Then, not long after he came back to himself, Erik felt her stretch beneath him and laugh, quiet of necessity but unmistakably content. “First pine needles and now sand,” she said, shaking her head so that more of her hair fell around her neck. “I think I’ll be frightened to seduce you again, lest we end up on hot coals. Get up, will you?”
The request, which wasn’t really a request, made her sound very much like the girl he’d grown up with. One could see that at times: bits of the past blending into the present, ripples in metal showing the hammer strokes. It was rare to find it in one of his own race, rarer in one so close to his own age.
Pulling reluctantly out of Toinette’s body and away, Erik ran a hand down her back. “Next time,” he said, “I’ll make sure to have at least a blanket.”
“Extravagant promises like that will turn a girl’s head.”
“Only the best,” he said. They repositioned themselves to sit facing each other, though not before Erik had re-donned his hose and Toinette her gown. There were good reasons for that, but it was still a disappointment to see her smooth body disappear beneath the cloth. “And would you really say you seduced me?”
“Well, it can’t be the other way around. You were only sitting there,” she retorted.
Erik grinned. “I sit very appealingly.”
“I’m sure I’m not the first woman to think so.”
“You’d not believe me if I said you were. Here…” She was trying to comb out her hair. “Let me.”
“What do you know about women’s hair?” Still, Toinette sat in front of him and obligingly bent her head.
Erik ran his fingers through the strands, gently separating tangles. Without a comb, he could only do so much, but at least he could keep it from plaguing her too badly, and keep touching her in the bargain. “It’s not so different from brushing dogs, is it?” he joked, and got a rude noise in response. “And you just said you thought mequiteadept with women.”
“I didn’t say ‘adept.’ I just think I have good taste.”
“And I thank you.” Erik had done rather well when he wanted to—though he didn’t doubt that was as much due to rank and wealth as to his looks or manners. Most lords his apparent age had left a trail of bastards behind them, after all.
The thought made him pause. He studied Toinette’s hair, slipped a lock back into place, and then asked, “You couldn’t be with child, could you? I—”
“No,” she replied, not laughing but not sounding distressed either. Her voice was quite matter-of-fact. “It doesn’t take the rites with two of us, but it’s still a matter of will.”
“Oh.” He sighed with relief. “How do you know?”
“Agnes told me. I was fourteen, or a little younger.”
“Agnes?” He remembered Artair’s elder daughter: studious and refined, the first and totally unreachable object of his infatuation. He couldn’t imagine talking with her about childbearing, and particularly not how to prevent it.
Toinette chuckled, a dry undertone to her voice. “She was being helpful. And she wanted me to know thatsheknew thatIknew.”
He was too tired to follow. “Hmm?”
“If I’d had it in mind to trap one of you into marriage by ‘accident.’ She wanted me to know that I wouldn’t fool anyone. Or, I wouldn’t fool her—or probably Artair, though I hate to think aboutthatconversation—and she’d open any of the boys’ eyes that needed it.”
“God’s bones.”
“In her place, I might have done the same. And itwashelpful information, wasn’t it? It means neither of us have to worry—not aboutthat, at any rate.”
“No.” Erik withdrew his hands, having done everything he could with her hair. He was no courtier, to know any real tricks, and just then he felt ashamed to be touching her, imposing on her in the guise of help.
“Which is just as well, as the list was getting long.” Toinette got to her feet again. “And speaking of worries, I suppose I’d best go get some sleep, if we’re to face the rest of ours.”
“Aye,” said Erik. He looked up at her, wanting to say more and unable to think of what. “Thank you for waking me” was what he finally settled on, and it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
* * *
“Ugh,” said Toinette, slashing brambles away to either side of her. “Nature is awful even when it’s not haunted.”
“You’ve known that as long as I’ve knownyou,” said Marcus.
“I didn’t say I was surprised, did I?”
