Twice Upon A Time (The Celtic Legends Series) (23 page)

“You foolish girl.”
Sir Guichard’s sneering, scornful voice cut through the room. “Do you think a father’s love is stronger than a burgher’s ambition?”

Conor
gazed up into the shadows of the stairwell, the urgency choking him, and saw a shadow passing by the ribbon of light coming from under the door of his room. Octavius, no doubt, furiously packing his things. But his feet would not move, could not move, for with a last glance at his long-dead wife his heart throbbed—a hard, heavy beating, like the stirring of a creature long lost in winter sleep. He saw this girl, Deirdre by name, painfully innocent, youthfully curious and eager, sheltered, isolated, summon her anger to the fore. He saw her straighten her shoulders and peel away the chrysalis of her innocent youth and reveal something he did not want to see. For as sure as he stood living, the sunlight glinted reddish in her honey-gold hair, and her chin tilted at that half-cocked, defiant angle, and her lashes raised as she brazenly met the nobleman’s gaze. Even across the room Conor felt the blast of anger which had blazed off the cocoon to reveal the pith of the woman beneath.

Brigid.

“By Christ.” Sir Guichard stumbled back, tripped upon the leg of his chair, and grasped its back to steady himself as he took in the full of her direct gaze. “By Christ!”

Her body quaked. Terror blossomed in her widening eyes, swamping the fury. Her lashes dropped, her shoulders collapsed, and in the span of a moment, she’d burrowed back within a thick cocoon of fear.

“You told me nothing of that,” the nobleman snarled, pointing straight-armed at her. “Not before you had me roped to this betrothal. Is she a devil’s child?”

“Calm yourself, Sir Guichard.” Monsieur
Mézières gripped his daughter by the arm. “Your imagination is getting the best of you.”

Damn foolish lass,
Conor thought. She knew better. A man saw the truth of his own soul when he looked into the eyes of a woman with the Sight, and Sir Guichard’s soul was as black as tar. She’d get herself roasted for her foolishness.

Have
the gods nothing better to do than play peg-games with our lives?

S
he raised her lashes again for no more than a fleeting moment, this time to search out his own gaze.

Once in his travels through the Far East,
Conor had tried to scale the snow-laden slope of a mountain whose peaks pierced the clouds. Halfway up, a deafening crack like a thousand thunderbolts had knocked him to his knees. He had clawed the snow, searching for a grip, but the world buckled beneath him and he plunged into the ice-turned-powder, flailing and kicking as he spun down, down, weightless down the slope, while the entire world dissolved into a suffocating, dizzy, white brightness.

“A marriage, Monsieur Mézières, is out of the question.” The words fell from Conor’s lips without thought, without planning.

Monsieur Mézières threw his hands into the air.
“Not even you can restrain your tongue today. You just told me she was healthy and your work here was done.”

“She doesn’t need
a doctor to convalesce.”

“Tie her to the rood screen and shave a cross into her head,” the nobleman slurred, glancing uneasily at his intended bride. “That will cure her.”

“Sir Guichard, really—you sound like a superstitious peasant.” The burgher’s feet scraped against the thickly scattered rushes as he paced.
“And doctor, even you seem to have changed your tune. But I heard her laughing in her room this morning. She’s well past ready for a wedding.”

“You mistake the first flu
sh of health for health itself. Had I known you’d planned a wedding, I’d have told you as much. No strong sons were ever born of a weak woman’s womb.”

The arrow found its mark. The burgher stilled
, plucking at the fur on the shoulder of his surcoat. “You have a manor house in the countryside, Sir Guichard, your ancestral home.”

“What of it?”

“I cannot leave Troyes during the fair, but your mother lives there, and she has a reputation as a good, pious woman. She will be an ideal chaperone for a short convalescence.” The burgher did not turn to see the nobleman’s shrug and grunt of assent. “You, doctor? Do you enjoy the fresh air of the countryside?”

“
No.” The word bellowed out of him, too fierce. “I won’t be a wet nurse to the lass—”

“
Think of it as a compliment to your skill.” The burgher’s cloud of orange scent quavered like a threat. “You were the only doctor able to nurse her to health, so only you can tell me when she’s well enough for breeding.” The burgher swiveled away. “Now, Sir Guichard, you must see to it that your mother is forewarned.”

The
burgher barked for servants and made arrangements for the voyage while Conor stood as still as stone. Deirdre, dismissed with her father’s reprimands, fled toward the stairs. She paused a moment as she passed, blindly brushing her fingers against his wrist before racing away. It was a fleeting touch, no more than a brush of their skins, no heavier than a twined bracelet of foxglove blossoms.

“Come, come, my little pet.” Deirdre twitched a thread in front of the black cat crouched at her feet. “It’s no secret that you’re choking with impatience.”

With a flick of her wrist, Deirdre made the wool jump. The cat leapt back, uncertain,
its back arched and its black eyes bright and wary. Then it crouched belly down in the dew-laden grass, ears perked, watching.

She
shook the bit of wool over his head. “Don’t you want it,
maoineach,
my precious?”

The cat shot up on its hind legs and cuffed it. He tumbled on his back,
and then twisted his sleek body to all fours to bound up again. Deirdre twirled in a little circle around him, her laughter riding on the summer breeze.

“Silly little cat.” She
ceded the tangle of wool and then scratched the pet behind its pointed ears. “Since you were a wee, wounded little kitten, we’ve been playing this game. I’d think you’d have the sense to know by now that it’s not a mouse.”

Her fingers stilled in the creature’s glossy pelt. The sun slanted down to pool in the little clearing she’d discovered in the midst of the Clunel garden. Though the gentle rays warmed her hair, a cold prickling seized the back of her neck.

She glanced up and saw him—
him
—striding through the shadows of the manor house. Her breath caught, for by some trick of sunlight, gold glistened around his neck and arms like the jewelry of some barbaric warrior. But then the harshness of daylight poured over him and dissolved the illusion.

It
was no wonder she was seeing things, with her mind churning over and over these past days until she didn’t have a single thought left whole in her head. All because of him, who’d accused her of the worst witchery and then said no more of it. He’d had plenty of opportunity to expose the truth. For here they were, together, in a manor house in Champagne, all because this man had chosen to interfere in her father’s wishes and delay her hasty marriage to a drunken brute.

She
still couldn’t figure out why he’d done it.

She rose to greet him. Her heart tripped a little as he app
roached, for he wore no surcoat, only the thinnest of linen tunics. A length of blue cloth was slung over his shoulder, tugging aside the neckline of his tunic to reveal the jut of his collarbone.

She smoothed her hands over her yellow li
nen surcoat. “Good morning to you, doctor. A fine, soft morning it is.”

He stopped suddenly and blin
ked, as if the sun blinded him. Then he cast his gaze around the clearing. “Where’s Octavius?”

She cocked a brow at him. “I’m doing very well, thank you
for asking.”

“Does he think
to escape me in this forest, the lazy sluggard?”

“There’s been nary a soul through this garden
except me.”

“None of your mischief,
now. I just followed him here.”

She
sighed. She was as foolish as her own pet to expect anything but rudeness from this brute of a man. She snatched the altar cloth she’d been embroidering and dropped it on her lap. “Don’t you think I would have seen him if he passed? Unlike his master, Octavius is not one to pass by without a ‘good day to you.’”

He didn’t respond
. He strode deeper into the weed-choked garden. She glared after him until the greenery swallowed him in shadow. There was no reasoning with a man like that. To think she’d done everything she could to seem inviting, even spreading her cloak upon the ground like a carpet of buttercups. She’d even worn her belt of silver bells and knotted a few into her hair.

She glanced up moments later when she heard his boots crackling through the grass.

“He disappears whenever there’s work to do.” He slung the length of blue cloth over his other shoulder. “If he keeps this up, he’ll find himself picking pockets on the streets of Troyes again.”

“If Moira were here,” she said, as she poured a length of thread through the altar cloth, “she’d whisper it was the little people making mischief with you.”

“Where is your maidservant?”

“Moira was summoned back to Troyes this morning.” She jabbed the linen anew. “Papa has guests in the house, and he needs her in his house more than I need her here.”

Heat
worked up her neck. She had come to this manor house expecting a fleet of servants and a house with enough room to sleep them all. She’d found a sagging, crooked little building with a disgruntled noblewoman as a hostess and not a single servant idle enough to play chaperone. Yet when Moira received the summons this morning, Deirdre had allowed her to leave—thus leaving herself, for all intents, completely unchaperoned.

Just as she’d wished.

He held out his hand. “Come inside. You shouldn’t be sitting here, with ruffians abounding through these woods.”

“Aren’t you a thundercloud on a glorious day?”

“Two days ago a merchant caravan leaving Troyes was set upon by thieves, less than a half-day’s ride up the very road which passes by this house. Two of the men were killed.”

She’d heard
the story. They were set upon at twilight as they passed through the dense woods, so it was told. Disemboweled and left bleeding by the side of the road. She’d heard a thousand stories like it all through her youth, tales of wolves and monsters and wicked men, stories to keep her firm abed after the light was doused.

She
didn’t believe a word of it.

She said,
“I don’t like to be trapped in that musty old hovel with Madame de Clunel peering out from behind her door, as if I were a rat to be chased out by the cats. I’ll be staying right here, thank you very much.”

“Still as stubborn as ever.”

“I wouldn’t spend a glorious day like this in the finest castle in Champagne.” She swept her embroidery aside and rose to her feet with a jangle. Her gaze fell upon his swath of dark blue wool, which she snatched off his shoulder before he could stop her. “Mending for your servant, perhaps?”

He reached for it, lightning-quick, but got nothing but a fistful of air.

She snapped out the cloth and found a tear near the seam. “With all your travels, I’d think you’d know how to wield a needle and thread as well as any wife.”

“
That’s the purpose of a servant.”

“
My fingers can sew better than any man’s.”

“I’ve no need of
your services—”

“
I think you do, since you’ve lost sight of Octavius.” She settled down in her skirts and shooed the cat away, then poked in her basket for thread to match the cloth. “It will take me but a moment.”

“So the heiress of
Mézières will set to mending the tunic of a common doctor.”

“For a price.”

She glanced up through the veil of her hair. She could not tell if it were the trick of sunlight, or if his face grew mottled at the idea.

“My price is your company,” she
explained. “For the length of time it takes for me to sew the tunic.”

She set her mind on the sewing, lowering her face so he wouldn’t see the heat rising on her skin
. It was going to be a long stay in the countryside. She knew the doctor was well-traveled. It’d been so long since she’d heard of what passed at the Provins fair, or at the court in Paris while King Louis was on his Crusade, or in all the other places that had felt the tread of this doctor’s feet. If nothing else, she’d suck dry the last bit of this doctor’s knowledge of the world and to the devil with all his blustering.

He was looking at her now, his face as puckered as if he’d drunk a bowl of four-day-old milk.

“Is it such a labor,” she asked, jabbing the cloth, “whiling away a morning in my company?”

“I’ve no tongue for meaningless pleasantries.”

“Well, then, we can find another use for you.” She pooled the thread through the first stitch. “You’re a brawny sort. Would you rather set to the thatching? The house needs it, I’m thinking. Poor work, this thatching. It won’t even keep out the sun.”

He didn’t respond
. He stood stiff on the edge of the clearing, all strained muscles and tight fists, like a mighty buck ready to fight, but poised nonetheless for flight. She sensed his gaze upon the spread of a brilliant yellow blanket, at the tipped sewing basket by her side, the cat wrestling with a frayed ball of wool, resting with growing intensity on the game board carefully laid out in the middle of the blanket.

“I found it in a chest at the end of my bed.” 
She tipped her head toward the chipped wooden pieces as she made another stitch. “It’s worse for wear but all the pieces are there. Do you play chess?”

His hands, she noticed, had curled into fists.

“Surely,” she said, “a man of your learning knows the lay of the board—”

“I know the way of i
t.”

“It’s been many a moon since my brother and I played. My palms have been itc
hing for someone to challenge.”

“Have you not done with the tunic yet?”

“A watched pot never boils.” Not that he’d been watching her. He was doing everything in his power not to lay eyes upon her. He prowled a circle of grass flat, like a creature trampling his bed for the night. His head swiveled constantly toward the manor house, once or twice turning angrily into the depths of the woods.

She winced as the needle pierced her skin. “It will be a long stay in the country,” she muttered, examining the bead of blood oozing from her fingertip, “with none but a boorish doctor to keep me company.”

“You’ll be gone by Lughnasa—and so will I.”

She jerked at the word Lughnasa, for it brought with it the memory
of a warm summer day with bees swirling in the air, of distant sea-salt spray and the hum of Irish sunlight. It had been ten years since she’d celebrated it proper. She, Mama, and Jean-Jacques used to pick bilberries in the woods on Lughnasa, surreptitiously eating them until the juice ran sticky down their chins. And there were fires deep in the forest at night that the priests frowned upon, and Mama would not let her attend for her youth—though Mama herself would slip away when she thought Deirdre was sleeping, ambling home in the dawn with brambles in her hair and the flush of sunrise on her cheek.

H
ad it been ten years since she’d breathed the sweet air of Ireland?

Deirdre absently sucked the drop of blood off her finger and pressed the wound against her sa
ffron cloak. “It’s been so long since I’ve celebrated Lughnasa, that I no longer know the roll of the Irish year. When is it now?”

“Four days
from today.”

“So quick to be rid of me.
” She seized the needle anew. “It’s a wonder you insisted on convalescence at all.”

She jabbed the needle through the cloth and yanked the thread through
. There was no understanding a man’s mind. Aye, she’d had little practice in the ways of men and women within the confines of the convent, except what she’d overheard between the girls and their friends’ brothers in the common room on occasional afternoons, but certainly she wasn’t so daft as to mistake her own eyes! It was this doctor, not herself, who’d insisted upon this convalescence—and at no profit to himself. Yet here he stood before her, gruffly denying there was anything more to his actions two days ago. Bluster, she reminded herself. It was all bluster. She remembered too well the look in his eyes after Sir Guichard’s words. No man risked the good will of his patron without reason. And now, alone with her, he covered his awkwardness with gruffness.

“Whatever th
e reason you insisted on this convalescence,” she said, “I thank you for it. Papa will change his mind about the marriage when he sees the great estate of the Lord of Clunel and knows for truth the worth of the title.”

He spoke toward the woods beyond the perimeter of t
he garden. “Sir Guichard is bitter now, but he’ll come to his senses with age. He will make a fine husband.”

“The entire world couldn’t make a racehorse of an ass.” She did not bother to stifle her snort of disbelief. “I won’t marry that sot.”

“Don’t be living in dreams, woman.”

“When the right man comes, I’ll marry
him
.”   She snapped out the tunic as she rose to her feet. “There, I’m done. Better than what that strange little servant of yours can do.” She gathered the cloth over her arm and approached him, her feet light on the spongy carpet of grass. “This will be a small thanks,” she said, thrusting it at him, “for all that you’ve done for me.”

He snatched the tunic and tossed it over his shoulder without a g
lance. “Your father pays my fee. I need no thanks for doctoring.”

“You know
I’m not speaking of your doctoring.”

She raised her gaze to his face, to the square, s
culpted jaw, to the angry tick of a muscle in his stubbled cheek. Then, with a deep, indrawn breath, she dared what she’d done once before: she raised her gaze until their eyes locked.