“Thinking of me, love?”
Her eyes flew open and she stepped back. “Lyall!”Was he everywhere?
Handsome as the Devil himself, hair golden, eyes the color of cornflowers, grinning wide enough to show a rare dimple in his cheek, he stood there, arms resting on the stall gate, intent on watching her.
“Thinking of you?” she repeated sweetly. “The baron might have to enlarge the castle arches so you might manage to get your head through. And if you must know,” she lied, “I was thinking of how to scrape the manure off my shoe.” She pulled up the hem of her gown and showed him her shoe.
“And a fine shoe it is, as is your lovely ankle. But I was recently warned that a fine ankle is trouble.”
“What do you want, Lyall?” she asked in a flat tone, feeling mixed up and annoyed, happy to see him, yet confused, andwanting to throw her arms around his neck and cover his face in kisses.
His look changed, the joy in his expression vanished. “Want? Something I cannot have,” he said seriously and the moment died. “Good day, Lady Glenna,” he added curtly and walked away.
Her heart sank, and she cursed herself for dousing their fire.
But they were not done and the afternoon and evening continued to play cruel tricks on her. They crossed paths repeatedly, almost as if they were dice in hand of God. When Glenna took Mairi’s lads to the kitchen for a sweet, rewards for napping quietly, Lyall was standing with his arm resting atop Cook’s head as the short woman who ran the castle kitchens looked way up, waving a wooden spoon under his nose as she pretended to scold him for sticking his fingers in the plum sauce, both of them laughing, until Glenna and the boys interrupted.
Later, as she raced from her chamber to go to meet Lady Beitris in the solar, she and Lyall came out of their doors at the same time, both froze in place looking down the long hallway at the other. Later still, when she was speaking with Mairi in her chamber, Lyall came in without knocking, asking his sister a question before he looked up just as Glenna dropped her wine goblet on the carpet. And when night had fallen and the moon began to rise, when the stars overhead blinked in the darkening sky, when the castle was just beginning to quiet, they met on the dark narrow staircase, each heading in a different direction, and they stared, startled, frustrated, then turned to edge by each other.
But quarters were too close and her breasts brushed his ribs, making her breath catch. He looked down, their mouths were almost level, with her on a higher step and him on a lower. His breath was warm on her cheek, and she could smell the scent of cinnamon and allspice from the stew served earlier, and feel the intense heat coming from his body.
His hands touched hers, and something glinted in his eyes,before he pulled away as if burned and continued down the stairs without looking back, his voice quietly saying, “I cannot do this. I am done.”
And as she watched him walk away, shocked by his words, she vowed, “You might think we are done, but I am not done.”
31
The moon was higher in the night sky when Lyall turned at the sound of the door and there she was. “Glenna,” he spoke aloud, her name coming naturally from his mind to his lips. She was not a ghost of the woman who had haunted him, that he had seen around every corner as he tried to hide from her and what he felt.
Flesh and blood Glenna stood inside his bedchamber, a royal daughter in a deep green gown, fitted to her body and with gold embroidery along the neck and in panels at the sleeves, looking like an angel, a siren, and a witch, the beautiful sorceress placed in this earth to test his mettle.
He had known she would keep pushing, that he would see her again, but not now, not when he was tired of living with himself, and the disappointments of those who should matter in his life.
Not now when he’d been tested all day by face to face encounters and still tried to feel nothing. He could not find release from how he felt. And here she was. He was all too aware of the determination in her manner, the gleam in her eye. She came to him in the way a knight charged after the quintain. He took a deep and long-suffering breath. Her scent filled the air,that of a summer field full of flowers, reminding him of moments when he had held her. He crossed the room putting some distance between them, and he blew out a candle, then pushed aside the chair and braced himself against the edge of the table, crossing his feet at the ankles and acting as if she did not affect him as she did. “I know why you are here.“
“And you are not pleased,” she said moving near a chair, where she stood on tiptoe and took a candle from the wall prick, using it to light another.
“You wish to save me.”
“Someone has to. They will not dare to hang you as my husband, and were anyone to try, I would go to my grave fighting for you. “ She moved by the bed and lit more candles, one, two, five, six… “ ‘Tis the simple plan, Lyall.”
When she faced him, he saw she truly thought ‘twas all so clear and sensible. But nothing in his life was simple. She stood before him, a Trojan horse in the guise of a small black-haired woman who would be his champion.
“Aside from that,” she admitted. “There is another reason. I have a selfish motive to save you.”
He gave a short laugh. “Because you gain a husband who will not bury you alive.”
“Aye. There is that,” she agreed.
“So you imagine I am safe. I think your father, his councilors, and my stepfather all would argue that point, sweetheart.”
“I do not care,” she said stubbornly.
“But I care.” He straightened and turned his back to her, unable to look her in the eye with what he was about to do. “With all of your grand ideas you have not considered one thing.”
“What would that be?”
“Why should I exchange one shackle for another?”
