Louvaen gasped and Ballard choked back laughter. Thank the gods Cinnia wasn’t here. All her nagging about reputations and proper courtship would fall on deaf ears if the girl even suspected Louvaen was being less than circumspect and with the master of the house. She smacked Ballard on the arm. “Show her,” she hissed.
Ballard raised his hands to display his short nails. Magda scowled. “I could have done it for you. You only had to ask.”
“Ah, such is the light of Mistress Duenda I think. She doesn’t wait to be asked.” He raised a mocking eyebrow at Louvaen who sniffed and requested a fork from Magda.
Ballard took his seat and eyed the cutlery with disdain. “Useless bit of metal.”
Louvaen passed it to him. “Not so,” she said. “You keep your hands clean and guard against slicing your fingers when cutting meat. And if I chose to ram it into your eye, the tines would do a fine job of blinding you.”
Magda guffawed and slapped the plate of lukewarm food in front of him. Ballard wielded the fork against the roasted bird. “Did you kill your husband, Mistress Duenda?”
“You aren’t the first to ask, and no I didn’t.” She wouldn’t laugh though she was sorely tempted, delighted by his flash of dry wit.
She smoothed her skirts, thanked Magda for her patience and inclined her head toward Ballard. “My lord.” He’d have his privacy tonight, but she hoped tomorrow he’d put aside his trepidation and join them. Gavin would be pleased, and with any luck, Cinnia might no longer flinch at the sight of Ballard’s hands.
“Mistress.” Louvaen paused. Rush light cast jaundiced illumination across Ballard’s pale features, and the black vines seemed to writhe beneath his skin. “My thanks.” She nodded, certain he offered gratitude for more than her care of his hands.
She left him to return to her room and sweep up the remnants of her grooming. Three pairs of curious eyes watched her when she stepped into the solar and took her customary place before the spinning wheel.
“Where have you been?” Cinnia eyed her from her seat at a corner table she shared with Ambrose. Sheaves of parchment shared space with several inkbottles and finely threaded brushes. The two had begun work on a grimoire of Ambrose’s potions. Louvaen hoped the sorcerer appreciated Cinnia’s creation when it was done. She’d been trained by the finest illuminator and binder. Louvaen had no doubt the final product would be a thing of art beyond its more prosaic purposes. Gavin sat on a short stool, almost hugging Cinnia’s knee, and stropped the edge of a knife across a strip of oiled leather with the hands of a lover.
“I was in the kitchen with Magda.” She didn’t lie if one didn’t peer too closely. Unfortunately, Ambrose always did.
“And before that?” he asked.
Louvaen gave him a look she hoped conveyed a very specific, if vulgar message and began dressing the distaff with a bundle of flax tow. “Not that it’s your concern, but I was in my chamber trimming nails.” Again, not so much a lie as a careful play on words that begged assumptions, hopefully wrong ones. Her luck held. The three lost interest. Time spent with Ballard was no secret; she’d done nothing illicit or scandalous. She just didn’t want to answer the many questions Cinnia would ask or confront Ambrose’s suspicious gaze any more than necessary.
She finished dressing the distaff and spun a leader cord of tow over her thigh before threading it through the wheel’s bobbin. The tow was not as fine on the draw as Joan’s marvelous flax tare, but Louvaen had promised yarn for dish towels, rope and aprons. The creak of her treadle harmonized with Gavin’s back-and-forth sweep of his blade across the strop and lulled her into ruminations about Ketach Tor’s scarred lord.
Ballard was nothing like her husband in either appearance or disposition. Thomas Duenda had been a giant of a man who’d earned the nickname Ursus with his unruly mane of long brown hair and an equally untamed beard. He loved to eat, drink, laugh and bed his prickly-tempered wife. He was a wild contrast to the melancholy solemnity of his chosen profession, and Louvaen had adored him. When he died, Louvaen thought someone had reached into her chest, bashed a few of her ribs along the way, and pulled her heart out of her body. Three years on, she still sometimes wept for him.
The lord of Ketach Tor seemed more suited for the role of undertaker. Somber and reflective, Ballard said little but those expressive dark eyes revealed many things. She pictured him at the kitchen table and again in the solar as flax drafted through her nimble fingers, spinning into linen thread with the turn of the wheel and flyer. He gave no indication that the torture he suffered during a flux bothered him once it subsided or that its warping effects were anything more than a mild annoyance. When he asked why she wasn’t afraid of him, she’d sensed only puzzlement in the question. Louvaen knew Gavin far better than she knew his father; however, it was Ballard who drew her, beguiled her with a quiet power and the surety that while the flux might send him to his knees, he’d never break beneath its yoke. In this, he was very much like Thomas. Strength without cruelty, pride without arrogance and an iron perseverance.
A chair leg scraping softly across the floor snagged her attention away from thoughts of de Sauveterre. She caught Cinnia trying her best to inch her chair closer to Gavin so he might rest his head more comfortably on her knee. The strop lay forgotten on the floor, and the knife rested across his thigh. “De Lovet,” Louvaen said softly so as not to startle him. “You cannot sleep with my sister. You can’t sleep on her either.”
For the first time since she’d taken up residence at Ketach Tor, she and Ambrose exchanged a smile that was more than a hostile baring of teeth as Cinnia jerked her knee from under Gavin’s head. He fell off the stool and almost stabbed himself in the foot.
“For gods’ sake, Lou, couldn’t you just ask him politely to move?” Cinnia glared daggers at her sister. “Thank you for embarrassing me!”
Louvaen never ceased her spinning. “Be more circumspect then.” She frowned at Gavin who’d found his feet and hovered protectively at Cinnia’s side . “I think it fair to say she’s the only innocent in this chamber, de Lovet. You know better than to try such foolishness, especially with me here.”
He might not resemble his father, but Gavin had inherited much of his demeanor and confident reserve. He bowed and met her gaze unflinchingly. “A lapse, Mistress Duenda. I meant no offense to you and especially none to Cinnia.” He moved his stool a good distance away from Cinnia and resumed his seat along with the stropping.
Louvaen ignored Cinnia’s hot stare and her efforts to burn holes through her with it. The solar returned to its quiet if not its tranquility, and before long Cinnia excused herself for the evening, promising Ambrose she’d meet with him the next day to continue their work together on the grimoire. She offered her hand to Gavin who kissed it lightly and wished her goodnight. To Louvaen she snapped “Don’t stop spinning. I can find my way to my room without you.” She swept out of the solar on a tide of offended dignity.
Ambrose rolled the loose parchments, tucked them under his arm and rose. Louvaen stiffened at his mocking smile. “Best sleep with one eye open tonight, mistress. The knife in the back often comes from those we trust most.” He bowed to her and Gavin and followed Cinnia into the corridor.
Except for the rhythmic clack of the treadle under Louvaen’s foot and the slide-snick sound of Gavin’s blade on the strop, the room was silent. She’d have to apologize to Cinnia and curb her scolding in the future. Gavin wasn’t Jimenin who needed a club to the head to get the point. Cinnia’s most ardent suitor had always been courteous and restrained, earning Louvaen’s grudging respect. She’d grown to like him when he displayed an interest in her sister for more than her beauty. That liking had been severely tested when he made off with her to Ketach Tor. Even knowing his reasons were noble and the results beneficial to her entire family, Louvaen still found it difficult to warm to him.
Jealousy,a small voice whispered in her mind.You’re jealous. She’s turned from you for guidance to someone else, and you can’t let go. The line of flax drew too long and broke. Louvaen cursed under her breath.
“Mistress?” Gavin halted in his task.
She waved a hand at him and drafted additional tow to twist with the line. “Tis nothing. A broken line and easy to fix.” The treadle took up its clacking tune once more.
“I gave my word, Mistress Duenda. What more can I do to convince you I hold Cinnia in the highest regard?” Gavin’s gaze, no longer yellow now the flux had ebbed, brimmed with frustration.
“Marry her.”
