The Herald's Heart (11 page)

“Done what? Asked you to remove my boots for me? Because I don’t wish to sleep in them.”

“Nay.” She stomped across the room to stand before him. How could he treat her so casually and still believe her to be the liar and thief he constantly accused her of being? How could he claim to give no woman dishonor, yet allow the entire keep to think she shared his bed. The man was impossible.

“Who is the liar now,” she accused. “My presence alone in this chamber dirties my honor.”

“I will not dishonor you.” He lifted the hem of his shirt and shrugged the garment over his head.

His calm denial irritated her more.

“Do you not? Cleve was leering. The rest of the guards snickered and made lewd comments among themselves. No doubt they all expect to hear my screams this evening and your tale of the bedding on the morrow. These are not the actions of a man who would keep me safe or preserve my honor!” Her voice rose.

“Cease!” He roared back at her and stood.

She retreated a step. Even then, he was too close. Too daunting. Too shirtless. Too attractive.

“I did none of these things.”

“Of course you did,” she sputtered.

“Nay,” he said, giving a weary shrug of his naked shoulders as he sat and lifted a booted foot in her direction. “’Twas Cleve, you said, who leered, and the guards who snickered and made lewd remarks. By your own words, I did none of these things.”

“But you caused them.” She grasped the boot and tugged.

“Did I tell those men I was taking you to my bed? Did I promise them your screams and the tale of it on the morrow?” He lifted the other foot.

“Nay.” She dropped the first boot and took hold of the second. Confusion reigned. He may have said he would not dishonor her, but he gave no explanation either. “Not many weeks past, you promised I would share your bed if you ever found me alone here again. Now, you say I will spend the nights in the solar. ’Tis where you sleep. How can those men think anything except that I share your bed?” The boot resisted her tugs. She bent her back to it.

“I have always said I would not force you. My promise tonight said naught of what others would think. I have seen how the men look at you. Were you chained in the dungeon, at best, your honor would be gone by morning. At worst, you would be dead by an assassin’s knife. None would confess to either. If you lived and accused any man, you would not be believed because of your other lies.”

Larkin gave an angry heave and the boot came loose. “And what, pray, is to keep those men you set to guard me during the day from murder or taking what you deny them at night?”

“As each man is assigned, he will be clearly identified. Should any harm come to you under his care, he will be held to account for it and publicly hung or disciplined.”

“He could as easily lie in daylight as in dark.”

“True, but you will not be chained. I saw what you did to Wat the miller and have experienced your, ahem, defensive abilities myself. I am certain you would mark any man who dared to lay hands on you without your leave. Others know this as well and thus will hesitate to ignore my orders.”

“Aye.” She picked up the fallen boot and placed the pair together at the foot of the bed. “They would that.”

She remained near the bottom of the bed, twisting her hands.

Talon stood and removed his belt. He put his hands to the waist of his chausses. He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you want something?”

“You are quite certain you do not want me to share your bed?”

He laughed. “Nay, I did not say that.”

“I’m confused.”

“Sweet Larkin. I repeat: I will not force you.”

“And you mean that?”

“I do. But you will one day tell me you want me.”

“Never.”

“We shall see. Now go to sleep, before you see more than you wish.”

Larkin felt her cheeks heat. She whipped around to avoid his nakedness and searched the chamber for a place to rest. A pillow sailed past her head, landing on the lambskin stretched before the hearth.

“Use my cloak to cover you, and take a blanket from the chest for additional warmth.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“You are welcome.”

The bed hangings rattled, along with the creak of ropes as he settled into the bed, and she heard him hum that cursed song.

The song stopped. “Larkin.”

“Aye.”

“Do not try to leave. You will not be safe if I am not near.”

“Aye.”

The humming began again. The ropes creaked. Larkin bent to cover the lambskin with the insulating blanket, then snuggled beneath the fine wool cloak. Sleep eluded her, thanks to his infernal humming. When would he cease torturing her? Eventually, soft snores replaced the tune, but still, sleep avoided her wooly bed.

The lambskin kept the cold from her bones and cushioned the hard floor. The cloak shielded her from the air. She should have been comfortable. But the cinnamon and musk scent of the man who owned the cloak surrounded her as surely as if he embraced her. She tossed. She pounded on the pillow but could find no rest. The words of the song floated through her mind, followed by the image of herself spread naked and beckoning to Talon. ’Twas all his fault, drat the man. He might think he could win her over. Well, he could just think again.

Several days and a hundred hummings later, Larkin stomped toward the once secret portal she’d used to enter the keep as a ghost. Water sloshed from the bucket she carried in one hand as she juggled strong soap, a scrub brush, and a second bucket in the other. She was damp and dirty, and thanks to Sir Talon of the Hateful Song, her life had alternated between complete misery and a state of near constant semiarousal.

“That passage stinks like a midden,” he had said to her. “The entire keep still reeks because of it. I want it clean and smelling like a meadow. Today.” Then he’d told Cleve to keep an eye on her and left softly singing, “Once more my sweet, please do you mind, I’ll give you treats ...”

Larkin wanted to breathe fire. Instead, under Cleve’s watchful eye, she’d fetched two buckets of water, found the soap, and went to do Talon’s bidding. She should be grateful for the demeaning tasks he assigned, for anger over them kept her from murdering the wretch, or worse, marching to his tune and straight into his bed.

Cleve opened the not-so-hidden door to the tunnel and carried the torch down the stairs before her. How dare Talon assume the stink in the keep was all her doing? Was it her fault if the earl was too stingy to hire a bailiff who would ensure that animals could not wander in, get lost, and die within the keep’s walls? ’Twas an excellent explanation for the noisome odor. But did Sir I Want It Done Today bother to consider anything other than her own prior behavior?

No.

At the bottom of the stairs, she threw the brush at the stonewall to vent her anger. It bounced and clattered to the floor with several satisfying thunks.

“’Ere now, ye’ve no need to throw things just ’cause Sir Talon chose me to guard ye. ’Twon’t help ye get this done any faster neither.”

Appalled that she’d let her irritation with the knight get the better of her, Larkin started down the passage. “I am sorry, Cleve. You are right. I’d best set to work.” Too bad it wasn’t Talon and not the brush that had bumped and clattered against the wall. She smiled. He would have deserved every bump and bruise. Singing bawdy songs at every turn and smiling at women as if he’d like to do with them the things he sang of.

She frowned to herself as she retrieved the brush. Then she arrived at the far end of the passage, where the new door blocked the exit to the cliffs and the sea, and began working her way back toward the stairs, scrubbing top to bottom.

A bucket and a half of water later, Larkin tossed the brush into the container and soapy water splashed onto her bodice. Mayhap this labor kept her from sharing Talon’s mattress. But it also kept her from searching the keep for the marriage box. She shivered and pulled at the wet cloth over her chest. Constantly watched as she was, she had little chance to even pick out likely spots to search at some later time. Unless she could rid herself of her guard for a short while.

Perhaps she could achieve two goals at one stroke. She jostled the bucket with her foot, and half the remaining water spread down the distance to the foot of the stairs where Cleve stood.

“Oh no, I’ve spilled most of the water.” She leaned against the wall and did her best to sound as if she were sobbing.

“What’s to do?”

“Oh Cleve,” she wailed. “I’m so tired. I cannot even keep the bucket straight and have lost nearly all the water.” She covered her face with her hands and made choking noises.

“Now, Mistress Larkin ...”

She felt Cleve’s awkward pat on her arm.

“I’ll get ye some more water in this other bucket. Ye finish with that one, and I’ll be back afore anyone’s the wiser.”

“Would you do that for me, Cleve?” She looked up at him with eyes made watery by the stench she battled with brush and soap.

“Aye, Mistress Larkin. But ye’ve got to promise me ye’ll keep working and not take advantage.”

“You’re too kind to me, Cleve. I wouldn’t think of causing you trouble. I’ll be very good and work very hard while you’re gone.”

“Good, then. I’ll be back in a trice.”

Larkin watched him pick his way carefully over the yard of hard-packed dirt and stone where she’d spilled the water. With luck, her accident had cleaned the floor for her, and she could use the respite from Cleve’s guarding to search the walls for likely hiding places.

In the dim light of the torch, she could barely see where the water had spread. She bent for a closer look. It had been a waste. All she’d achieved was a muddy mess. ’Twould be no searching now.

She dunked her brush, set the nearly empty bucket aside, knelt on the ground, and prepared to scrub away the mud. Brush in hand, she searched for the cake of soap. Where had it gone?

She heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open. Light spilled along the walls. Larkin looked up and spied her soap inches from the bottom step. She rose to reach for the cake. Then the light was cut off, and the soap was lost in the gloom.

A step sounded, then another. “Cleve?” she whispered. The guardsman was so talkative, surely he would have said something when he opened the door. The memory of deadly arrows at dusk shivered through her. With her torch casting the only light, Larkin peered upward. Quick steps preceded the male form emerging from the gloom.

“Oh ’tis you.” She let loose a relieved breath, then watched in fascinated horror as Talon took flight.

He uttered a yelp of surprise. His hands scrabbled to find purchase on the damp stonewall. His feet flew up. His back hit the floor with such force that he bounced. He twisted sideways. So fast did he fall, he only succeeded in rolling straight toward her.

The bucket sailed upward. The soapy contents dumped across her bodice while the pail flew on behind her. She sputtered and caught a breath. Talon’s impact knocked it from her, and she went crashing backward. His hands grabbed her shoulders. She fought him. Her head would smash to pieces on the stones behind her. She did not deserve to die.

In the next instant, he had twisted again. She landed with a thump on his hard body. She tried to inhale but found the effort severely restricted. Talon’s arms banded around her ribs and back in a crushing embrace.

“Let me loose, oaf. I cannot breathe.” She used precious air to protest, hoping to gain her release faster.

When no immediate response came, she wiggled a hand free and slapped wildly at his upper arms, shoulders, and chest in order to force him to let go.

She felt his arms slide from her back. She continued to hit at him, releasing all the pent-up fury that his teasing over the past days had caused.

How dare he crush her so? No doubt he sought to taunt her for refusing his attentions. “Beast, arrogant mule, bastard.”

Cold water sluiced over her.

Larkin sputtered and shook her head. She opened her eyes and took in Talon’s frozen glare.

“What?”

Hands pulled her from his soggy embrace and stood her upright.

“I’ve got ’er, sir. She’ll not escape now.” Cleve’s voice sounded weary with disappointment.

Attempting to cover her chest, she struggled against Cleve, who held her by the neck of her long tunic. “I was not trying to escape.”

“Were you not, Mistress Larkin? ’Twas a terrible thing ye done, lying to me and making me think I could trust ye.”

“But I did not ...”

“Thank ye, Sir Talon, for checking on her. I’d have failed in me duty for certain had you not. I’ll know better than to believe her again.”

Talon sat in the mud puddle and grinned.

Larkin hated that grin so much she made to kick him.

He simply rocked back and let go a laugh that echoed throughout the complex of caves.

Cleve peered over her shoulder at the giddy knight. “What have ye done to him to make him as mad as yerself?”

Larkin sputtered. They were fools, both of them.

Talon sat up once more. Tear tracks decorated the dirt on his face. “Fear not, Cleve. Mistress Larkin has done nothing to me that she has not done to other men in Hawking Sedge.”

“Ye mean she kicked you in the balls, sir?”

At Cleve’s question, Talon howled with laughter again. He clutched his middle and nodded. “Aye,” he choked out. “You could say that.”

“Well, sir, I’m not saying ye’re not within ye’re rights to have a tumble with ’er, but ye shouldn’t set a guard on her if that’s what ye want.”

Larkin could stand no more. She refused to be discussed like a piece of cold mackerel by men who wouldn’t know a fish if they caught one. Jackasses, both of them. She stomped on Cleve’s foot.

He loosed one arm.

She jabbed her newly freed elbow into his ribs, stepped neatly aside, and pushed him down the small distance separating her from Talon, straight into the mud where the knight sat, grinning.

“I’ll have you know, Cleve, that I wouldn’t bed that man if he were the last knave on earth. As for this stinking passageway, clean it yourself, Sir Talon.” She pivoted and marched up the stairs headed straight for the solar and a bath. She’d wash the mud from her body and the knight from her mind before she did aught else this day.