“Is aught amiss,amie?” Lady Blanche asked at last, looking up in innocence from her stitching. “I hope my cautioning did not offend.”
“Nay. You are correct as always,Mère,” Alissende sighed at last, looking away. “It seems that I am simply in no mood to be doing aught that demands my concentration this morn.”
Or any time, since Damien de Ashby swept back into my life with his tempting caresses, sweetly whispered words, and ardent stares.
Feeling even more peevish with that awareness, Alissende set the towel aside. Lady Blanche put down as well the credence cloth onto which she was stitching a delicate cross to say, “Come,ma fille. We can return to this work later, after we have gone out into the sunshine for a while to gather some sage for this evening’s meat.”
“That would be a welcome diversion,” Alissende agreed, adding more softly as she stood and stretched her back, “though I should gather some stinging nettles as well, so that I might affix a few leaves inside Damien’s braies and give him something more pressing to think about than dallying with me.”
When she paused to brush some thread from her skirt, however, she glanced at her mother and caught her actually laughing this time.
“Mère,I assure you, it is not humorous in the least!”
“Ah,chérie,I know, I know,” Lady Blanche said, still chuckling as she stood and slipped her arm around her. “Men can be maddening, obstinate creatures. The key, I have found, is to do what they are doing to exasperate you, only with even greater fervency. Meeting such challenges with confidence can do wonders for shifting the power into your own hands.”
“What are you suggesting?” Alissende stiffened. “That I should behave as he has to me…to take the same kinds of liberties toward him in turn?”
“Perhaps.” Her mother gazed at her evenly, pausing before adding, “It would help me to answer that if I knew exactly what Sir Damien is doing that has made you so out of sorts lately.”
Alissende bit her lip and shook her head, stepping away toward the window. Her mother’s question had unleashed a flood of heat at the memory of some of those moments with Damien, along with the unsettling awareness that she wasn’t unhappy about his attentions. Nay, in fact she was enjoying every touch, every caress…every teasing whisper they shared as they were locked into the intimate embraces required for her training. Truth be known, she had begun to anticipate her daily session with Damien so fervently that it was her own daydreams distracting her, naught else.
Trying to seem disdainful of it, she lifted her chin a fraction, turning her head to look back into the chamber at her mother. “It is just that he behaves knavishly, stealing all manner of kisses and caresses while we are engaged in the lessons he has insisted I undertake with him in skills of defense.”
“Ah,” her mother nodded, “I have heard some talk amongst the servants about this new activity. I consider it a fine idea any time a woman gains a skill to her benefit, but naturally, the servants believe Sir Damien a bit”—her voice trailed off as she searched for the term—“peculiar.”
“He is that and more,” Alissende muttered. “What provokes me most is that I am helpless to prevent his advances, trapped as I am before the gazes of those who believe us truly married.”
Liar.
The mocking voice inside her made its accusation. She felt her face grow warm, knowing full well that she wasn’t being fair—or honest. She knew she could stop Damien from what he was doing at any time with only a single word of entreaty, but thus far she hadn’t, because she didn’t want him to stop.
Aye, her helpless feeling had far less to do with Damien’s actions than it did with her own irrepressible desires for him, but that was too difficult to admit, especially to her mother. Pressing onward with what she hoped was a game front, she added in a mumble, “He knows this, and he uses it against me.”
“I see.”
Alissende stared at her mother in surprise.I see?That was all she intended to say? But Lady Blanche remained silent, looking thoughtful.
Ever more flustered, Alissende bridged the quiet by asserting, “Do not mistake me,Mère. I know that none of these attentions would be considered unusual for a newly married man to show his bride. But considering our arrangement…”
Lady Blanche tilted her head at last in a gesture of agreement. “Yet by treating him in kind, you may teach him a valuable lesson about such trifling.”
“More like it will only encourage him in it.”
Her mother shrugged. “That is a risk one takes in commencing this kind of rebellion.”
She looked directly at Alissende, then, her gaze upon her suddenly very intent, in that way it had always been when she had questioned Alissende as a child, to see if she was telling a falsehood. “How would you feel if Sir Damiendidrespond to any actions you took by becoming even more attentive to you?”
Alissende knew all was lost, then. Whether or not she managed to utter a word would not matter. The expression on her face in that single, unguarded instant, along with the fact that she could not bear to meet her mother’s gaze, would deliver her answer far more glibly than any protest she could have hoped to make.
After a telling pause, her mother nodded. “You do care for him, then. More than you are willing to admit.”
Lady Blanche offered the comment matter-of-factly, as if she was discussing the state of the herb garden or ordering up bathwater. As she spoke, she bent to fold up the fine linens they’d been stitching earlier, placing them carefully in the basket, and then turned to Alissende with an expectant air, as if she was surprised that no answering comment had been offered yet.
“What do you wish me to say?”
“You need not try to refute it,amie. The answer is clear in your eyes. But as your mother I am interested to know how deeply this feeling runs—and what you propose to do about it.”
“I—I, well, that is, I—” Alissende sounded incoherent, she knew, though it shouldn’t have surprised her, as her very thoughts about Damien seemed to be incoherent most of the time.
