“Please, Mary?” Briar whispered. Why would no one let her help! Once she had always been the one her sisters turned to, now they kept their troubles to themselves. How could she help if they would not tell her?
“I am grown, Briar. I can mend my own broken toys.”
Briar gave up. She turned again to the crowd, now enjoying the acrobats’ performance. Miles. The name slipped into her mind like a cool breeze on a hot day, and just as tempting. If she spoke with him, asked him about Ivo, where was the harm? Assuming she could find him in this crush.
“Wait here,” she said, over her shoulder to Mary, and started to make her way in the direction she had last seen Miles de Vessey.
Luckily most of the guests were entranced with the attempt by the acrobats to climb, all five, upon each other’s shoulders. While the motley column swayed back and forth, Briar was able to find her way to the back of the hall without being accosted or complimented on her singing, or asked if she was really the daughter of the traitor, Richard Kenton.
She glanced about her.
Miles was not here, but there was a doorway, curtained by a tapestry, which led into another chamber. Perhaps he was in there? It seemed unlikely, but where else could he have gone so abruptly? Briar lifted aside the tapestry and peeped through the gap. Shadows, nothing but shadows in a small alcove which contained nothing more than a bench and a table. She turned to go.
“I enjoyed your singing, lady.”
Miles.
“Come in, I have been waiting for you.”
One of the shadows moved, took the shape of a man. Miles stepped closer, and Briar could see his eyes, pale in the gloom and fixed on her. He had changed his clothing from earlier, the green tunic he wore now was clean and well made, his breeches of fine stuff, and his boots soft leather. His jaw was freshly shaved, accentuating that at-tractive leanness she had already noted.
There was a resemblance to Ivo. In the shape of his chin, mayhap, and the way he held himself, in his handsome smile, but Ivo was bigger, broader, and not so good-looking nor so cool-tempered. Miles, with his gray eyes and lean face, was the more attractive, and yet there was something about him that repelled Briar. She did not know quite what it was, and even as she thought it, she dismissed it as unfair. He was different, that was all. She should not, she thought guiltily, judge every man by one.
Her guilt made her step into the alcove with him.
“Is my brother here tonight?” His voice was softer, more intimate, as if they were preparing to exchange secrets. Which was what Briar had been hoping to do. Why then did she feel so uneasy in his presence?
“Ivo is not my keeper, sir,” she said calmly enough, pretending his gaze did not make her nervous. “I do not know where he is.”
Miles smiled Ivo’s smile, but it lacked Ivo’s warmth and sense of mischief, it lacked Ivo’s chivalrousness and protectiveness. If she were handing out counters, Ivo had them nearly all. “I can see he is not your keeper. You are a lady with a mind very much of her own.”
She smiled back, pleased he should realize it. Ivo still did not understand that she could take care of herself. Finally she could set a counter in Miles’s pile.
He leaned closer, and confided, “You asked me about Lady Anna. I did not tell you all.”
“What more is there to say, Sir Miles?”
He hesitated, glanced at her, and away again. “I am ashamed to say, lady. Will you tell Ivo? He already thinks badly of me. And yet he is my brother, my only brother, and I love him. Do you know what it is like, Lady Briar, to be at odds with your own brother?”
That deep sadness had crept back into his handsome, austere features. He had the look of a priest; how could she not trust a priest. Despite her instinctive caution, Briar felt an answering empathy. She loved her sisters, and presently felt out of step with them, and the sense of loss and frustration was uncomfortable. How much worse for Miles and Ivo, who had clearly suffered some terrible fissure? At least, Ivo had cut himself off from his brother, though Miles seemed willing to repair matters.
“He is the only flesh and blood family I have left.”
Jesu, there were tears in his pale eyes. Despite herself, Briar’s own eyes filled.
“And ‘tis all over a misunderstanding,” he went on, his voice turning bitter. “A foolish thing. But Ivo will not speak with me, he will not let me explain to him...” He took a breath, pulling himself together. “Well, what is the point of mulling over it? Nothing can be done.”
Impulsively, Briar put her hand on his arm. “Perhaps there is something we can do, Sir Miles. Perhaps I can talk to Ivo for you.”
He looked at her sharply, and suddenly he had all of Ivo’s intensity. “Would you, lady? Would you do that for me?”
His eagerness was heartwarming, and Briar smiled, forgetting any doubts she may have had. “Aye, I would. But first you must tell me what it is that keeps you and Ivo apart...”
Miles stiffened, looking past her to the tapestry. Light spilled through the narrow gap where the cloth was not flush against the doorway. “I do not want Ivo to find me here with you. It will be another mark against me, in his eyes. Can you meet me tomorrow? Can you meet me at the house of your father?”
It seemed an odd request, but he was staring at her so fiercely, so pleadingly. As if he had put all his hopes in her.
“Will you trust me, lady? I want so much to reconcile with my only brother. In his heart, I know that Ivo wants that, too. We need someone like you, someone who cares for him, to help us take the first step. Will you do that for Ivo and me, Lady Briar?”
