The Heather Moon (26 page)

"If that is your choice, aye."

"Nor shall we live as man and wife," she said softly.

"I must be a madman to agree to any of this," he muttered. "As you wish. It shall be a marriage between friends."

"'Twould be poor of you to dishonor me when we ask but friendship of one another," she said, sliding him a glance.

"Naught will happen between us that you dinna want," he said. "Believe me." He was deeply serious. She wondered if she had offended him.

She regretted, then, that she had suggested that, and regretted more his acquiescence. Something washed through her, a hot, insistent rush of desire that made her want to touch him, and feel his touch. She wondered what it would be like to be held in his arms. But she had spoken the rule of their mock marriage and would not relent now.

He pulled gently on her hand and drew her inside the heart circle. "What is the custom?"

"There are several," she said. "Perhaps a betrothal promise will do for us."

"Aye. The marriage first, the betrothal second." He smiled. She did too, laughing reluctantly.

"Take off your neck scarf," she said.

He lifted a brow in surprise, but undid the knotted scarf and drew it off, holding it out to her.

"Put it 'round my neck," she directed, "and take the ends, and then say the vow you wish to make. 'Tis the Romany way to make a betrothal promise."

He frowned slightly as he lowered the scarf behind her head, catching it gently against the back of her neck, drawing the ends forward. The silk was wonderfully soft, still holding the warmth of his body, the subtle scent of him. It settled like a ring of heaven around her neck, easing the memory of the rope she had worn not so long ago.

"Now say whatever comes to your mind," she said. "Fate made the marriage between us. If you listen, fate may give you the words for the betrothal."

He nodded, his eyes crystal blue, deep in thought. Then he twisted his fingers in the ends of the silk, shortening the scarf, slowly drawing her toward him.

* * *

Her gaze, wide and earnest and made vivid green by the emerald scarf, never parted from his. She was as bright and as pure as a candle flame, and she waited upon his words with a patience and a trust that touched him deeply.

He paused, searching for words. The sun slid upward and began to dissolve the veils of mist around them as they stood in the heart circle. And he knew, as if the sunbeams burned away the mist of his doubt, the vow that was needed between them.

He pulled on the silk until she was but a breath away, until she tipped back her head to look at him. Still he held the scarf taut, catching her close and sure within its length.

"I give you my loyalty, Tamsin Armstrong," he murmured. "I will respect the marriage of our shared blood and shared promises." He felt the depth of her silence as she listened. "I give you my heart as your friend, my hand as your guardian, and my name as your husband. Whatever you need of me shall be done."

Her lips parted, her eyelids fluttered, opened again. His heartbeat surged within him. He was held as fast by that delicate green gaze as she was by a fragile bit of green silk.

"And I give my loyalty to you, William Scott." She nearly whispered the words. "I respect the marriage of fate between us, the sharing of blood and promises. I give you my heart in friendship, my help as your wife, forsoever long as we agree. Whatever you need of me shall be done."

What swept through him in that moment had in it a power like lightning, possessed the rhythm of thunder, filling him, slipping through to the core of his being.

He wound his fingers in the scarf, pulling her even closer, so that her breasts pressed against him, though he could not feel that softness through steel. She tilted her head back, and the morning light burst full over her face.

He saw her with greater clarity than he had ever seen anyone in his life. In her translucent eyes, he glimpsed her vulnerable soul. He realized, despite the wilder elements in her nature, just how innocent she was, just how pure.

He knew then that he had made a true and binding promise. The words he had spoken were a flawed reflection of the power he felt between them, greater than that of friendship formed from necessity. He wondered, suddenly, what he had done. This did not feel at all like a fleeting agreement.

He intended to honor what he had said to her, for so long as she needed it of him. What had happened at this crossroads had spun him like a leaf in a storm. In the first moment of settling, he did not regret what he had done.

Just as in a game of cards, he had taken a chance, gambling what he had on a bright bit of luck. A marriage made by fate had fallen into his path when he was greatly in need of a wife.

The pledge needed one last thing to complete it. He lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers, a kiss like the graze of a feather, dry and soft, meant to be the sealing of a pact.

But she moaned, a little whisper of sound, and the pulse of his need, and her own, pounded through him with undeniable force. He angled his head and kissed her deeply, releasing the silk to plunge his fingers into the cloud of her hair, shaping his palms to her head.

Her right hand came up to touch his jaw. He dropped a hand to her waist and held her against him, knowing that she wanted to be in his arms, and that he wanted her there. He moved his mouth over hers, brushed his thumbs along her cheeks, and felt her lips open in tentative welcome.

She pulled back. "'Tis done," she said breathlessly. "'Tis made, this... marriage, this friendship that we have pledged."

"Friendship, if you wish," he said. He felt a bit short of breath himself, and curiously muddled.

"Is that what friends do, then, at the royal courts?" Her eyes twinkled, and her lips were still dark pink from the kiss. He laughed softly, and she did too. He liked the sound of it.

He gathered the scarf in one hand and stepped back, tying it about his neck once again. "Pray your pardon," he said. "I meant just to seal the pact with a chaste kiss."

"That wasna chaste." She still smiled, a little.

"It started out in that manner," he said. "I swear it." He took her arm and guided her out of the stone heart. "I promise you, 'twillna happen again."

She pushed slender fingers through her hair, as if befuddled. "What shall we do now?"

"We'll go to Rookhope," he said. "As we had planned."

"And then? Will you put me in your dungeon?"

"Ah, now, would I ask my wife to sleep in my dungeon?"

She tilted her head. "Will you let her have your fine bed?"

He pinched back a smile. "If she wants it."

"Aye, she does," she answered crisply. "You may have a pallet elsewhere." She flashed him a winsome smile, so charming that it might have broken any man's heart. It stirred his like wind through the trees, fresh and pure.

She turned away to walk to her horse, and he could not help but notice the sway of her hips beneath her skirt. Without asking for his assistance, she grasped the horse's mane and placed her foot on a rock in order to climb onto the horse's blanketed back. William stepped toward her and bent to scoop his hand under her narrow foot, boosting her easily onto the horse.

"So that is the way of it," he said, patting the horse's muzzle as he spoke to Tamsin. "The poor beleaguered husband must sleep in a cold corner, while the wife takes his fine, soft bed. I have wed myself a princess."

"If you dinna like it," she said, "we can dissolve the marriage whenever you wish—after my grandfather has told Baptiste Lallo to find himself another woman to scrub his pots and wipe his children's noses."

"And how do we dissolve our marriage pact?"

She cocked a brow at him. "That depends on whether we have a kind parting or an angry one."

"Kind, surely, having done such a favor of friendship for one another this day."

"Then we break a clay pot between us," she said.

"Easy enough," he said. "And angry?"

"We would face one another over the body of a dead animal, say our grievances, and go our ways."

He looked at her in dismay. "Like a hare or a bird?"

"Oh," she said, "like the body of your best horse." She lifted the reins and turned her mount to ride away.

William watched her, aware that a grimace soured his face. He walked to the bay and rubbed the gleaming red-brown shoulder.

"Dinna fret, lad," he said. "Dinna fret. For your sake, I will be careful and courteous to yon lass."

Chapter 16

"Both in a tune like two gipsies on a horse."

—Shakespeare,
As You Like It

"My grandfather wanted to give Baptiste two horses and some gold coins as a dowry for me," she remarked, as they rode side by side later. She slid him a careful look.

A smile played at his lips. "He obviously preferred Baptiste to me. All I got was a neck scarf."

"Ah," she said. "The finest Oriental silk, embroidered by a princess of France and given to an earl of Lesser Egypt. My grandmother prefers you to Baptiste. She would never have given
him
that particular neck scarf." She tilted her head as she looked at him. "I think I too prefer you to Baptiste."

"And all the while, I thought you didna want to come with me for fear of my dungeon," he said.

Tamsin liked the way he kept his smiles low, so that the humor shone brighter in his clear blue eyes. She thought he enjoyed the teasing chatter between them as much as she did. "Ah, well, a fortnight in gentle confinement wouldna disturb me much. You did agree to give up your fine bed to me."

She hoped for another smile, but he grew solemn. "What happens in a fortnight, lass?"

She shrugged, wanting to preserve the lighthearted mood that had existed between them since their impulsive vows. "We shall break a jug and let ourselves free of this agreement."

He did not answer. The morning light glinted off his helmet, shadowing his face beneath. She watched him, noting the clean, balanced line of his profile, the sensuous curve of his lower lip, the slight droop of his eyelids when he was relaxed. His firm jaw-line was blurred by the dark sand of his beard. She remembered its brush over her skin when he had kissed her. At that memory, she touched her hand to her heart, as if to seal in the feeling that stirred through her.

The smoke of the fire that they had created inside the heart circle had cleared, and left her wondering just what she had done. She suspected, by William's long silence during the ride, that he wondered too. But she wanted only to live in the present moment. She liked riding with him at this leisurely pace, she enjoyed resting her gaze upon him, and she liked the teasing tone between them. He surprised her with as quick a wit as her father, though quieter and more wry.

She felt comfortable in his company, as if she had known him for years, as if she understood him like brother, friend, lover. Though she was unable to reconcile those impressions with what she had learned of him at Musgrave's castle, she told herself that he likely had good reasons for the secrets he kept, and for the motives that did not look wholesome on the outside.

He was capable of kindness and generosity, and had a strong regard for friendship. That in itself bespoke a loyal man, one to admire. Whatever she discovered of him, she would not forget that he had given her his friendship and his loyalty when she had needed help.

She had never had a truly close friend. His pledge to her had tugged firmly at her heart, and helped explain why she had followed through with this arrangement. Perhaps that bond would be enough later.

She glanced at him, and received one of those slow, quiet smiles. Her heart faltered, and she knew that a bond of friendship would never be enough.

* * *

By the time the sun shone high and bright overhead, her stomach rumbled with hunger and her bruised leg ached from riding. Tamsin was glad to see William raise his hand and point ahead. "There, on that rise," he said, "sits Rookhope Tower."

She shielded her eyes with her gloved hand. In the distance, a gray stone tower rose above a walled yard. Massive and blocklike, made up of two main structures joined together, the keep had a machicolated parapet and a grim, nearly windowless facade. Set on a swath of cleared land surrounded by ditches, the site was protected on three sides by forestland and bare slopes. The fourth wall faced a deep chasm, a slash in the land.