The Herald's Heart (12 page)

• • •

He found her in the kitchen several days later. She’d been avoiding him. Possibly, his constant humming whenever she was near was finally having some effect, and she avoided the reminder of the pleasure she denied herself. When he did see her, more often than not, she graced him with frowns. Today sniffles and small groans greeted him even though she had her back to him.

Not until every other woman stopped her work to stare at him leaning in the kitchen doorway did she turn toward him.

She swiped at her eyes, whipped back around and, shoulders shaking, bowed her head over the chopping block.

He walked up behind her, close enough to feel her distress. She hacked one-handed at a large yellow onion. Her other hand lifted a corner of her apron and wiped at her tears.

He tilted his head forward and swirled that low melody into her ear. Once more my sweet, please do you mind, I’ll give you treats. Her lavender-and-pansy scent speared desire through his body, but he ignored it. He was here to get information. The song was a tool to unsettle her. Seduction was a side benefit and could come later.

The other women tittered.

She paid him no mind, but whacked aimlessly at the onion.

This was not working as he’d planned. He placed his palm on her arm. Her hand jerked. The flat rather than the edge of her blade struck the onion. It skittered from her reach, dropped off the edge of the block, and rolled to the floor.

She reached for the errant vegetable in the same moment as he. The movement caused her bottom to brush against the lower portion of his body. She gasped. He grinned, knowing that all her indifference was forced. She abandoned the onion to his longer reach, and leapt round to face him. He’d wanted her attention, but now her hips were a mere finger’s span from his. She swiped at her eyes, which had begun to tear again. Concern for her distress helped him focus on his immediate aim—get information from her. The knife in one of her fists finished the work of cooling his errant lust. Onion in one fist, Talon raised his hands to shoulder height and stepped back. “I meant no harm, Larkin. Please,” he nodded at the knife, “accept my apologies.”

She stared at the blade, surprised to see it still in her grasp. She raised her eyes to his. He returned her gaze, carefully assessing her mood. Her stare faltered, and she looked past him toward the kitchen fire.

A child’s shrill cry broke the silence.

“Nay,” she shouted and leapt past Talon. The knife clattered, forgotten, to the ground.

“What?” He turned as she sped past him.

There before the blaze, stood Aedwin the laundress’s son, flames licking up his legs.

The kitchen erupted in chaos.

Larkin tore the apron from her body and tossed it to the ground. She knocked the child from his feet onto the apron and bundled the heavy material around the boy’s legs, beating at any flames that tried to escape. She continued swatting at the child’s small form until Talon grabbed a bucket of water and drenched both her and the boy.

The child wailed. Coughing, she swept him up and coddled him to her chest. “There, there,” she soothed between spasms. “’Twill be all right. Your mother will be here soon. Hush now, all will be well.” She crooned a Norman tune Talon recalled from his childhood. A nurse, born and raised in Normandy, had sung him to sleep. Larkin sounded very like that nurse. Too much so for any English peasant, no matter how well educated.

The boy’s wails faded to whimpers, and the laundress rushed into the room, crying for her Aedwin. Larkin passed the boy to the other woman.

Talon helped Larkin to her feet. He anchored her wrists in one firm grip and began a thorough examination of her hands.

She squirmed in his grasp, twisting to speak with the boy’s mother. “He is hurt. I don’t know how badly.”

“Thank you, thank you, Larkin. How can I ever repay you?”

“’Tis no need. I will go for the abbess this instant.”

“Nay,” Talon ground out.

“But the child—”

“The child will be cared for, but not by you. Alice, have Cleve send a rider to the abbey with all speed. After Mother Clement has tended the boy, ask her to attend me in the solar.”

“Aye.” The cook bustled from the room.

Larkin stiffened. “I understand you feel you cannot trust me, but to make that child suffer because of it is unforgivable.”

“The child will suffer less if a rider goes than if he must wait for you to walk.”

She had no argument for that.

“Even so, you are right. I cannot trust you, can I, Lady Rosham? He kept his voice low but hard. Calling her Lady Rosham before so many witnesses had been a mistake. Whoever intended her harm might try harder if it were known the king’s herald believed Liar Larkin to be no liar at all.

She turned defiant eyes on him. “You mock me, now, but someday all will know I speak the truth.”

“You deceived me from the moment we met.” Stop proclaiming the truth so loudly! he wanted to shout at her, but he had to keep all the listeners believing she lied and thinking he believed the same.

“You deceived yourself. I never lied,” she protested.

Aware of the curious eyes and ears around them, Talon decided to move this conversation elsewhere. He mustered all the anger he could, directing it at Larkin instead of the mysterious person who’d tumbled stones on her, sent arrows flying at her when she was alone, and may have pushed a child into a fire knowing Larkin would risk her life for the child.

“I will have the whole truth from you, Larkin, and have it now.”

With every eye in the kitchen staring, he bent and lifted her over his shoulder.

“What are you doing? Put me down.”

“Nay.”

“Oaf. I shall carve your liver and feed it to the dogs.”

He barked a laugh. “Too bad you dropped your knife.”

She rained blows on his broad back.

Talon only forced more laughter and marched from the kitchen to the great hall, then beyond to the solar. Once there, he tossed her onto the bed, then spun on his heel and dropped the bar on the door before turning back to her.

Now, away from prying eyes and ears, he could vent his anger at her use of truth as a deception and maybe teach her to have some concern for her own safety.

• • •

She eyed him carefully. He’d said many times he did not force women, and she believed him, but his odd behavior and angry assertion of old accusations gave her pause. Why? And what could he possibly want that required he bar the door on any interruption? Had she any choice, she might have run from the keep and never returned, but his looming presence prevented her. She would have to wait until he explained himself, but she didn’t have to like it.

“Now, Lady Larkin Rosham, I will have the complete truth from you.” He settled onto the bed beside her.

“You believe me? Why?” How was it possible? She did not know whether to laugh or weep. Seven years she struggled to make known who she was and all called her liar. Now a royal herald accepted her word, without any proof. She still wished to find the marriage box, to strengthen her claim, but the support of King Edward’s herald might be enough all by itself, for the heralds were the king’s witnesses to the identities of all his nobles, especially those the king had never met in person.

“Since the start, you deceived not just me but everyone, so I still have doubts.” Idly he clasped one of her hands in his.

“Then why address me by my title? Was that nothing but cruel mockery?”

He matched his gaze with hers. “I am not a cruel man.”

She frowned. “Then help me understand what this is all about. How can you say you believe me, then claim that I deceived all, when I never spoke anything but the truth?”

He was silent a long while. “The night I caught you haunting the keep and I said I thought your speech well-schooled for a peasant, did you deny it?”

“Why should I? My mother did school me well.”

“Aye, even to singing Norman learning tunes about the Christ child. A thing no English peasant would ever know or care to repeat.”

“’Twas no deception to speak as I was taught.”

“But you allowed me to think it was,” he hissed.

“I could not prevent you.”

His hand tightened on hers, then stroked. “Aye, you could not.” The strain left his voice.

Larkin clamped her teeth on the bitter anger she wanted to hurl at him. She straightened. His unyielding grip forced her closer to him.

“You would blame me for a belief you took upon yourself?” She kept her gaze level with his.

“Nay, too much blame has been laid at your door. If you truly are Lady Larkin Rosham, you will know the events of your family’s fate in every detail. You must tell me all. Begin with your bridal journey to Hawksedge Keep and end with how you came to haunt this place.”

She backed away from him, but he locked an arm about her waist, anchoring her in place.

“Nay,” she whispered.

“Aye,” he insisted, his hard demand at odds with the soft stroke of his hand on her arm. She shivered as she had that night so long ago, but for a much different reason. She almost wished it were fear that caused her quivering. “I cannot.”

“You must.” The hand slipped down to the tender skin on her inner wrist.

In the waiting silence, his tenderness beat back the barriers to remembered horror and despair. She moaned her denial and turned her face away.

He lifted his fingers to her chin, placed his palm on her cheek, and urged her to look at him. His thumb drifted over her trembling lips. His gaze met her glance with a quiet demand to trust him. She wished he were angry still. Then she could defy him and leave the memories buried.

“Why should I tell you anything?” She fought the choking fear and challenged him. “If my claim to be Lady Larkin Rosham is true, what will it gain you? You might even earn the earl’s wrath for unmasking my secrets.”

She forced back the tears that welled.

“The truth will not benefit me at all, nor do I believe Hawksedge would harm a king’s herald. Especially when that king is not best pleased with the earl.”

“Then I ask again, what purpose in my trusting you?”

“Because you have no one else you can trust.”

He was right, she needed an ally, but even an army of loyal folk would not make a retelling of that night any easier. She could not do it.

“I don’t see any of the servants or villagers rushing to your aid,” he continued, blunt and abrupt. “If the abbess could aid you, you would be at the abbey now. Tell me who is left, Lady Rosham? Or should I say, Countess Hawksedge?”

She sought distraction in his question. “Why should I bother? My story will not change anything. Why should I trust you?”

He relaxed his grip and toyed with her fingers. “Your speech demonstrates the truth to anyone who will listen. As for trusting me, have I ever lied or broken my word to you or in your presence?” The question was gentle, as tender as his touch.

She lost the battle with her tears.

“Nay.” Turning her head away, she swiped at the flood with her free hand.

“Then trust me, Lady Larkin. Mayhap I can help.”

In the past seven years, no one had offered her tenderness. Her own strength and defiance had been her mainstays, her only means of keeping the past at bay. She’d come to rely on the disbelief of others as a way to avoid remembering, to avoid weeping and weakness. Now this gentle assault undid her.

“Please do not ask this of me.”

“I must.”

“Why?”

“In part, because I am the king’s herald. But mostly because I care about the truth and you.”

She returned her gaze to his. The patience she saw there opened her lips, and she spoke the tale she’d never given to anyone, reliving the moments as she spoke.