Quick reflexes saved him from taking an elbow to the face as Louvaen exploded out of the covers, fell through the bed curtains and onto the floor with a thud. Ballard swung out of the bed in time to watch her sprint across the chamber and snatch her shift up from the floor where he’d dropped it the night before. He stood in front of her, eyebrows arched, as she struggled to pull the garment on, hopping up and down and growling in frustration as she tried to squeeze her head through one of the armholes.
“Louvaen,” he barked, losing patience.
“What?” she snapped back, arms bent at odd angles as she battled with the shift.
He clutched her shoulders. “Hold still,” he commanded. She did as he ordered, feet shuffling impatiently as he adjusted the shift. It slipped over her head to cover her body.
She blinked at him and scraped wispy clouds of tangled hair away from her face. “Thank you.” She glanced past him. “I need my robe.”
He touched her elbow as she sidled around him. She’d surprised him with her reaction to the news it was dawn, as if she feared the weak light leaking through the slats at the window. “So eager to leave me?”
Louvaen paused, her eyes almost silvery in the dim light. Her gaze caressed him, lingering on his morning erection. Ballard exhaled a surprised “umpf” when she launched herself at him hard enough to rock him back on his heels. His hands slid across her back to hold her close and keep his balance. She kissed him as if starved, her tongue sliding between his lips to ravish his mouth and demand the same response from him. He was only too happy to oblige.
She ended their kiss on a shuddering breath and pressed her palms against the sides of his face. “Lackwit.” She admonished him in a thin voice. “If I had the time, I’d be on my knees right this moment to give you a proper good morning.” She grinned at his groan and wrestled out of his embrace to retrieve her robe. “Cinnia sleeps like the dead but wakes with the clerics. I don’t need her catching me sneaking out of your chambers at daybreak.”
Ballard raked a hand through his hair. “Don’t tell me the girl doesn’t know you’ve rumpled the sheets a time or two in your life. That isn’t innocent; it’s thick.”
She laughed. “If she were stupid, I wouldn’t have to worry about this at all. Cinnia is; however, as clever as she is beautiful. And stubborn. I’m having a difficult time as it is convincing her to resist Gavin’s charms until she’s wedded. Coming from the mouth of a hypocrite, it will be impossible.”
He resisted the urge to embrace her—afraid he might not let her go—and settled for petting her untamed hair. “The rules for a widow are far different from those for a maiden.”
Louvaen sighed and leaned into his caress for a moment. “We both know that, and so does she actually, but she’ll use any reason she can find to weaken my argument. I’ll still win, but I’d rather not make it harder on myself.”
She gave him a final peck on the cheek before dashing out of his bedchamber. He listened to her light steps as she crossed the solar, then the stealthy creak of the door as she slipped into the corridor. “Virgins,” Ballard muttered to himself as he sauntered to the garderobe. “Troublesome, useless creatures.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ballard went about his morning preparations in a much more leisurely fashion than Louvaen, devoting a few minutes to scraping the rough stubble off his face and tying his hair back before traipsing downstairs to break his fast.
Breakfast was a haphazard affair with Magda glaring at him and Gavin while they sopped bread in their ale. “Don’t let anyone rush you two.” She clutched her broom as if it were a mace. “It isn’t as if I need the room and that table to prepare for this evening.” Ballard wondered who she’d whack first.
Gavin eyed her warily, gobbled his bread and gulped down the ale. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked to his father. “If you act as my striker, we can get that length of pulley chain repaired and replaced on the bridge by early afternoon.”
Ballard nodded. “I’ll meet you in the smithy. He hid a smile behind his cup as his son rose, edged past Magda and fled the kitchen.
“Six gone, one to go.” The housekeeper set the broom aside and cleared Gavin’s place.
Ballard settled in his chair, stretched out his legs and ignored Magda’s disapproving frown. “Chased all the rest off before they could eat?”
She gave an unapologetic sniff. “Only you two took your time getting to the table. The others ate and went about their tasks before you came down the stairs.”
He rolled his eyes. Magda made it sound as if he’d sauntered in at midday after a morning spent lolling in bed. A pleasant thought, and an indulgence he would have embraced if Louvaen hadn’t shot out of his chambers at the crack of dawn like her hair was on fire. “Where are the lovely sisters?”
“Cinnia’s bower for now, up to who knows what. She promised she’d be down in an hour to help me make pies. Your shrew is to meet Ambrose in the great hall later to decorate for Modrnicht.”
Ballard spat the mouthful of ale he’d just taken back into his goblet. “Is that wise?”
Magda shrugged and paused in her sweeping to lean, smirking, on her broom. “Probably not, but entertaining. We’d have a true Modrnicht then—one which follows the old ways and offers sacrifice—because one is bound to kill the other before we ever sit down to the feasting.”
Despite Magda’s dire prediction and her penchant for bloodshed that equaled Louvaen’s, no one tried to kill anyone else during the hectic preparations for Modrnicht. For Ballard, the day was like any other at Ketach Tor. He helped Gavin in the smithy for hours, working the bellows to keep the forge hot and pounding metal until the tinnient chorus of hammers rang in his ears long after they’d smothered the fire and taken the newly forged link to repair the bridge. They then set to work repairing the roof of a storage building that had caved in from the weight of accumulated snow. The anemic sun sat low on the horizon by the time they finished and made for the kitchens.
When evening fell, he went downstairs to join the festivities. He’d dressed with care, outfitted in a velvet cotte the color of Louvaen’s eyes, and a sword belt tooled with decorative scrollwork and inlaid at intervals with ruby cabochons. Even his boots were free of caked mud and polished to a rich sheen. Such finery was wasted on him, he thought. No amount of costly velvet or polished gemstones could overcome his disfigurements, but he’d succumbed to vanity anyway in the hopes Louvaen might admire him.
The head table, unused for centuries, sat in the middle of the hall. Its great size once accommodated as many as fifty people at dinner. Ballard recalled the times he’d hosted banquets when King Waleran’s nomadic court had taken up residence at Ketach Tor for weeks. Keeping so many people fed had decimated his larder, thinned his hunting grounds and put a sizeable dent in his coffers. While he was loyal to his king, Ballard had celebrated when the court left his castle for another fiefdom and another nobleman to impoverish.
Magda had set only one end of the table. A white tablecloth covered the surface and was dressed with embroidered napkins and lit beeswax candles set in silver holders. Silver plates shimmered under the candlelight and shared space with several platters of food and pewter pitchers filled with spiced wine and sweet milk. Cushions covered the benches, and a dantesca chair occupied the space where the castle lord sat. A small heap of bundles wrapped in silk, linen and wool sat to the side—gifts to the women for Modrnicht.
The hall dripped with green garland swagged along the walls. Beribboned oak galls and rowan berries nestled within the branches, and his nose twitched at the cool scents of evergreen and dried artemisia. The greenery glowed with soft light—a trick no doubt employed by Ambrose—that added to the hall’s warm ambience.
