, for thou art wholly unwelcome."

"I was not unwelcome last eventide."

Isabel pressed her hands to her ears. "Do not speak to me of last eventide."

Isabel sidled behind a long table, toward the door. In one sweeping movement, Kol upended the table. As it crashed, Isabel screamed and pressed back flat against the wall.

"You cannot escape." To her ire, satisfaction mingled with the anger she saw in his eyes.

"That remains to be seen." Isabel tugged a dyeing hook free from the ceiling, and held it ready.

Kol's attention pinpointed her, like a beam of withering heat. Her palms dampened around the narrow handle of the hook.

"Tsk, tsk, sweet Princess." His voice was but a rasp in the utter silence betwixt them. "Have your past failures at physical aggression taught you nothing?"

She swung the hook. He moved to catch it, but still, Isabel heard the sound of torn cloth.

"Oh." He looked down at the front of his tunic, and up again.
"Mistake."

Angrily she swung again. He caught the hook, wrenched it from her hand, and dropped it to the floor. He pushed her to the wall. Against her cheek she felt the solid press of his jaw, the score of his beard against her skin. In short gasps, she inhaled his breath, and remembered, instantly, the scent and taste of him. In that moment her body and soul teetered on the cliff of dark and all-consuming desire.

Kol stared at her, his eyes glittering in the dark. His lips grazed hers with the slightest contact.

She turned her face aside. "Release me."

"Never." He teased her with each breath, each movement. Invited her to kiss him. She commanded her lips not to respond, not to press against his, but the draw grew strong.

She shoved against him. "Faithless tripe, you betrayed me—"

His lips crushed hers.

With a gasp, she wrenched away. "What are you doing?"

Their eyes remained open, wary upon one another.

"Ending this." His hands crushed into her hair. As his mouth pressed against her neck, Isabel gripped his shoulders. He spoke the words against her skin. "I'm sick to death of wanting you."

"Your alliance with Devon." She twisted her hands in his tunic, a warning. "I cannot abide it."

"The alliance is ended." He grasped her skirts at her thighs, and dragged them higher, so that she felt the night chill swirl around her ankles and knees. "'Tis your fault alone, he doth not know it yet."

Ended?
Isabel had no chance to savor the relief spreading through her veins, because Kol's mouth claimed every shard of her shattered attention. Her leg slid up his, and hooked behind his calf.

"What of Ranulf's secret? His lack of birthright?"

"Devon knows nothing, nor will he."

His beard grazed her skin. He smelled spicy and male and alive.

"And your quest for Ranulf's death?"

"My desire for you exceeds all else."

When he kissed her she did not stop him. She no longer had the will. His hands gripped her hips, and he pressed the ridge of his arousal against her belly. His knee spread her thighs.

He bore her against the wall. Hot and wet, his mouth moved over her throat. He whispered words, Norse utterances.

His hand gripped the neck of her gunna and tugged it down. Boldly, he palmed her breast. Isabel arched, his words spinning through her mind. She felt her skirts dragged to her waist. Cool air washed over her thighs, betwixt her legs, to cool the heated part of her. He stroked her with an urgency that fueled her need. Her legs failed, but he held her against the wall.

In possession of her body, he slid one finger, and then two, inside her warmth. She gasped. Such pleasure,
there.
Pleasure and tight, hot tension radiating outward through her arms and legs to her very fingertips. But almost instantly his fingers left her.

He sank to his knees before her, holding her skirt at her waist. Isabel shuddered, as reverently, he placed a single kiss at the apex of her thighs.

"I should hate you," she whispered.

"You don't." He kissed her there, and tasted her.

Isabel gasped, fisting her hands in his hair. "Then you should hate me. 'Twas my intent to fell you and your men with the poison, then inform my brother of your weakened state."

"But not now."

"Nay," she confessed brokenly. "Not now."

When she thought she would faint from desire, he dragged her down, onto his legs, bracketing her into the corner, her thighs spread to either side of his waist.

"My love," he whispered into her hair. "My only love."

Her heart surrendered at hearing the words. She smoothed her hands over his hips, beneath his linen shirt and over the tautened skin of his torso.

He fumbled betwixt them, freeing himself. Roughly he readjusted her, spread her with his fingers. She felt his member press against her, then gasped at the sudden tightness, the stretching of her body. He moved beneath her, slowly, encouraging her to take up the rhythm. One hand swept over the small of her back, then downward to cup her buttocks.

Abruptly he stopped and cursed. "These nutshells are death on my knees."

Despite the tension of the moment, Isabel giggled. Kol's scowl softened, but only by a degree. With a growl he twisted them around. He grasped a length of heavy linen. Flinging the cloth across the floor, he lowered her without ever disengaging from her body. Spilled dye seeped through linen to dampen her skin.

Kol thrust into her. The muscles corded in his arms as he braced himself above her. His blue eyes glowed in the firelight.

"You are mine." He lifted one dark, glistening hand and touched her skin, painting her with the dye. Through barely parted eyelids, Isabel watched. He marked her with dark hand prints. Claimed her. "Mine."

She wrapped her legs around his waist, bringing him deeper.

Forever. She could make love to him forever.

Even as the pleasure of their mating made her cry out, a bittersweet agony weighted her heart. Along the edges of her conscience, the events of the past and the dread promise of the future, hovered, demanding she recognize them.

Reality shattered in a frenzy of light and movement. Isabel cried out in her climax, her body overcome by a maelstrom of force and light. She arched, mournful and joyous at once, wanting to remain joined with Kol for eternity.

Kol grew rigid, then arched into her with such a shout and force, she was left breathless, her own body taut with pleasure, relishing each strong pulse of him inside her.

He lowered himself slowly, gently, and kissed her, his hair teasing her skin. Against the side of her neck, he groaned. After a long moment, he said, "I believe what we need now are four walls and a bed."

"Yes." She yearned to be alone with him. They must claim whatever private moments they could. She had no illusions about what difficulties daylight would bring.

He rolled off her, and lay on his back, his braies still bunched at his knees. With a slight lift of his hips, he tugged them up. "Since we cannot seem to keep our hands from one another, we shall have to come to some sort of an agreement."

"Tis more than that, is it not?" She pushed her skirts down and looked to him. "What we share is no simple lust."

"Aye," he answered quietly. His cheekbones appeared more pronounced, his profile stark. "'Tis much more than that."

He turned onto his side, so their eyes met. She found herself face to face with her lover from the cave. His expression hid nothing from her. "You and your son wilt be protected."

Isabel looked to his chest, for at this moment she found it easier to stare at woven cloth, than into his eyes. Wedlock might never be possible between them, but she would not deny her love for this man again. "I hold myself open to the promise of the future."

One could not forget the primary barrier to any happiness between them. Could Ranulf and Kol resolve their differences through peace? He reached for and lifted her chin, returning her gaze to his.

"What are you thinking?"

"That I cannot conceive of how all the shattered pieces of my life will converge to become whole again—but you give me hope."